The graphics of Outcast are unique and beautiful. Unlike almost every other game today, Outcast uses an all software 3D engine with a mixture of voxel terrain and polygon characters and buildings. What are voxels? Voxels are points in space defined by x, y, and z coordinates as well as color and density variables. Density is usually used to determine transparency. The voxels are analyzed by software from whatever viewing angle is desired, and a 2D representation is made which then shows up on the screen.
What voxels do for landscapes is give them an extremely detailed and "organic" look. With polygons, the ground is often completely flat, or at best, it is made up of flat areas that give the ground a very fake looking unevenness. It takes too many polygons to draw natural looking ground with current 3D cards. Voxels allow game designers to give a tremendous amount of detail to landscapes. In the natural world, flat places are extremely rare. Most areas are broken up and uneven. Voxels give landscapes a realistic look that is unattainable with current 3D polygon based graphics cards. The realism of Outcast's voxel landscapes adds tremendously to the game's immersion. We love it!
There are problems with the voxel engine. First, because there is no hardware acceleration, it is very CPU intensive. Even with a 450MHz Celeron, you're not going to be running with all the quality settings on full with the resolution maxed out. Second, your $200 TNT2 graphics card is not going to be any better for Outcast than your friend's old ATI card because no 3D acceleration is used. And third, the game resolution maxes out at 512x384. This last thing is not really a problem since the purpose of higher resolutions is to make the game look better. Outcast looks awesome at 512x384, and so we are more than content.