Page 7: Gaming- Prey

Page 7: Gaming- Prey

Page 1: Open GL
Page 2: 3D
Page 3: Core Image
Page 4: Gaming- UT 2004
Page 5: Gaming- Doom 3
Page 6: Gaming- Halo
Page 7: Prey

Prey

Publisher: 3D Realms
  Minimum System Requirement:
Mac OS X: 10.3.9 and later
    CPU: PPC G5 or Intel @ 1.8 GHz
RAM: 512 MB    Hard Disk: 2.5 GB free    Graphics: 64 MB VRAM
(Radeon 9600 or Geforce 6600 or better recommended)

Prey is a first person shooter that is unique in the storyline and progression from level to level, as compared to most shooters to date.
Beyond the perception altering states of a world that can have no up or down, doors where there are none, and the ability to leave the physical body and spirit walk, the graphics of Prey are luscious, industrial organic compositions that are a great pleasure to view.
This makes wandering around solving the progression “puzzles” less than aggravating, and more than captivating.

Be warned, though. Prey is very graphic in it’s gore, and fight sequences can be extremely brutal. ESRB: Mature for Blood/Gore, Intense Violence, Partial Nudity and Strong Language.
There are some sequences that may just creep you out.
For me, it all adds to the experience.....

Never intended for use on any G4, and with stated “CPU Upgrades not supported” in the system requirements, most G4 users would resign themselves to not being able to run the game.

Upon release, I immediately purchased the game, as I knew that my 2.0GHz Powerlogix in the Sawtooth would run the game.
I was right!

Before we look at some benchmarks, a bit more about the games requirements.
Prey is optimized for 10.4.8+, so having the OS updated is of benefit.
A 2.0GHz processor is recommended, as is 1GB RAM and a graphics card with 128MB of VRAM.
A Radeon 9800 Pro / XT, Radeon X800, Geforce 6800 GT/Ultra or 7800 GS is needed for best results.
Whatever the equipment, averages of over 18-20 fps are needed for smooth gameplay and graphics. As a side note, Prey is capped at 60 fps during gameplay to limit video tearing.

Get ready for the ride of your life (or death)!

Prey Benchmarks
- 2.0 GHz Quicksilver - OS X 10.4.11 - Test: timedemo demo5 - Full Screen - Scores in Frames per Second (fps) -

In spite of the system requirement of a G5 or Intel machine of greater than 1.8 GHz, the G4 with the 2.0 GHz 7447a processor easily runs Prey at good frame rates.
At low quality settings, any of the tested cards provide for good performance.
At high quality settings, it is, once again, the two Geforce cards that show what muscle means.

So, can you play Prey on a G4?
You can if you have some power!

You can see a movie of the time demo in the Blog:
Prey Timedemo5

Here is a file to put in your User/Library/Application Support/Prey/Base/Demos file
(Add a file named Demos to put this into) to run your own test:

Prey demo5.demo