Designing a Game - What speed is your computer?
Anne
As I move along in the development of my adventure game, the processor speed
has become an issue due to some graphic features I would like to include. If a
bunch of you could provide me with your processor speed (and system - PC or
Mac) it would greatly assist me in determining what the average adventure games
is using.
Thanks heaps,
Anne
Ashikaga
P4 1.5 and PIII 1.13. I think most of the adventure gamers have slower
machines though.
> Thanks heaps,
> Anne
Ashikaga
bak...@inet.net.nz
300Mhz Celeron without 3D card.
I suggest you aim at a PC 3-4 years old, most PCs are
replaced within this period.
MaryJ
news:20021111220624...@mb-de.aol.com...
PC with Celeron 800
MaryJ
Jester
Celeron 1000, hopefully going up soon.
BTW, if it's a graphic feature that will be affecting performance,
wouldn't it help to know about people's graphics cards as well as
processor speed?
- Daniel
--
I love deadlines. I like the whooshing
sound they make as they fly by.
-- Douglas Adams
Jenny100
PC's of various speeds, most with Win 95 or 98 and some older
PC's with DOS.
Also have a 1533 MHz computer running Linux SuSE 8 that
I share with my brother. But I don't suppose you'd be designing
for that.
If you are designing for PC's of 200 to 300 MHz vintage, be sure
your game is compatible with DirectX 7 as well as the latest
DirectX version. Otherwise some people might have video
card problems on their older PC's.
MP
> If a bunch of you could provide me with your processor speed (and system -
PC or
> Mac) it would greatly assist me...
AMD-K6-2 3D processor 350 MHz
224 MB RAM
Windows 98
Video Chipset: SiS 530 Ver. 4.0.
2X AGP 3D graphics with only PCI slots, no AGP slot :(
Diamond Monster 3d II - Voodoo 2 Graphics Accelerator
The only games I can't get to run are:
Sam & Max - no sound
"D" - can't get it run at all
Mark
Chris Jones
Duron 750 MHz, Radeon 7500 graphics card.
Robert Norton
news:20021111220624...@mb-de.aol.com:
For many thing, the video card (or system RAM) is as importatnt or more so
than the CPU speed. I've got 1.3GHz Pentium 4, 384MB RAm, and a GeForce2.
I think you could assume 1GHz, 128MB and a GeForce2 as requirements and not
lose too many people. Are you using a toolkit, or going direct to OpenGL
or DirectX?
David Hadley
adventure gamers have faster pc's than mine.
"Anne" <albia...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20021111220624...@mb-de.aol.com...
Roger Squires
Ashikaga
I would argue that a more friendly requirement would be a 400Mhz CPU, a 32mb
graphic card, 128MB of RAM (if running XP) or 64MB of RAM (for other
Windows).
Ashikaga
Robert Norton
news:KTcA9.2340$vM1.1...@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net:
>> "Robert Norton" wrote...
>> and a GeForce2. I think you could assume 1GHz, 128MB and a GeForce2
>> as requirements and notlose too many people.
> I would argue that a more friendly requirement would be a 400Mhz CPU,
> a 32mb graphic card, 128MB of RAM (if running XP) or 64MB of RAM (for
> other Windows).
Sure, that is a more friendly requirement! Specifying a 95MHz Pentium
with 8MB RAM and a VGA card would be friendlier yet. The idea is to pick
the best specs you can, without losing too many people.
I'm just gussing that a 1 to 2 year old system is about halfway back into
the pack. My system is over a year and a half old, and it was not top-
of-the-line when I bought it. So, to be safe, I took my specs and marked
them down a bit(-30% on CPU, -66% on RAM) and set that as the "target"
system.
The worst system you can buy at Dell is $519 (with monitor)
It has a 1.8GHz CPU, and 256MB of RAM.
<http://www.dell.com/us/en/dhs/offers/specials_m_dimen2300.htm>
A low end system from WalMart is $299 (no monitor, Linux)
It still meets the "target" equivalent of 1GHZ Pentium, 128MB of RAM.
<http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.gsp?cat=3951&dept=3944
&product_id=1870914&path=0%3A3944%3A3951%3A41937%3A86796%3A106562%
3A96356>
I'm absolutely not saying that a developer should use up as much
resources as possible, but there is always a trade-off to be made
somewhere. You can make an allowance for the development time of the
game, as well as the estimated sales life of the game.
AiRNESS
Akis and his AiRNESS
-----------------------------------------------------------------
St.George Patron of the night who hunts the shadow of the night
upon my blood I call thy now, purify us, to I have avow
to set my feet upon the road, thy sword I take up for mine own...
Ashikaga
Just take a look how many people here actually own a 1 Ghz+ system and
you'll be surprise that 1 Ghz requirement is not very friendly.
Though I own a P4 1.5 Ghz, but my graphic card is still GeForce 1, and I
don't feel the need to upgrade it. I think that's the same kind of attitude
why most people don't have a 1 Ghz+ CPU. There is simply no need for that.
Yes, my P4 1.5 Ghz is faster that my old PII 400 Mhz, but only slightly if
you have XP installed. Maybe that's why CPU makers are not making a lot of
money lately because nobody feels there is a need to upgrade?
Ashikaga
Jenny100
news:3dd14d39$0$1430$272e...@news.execpc.com...
Most of the people who've posted their computer specs to
this thread have less than 1 GHz. Some may even have
onboard video cards.
Rikard Peterson
had it if not my sister had wanted a computer when she moved to an
apartment of her own. I sold her mine and bought a new faaaast computer
(AMD1800+, GeForce 4, ...). But I didn't feel that the old one was that
much of a dinosaur, and would have kept it another year if things had
been different.
Maybe you could make it possible to turn those graphic features off for
the people with slowish computers? Then you'd both get to have the cake
and eat it. (Mmm, cake...)
Rikard
MaryJ
I posted already, but I think Daniel is right and I was thinking the same
thing myself - the video
card could be important to know too, as well as amount of RAM.
I have PC 800 Celeron, ATI Xpert 200 and 256K RAM .
MaryJ
Robert Norton
news:aqrvr4$fjv$1...@slb3.atl.mindspring.net:
> Most of the people who've posted their computer specs to
> this thread have less than 1 GHz. Some may even have
> onboard video cards.
Yes, I see that now! I felt I was falling way behind the "bleeding edge"
gamer with the 2+GHZ Pentium, the GeForce4, an so forth, but it appears
like my "old" (19 months old) bargain computer is among the faster ones in
the crowd. Let me do the arithmetic on results up to MaryJ's response...
1.80
1.50
1.50
1.30 <- me
1.00
0.80
0.80
0.75
0.70
0.55
0.35
0.30
0.27
-----
13 samples
Median 0.80GHz
Average 0.95GHz
Based on that, I think 1GHz might easily be the median in 6 months.
Robert Norton
news:s2fA9.10309$hK4.9...@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net:
> Just take a look how many people here actually own a 1 Ghz+ system and
> you'll be surprise that 1 Ghz requirement is not very friendly.
I'm suprised to see so many below 500MHz. My last machine, bought over 3
years ago and not bleeding edge when I bought it, was at least that.
> Though I own a P4 1.5 Ghz, but my graphic card is still GeForce 1, and
> I don't feel the need to upgrade it. I think that's the same kind of
> attitude why most people don't have a 1 Ghz+ CPU. There is simply no
> need for that. Yes, my P4 1.5 Ghz is faster that my old PII 400 Mhz,
> but only slightly if you have XP installed. Maybe that's why CPU
> makers are not making a lot of money lately because nobody feels there
> is a need to upgrade?
I think MS says that for comparable performance, when changing to XP either
go dual CPU or add 300MHz to your CPU. When the DRM starts up, I believe
the plan is to encrypt everything on your machine to your key, so a lot of
additional CPU power will be chewed up encrypting and decrypting. I'll go
make myself a nice tinfoil hat now...
Ashikaga
> "Ashikaga" wrote:
>
It's weird that it seems that we seems to hit the ceiling of hardware
requirement, and MS is trying to make the OS more resource demanding so the
entire computer industry would actually sell some stuff. Intel is also
doing some new things to their new 3 ghz+ CPU so it'll act as virtual dual
processors. Obviously there isn't really a need for computing speed faster
than 1.5 ghz (I would even speculate even 1 ghz might be just enough for
general purpose). To make it worse, graphics processors have off-load many
calculation stuff from CPU, making CPU upgrade even more frivilous.
Office suites have matured too, so there isn't that many new resource
demanding features you could add, so maybe that's why there is a slow down
in chip sector of the industry. The only demanding application for PCs
remained to be games, but the console war munched a big piece of the pie for
that segment, too.
Moores Law may still be true technology wise, but do we have a demand that
would sustain it?
Ashikaga
Jenny100
But according to this, only 5 out of 13 gamers have a computer
currently own a computer that is 0.95 GHz or greater. And you
can't assume people will buy a new one as long as their old one
keeps working. They'll probably put off buying one for the same
reason they still haven't bought a new one.
I few months ago I read that an 800 MHz computer could
run anything as long as you had a competent video card
and enough system RAM.
I don't know if that's still the case any more though with
games like Morrowind.
An adventure game need not be very "bleeding edge."
But compatibility with wildly different computer speeds
seems to be important lately.
Jenny100
> "Ashikaga" <ashi...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in
> news:s2fA9.10309$hK4.9...@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net:
>
> > Just take a look how many people here actually own a 1 Ghz+ system and
> > you'll be surprise that 1 Ghz requirement is not very friendly.
>
> I'm suprised to see so many below 500MHz. My last machine, bought over 3
> years ago and not bleeding edge when I bought it, was at least that.
When I bought my PII 400 about 3½ years ago, 550 MHz was as fast
a processor as was available. I didn't think it was worth the extra
money at the time.
Robert Norton
@slb6.atl.mindspring.net:
> But according to this, only 5 out of 13 gamers have a computer
> currently own a computer that is 0.95 GHz or greater. And you
> can't assume people will buy a new one as long as their old one
> keeps working. They'll probably put off buying one for the same
> reason they still haven't bought a new one.
The median continuously shifts up as new computer users enter the pool, and
as people who have 300MHz machines decide to upgrade because their
computers fail in some way, or they can't run some new software or other.
If I'm around, (and I remember, fat chance) I'll try this survey in 6
months and see if there is a shift. The sample is pretty small still.
Murray Peterson
de.aol.com:
Athlon 1700+
Geforce 2
512Mb RAM
--
Murray Peterson
Email: murray_...@shaw.ca (remove underscore)
URL: http://members.shaw.ca/murraypeterson/
Murray Peterson
news:TqiA9.10631$hK4.1...@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net:
> [snip]
> Moores Law may still be true technology wise, but do we have a demand
> that would sustain it?
Depends on what you mean by "sustain it". At my place of employment, we
could happily use PCs that are 10,000 times faster than the current crop.
In terms of games, I can still see the need for some serious horspower
improvements. Real-time ray-tracing plus massive 3D polygon counts would
allow for some awesome graphics.
Robert Norton
news:aqsgg7$1mk$1...@slb6.atl.mindspring.net:
> When I bought my PII 400 about 3½ years ago, 550 MHz was as fast
> a processor as was available. I didn't think it was worth the extra
> money at the time.
I think my previous machine was a Pentium III box, here's a timeline...
<http://www.cecs.uci.edu/~givargis/teaching/53/articles/intel-timeline.pdf>
It shows 1999 as the start of Pentium III, speed 450MHz and up.
Here is a tighter timeline...
<http://www.cecs.uci.edu/~givargis/teaching/53/articles/intel-timeline.pdf>
Looks like P3 went to 600MHz by April 1999. That would be about right, I'd
have bought the 550MHz when the 600MHz was top of the line. So half 1999,
all 2000, 2001, and most of 2002 gives me just over three years ago that I
got my previous computer. At three and a half years ago, (just a few
months earlier,) 550MHz was in fact the fastest thing going.
So, I think if I were making a game that was going to come out in 6 months,
I might aim for perfect operation on a 1GHz machine, and degraded (but not
crashing!) behavior on slower machines. That is to say that update rates
on realtime interaction should be above 20Hz (very smooth) on the target
1GHz machine. A 500MHz machine then might see frame rates above 10Hz (not
very smooth, but still playable). Of course, if it was low cost to make
the update fast on anything down to 200MHz, I would. No point to limiting
your audience without a good reason.
Ashikaga
> "Ashikaga" wrote:
>
> > [snip]
> > Moores Law may still be true technology wise, but do we have a demand
> > that would sustain it?
>
> Depends on what you mean by "sustain it". At my place of employment, we
> could happily use PCs that are 10,000 times faster than the current crop.
I mean would CPU makers continue to make CPUs that Moore's Law described as
double the computing power every 6 months if nobody upgrades it? Law of
supply and demand take precedence over Moore's Law you see.
> In terms of games, I can still see the need for some serious horspower
> improvements. Real-time ray-tracing plus massive 3D polygon counts would
> allow for some awesome graphics.
I've not yet played a game that my old PII 400 Mhz can't handle. Yes, many
people think their PII 400 Mhz choked with some graphic intensive games, but
the bottleneck was not CPU. Graphic cards, RAM, and harddrive all played
bit roles.
My latest computer isn't a P4 but a P3m, and it runs just fine for most
applications and it boots faster than my P4, so why upgrade. Of course,
your the thing about your company's computers is a different matter. But
for the most part, people are okay with their current computer. Nobody is
gonna pay a load of money for a barely perceiveable performance improvement.
> --
> Murray Peterson
> Email: murray_...@shaw.ca (remove underscore)
> URL: http://members.shaw.ca/murraypeterson/
Ashikaga
Diana
speed
> has become an issue due to some graphic features I would like to include.
If a
> bunch of you could provide me with your processor speed (and system - PC
or
> Mac) it would greatly assist me in determining what the average adventure
games
> is using.
Athlon 1600XP (1.4MHz)
512 DDR RAM
ATI Rage 4MB gfx card (used to have a geforce2 64MB - long story, but
getting a better GFX card when I start working next year)
Diana
L. Ross Raszewski
>Hello,
>
>As I move along in the development of my adventure game, the processor speed
>has become an issue due to some graphic features I would like to
include. If a
>bunch of you could provide me with your processor speed (and system - PC or
>Mac) it would greatly assist me in determining what the average
adventure games
>is using.
>
>Anne
Pentium 2 - 233 Mhz
40MB ram
No 3d acceleration.
Yeah. I should get more ram. It's a bitch to find EDO these days.
Oh, yeah, I've also got a 600Mhz Celeron with 200 MB ram and some kind
of on-board 3d chip. But I don't like to use it for serious stuff. Too
unstable.
Volker Blasius
Pentium II, 400 MHz, 256 MB
Matrox G400 running at 1600x1200
Windows 98 (original edition)
Still does everything I want it to do. (Well, except one program: a fly-over
add-on for my 1:50,000 topographical maps). I also have a company notebook
with a P3m 1 GHz / GeForce2 toGo 1600x1200 / Windows ME. I runs the fly-over
program so-so. I don't play games on it; I only use it to type my notes
while playing on the big Monitor. :)
Volker
Murray Peterson
news:vtmA9.3712$vM1.2...@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net:
> "Murray Peterson" wrote...
>> "Ashikaga" wrote:
>>
>> > [snip]
>> > Moores Law may still be true technology wise, but do we have a
>> > demand that would sustain it?
>>
>> Depends on what you mean by "sustain it". At my place of employment,
>> we could happily use PCs that are 10,000 times faster than the
>> current crop.
>
> I mean would CPU makers continue to make CPUs that Moore's Law
> described as double the computing power every 6 months if nobody
> upgrades it? Law of supply and demand take precedence over Moore's
> Law you see.
True, but I believe that the demand will always be there.
>> In terms of games, I can still see the need for some serious
>> horspower improvements. Real-time ray-tracing plus massive 3D
>> polygon counts would allow for some awesome graphics.
>
> I've not yet played a game that my old PII 400 Mhz can't handle. Yes,
> many people think their PII 400 Mhz choked with some graphic intensive
> games, but the bottleneck was not CPU. Graphic cards, RAM, and
> harddrive all played bit roles.
Graphics cards are also CPUs, albeit specialized ones. In other words,
they aren't immune to supply and demand, or Moore's Law for that matter.
> My latest computer isn't a P4 but a P3m, and it runs just fine for
> most applications and it boots faster than my P4, so why upgrade. Of
> course, your the thing about your company's computers is a different
> matter. But for the most part, people are okay with their current
> computer. Nobody is gonna pay a load of money for a barely
> perceiveable performance improvement.
Agreed, but what about a massive improvement in capabilities? The
increased performance doesn't mean that the game runs faster; it means that
the game designers provide much more functionality.
Bob R
Anne wrote in message <20021111220624...@mb-de.aol.com>...
>Hello,
<snip>
> If a bunch of you could provide me with your processor speed
> what the average adventure games is using.
>Thanks heaps,
>Anne
P2-233Mhz, 4Meg Video, 128Meg RAM, PC[1].
[1] PC = Probable Collectors-item. <G>
--
Bob R
POVrookie
--
MinGW (GNU compiler): http://www.mingw.com/
Dev-C++ IDE: http://www.bloodshed.net/
V IDE & V GUI: http://www.objectcentral.com/
POVray: http://www.povray.org/
alt.comp.lang.learn.c-c++: ftp://snurse-l.org/pub/acllc-c++/faq
Chris Jones
> as double the computing power every 6 months if nobody upgrades it?
Actually it doubles every 18 months according to Moore's Law, sorry to be
picky :-)
I agree about CPU speeds though, I can't see a good reason to upgrade my 750
Mhz system, simply because nothing requires it. As long as you have a
relatively new graphics card, games should run fine (GTA3 and Warcraft 3 for
instance run fine for me) - and you don't even need that for most adventure
games, which generally have lower system requirements.
The one thing I can see Moore's Law momentum carrying on with though is hard
drives - you can never have enough. No matter how much space you have, you
fill it up and need more - if you'd asked me a year ago, I'd have said 100
GB of space was a silly amount, but I've now got 150 GB and rapidly running
out of free space.
Still, it should be interesting to see how things go from here.
> I've not yet played a game that my old PII 400 Mhz can't handle. Yes,
> many people think their PII 400 Mhz choked with some graphic intensive
> games, but the bottleneck was not CPU. Graphic cards, RAM, and
> harddrive all played bit roles.
The way I see it there are two types of computer user - type 'A' users will
upgrade their machine every 6-12 months in order to always have the latest
technology so that they can play counter strike at 1600x1200x32 at 100 fps.
Type 'B' users will keep their existing system until there's a good reason
to upgrade it, such as a component failing or it no longer being able to run
the applications they want.
This is sort of problematic because you tend to get a sort of gap in
middle-range systems - ie. a lot of people will either have a
less-than-year-old system, or will have a older-than-3-years system, so
catering for everyone becomes very difficult.
Robert Norton
news:aqsg1h$sgk$1...@slb6.atl.mindspring.net:
> An adventure game need not be very "bleeding edge."
> But compatibility with wildly different computer speeds
> seems to be important lately.
Four more samples...
1.80
1.50
1.50
1.40
1.30 <- me
1.00
0.80
0.80
0.75
0.70
0.60 (also 0.23)
0.55
0.40 (also 1.00)
0.35
0.30
0.27
0.23
Median 0.75
Average 0.83
Lynne
VooDoo3 3000 w/16MB video RAM
512 MB RAM
"Anne" <albia...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20021111220624...@mb-de.aol.com...
> Hello,
>
> As I move along in the development of my adventure game, the processor
speed
> has become an issue due to some graphic features I would like to include.
Ashikaga
> > I mean would CPU makers continue to make CPUs that Moore's Law described
> > as double the computing power every 6 months if nobody upgrades it?
>
> Actually it doubles every 18 months according to Moore's Law, sorry to be
> picky :-)
It's okay. It's nice I didn't mislead people without being corrected.
> I agree about CPU speeds though, I can't see a good reason to upgrade my
750
> Mhz system, simply because nothing requires it. As long as you have a
> relatively new graphics card, games should run fine (GTA3 and Warcraft 3
for
> instance run fine for me) - and you don't even need that for most
adventure
> games, which generally have lower system requirements.
>
> The one thing I can see Moore's Law momentum carrying on with though is
hard
> drives - you can never have enough. No matter how much space you have, you
> fill it up and need more - if you'd asked me a year ago, I'd have said 100
> GB of space was a silly amount, but I've now got 150 GB and rapidly
running
> out of free space.
I clean up my HDD periodically. I use SCSI drives, so it's kind of
expensive to buy bigger ones. But I think it's worth it, because like I
said, my PII 400 would still be a very useable computer if I didn't
disembody it.
> Still, it should be interesting to see how things go from here.
>
> > I've not yet played a game that my old PII 400 Mhz can't handle. Yes,
> > many people think their PII 400 Mhz choked with some graphic intensive
> > games, but the bottleneck was not CPU. Graphic cards, RAM, and
> > harddrive all played bit roles.
>
> The way I see it there are two types of computer user - type 'A' users
will
> upgrade their machine every 6-12 months in order to always have the latest
> technology so that they can play counter strike at 1600x1200x32 at 100
fps.
> Type 'B' users will keep their existing system until there's a good reason
> to upgrade it, such as a component failing or it no longer being able to
run
> the applications they want.
>
> This is sort of problematic because you tend to get a sort of gap in
> middle-range systems - ie. a lot of people will either have a
> less-than-year-old system, or will have a older-than-3-years system, so
> catering for everyone becomes very difficult.
Well, there will alwayz be type "A" people there. Even if the economy
didn't go sour, I still think Type "B" people are not going to upgrade their
computers because there is no good reason for doing so. We used to have a
very high demand because both A and B felt the need, but now only A felt
that way. And I believe Type "A" are minority and the population of A is
dwindled further by the wilting economy. I used to be Type A you know, but
now, I am Type B.
Ashikaga
Robert Norton
$hK4.1...@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net:
> I used to be Type A you know, but
> now, I am Type B.
I see.
Jester
> of on-board 3d chip. But I don't like to use it for serious stuff. Too
> unstable.
Serious stuff like games? (-:
- Daniel
--
I love deadlines. I like the whooshing
sound they make as they fly by.
-- Douglas Adams
Ashikaga
> > Oh, yeah, I've also got a 600Mhz Celeron with 200 MB ram and some kind
> > of on-board 3d chip. But I don't like to use it for serious stuff. Too
> > unstable.
>
> Serious stuff like games? (-:
Games can be serious, if it's adult enough.... Please don't start that
what's an adult game thingy again.... :-D
> - Daniel
> --
> I love deadlines. I like the whooshing
> sound they make as they fly by.
> -- Douglas Adams
Ashikaga
Jenny100
"Ashikaga" <ashi...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:c7DA9.12311$hK4.1...@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
>
> I clean up my HDD periodically. I use SCSI drives, so it's kind of
> expensive to buy bigger ones. But I think it's worth it, because like I
> said, my PII 400 would still be a very useable computer if I didn't
> disembody it.
What?
You disembodied your computer?
How?
Why?
Ashikaga
> "Ashikaga" wrote...
> >
> > I clean up my HDD periodically. I use SCSI drives, so it's kind of
> > expensive to buy bigger ones. But I think it's worth it, because like I
> > said, my PII 400 would still be a very useable computer if I didn't
> > disembody it.
>
> What?
> You disembodied your computer?
Yes....
> How?
With a hatchet.... Just kidding, with a Philips screwdriver, of course. I
am not barbaric.
> Why?
Because I need the parts for my P4.... The GeForce 1 in my P4 right now is
from there, so is my DVD drive and stuff. My P4 was really over budget, so
I had to save some money.
Ashikaga
Arian Hokin
My two computers are a Duron 1GHz and a Pentium 233.
Arian
--
"Carpe DM: Seize the Dungeon Master"
Bronxtim
Aureal Vortex sound card.
Chris Proctor
DDR (original Radeon), DVD.
Chris
Ashikaga
> P3 800, 512Mb RAM, 40Gb storage, Philips Acoustic Edge s/c, ATI Radeon 32
> DDR (original Radeon), DVD.
Okay, this is a repost. I just want to add my graphics card and stuff. P4
1.5 Ghz, 512 MB RAM, GeForce1 32 MB (DDR).
> Chris
Ashikaga