BioShock PC demo live

By Robert Purchese Published 21 August, 2007

New drivers mark occasion.

2K Games has finally trimmed its fantastic new game BioShock into a syringe-sized taster for PC, weighing in at a considerable 1.88GB.

It will give those of you with a decent desktop computer a chance to try out the atmospheric shooter before its general release on Friday. And by decent we mean one with (at the very least) a 2.4GHz processor, 1GB RAM and at least a 128MB graphics card.

If you're sporting an NVIDIA card under your hood then you should also pop over to the official site and get hold of the new beta Forceware drivers for XP and Vista.

Alternatively you can simply buy the game and wait until Friday to play it. We can't recommend it highly enough, especially after Kristan Reed called it the most deserving 10/10 he'd ever given.

Pop over to our BioShock review to find out why.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (32) Latest comment 5 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Feet #1 5 years ago

    How many 10\10s has he given exactly?

  • kangarootoo #2 5 years ago

    Stop that right now. This game is the new mecca, and other such profound statements. I have no objectivity. Freedom of speech is banned for at least a week.

    :)

  • Talha #3 5 years ago

    By the time the demo will download, and those shitty NVidia drivers (whose every driver is a beta, regardless of the moniker)will stabilize, Friday will be upon us ;-)

  • myiagros #4 5 years ago

    I downloaded and played the PC demo last night.

    I must say i was a little underwelmed after all the praise being splashed around about the X360 version (my own falt for getting caught up in the hype). My PC far exceeds the minimum spec (not quite at the recommended spec), but was still creaking a bit even with the graphical settings dialed right down.

    As for the gameplay contents of the demo, for me the demo scored a good solid 8. There were some nice ideas on show, but not the revelation i had expected. I am certainly interested enough to want to play more, but guess i will have to wait untill i upgrade my machine, or fork out for a 360, when they become more reliable.

    Added to my must buy when i get a 360 list with Dead Rising, Gears Of War & Viva Pinata.

  • absolutezero #5 5 years ago

    If you still have'nt got the demo it can be grabbed from http://www.gamershell.com< /a> with full speed high quality servers.

  • Goffee #6 5 years ago

    Downloading now in the sad knowledge that my PC needs a hefty upgrade and will probably run the demo like glue... still nothing like incentive.

  • Daymare #7 5 years ago

    My 3000+ single-core, 7600GT and 1gig of RAM played it on max in 1024 x 768 without much of a problem.. With old drivers too, although I stopped playing veery quickly not to ruin the experience.

  • GamesConnoisseur #8 5 years ago

    Dont worry about ruining the experience, try it out and decide if you want this game. Irrational have designed the demo so that does not spoil the actual full game.

    Sure there is a lot of hype but it is generated by ourselves more than because of the publicity. Words of mouth is good but the danger is raising expectation too high and then be disappointed that the game did not reach that level!

    However I must say that it is an unmissable game, worthy of being added to your collection just so that you can say that you have experienced the solid atmosphere and great artistic design.

  • dudefella #9 5 years ago

    Played it on a 3500+ with a 7600GT and 2gigs of RAM (DDR1) with all the bells and whistles on at 1440x900 (widescreen) and it ran decently. It struggled in bits, it definitely wasn't as smooth as the 360 demo, but very playable, for whoever's curious.

  • nakke #10 5 years ago

    It'll really run on a computer like that? Sweet jesus!
    I've got a 3700+, 7900GT and 2GB of ram myself. Too bad the demo is about 2GB, though. That's way too much for a demo.... oh well.

  • Darren #11 5 years ago

    I played the PC demo last night using the NVIDIA ForceWare v162.18 WHQL drivers and it ran fine on my system (2GB, Athlon64 X2 4200+, 512MB GeForce 7900 GT, Windows XP @ 1680x1050, 2X AA forced, triple buffering on) so I'm not even going to bother with the new Beta drivers unless someone can tell me exactly what these issues are supposed to be with the old ones. I didn't see any graphical issues at all and the game ran almost as smoothly as the 360 demo and even faster once I turned off the Framerate Limiter in the Options menu.

  • VMerken #12 5 years ago

    Same as Daymare and Darren here... with a mid-range (if I can believe 3DMark05 that is) setup (2Gb RAM, 3GHz single-core P4, 7600GT (not overclocked - yet), winXP) running drivers with "performance issues" as claimed by the game during install (DNA-force 94.24 set to performance at setup, tweaked for 3DMark05 - forgot to set it back to default :), everything seems to run quite smoothly at the game's default settings (about 30fps I'd say). No screen-tearing or noticeable slowdown.

    Great demo, nice atmosphere. 2K learned from Fallout and gives it a friendly nod at the restrooms. As expected HP = health, MP = plasmids. 3D models are not as detailed as expected, but everything's shiny enough to look past that. Just one thing, 2K - I played lots and lots of FP shooters. Why can't I select Hard? :)

    Definitely looking forward to pick it up at the shops this friday.
    Edited by 4 at 21/08/07 @ 12:48

  • Kropotkin #13 5 years ago

    I haven't got the demo yet but I'm fairly certain it will run fine on my Pentium Core 2 Extreme 6800 based PC. It has 2 Gb of SLI enabled DDR2 ram and a Geforce 8800 Ultra graphics card. I haven't bothered with SLI as yet as the 8800 is more than capable of doing the job on its own.

    I'm in two minds about getting the demo for fear of spoiling the final game but I'm sure the developers have already considered that.

  • Darren #14 5 years ago

    @VMerken - You won't see any v-sync tearing in the PC demo because the game enables it by default.

    Here's a tip for anyone who wants a smoother, more consistent framerate with v-sync on: enable triple-buffering (if your graphics card has 256MB or more RAM). I believe you can do it from the control panel for ATI graphics card but if you have an NVIDIA card then download and install RivaTuner v2.0 and use D3D Overrider to force triple-buffering. Basically what this does is allow you to use v-sync (thus, no tearing) but prevent the framerate drop that usually comes with it. I use it for all of my DirectX-based PC games and it works a treat, giving me a noticeable improvement in all v-synced games (I hate tearing you see).

  • Darren #15 5 years ago

    @Kropotkin - If the demo runs fine on my setup then it'll run with one hand behind its back on your super PC!

  • Katsumoto #16 5 years ago

    Yup, just to confirm, against all fears this runs with everything set to ON or HIGH even on my shite pc. I have 1gb of ram, 7800 GT, single core processor. It made the sound stutter a bit on 1680 x 1050 but ive put it down to a non-widescreen res and it looks pretty much identical and sans stuttering. Hurrah!

  • Avenger1324 #17 5 years ago

    I tried the 360 demo because I couldn't wait for the PC version, and loved it. Now downloading the PC version to see if my PC can run it, but it's taking forever. Even Gamershell which are normally great for speed are being swamped by the amount of people trying to download it - every mirror at 100% capacity!!

    86% and counting!!

  • rogermellie #18 5 years ago

    I downloaded the demo last night via steam. It's then I discovered the P.S. 3 minimum requirement. My X800 Pro is P.S. 2 and it isn't up to the job.

    My wife has ordered the PC version for my birthday (oops)! I normally check the requirements, but I didn't for this game.

    BTW The download time using steam was amazing (under 2 hours) using a 2MB broadband connection.

  • Edwannawonga #19 5 years ago

    Demo runs perfectly fine on my CoreDuo 6600 & 8800 GTS maxed out settings at 1280x1024.

    @ Demophon - Not only faced with the logical step of injecting random syringes into your wrist, you come to the inevitable conclusion that you must jump off a balcony too.

  • Darren #20 5 years ago

    @Avenger1324 - Have you tried you the awesome Orbit Downloader, it really does speed up your downloads massively? Using Orbit, I got the entire 1.84 GB BioShock demo in 4 hours 10 minutes early last night from a site that had the leaked demo.

  • Katsumoto #21 5 years ago

    has anyone tried plugging the 360 pad in yet? I'm not using the offical drivers for mine (i cant remember what mine are called, XCBD or something, allows VIBRATION etc) so i'm wondering if that is why it won't let me select the pad. The option is there in the menu, ENABLE 360 PAD or something, but it won't let me click it. Weirdly, there is also an option for vibration, which atm doesn't work with official drivers. Maybe they're fixing that soon.

  • Darren #22 5 years ago

    Yes, I played the demo last night with the wireless Xbox 360 controller and it worked perfectly; the game even shows you the controller button mappings ingame exactly the same as if you played the 360 demo! Great stuff, in fact I prefer the controller to the mouse and keyboard so this is how I'll be playing the PC version I think.

  • sharpfish #23 5 years ago

    runs great and looks awesome for me:

    e6850 + 8800gtx + 2gb Ram @ 1280x1024 or 1440x900 (and runs 'fine' but a bit slower at 1600x1200), this is whith all settings at max quality!. Just need to fix the widescreen projection matrix instead of the zoomed in/cropped bs and that would really make this game worthy of GOTY. (note - the console version is also zoomed in with a restricted field of view, not noticed by 90% of gamers and not the end of the world but for widescreen gamers it's a big deal)
    Edited by 3 at 21/08/07 @ 14:20

  • Katsumoto #24 5 years ago

    are you using the official drivers Darren?

    half way through the demo some of my textures have gone really dodgy and undetailed, even tho the settings are still on max. not sure what thats about

  • Darren #25 5 years ago

    @Katsumoto - Yeah, I'm using the official v162.18 WHQL drivers from the NVIDIA website. I played the demo twice right through to the end and saw no graphical issues whatsoever. In fact, playing it with the 360 controller, I forgot I was playing the game on the PC (although the graphics obviously look a tad sharper than they do on the 360).

  • Katsumoto #26 5 years ago

    Sorry, I meant the official 360 pad drivers :). Unfortunately I don't have access to a 360 so I can't compare the graphics - I dunno, some of it just looked rather low-res and blurry/out-of-place, whereas in other areas it looked stunning. Prob my shit pc!

  • MENTAL1ST Verified Senior Software Engineer, Picsel UK Ltd. #27 5 years ago

    @Katsumoto

    The official 360 pad drivers (which do support vibration, at least they do on Tomb raider Anniversary) are bundled with DirectX, so if you've got the latest version of that (which I suspect you'd need for bioshock anyway) you should have them.

    You could try removing your gamepad drivers then unplugging and replugging the pad, or plugging it into a different USB port so it'll redo the driver install.

  • Katsumoto #28 5 years ago

    cheers! got the pad working... but now it crashes whenever I get to the end of the sub ride at the beginning.

    /buys 360??

  • VMerken #29 5 years ago

    @Darren: merely stating the observation. There are games out there with tearing issues (God of War 2 PAL comes to mind) and it's good to see this game has been set to tear-free by default.

    As for controls, I'll stick to keyboard. Got to love all them hotkeys, and ZQSD/mouse is just too engrained in this one's noggin... :)

  • MightyPenguin #30 5 years ago

    Well, that was distressingly short. Irrational prove once again that the rest of the industry wouldn't know atmosphere if it hit them over the head with a little girl in the dark.

    On the other hand, the System Shock 2 vibe is so strong I've got a few (minor, distant) fears that it's going to be the same thing re-skinned in the steampunk mode. Bets on whether Atlas is actually dead all along? >_>

  • Wite_Noiz #31 5 years ago

    Downloaded through Steam and took an hour and a half.
    On my Athlon X2 4500+, 4GB DDR, 7800GT (Vista Home Premium) it runs at top settings and looks absolutely amazing.

    One thing I did notice was the lack of AA/AF settings... perhaps in the full game? /awaits Friday impatiently
    Also, the D10 settings were disabled... I realise the 7800 is D9, but isn't the point of DirectX that the software will compensate for what the hardware can't? Oh well, I'm getting my 8800 at the end of the month.

    My only criticism of the game (apart from how shit scared I was without a weapon), is that when you set the graphical/environmental bar so high, it's the little things that detract from the game.
    I've never really taken graphics as the mark of a good game, but the fact that you start in the least polished part of the game (look at the horizon) was a bit upsetting (but the fire and water looked amazing).

    I'll save my final judgement until Friday, though. From the demo, I'm sure I'll love the game.

  • Silent-Assasin #32 5 years ago

    I'm gettin new Custom Built PC by my friend by the end of the week
    - Core Duo 2 Extreme
    - 2X Nvidia 8800 GTX
    - 2 GB DDR2 RAM

    I wish it was coming to PS3 too