The Chronicles of Riddick: Replayed on Retro 2005 PC - Athlon X2 3800+/GeForce 6800GT

Join Alex Battaglia and John Linneman as they revisit a genuine PC classic - the Vin Diesel-powered Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay. Developed by the brilliant Starbreeze Studios, this was a remarkable game on the original Xbox - with a fascinating PC port. Here, we're replaying it on period-appropriate PC hardware, featuring the Athlon X2 3800+ and Nvidia GeForce 6800 GT.
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[@siceastwood2714]

"The menu, it's so so riddickulus" - John

[@kredensik]

The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena (2009) includes hi-definition re-imagined version of this first game.

[@gabrieleriva651]

Yeah, it is convenient being able to play this game on Xbox 360, but I think they went overboard this graphic effects.

[@WTFBOOMDOOM]

@@gabrieleriva651 Vaseline edition, lol.

[@jakedill1304]

​@@WTFBOOMDOOM y'all know you can turn that off right? At least for the most part.. I had to do a little cc to get the contrast to similar levels in the console, but it's an unlocked console for the most part... I think there was a pretty functional text or i n i file so you can test anything in real time and then save it later.. I remember having to do some adjustments to get it to run the way I wanted it to on my 7800 GT, but the in-game menu as far as visual settings was pretty good overall, only thing I remember in specifics was messing with the color balance, like contrast brightness etc.. but as far as post-effects go, nowhere near as bad as it's contemporaries or even modern games, just didn't have as much contrast is all... Probably cuz I turned them off first thing and don't even remember. Very very minor inconveniences for a stable 64-bit release with both games, especially if you look at the difficulties they're having just getting the pixel shader to run correctly on the original.. that and you get all the new combat mechanics and improvements to the controls and gameplay etc.. pretty much every aspect of the the game had been polished and improved and added to... The enhanced graphical Fidelity for the original was just like you know bonus I guess, and if they had changed the way that fundamentally the visual style worked then that would have been something worth complaining about, but given that you can turn it off and adjust it and have your cake and eat it.. and also play through with a fully flushed out version of the same system that for either technical or budget reasons etc... like they had it good and mostly cuz there's not a lot of contemporaries that work on its level but, it was massively improved for the remaster and sequel. Wouldn't be minor if you couldn't change it.. like most of its contemporaries, but you could... And the bonus of a significantly expanded melee suite, 8-way fluid peak, gunplay that was fun gunplay for the sake of gunplay in its own right rather than a really nifty accessory of tools that just complimented the other gameplay.. which is you know still pretty good, but the re master was actually good, not Wolfenstein New order good, but you could see where they were going to get there when you look at the assault on dark Athena package.

[@Silikone]

This game takes certain steps further than Doom 3 did in terms of its visuals: - Per-pixel specular highlighting with per-object roughness control - Threshold-based bloom - Self-shadowing on all characters - Decals that blend and interact properly with the environment and lighting And that's not to mention the optional soft shadows on Geforce 6 class cards.

[@Banzeken]

Woah, I never even noticed that Doom 3 excluded self-shadowing on characters! WTF? The funny thing is that when I tried playing both Doom 3 and Butcher Bay on an old Pentium III 1Ghz computer (with Radeon 9700 Pro GPU) Butcher Bay runs about as good as on Xbox but with settings maxed out at 800x600, albeit with Shader Model 2.0 settings and not 2.0+. Doom 3, on the other hand, slows down VERY easily when just running around and any time you gib an enemy with a shotgun the frame-rate goes down to single digits for a couple of seconds. Makes me wonder what could be causing the performance disparity between the two.

[@Silikone]

@@Banzeken Doom 3 pretty much demanded Pentium 4. Riddick aims to have fewer but more prominent lights, so I think there aren't as many shadows to calculate.

[@Banzeken]

@@Silikone Yeah, that makes sense in hindsight. I guess the abundance of objects (which do self-shadow if I remember correctly) decorating the environments along with frequent use of transparencies in the form of windows don’t speed things up either. I can also confirm that, yes, a Pentium 4 1.5Ghz Willamette computer will run the game a hell of a lot more smoothly than it ever did on my 1Ghz PIII board using the same GPU, RAM type (PC800 RDRAM) and RAM count (512MBs).

[@xyzz8722]

Doom 3 vanilla ( no mods), as it comes, supportd everything you said, except bloom. They disabled self shadows because with stencil shadows it looks blocky on some parts. If you look in the code, they had some attempts of shadow mapping and hdr , basically another renderer, not optimized.

[@xyzz8722]

What riddick had was a better interaction shader, looked more alive with brighter highlights

[@ClellBiggs]

This is one of my all time favorite games. I played it on the Xbox and I can remember feeling like I was getting a sneak peek at the next gen consoles.

[@gamedad7336]

Played this on og Xbox. The normal maps were incredible and kind of a sneak peek at what the next generation consoles would make standard v

[@nareshsookraj9230]

Nice dude, I have an OG Xbox I bought off of eBay I have a lot of games for it but I haven't tried Chronicles of riddick yet I heard it was one of the most graphically impressive games on the system.

[@supertitantsunami9974]

@@nareshsookraj9230 You definitely need to play this one! The graphics are dated now days, but the game is solid.

[@brendan2415]

@@HiN00bs12 grow up.

[@TheDavidvgz]

@@HiN00bs12 grow the f up already

[@Keepskatin]

@@nareshsookraj9230 graphics impressive for a console at that time, terrible framerates😬

[@EriqOrtiz]

Bought this game for the OG Xbox on a fluke and it ended up being one of my favorite games ever.

[@frankjoz2803]

The xbox version was the one I played too. Graphics were just amazing

[@booshank2327]

That happened to me with Xtreme G3 Racing on the PS2.

[@bmx7596]

yeah that xbox game was above the other console by miles. There's was nothing that looked like that on Gamecube or PS2

[@frankjoz2803]

The mighty OG Xbox

[@EriqOrtiz]

@@frankjoz2803 , "it's not the fall that kills you, [SPLAT!] it's the sudden stop and the bottom"; bro, that's such a fantastic moment.

[@Joker-fx6mh]

I remember when this came out, graphics were insane at the time

[@Baxtexx]

Still, its crazy to think that Crysis came out just two years later. 😳

[@BlindBison]

@@Baxtexx sometimes I forget how mind blowing Crysis’ visuals were on release. Today I do think Crysis 3 looks much better in some ways, but of course it came out years later and it’s not an open world game like Crysis so they’re perhaps not really comparable. Really hope we get Crysis 4 someday, but seems like Crytek might still be on somewhat rocky footing financially. Loved their work on Hunt Showdown though.

[@Starfals]

Shadows were super impressive, just like the ones in Doom 3 and Prey

[@v1kt0us]

​@@Starfals Half Life 2 was even better, though.

[@BIGNOIDS]

@T D True, looked good but not much else there.

[@AKTANEARCADE]

Back when I never used to finish games, this was the first game that kept me interested throughout and kept me on my toes constantly in the gameplay and story.

[@amtrmedia]

This game was one of the first to have normal mapping on OG Xbox. I remember the GI magazine articles about the techniques.

[@andersbackman3977]

I believe it was THE first one. Doom 3 came out later, we even got a nice letter from Carmack congratulating us for beating them to it.

[@MrGreatDane2]

@@andersbackman3977 I could be wrong, but wasn't Shrek the first game on the original Xbox with normal mapping? It was also the first commercial game that implemented deferred shading, and from what I can tell they also made use of stencil shadows

[@Banzeken]

​@@MrGreatDane2 Any game on the original Xbox that used DOT3 bump mapping technically also did normal mapping (DOT3 stores RGB values in textures), which would also include Halo: Combat Evolved. As for which game was the first with DOT3 bump mapping/normal mapping in general, I believe it's Evolva (PC, 2000) which received a "bump map patch" a couple of months after its May 2000 release to accommodate the then-new GeForce 256 and GeForce2 GPUs.

[@MrGreatDane2]

@@Banzeken that's true, but I believe that Shrek was a release title similar to Halo, so then it's still part of the first Xbox titles to use normal mapping Also, Shrek's lighting solution is fully real time similar to Riddick, which I believe was the aspect that intrigued viewers the most

[@Banzeken]

@@MrGreatDane2 I agree on both points.

[@ilVice]

I remember this was great. But The Darkness... my god. The atmosphere, the story, the powers, the MUSIC, imho that was the peak accomplishment of Starbreeze

[@MKR3238]

i played the darkness 2 and really enjoyed it, especially the story which i totally did not expect to be so well and believable written and then i found out that darkness 1 is console exclusive

[@Camdavis11]

@@MKR3238 it's worth getting an old cheap ps3 or 360 for it. Darkness 2 was done by Digital Extremes, the folks behind warframe. The original Darkness is Starbreeze/Machine games. It's an amazing fps with an incredible story. Much better than Darkness 2.

[@andersbackman3977]

As a bit of curiosa regarding Darkness: If you spawn the bomb Darkling (suicidal communist one) and the minigun toting female Darkling (GI helmet capitalist one) they will argue the pros and cons of capitalism vs communism on idle moments in the game.

[@franzkuntschnig1320]

Only thought the whole time: damn, I am getting old.

[@Nemon891]

One of my favorite games ever. Played it on the OG xbox and later the remastered version (s). For such a comparatively small studio the presentation was absolutely on point.

[@ithikussssukihti406]

Loved this game when it came out on OG Xbox as a tween, the fact that you could see your shadow blew my mind lol.

[@Nomadmandude]

Yay! So glad you're doing this game. Riddick is my favorite sctfi character and this game ive replayed the most. Watching Alex play this though is extremely painful... it's like he's never played games before...

[@Wilberon_McBane]

Such an awesome game. Banged in many, many hours on my beloved Crystal OG Xbox back in the day. So, so interesting to hear you and John talking about the technical aspects of what made the game look so good and cutting edge at the time. I just remember being blown away by it. Keep up the fantastic work guys 😎👍

[@vizueto69]

This game is in Legendary status... Among the best of all time

[@NaterBalls]

and it was removed from history sad

[@NaterBalls]

@Ioannis Stefanakis not for sure the details but it was renoved

[@pferreira1983]

@@NaterBalls You can still play it I think.

[@HYDRAdude]

This game along with Chaos Theory had me so hyped up for the next generation of consoles graphics capabilities. Both fantastic games that are still worth playing today.

[@Galius7]

I remember starting this game on the OG Xbox and being blown away by the visuals. Then I kept playing and it was actually a great game.

[@tyr8338]

Amazing game, I`ve finished it twice back in the day.

[@alejandrogorgal]

What a nice surprise! This has to be one of the best games based on a movie that I've ever played. Truly a classic, even though mechanically is a bit clunky nowadays I loved it when it came out.

[@calebsites654]

One of the best games! This is what they need to remaster or even just make available to play!

[@krisgodwin7014]

As someone with only access to magazines at the time, this game came out of nowhere and blew me away on Xbox. I remember it kinda stealing Doom 3's thunder a little bit as a technical showcase.

[@jong2359]

4:39 - Severance: Blade of Darkness (Feb 2001) would like to speak with you about your perception of real time lighting in a 2005 game.

[@offlinegamer6756]

yeah right ! i did forgot about this gem too.....it was so gory , the dismemberment was on point , the combat and difficulty was good balanced, and the lighting also was on point too ....man, this made me feel old , but as a gamer, those years were the best !

[@jong2359]

@@offlinegamer6756 You nailed it... a definite golden era of PC games, and an amazing standout game... technology and gameplay for 2001 were so far ahead of it's time.

[@offlinegamer6756]

@@jong2359 thanks....also do you remember Red Faction with the destructible environment, the Jedi Knight games, the originals Need For Speed ones , Splinter cell and many more that really made us very proud to be a PC gamer back then , so much good memories!

[@RyuRanXII]

And reflections, physics... it was one of the most impressive games for it's time.

[@Banzeken]

There is an even earlier game with the same type of lighting. Gift from late 2000 (for PC, and 2001 for PS2) is a platforming game made by French studio Cryo (not to be confused with The Gift made by 1C Company the same year) that uses light and darkness as a central gameplay mechanic and like Severance it has static and moving light sources which cast stencil shadows from both characters and the environment.

[@SpaceWolfHudson]

I loved these games so much when they came out. I could voice over all the cutscenes just from my memory. (the awesome voice actors helped of course so that dialogue lines got stuck in my head) And that the sequel came along with the whole Escape from Butcher Bay remade was so awesome!

[@KatalistProductionsKozzySasha]

This game was such a nice surprise, wonderful game.

[@shoobo5574]

God Damn Bro the memories I got from that time !! Never expected to see this in 2021 on the channel !

[@tazmanceltic]

Was just thinking about this game the other day , and wow what a frickn experience this was. "Welcome to butcher bay" Blew my mind when it came out , the lighting was awesome.

[@devonmarr9872]

Fun fact: Halo 2 was built with an identical lighting system but very late in production had to be scrapped. Halo 2 announcement trailer and screenshots showcase the visuals for this.

[@jcfan1979]

Also, the simple environments perfectly fit. This is a prison after all. Minimalism is par for the course.

[@vaghatz]

When this first came out, I was stunned with the graphics. They still hold up

[@VideoGameKillCounts]

Imagine this with Ray Tracing...

[@robertomoi2044]

Yeah good old Ray. Such a great actor was Mr Tracing.

[@JimBob1937]

Yeah, pretty much everything can benefit from ray tracing. Unfortunately it is very difficult to inject ray tracing into older games beyond screen space ray tracing, which is often too limited in my opinion. True ray tracing, to realize the benefits of it overall, need to be able to sample off screen assets and lighting.

[@PhillipLemmon]

Yup, ...... 2fps! Lmfao

[@JimBob1937]

@@PhillipLemmon , depends on the ray tracing effect, and the effect dictates what type of optimizations can be done. For COD MW the RT shadows are a very nice touch and don't impact performance much for me. I'm able to do 4k 120Hz at max settings with RT shadows. For Metro Exodus, the GI implementation runs very performant for me as well, I played at 1440P 60Hz at max settings. Though most of my experience with Metro was with the 2080 ti, I've picked it back up recently after I got my 3090. Edit: Corrected my Metro refresh, muscle memory typed 120Hz, I believe it was 1440p 60Hz stable, which is still quite acceptable. People need to understand the performance is quite variable with ray tracing. It depends on effect, quality of the effect, resolution, instances of effect on screen at one time (if it is reflections, is there a small puddle or is the entire room reflective...etc). And even then, optimizations can be done. Part of the perception is that initial ray tracing implementations were not well optimized, since it took the devs a while to develop those optimizations. Now it is common for things like reflections to have reflectivity cutoffs. For all ray tracing effects to have the option to have ray counts be a fraction of the output resolution, mixing of ray tracing reflections and shadows with things like screen space reflections and shadows (ray tracing working where those fail)...etc.

[@jakedill1304]

pretty sure you can get the RT to work with reshade and on the sequil I think they even have 16 bit colors... and since the sequil has this version with better graphics and controls... just everyone go buy dark athena if you can find it.

[@geminijinxies7258]

This was graphically very impressive and as you guys mentioned, Splinter Cell (2002) as well with physics of hanging plastic sheets and LCD screens fading when off angle etc. Neat tricks that immersed me into the world.

[@n0vi]

Riddick on Xbox was fucking mindblowing to me upon release when I was 14. Like most kids my age I was waiting patiently for Doom 3 and the amazing shadows it had (obviously HL2 was more important but it didn't have the shadows I *craved*) and this just fucking godsmacked me- my grandmother rented it for me and that weekend was one of the most immersive gaming experiences I ever had not on a computer monitor or in VR. Riddick was a monument to graphics tech at the time

[@XKS99]

One of the best games ever.

[@NaterBalls]

and it was removed from history sad

[@ramirezrem]

Yeah Riddick was amazing. They create also new series of Wolfenstein, really awesome games too

[@v1deo.hunter.d317]

The chronicles of Riddick games and the darkness are fantastic

[@TomeFilip]

This and Assault on Dark Athena were the coolest games. In my top 5 for sure.

[@Banzeken]

Hey, DF Retro, did you know that a game made in 1996 had shadow volumes in it? It’s called ReVolte (1996) and it required a PowerVR PCX1 3D accelerator to run back then (using the SGL API). The footage of the game on my channel doesn’t do it quite justice but it demonstrates the only level in the game that uses it extensively and it looks really good for its age. PowerVR had mad potential back then that was sadly overlooked.

[@Leaddevo]

Wouldn't say no to a new Ridick game. Played on Xbox then again on PC when it was bundled with Athena. Just a really solid game from start to finish. Absolutely worth a play if you can.

[@electricmiragemedia]

I strongly agree with their comments about "reading the room" and the environments that were illustrated in that generation. Today's visual style is quite cluttered yet less functional gameplay-wise. I think Rage (2011) started this trend.

[@insanity-vr6vu]

This game was amazing when I was a kid, didn’t have an Xbox 360 but I didn’t need it with this game and so many others on the OG Xbox

[@MisterBolticus]

If you've never played either of the Riddick games, fix that. Woefully underrated gems

[@robertomoi2044]

Not underrated by anyone.

[@GalaxyVisionAI]

Escape from butcher bay was AMAZING

[@jeffnussbaum716]

Man, I wish The Darkness would come to PC. I miss the Starbreeze of old.

[@backslashio]

10:59 "are you a woman?" "No, I'm Waman! I'm sick of people mistaking me for a woman"

[@BlackV4You]

Exactly lmao

[@RyuRanXII]

😂😂😂

[@pferreira1983]

That's ma'am!

[@bobmus6241]

Both games were amazing for their time.

[@marcryan71]

This game blew me away on the original Xbox. Shiny metal was the coolest thing ever (at the time). I remember getting all the collectibles BEFORE there was such a thing as "achievements" - which changed my life. :)

[@juliaboguslawska4794]

I had this on the original X Box and it looked amazing back then, still looks good today tbh.

[@pigmemonkey]

Okay now im going to replay it, again. What a classic

[@JoelsterG4k]

This game was so awesome, I still have the disk for the xbox 360, I also loved the movie Pitch Black and Riddick ofcourse.

[@leoviper]

Man, this game was very cool. It was a really good era for PC gaming.

[@blendernoob64]

For anyone curious about the polling rate issue with this game, if you own a mouse like the Logitech G Pro Wireless or Superlight, we can adjust the polling rate of your mouse to be 125hz so you can play this game without issue. I bet that is the same with other gaming mice out there, other wise, a mouse like the old Intellimice or what I used the Apple Mighty Mouse are also great candidates for playing Riddick. Hope this helps!

[@tHeWasTeDYouTh]

Starbreeze Engine was a beast. Never tought about it before. Sad that everyone remembers id Tech 4 and Source but no one knows aobut this game. RIP Starbreeze Studios, all the top devs left for Machine Games and 10 Chambers Collective (made GTFO)

[@xtherealhughesy]

This game was such a gem. So many people haven’t played it

[@tekelupharsin4426]

The Riddick films are some of my favorite Sci-fi movies; the best one was Pitch Black, but I still absolutely love The Chronicles of Riddick (the second film) and Riddick (the third film). They're grossly under appreciated films. I've never played the game though.

[@Dharnthread]

Awesome scenes in this game plus Xzibit's character is badass.

[@dersebbi4897]

I loved this game on xbox

[@konstantinlozev2272]

I ran this game on a Nvidia GT 7600GS. I think it was SM3. MIND BLOWN 🤯

[@spandel100]

Loved this game...thank you for the memories.

[@xtacdk5083]

I feel like the original version of this game aged better than the remake, I love this crisp and dark look compared to the remake that had too many post-fx for my taste. Both games are an interesting representation of graphical trends in their time. The remake also lacks the ability to quick save/quick load. It was also quite the sleeper title, everyone was concerned about the trio of Doom 3 vs Half Life 2 vs FarCry but then you have this little game based on a movie that manages to match them in visual aspects. I recall a lot of people thinking this ran on the idtech4 engine due to the shadow and models looking similar. Weird hearing about the mouse issue, I replayed this on a XP rig two years ago and it was all very smooth. I used a MX518 I think. Not sure what would be causing this.

[@JS-cb7rx]

The graphics on the original xbox we're well ahead of anything ever produced on that system

[@nicholas.alan85]

I remember first buying the xbox and to see this game play on that system... my friends and I were shocked that a game could look so good...well...back on 05.

[@Vnix]

1:33 "Shader Model 2.0" havent heard that in a long time.

[@duckdivedodge1110]

Great retro/capsule gameplay, guys! I loved this and the sequel. I played these games too death (many, many deaths). By the way, that dynamic, metallic cube menu blew me away how cool and unique it was then... and is still dang impressive. Cheers!

[@AutomaticSnake]

My old GPU. It gave me happy times on Doom 3, Americas Army, HL2, Far Cry, FEAR...

[@gamedad7336]

First to digital foundry yall!!

[@NitinGopinathan]

2003/2004 was such an amazing time for PC gaming. HL2, FEAR, Riddick and so many more

[@k1ngk4gl3]

I remember in a preview for the game through XBN magazine, while explaining what normal-mapping was, they had a whole section about the menu & how graphically impressive it was. & I remember them saying they could describe it but weren't allowed to show any screenshots because StarBreeze didn't want anyone to steal it.

[@gamerxt333]

And no one did

[@fabioborges5183]

One of the best games of 2004 and in my opinion the best movie licensed game of all time. I owned this game on the original Xbox and later on PC, it was a really big surprise how good this game was.

[@Moonrakerd]

this looks so much better then on consoles

[@jeremyriddle1884]

They REALLY need to bring this back with compatibility, I still have my original disc copy, but it won't work 😭. Anybody know why they haven't? Licensing issues maybe?

[@wing0zero]

Xbox or PC version? nothing to do with licence on PC if it doesn't work, it's just broken if that's the case and you would need to install an older OS to play, if it's Xbox you can buy the 360 version of Dark Athena which has Butchers Bay included on Live for £12.

[@jeremyriddle1884]

@@wing0zero xbox, but I dont see that bundle either, I've searched but only the movies come up

[@THjorth]

@@jeremyriddle1884 Riddick, either version isn't backwards compatible so no dice on anything past Xbox 360

[@JimBob1937]

@@jeremyriddle1884 , I googled, Dark Athena xbox, and the first page had multiple places to purchase it. It is an Xbox 360 game. It may not be available for Xbox One via backwards compatibility (you'd have to research that yourself), depends if Microsoft put in the time to make it compatible (each game requires some effort).

[@jeremyriddle1884]

@@JimBob1937 yea I can see it for purchase on 360, but found a thread on the support page from 2019 where they said they were putting BC on hold to bring it to Series consoles, but that also the rights are somewhere put in the Esther now and that they wouldn't be able to touch it. Hopefully that changes cause this really was a great game, it got me into stealth more than splinter cell did.

[@rodneyabrett]

One of the first games to use normal mapping.

[@robbystrange4772]

The original xbox version still holds up great.

[@devonmarr9872]

Honestly if this game came out with this lighting but updated textures it would look awesome.

[@VuffyPulva]

This game was so forward-looking, it's crazy. This original version actually supports ultrawide resolutions, with proper FOV scaling. The one downside is it doesn't support resolutions over 2k in width.

[@romefox]

I love this game, Ive replayed it many times.

[@thunter992]

Please bring this to Xbox along with the sequel!

[@aldoelektrika]

This is my second favorite FPS of all time, can't wait to watch this!!!

[@Totone56]

At first, during the first minute i was like "Wtf, is this Meshuggah playing in the background ? On a Digital Foundry video ?" And then i recongized Herr Faust from Wolfenstein : The New Order. Makes a lot more sense ! Kinda wish Thordendal did more game OST's. This guy isinsane, it was him who gave Mick Gordon the 9 string guitar he used for DOOM 2016.

[@RanjanNadig]

For the love of God! Somebody press F1 and HELP.

[@DigitalFoundry]

It pops up incessantly In the prologue :)

[@remasteredretropcgames3312]

@@DigitalFoundry Although I myself have a 939 pin sitting on my desk right in front of me, playing it on that, that way is a horrible waste of potential. Dont worry, its on my list. Right now I found a gold mine that im trying to fully crack. Metal Gear Solid 4 looks considerably superior with MSAA + Predication SMAA + heavier than usual due to 1024x768 FidelityFX + 16X AF + Raytraced Ambient Occlusion + very painstaking attention to Color Grading post fake HDR to maximize the depth pop out effect without really changing the art direction. Imagine 12 hours straight day after day of brute force having no life.

[@remasteredretropcgames3312]

@@DigitalFoundry Its a real shame I cant figure out how to change alternate depth buffer scaling. Geometric glow from raytracing would have been a lot more sick if it wasnt limited to PPFX Bloom which in fact is relevant to geometry but is only one layer. You can get lost in this stuff for months if you arent careful.

[@remasteredretropcgames3312]

@@DigitalFoundry The correct version of PS3 emulation and its enigma of settings is holding me back given the 5% of the game so far is just dreadful graphical wank. Like the multi texturing on snakes face in places, and the ground on a certain level, as well as the cloak effect... is all broken. I found a video online that wasnt. Its just a matter of plugging in variables. I wish you guys would breath life into this project. Im going to provide all my settings when im done anyway so everyone can use it, and as a complete guide that isnt lazily thrown together or randomly strewn about the internet.

[@remasteredretropcgames3312]

@@DigitalFoundry And I do in fact own the PS3 version. I need the mcable though. Already have a TV that can do interpolation. Im also not wild that there isnt a upscaler I can also stack into the presentation that isnt reliant on the consoles already struggling hardware. Unless there is. Right now its the definitive version because: Glitch. I hate glitches, and to be entirely honest with you, im not entirely shocked why no one includes interpolation through real time compute in their drivers natively. If TVs have done it for what over half a decade? -- then this is blatantly, political. My only regret is the color based SMAA is inferior to what I ordinarily use. I dont even see any texture bluring at more extreme angles with predication based. I decided to just keep it for the sprites sake. In theory its cleaning up certain angles potentially more competently than MSAA, and vice versa. Would love to see a head to head from you folks on modern top of the line SMAA vs classic inefficient multisampling. I personally find all its iterations garbage, except for the now obsolete MFAA. It was actually pretty decent honestly. Quincunx might as well be FXAA. Nvidia needs to take that one behind the barn like it did the former. Im super tired of seeing it forced in games because developers are clueless.

[@mori-7090]

Intro song Valley of the Dead - Awaiting the Turmoil

[@KNGINetwork]

This game is Chronicles of Riddickulous.

[@klodek14]

I played it on a 6600GT back in the day. I saw all the praise the game received, but I was still very sceptical, since this was a movie tie-in. Turned out to be an awesome game and the best entry in the Riddick franchise alongside Pitch Black.

[@reza494]

Saw the thumbnail first and thought there is new Riddick movie coming out. you nearly gave me a heart attack

[@Torreiro]

In 2005 we were happy when we got 30fps on 1024x768. I had a great time playing with my GeForce 6600 and my Athlon CPU. 😁

[@AllahDoesNotExist]

An idea for future video: complete history of graphics innovations ( like you just mentioned DSR ). Show the first game that used it, how it works and the best game to use it as of date.

[@tet5ujin]

Please keep revisiting the old games. Digital Foundry Retro was brilliant - the Silent Hill 2 content was amazing!

[@euden]

This game was so good. I played through on Xbox multiple times and I also recorded my playthrough on 4 VHS tapes so I could watch it back. I think I may still have them somewhere ☺️

[@shldnfr]

Absolutely FANTASTIC game! I'd love a remake updated for today's tech.

[@pinkfloyd36123]

this game was so fucking cool and unique. wish they could figure out the rights so it could be re-released on pc and consoles

[@Sly2Cooper]

Playing it right now on my GPD Win 2 portable with a bunch of other retro shooters and it runs better than on my PS3. The technology can't cease to amze me. The game is also well optimized.

[@CHIEF_420]

REMAKE 🙏 Played the demo on the OG Xbox mag discs that you had to subscribe to lol. Definitely would like to finish it on a "future-tech" pc of today

[@cocobos]

Played this on original Xbox, I think, it was one of the first using normal map and it was awesome experience

[@jimmyv3170]

You gotta think this game, Doom 3, Halo 2, Half Life 2, Resident Evil 4, GTA San Andreas, along with alot of other games I'm forgetting all came out in the same year with renders of FEAR, Gears of Wars, Elder Scrolls Oblivion showing what the next gen would look like. Now we have Call of Duty *** Part **** and AAA titles people just don't talk about anymore after two weeks unless it's completely broken and half baked. 2004-2006 just hit different.

[@BillB808]

Dark Athena...the baddie with the cool hair pick..

[@exmerion]

I had an Athlon 64x2 4200 in my main rig until 2012.

[@andersbackman3977]

Around 19 mins or so they talk about a PS2 port, how that would have turned out. Fact is that we DID have a PS2 port (diffuse textures and baked lighting etc but all gameplay including flashlights working for stealth etc), but the publisher didn't want it, not even for free from us!!! The diffuse textures were generated from the normal mapped ones automatically, from a tool I wrote, oh those were the days. Also note that the ragdolls isn't modern ragdolls but Verlat integrated ones similar to the original Hitman ones (but mine had joint angle constraints while Hitman didn't), this was to be able to run them on the PS2.

[@Banzeken]

That's interesting! The only PS2 game I can think of that gets close to looking like Butcher Bay technologically would be Stolen (2005) made by Blue 52 on both Xbox and PS2. Lots of shadow volumes in that game and even specular highlights on some surfaces. The tech was based on Blue 52's cancelled prototype game Deadlight, which you can find footage of on KZbin.

[@andersbackman3977]

@@Banzeken Waitaminute. Black haired female protagonist, stealth gameplay, pretty awkward camera NOT controlled by the player, third person, but with stencil shadows. Yeah, I played that one PC for a while. I really liked the theme, but not the stealth game play (because the stupid guards had NO memory, if they discovered you and you were just peeking above something it could become hilarious: the search stance was lower than the idle so when they saw you they hunkered down a bit which caused them to lose sight of you, immediately started a “probably nothing” line, straightened up for idle, rinse and repeat. Cauded them to oscillate between the states and playing the first few samples of the line forever). I do love the effort of doing a modern thief game though.

[@so-vp2qh]

Were any levels say reduced in geometry or cut in size due to RAM?

[@itsTyrion]

I had that exact CPU - 8 years after it released. What an upgrade that was from the 1.6GHz Sempron

[@kimsoderholm9101]

You should revisit soldier of fortune. That was a great game with a top of the line graphics for the time

[@rubentovar6045]

They need to remaster this game ,played this on Xbox and would love to play it again

[@templarkid.]

This game look so much like something made in Id Tech 4 (Doom 3 Engine). The similarities are amazing.