ATi booth report
by Jason Frothingham

ATi is one of the most respected graphic accelerator producers on the market. Their high-end Radeon X850 XT Platinum edition (say that five times fast) is the current champion of high performance graphics. Also on ATi's laundry list of products is the Xbox 360 GPU and memory controller, the Revolution GPU and system chipset, as well as integrated parts like Radeon Xpress 200. Unfortunately ATi's booth only showed off a few of the products that were available.

What ATi was showing off was the Xbox 360. Sadly for ATi, the Xbox 360 is a flop out of the box, as far as I'm concerned. Too little for too high a price, and certainly inferior to what was shown from the PlayStation 3. Regardless, ATi is bound to support the Xbox 360 until it suffers the fate of the Sega Dreamcast.? The GPU and memory controller themselves are impressive. A 500 mhz chip with 3 pipes containing 16 shaders apiece allows the Xbox GPU to produce some stellar graphics. (Ed.'s note - The chipset will be called the Xenos, and is distinct from the R500 and R520 chipsets.) Combine that with some embedded RAM, and ATi is claiming 4X anti-aliasing with no performance hit. For a passively-cooled(!) graphics chip designed in the space of two years, this is a work of art. It's just a shame that the PS3 and Nintendo's Revolution are stealing its thunder (and its games).

Also housed in ATi's booth, at the center, was the official trailer for Alan Wake. The game, which is far from complete, was exclusively displayed by ATi. It also seemed to be running in real time, on an announced ATi hardware platform codenamed R520. The game, which is described as a psychological action-thriller, combines graphics beyond those witnessed in Half-Life2 with a tense story. Alan Wake is a horror author who gets his stories from his nightmares. His nightmares began when he met his finance, and then his finance disappeared. Now the nightmares are so intense that Alan Wake is confined to a mental hospital in a small coastal town. After their treatment, he can sleep again...until he sees someone who looks exactly like his missing finance. The dreams return, but this time they are real. Light is the most important factor of Alan Wake's world, as the shadowy creatures flee from any light. Unlike other games that relied on dramatic lighting, the light, or lack thereof, takes on a whole new direction with Alan Wake. The one cut scene showed of the game pictured Alan racing towards a lighthouse to take cover within. However, the gate is locked, and Alan is trapped outside. From what was demonstrated, there was only word that could describe the feeling as the demo ended. Wow.

Another title on hand in ATi's booth 3D Realms's other long-delayed first-person shooters: Prey. (No word on the long-missing Duke Nukem Forever.) Prey is another project that was conceived years ago. Now Prey is back and in development through a partnership of Human Head and 3D Realms. Published by 2K Games (Ed.'s note - 2K Games is Take Two's new publishing label for games that don't fit into Gathering of Developers' or Rockstar's house styles), Prey looks to be an interesting concept brought to life. The game features an American Indian who has lost touch of his history, but an invasion by aliens forces him to reconnect with his lost heritage in order to survive. The demonstration, composed of all in-game footage, showed off some massive weapons and the astral self implementation. Like Alan Wake, it seems that the Prey footage was rendered by ATi's vaunted R520. While based on the Doom 3 engine, Prey is nothing like the close quarters combat of Doom 3. Wide open spaces and starscapes were among a few of the items shown off under Prey. Also shown was the portal system, in which players jumped seamlessly from world to world. In a manner both creepy and exciting, portals would open up and enemy soldiers would jump out. Upon defeat of these soldiers the player could walk through the open portal to continue the level.

Above the show room floor on Ati's top deck were playable versions of F.E.A.R. and Black and White 2. While Black and White 2 seemed to just be more of the same while F.E.A.R. was something different. F.E.A.R. was set up in a LAN configuration, four vs. four, running on Radeon X850XTs. The game is drop-dead gorgeous. F.E.A.R. is much like any other FPS on the market...aside from one little factor: working destructible environments. Every weapon leaves a mark in the wall, on the floor, or through the window. And it is possible to use the battle cannon to completely remove walls from the map. If F.E.A.R.'s developers keep up the pace there might be another title to add to the list of must-have FPS games.

Unfortunately, ATi was only showing the Xbox 360 technology demos and games running on the current chipsets or the upcoming R520 chipset. None of the systems shown off promoted the Radeon Xpress 200 Chipset, and none of the systems on hand seemed to be in an overclocked state. In any case, what was on display was quite exciting and worthwhile.