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According to preliminary sales figures from Activision, Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 2 sold approximately 4.7 million units in both the United States and the UK in the first 24 hours of its release. The total revenue from first day sales in the U.S. and the UK was $310 million, making Modern Warfare 2 the biggest entertainment launch in history, surpassing (in revenue) its predecessor, Grand Theft Auto IV, as well as items from other media types. After five days of sales, the game had earned revenue figures of $550 million worldwide. As of January 18, 2010, it has taken over $1 billion in sales. Activision also claims that Modern Warfare 2 had 8 million players online within the first five days, constituting the largest ‘army’ of players in the world. On March 8, 2010, Robert Bowling announced that the game had amassed 25 million unique players.
The game utilizes the in-house IW 4.0 game engine, which is claimed to be a generation beyond the capabilities of the engine used in Call of Duty 4. Although proprietary, it is based on an unspecified id Tech engine, and can accommodate larger worlds, enhanced graphic detail, and more efficient rendering. Infinity Ward has addressed the issue of enemies that continually respawn at different points of a level. The developer demonstrated that the game engine uses a “dynamic AI,” which has replaced the infinite respawn system and allows enemies to act more independently. These “smarter” enemies are designed to actively seek out and drive the player forward through a level, and can break away from set behaviors such as following a designated route in order to attack. The player cannot depend on enemies to be found in the same locations as a previous play-through because enemies will behave differently each time a level is played.
Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 2 ‘out of the box’ won’t display the correct aspect radio at 5760×1080 so we have to use a very clever third party tool called Widescreen fixer.
This detects when Modern Warfare 2 is running and you can configure the correct aspect ratio via a pop down menu. In game you then toggle a predefined key command to initiate the ‘correction’. It takes a few minutes to work out how to use the program but it fixes the game completely for the Flex card and 3 monitors.
Instructions to use:
1. Download the application here.
2. Extract and run the exe.
3. Select Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 SP as the title, then highlight 3x 16:9 as the correct ratio. Please be aware if you are using 3x 1920×1200 panels to select the 3x 16:10 setting.
4. Go to ‘settings’ tab, select a hotkey configuration of your choice.
5. Let the application run, and load Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. start to play the game and hit the hotkey combination to correctly fix the ratio for the 3 screens.
Note: If you toggle this hotkey combination on the MW2 options menus, you may very well need to resort to the arrow keys to select menu settings (as the mouse pointer wont refresh to the correct pixel location). Best to start the actual game engine, THEN use the hotkey combination.
6. Dance a merry jig and treat yourself to a Dominos.
Adding a second card really helps to boost frame rates, with minimum frames rising from 24 to 37.
As we clearly have some headroom now, we wanted to add some anti aliasing to help with the image quality. We toggled to 4x AA.
With 4AA enabled we were pleased to see that the game was still playable with minimum frame rates hovering between 25 and 30 fps. A very impressive gaming experience for such a modest asking price.
Well this makes a lot more sense to me than 2 XFX 5970 Black Editions. you could basically get this setup and a full PC with screens for the same price as two of the XFX cards.
Sure performance is much higher, but is it really needed? not sure I could tell the difference between 2aa and 8aa and 50fps or 150fps.
Great idea, the HD5770s have dropped alot from 170 ish to 130 or so in recent months, makes for a good pairing.
Only thing that put me off the XFX cards (well apart from the price) was the power drain and noise levels. A great showcase of XFX engineering capabilities, but not very realistic.
Still, good for different audiences. Wonder how many Flex editions sapphire have sol,d I saw it took them quite some time to get them to market after the first batch of reviews.
I already have plans to sell my monitor and get three matching screens. Then next year get a new system. I dont think its a great time to buy HD5770, not with new range out very soon.
Any ideas if Sapphire will bring out a new 6770 (or whatever they will call it) with Flex support? I might hang on till the new cards are out. I already have a HD5770 but might sell it.
I really rate the flex. its all about pricing and they aren’t charging much more for the 3 screen technology support. Displayport monitors still cost major cash. This opens the path to cheap, but good panels.
It is hard to argue with the price of that system (well apart from the 980x). using a 920 or 950 would drop the system price by 500 quid. Overall well worth approaching this angle. I was impressed with XFX 5970 CFx article, but the money outlay was ridiculous.
Really like these cards, the price is right !
Its hard to knock the price for the performance. Just a bit time to be buying 5 series cards I think
The flex was destined to be 180-190 quid. months ago. 140 seems a good deal, especially for a work environment. While im not sold on it as a gaming platform, with 2 cards it seems quite good.
They are sure to make a 6770 with flex support like this. the 5770 flex came out too late really. a bit like the nvidia boards in recent weeks. its too little to late.
very good review, those screens look great for the price. Cant get over that for 150 quid. I remember spending 800 on a 22 inch crt years ago.
lol yah, I spent a grand on a CRT for my first macintosh, a long time ago. its a good time to buy tech
The GTX 460 killed the 5830 and caused probs for 5850. HD5770 seems to be doing well at this price.
What a great system idea. handles most games well too.
I think people who spend over 500 on a video card are nuts. you dont need it.
500? I think people who spend over 300 are nuts. its not needed unless you are waving the epenis or trying to break benchmark figures. most games run fine on a GTS450.