Minimum Specs for Blitz Max
BlitzMax Forums/BlitzMax Beginners Area/Minimum Specs for Blitz Max
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| I did find this question asked some time ago but it was never really answered. I would just like to know what is the minimum requirements for running games in Max. Now I know it will depend on the application itself, but there must still be a basic minimum spec. The game I'm working on is simple board game so it is not exactly taxing, but it does not seem to run on PCs with on board graphics so a decent graphics card is required but what type memory etc? So, does anyone know the answer? I would really like to know what version of Windows (I'm not developig for Unix or Mac), and what CPU, Memory and Graphics card. Thanks |
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| I'd say 1ghz cpu, 256mb ram, 32mb 3d video cards. Lower than that and i wouldnt expect much to run well. |
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| There are 2 seperate specs: DX: Nearly no minimum as long as it has usefull dx7 drivers OpenGL: Minimum is a 3D card. This requires ATI or NVIDIA (Intel sometimes has a usefull driver, sometimes not, which is why I would explicitely state a 3d card) |
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| Great, that's what I needed - thanks for the info :) |
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| http://www.blitzbasic.com/Products/_index_.php |
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| > I'd say 1ghz cpu, 256mb ram, 32mb 3d video cards. I'd say you'd need a bit more than that to be safe for minimum specs. |
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| I wouldn't think you'd really need 32mb videoram. 16 is enough for many uses. Also 256 mb ram is more likely a need of the bloated OS than blitzmax. |
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| I use BMax on a PII 600, 196MB, Cyberblade e4-128 (NOT 3d), No video Ram I admit its just my most portable, portable, but to be honest, its what you program that dictates the min specs. NB Having ONLY 3d accelerated graphics, is a pain on a non 3d accelerated platform, but Ive been quite supprised at how quick the Hardware Emulation Layer is. |
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| I've targeted my multimedia playback system to run on a PII 400 with 512 RAM, Win2K, and an older NVidia 128 MByte graphics card (an older 64 MByte card couldn't handle things). It runs - just. The code tunes itself to drop things like crossfades if they take too long, but in general, the above machine is capable of extracting audio and images (ogg and png respectively) out of a packed file on a CD ROM and replaying at an acceptable rate. |
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| What Dreamora said. Even onboard gfx shouldn't have too many problems running simple games in DX mode. |
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| I think I'll try and run it in DX mode on some machines without 3d graphics cards. I think we might have few at work - will be interesting to see the results. |
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| It should be quite good as long as you don't try to do stuff like the "geometry war shooter" etc with nice graphics and much going on. |
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| Even onboard gfx shouldn't have too many problems running simple games in DX mode. My game runs like an absolute pig on my laptop (P3 1.1GHz, 256Mb RAM, WinXP, DX9.0c).And it isn't just my game, either. The Blitzmax sample code doesn't fare any better. |
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| I assume you disabled theme etc (the whole graphical part) and tried all of the samples fullscreen? I only ask because windowed mode is something that needs far more power than fullscreen and without a 3D card and with XP visuals your system is several levels to low to emulate anything on a usefull level. |
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| > The Blitzmax sample code doesn't fare any better. Well I said this years ago, when even the samples run slow, you know there's a prob. I would personally aim for 1.5Ghz Machine, 2Ghz machines to be fully safe. Or better still, just stick with B3D, that way your minimum specs can be a healthy 500Mhz and even if you go overboard on special fx, you're still running more than Max can do (even in just 2D) |
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| Processor speed is not the crucial part. Things run real smooth on my 700/900mhz Celeron. |
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| It really depends on what you're trying to do... and the video card itself is more of a limiting factor than the CPU. Some sample things I've done ran better on a P400 with a 16MB voodoo3 card, than on a 2GHz system with craptacular onboard video adapter. |
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| well..bmax works great on my 800mhz 512megs 9600pro heap of crapola system...i can only assume that these internal cards have naff drivers or no 3D support or both ;) |
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| They have especially no Bandwidth and fillrate which is the worst problem as BM with its 2D in 3D pushes those factors quite high (higher than regular 3D apps normally will unless they are particle/grass effect rich an the like) |
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| Hmmm...the reason it runs slow from what you guys have posted seems to be bad OpenGL drivers on most low-end and/or on board graphics cards. And I was hoping I could get away with having my games OpenGL only, dang! |
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| Thanks for all your continued comments on this. I was hoping to try out my game on some low end machines at work but in my rush to leave I forgot to bring it with me :-( I shall attempt to do it tomorrow as it would be good to get some solid evidence on this. |
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| As a side note, my iBook (1.33ghz, 1gig RAM, ATI Mobility Radeon 9550 32mb) has handled everything BlitzMax I've thrown at it nicely. Then again it scores close to the new MacBooks with integrated graphics on OpenGL speeds in Cinebench. :-) Ragnar |
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| Thats a real 3D card. Not the fastest, but at least a real. *and it will fail badly against the new ones if the new ones weren't capped to half their power on OSX* It would be a very bad thing if it performed as bad as Intel and the like ;) |
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| Just tried it on my work's PC: Win XP SP2 Direct X 9.0c Celeron 2.66 GHz 1GB RAM On board graphics (SiS 661FX) On my game menu screen (a BG image plus a few menu options) it runs at 21FPS in both DX and Open GL. That is pretty poor - I would have expected it to run better in DX, especially from what others have said here. I think the only conclusion is that a 3D graphics card is a must. However, just re-read Dreamora post about windowed mode. It is running in windowed mode, maybe that's the prob? I haven't got Max installed here so will have to do a full screen version at home and test it again next week when I am back in the office. |
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| OK, I've tested it in full screen mode with the following results: Full screen DX: 30 FPS Full screen GL: 26-27 FPS Windowed DX: 19 FPS Windowed GL: 20 FPS Interestingly, Direct X is slightly quicker than Open GL (moreso in full screen mode) but I'm guessing this is due to the software emulation? Also, since it was running slow, I expected it to struggle with some particle effects but they only reduced it by a few FPS. So, in conclusion I think a proper 3D graphics card is a definate requirement (although how much memory is needed I'm still not sure - any ideas on this?). Has anyone actually run anything at a decent frame rate on a PC with on board graphics? |
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| Although how much memory is needed I'm still not sure - any ideas on this?) That depends for 100% on what you're actually *doing* The more sprites, backgrounds, etc. and the higher the bit depht (16bit or 32 bit?), the more memory you'll need. Many small games will run just fine on a machine with 16MB, but once you use more graphics than will fit in that size of memory, you'll need to bump up the requirements to the next size, 32 MB. and so on. But its pretty much just guesswork to find out how much memory you're using. Don't look at the actual JPG file size, but look at the number of bits necesary to contain the uncompressed image -- rounded up to the next power-of-2 boundaries. Also keep in mind the memory required for the windows desktop, and the backbuffers. but needless to say, the video memory requirements for 'pacman' aren't even in the same ballpark as those for 'doom 3', so without knowing what you're doing you can't give any relevant estimate. |
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| I wouldn't bother about the memory that much. Because even old cards can have 64MB+ The problems is that they have significantly lower bandwidth (connection system ram - VRAM) and fillrate, which can cause serious slowdowns when you do an "action game" with BM ... I would for example assume that grid wars runs far worse on a stone age 64MB card (GF2 GTS) than on a GF FX5200 with 32MB of VRAM like the ones used in the old iBook |
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| my laptop specs are 1066 Mhz, 261 ram, no graphics card and i run BMAX perfectly, i used BB one this machine and my stuff ran pretty well. i know BMAX is 5x faster than BB so i know this machine can run it my desktop specs are 2.4 Ghz, about 360 ram(i forgot exact), and no graphics card and i can run a lot of apps without problems yeah i know mine suck but they where all freebies so i won't complain, but i am getting a new one in nine months |
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| xlsior - The tests I've been doing are just on the menu screen of the game I'm currently working on. There is a background image, a logo and some text (drawn using the font/text commands) and some music playing. So, it's not really doing that much. The game itself is not really that complicated either - it's a board game. I am wondering if drawing text is contributing to the slowdown. It's difficult to test since I can only test on this old PC a few days a week. My current way of thinking is that if a 3D graphics card is a requirement then it should have enough memory to run the game. Dreamora - I see your point about bandwidth etc. but I think it would be fairly safe to assume that a 3D card should be able to run most Max games (especially the sort I am doing). Link1426 - interesting that you can run stuff ok. I guess it's down to the hardware of the on-board graphics? |
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| yeah but it is still pretty slow, but i get used to it i just wish i could remember a link to this site that made a program that will link computers together and make them act as one and make it so much more powerful i could take all my crappy computers and link them together and have a really awesome but huge system |
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| Link, When you say "no graphics card" on you main comp, what chip does it use? Bacause (for example) ATI boards come with a good graphics chip |
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| The comp. at my workplace is an old 1 ghz AMD Sempron w/ only 256 megs of ram and onboard S3 Savage Graphics w/ a measly 8mb of RAM, and is capable of running my tile engine at 30-40 fps while pushing 3000-4500 tiles. The performance discrepencies mentioned in this thread are strange - the variance is more than I'd expect. |
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| honestly i don't know which motherboard i have but i think they do have on board graphic cards i know my desktop has an Intel CPU but my laptop has a Pentium 3 mobile |
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