Minimum Machine Specifications

BlitzMax Forums/BlitzMax Programming/Minimum Machine Specifications

Sean Doherty

(Posted 2005) [#1]

What minimum machine specifications would people recommend targeting? Moreover, what framerate should be expected on a minimum machine?

Please note that this is not a question about timing, I understanding that you can use the interval timer as a multipler to make the game run at the same speed on most machines. However, below a certain frame rate the game becomes unplayable.

smilertoo

(Posted 2005) [#2]

i won't play anything under 30fps, theres no excuse with current hardware to be under that.

Dreamora

(Posted 2005) [#3]

Sean: This depends on the type of game you do. With a simple game thats more focused on fun etc than on "professional", I would target the lowest possible specs I can to make it accessable to more people.

Fetze

(Posted 2005) [#4]

Any estimations about the GPU I need, if I have around 400 Verticies and 15 Textures drawn every frame?

And another thing, why the hell is the DrawText-Command so damn slow?

Sean Doherty

(Posted 2005) [#5]

So, for a Space Shooeter, should I be targeting 30 FPS on a machine around 1 GHZ with a G-Force video card? Or is that still to high?

Fetze

(Posted 2005) [#6]

I'd target 30 FPS on 350 Mhz with Onboard-Graphics

Dreamora

(Posted 2005) [#7]

DrawText is not slow. It does just the same as a regular DrawImage command which with true 3D is just slower than the commands in B3D.

FlameDuck

(Posted 2005) [#8]

Something like my TabletPC - specs in sig - I've found is a good benchmark for minimum requirements.

Sean Doherty

(Posted 2005) [#9]

Fetze,

Are you sure you are not loading the font over interval?

Fetze

(Posted 2005) [#10]

I'm loading the font once. But I can draw around 5 times more Images than Texts at the same time.

Tom Darby

(Posted 2005) [#11]

I avoid most of this wrangling by doing all my primary development on a 2 1/2-year-old laptop. If it runs on my dev box, it'll run on pretty much anything out there...

xlsior

(Posted 2005) [#12]

But I can draw around 5 times more Images than Texts at the same time.

How much text are we taking about here? Full sentences, or short words?
From what I gather, text gets generated & drawn as an image.
Images get stored in your video memory as a (square?) power-of-two texture, which means that they may be a lot 'bigger' than they seem.
Are you still getting the same performance difference when drawing small bits of text?

Fetze

(Posted 2005) [#13]

Ah, that's the point. Okay, thanks.