Superior graphics than 2005?

Hi all,
Just had a retro session and concluded that NBA Live 2003 has a notable greater graphics quality which is extremely superior to 2005 on the same machine. My retro PC is P4 2.4 and Geforce 4 MX440, using same monitor and same detail settings, 2003 is much more well-reflected and ligtning effects are awesome, too when compared to 2005.

How can this be?

Cheers!

Hi all,
Just had a retro session and concluded that NBA Live 2003 has a notable greater graphics quality which is extremely superior to 2005 on the same machine. My retro PC is P4 2.4 and Geforce 4 MX440, using same monitor and same detail settings, 2003 is much more well-reflected and ligtning effects are awesome, too when compared to 2005.

How can this be?

Cheers!

This is common with 2K and Live titles.

NBA 2K14 on this gen is still the superior game overall graphically, with better lighting/reflections etc. NBA Live 16 might be the best graphically in many areas, even over live 19, and certainly over Live 18.

NBA 2K12 was a major stepback graphically from 2K10 and 2K11.

Whether it's art direction, or intentionally downgrading to force people to buy the new consoles/games or to prepare for an even bigger splash in a later title, it's just something that these companies do.

Hi all,
Just had a retro session and concluded that NBA Live 2003 has a notable greater graphics quality which is extremely superior to 2005 on the same machine. My retro PC is P4 2.4 and Geforce 4 MX440, using same monitor and same detail settings, 2003 is much more well-reflected and ligtning effects are awesome, too when compared to 2005.

How can this be?

Cheers!

This is common with 2K and Live titles.

NBA 2K14 on this gen is still the superior game overall graphically, with better lighting/reflections etc. NBA Live 16 might be the best graphically in many areas, even over live 19, and certainly over Live 18.

NBA 2K12 was a major stepback graphically from 2K10 and 2K11.

Whether it's art direction, or intentionally downgrading to force people to buy the new consoles/games or to prepare for an even bigger splash in a later title, it's just something that these companies do.

Yeah, I don't know whether it's my graphics card (ancient Geforce 4) but from what I see, I can absolutely say that 2003 physics and graphic quality is awesome when I compare to 2005 which comes to me extremely poor. Not only player details, ball, net animations etc. all the stuff are very poor and appears jagged, not nicely edged. 2003 was a great game that I still want to play.

NBA Live 2005 utilises a lighting effect that not everyone likes. Modifying the values in the lighting file (or using the file from 06-08) tends to yield better results. Even putting that aside though, I would disagree that NBA Live 2003 looks better than NBA Live 2005, though.

NBA Live 2005 utilises a lighting effect that not everyone likes. Modifying the values in the lighting file (or using the file from 06-08) tends to yield better results. Even putting that aside though, I would disagree that NBA Live 2003 looks better than NBA Live 2005, though.

You might be correct however based on what I see, the difference is something like 3dfx-enabled game vs software rendering referring games older than year 2000. Same visual quality difference happens with Geforce cards between 2003 and 2005 from what I notice.

I do not know any hidden setting besides what 2005 details menu provides so I cannot comment on that but the image quality is hugely worse than 2003 by the end of the day even if you adjust and max out all settings in "detail" menu of 2005.

I think the lighting does have something to answer for, because of the odd glow. If nothing else, 2005's faces are a lot better.

I think the lighting does have something to answer for, because of the odd glow. If nothing else, 2005's faces are a lot better.

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Hi Andrew,
Just found out that I CANNOT enable "Ligthing" option in Details menu in 2005. It's grayed out and selected as "disabled" by default. That would be the main reason why graphics look SO ugly when i compare to 2003 which is indeed ligting enabled.

My card is Geforce 4 MX440 64MB DDR, retro machine with latest Nvidia drivers.

Is 2005 selecting GPUs to letting us enabling Lighting option?

Yes, if your hardware is below the specifications, it disables the lighting as default.

Yes, if your hardware is below the specifications, it disables the lighting as default.

Hey Murat!
We just want your 2019 mod (at least roster) for Live 2003. 2014/2015 was really awesome. Cheers.

By the way, eventhough I disable lighting completely also in 2003 too, it still looks much better and extremely clear than 2005 which has very ugly graphics. So I can't tell lighting is responsible for the visual difference alone. Strange.

If your video card isn't sufficient, then NBA Live 2005 isn't going to look as good as it possibly can.