what computers do people use?
Blitz3D Forums/Blitz3D Beginners Area/what computers do people use?
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| I have been hard at work on my first game, and have got to the stage of seeing how the first parts work on someones computer apart from my own. My computer is Win98, P3, 256ram, good 3D card. I tried the game on a system with Celeron 466 and low end card and it looked shocking. So I was wondering, are there stats on what type of computers, how new and powerful etc, or old and clunky, people ine the Western World are using? I hate the idea of doing things that can only be seen by folks with the latest hardware, but maybe that's a bad attitude in the gamer world ??? cheers |
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| I am developing on an AMD K6-II 350 MH computer with 128 MB Ram and a GF MX-400 64 MB Graphics card. Not very fast but till now all Blitz runs without problems. Sometimes only with 10 FPS or less but at all I have no problems with it. I have currently W2K Professional. |
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| As for me, I used to use this PC for both Blitz2d\3d : 100mhz Pentium 32mb ram 1.5mb non-3d card, 4mb Voodoo1 (3d) 2ndary vid card 2d ran sorta ok, but 3d was out of the question in BLitz3d Now, here's what I use : 1.54ghz AMD AthlonXP1800+ 512mb 266mhz DDR RAM 128mb GeForce4 TI4600 Everythin runs like a dream on this pc...'cept for the stupid video card.. |
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| I have a dual athlon 1800, with 2Gb of RAM and a Radeon 9700. Everything runs pretty well. ;) |
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| I love how the original post requesting PC specs says "good 3D card." Real specific. My computer is a 450MHz PIII with 128MB RAM and an ATI Rage Fury Pro. I am going to purchase a new computer soon but I'll be hanging onto this system because it is so useful for testing. That's pretty close to a reasonable min spec so I just make sure my game runs well on that. |
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| Office Dev System: Celeron 1GHz 512MB RAM Geoforce 2 MX 400 64MB PCI SB Live XP Home Office Test/Internet System: P2 500 MHz 128MB RAM TNT2 M64 8MB AGP SB Cheapo XP Home Home Dev/Internet System: 133MHz 40MB RAM 1MB video card (notebook) SB Compatible (Notebook) Windows 95 |
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| I think if your game is playable on a 400Mhz machine, with any common 3d card of 16Mb or more, you should be okay. At least, that's the spec I'm aiming for... (it will run on an 8Mb card but you have to turn some stuff off) - anything less than that, and I'd have to make too many concessions. But basically just shoot as low as you can. |
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| Um i use a 600mhz packard bell, um that other crap i don't care about(or really know/understand). I'm not truelly computer literate so. I know it turns on, it has windows, it has color, cable modem, printer, etc. Hrrm theres really more? Wow or something. |
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| So I was wondering, are there stats on what type of computers, how new and powerful etc, or old and clunky, people ine the Western World are using? We do more than just 3Dmarks... maybe this article based on our data services helps a bit: http://www.bjorn3d.com/view_column.php?talkID=25 Try to find the Maximum PC article also. |
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| my maincomp is my athlon 1.8 with gf4 and 512mbram, i do my 3d stuff and so on using that. This comp im on now is a athlon 650mhz with gf1 and 256mb ram. I test my blitz stuff on here for speed, it's a pretty weak comp so if it runs ok on here im ok although the largest userbase has even suckier comps, poor people :). |
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| I got an xp2500 and a xp2400 and a xp2000 machine, all with 512mb ram and some crahpics cards like gf4600,gf4200 and gf3 and a radeon 9700 in the mail, though i lack a decent lower standard test computer :( I usualy sell off all my older stuff to my friends and family wich otherwise is a good tip to keep your computer(s) up to date At any rate im mostly doing my games for my self and my friends and i have no plans to go commercial. |
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| Crikey, you have THREE really souped-up top-of-the-line computers? Why? |
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| Hey, many thanks for the replys Joe, my card is a geforce 3 ti200, 128Mb. It is not the very best, but it is good. In fact, I have just swapped it back to an old TNT card with 32Mb. so it is more like a home system while I am testing the game. |
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| Desktop: 2Ghz P4, 256Mb, GeForce II 64Mb (I think) Laptop P3, 128Mb, 4Mb built-in graphic card. |
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| That's the card I'm looking to have in my next computer. ATI has been good to me all these years however so I'll have to see. |
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| 1ghz athlon, 512mb ram, gf4 mx440 64mb MikeT |
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| im developing on a 1gb amd 2100+ geforce4400, and i dont care how well it works on lesser pc's....muahahahaha |
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| My AMD machine stats are in my byline signature... |
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| Yeah. You'll notice a lot of people have their computer stats in their signitures. The point of this is so that when you test something and it crashes, you don't have to worry about pasting stats, but you can simply post, "It doesn't work on my PC, but crashes with an error message" or "I get 25fps" and people will know what hardware you have. It's pretty neat. |
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| Thanks for the tip, FlameDuck, that makes sense. and thanks for the link Mustang. |
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| Athlon 1.4, 384mb, GF 4. Running XP. |
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| Celeron 1.6 ATI 7000 6mb 256mb RAM Running XP |
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| I write code on an 1800xp 512mb gf2 gts, but then test to see if it works on my slower computers and optimise things from there |
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| First System: AMD K6 TURBO II / AMD XP +1700 PR0 / 1 GB SDRAM / GFORCE 2 MX/400 / 60 GB HD Second System: AMD K6 TURBO II / AMD XP +2400 PR0 / 512 MB DDR / GFORCE 2 MX/400 + TVOUT / 60 GB HD Third System: NVIDEA NFORCE 2 / AMD XP +2000 PR0 / 512 MB DDR / GFORCE 2 MX/400 + TVOUT / 160 GB |
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| Note that the system specs of people on this forum are really misleading as far optimizing your game goes. We as a group are hardly representative of "people in the Western World" as far as computing hardware (or anything else I would venture.) |
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| I have a 800Mz Duron, onboard 8M graphics with 128M RAM 15GB HD with onboard sound laptop and a 1.3MHz Duron, 128M Graphics, 80GB HD (can't remember soundcard its fairly average) desktop. By running on both machines, I can check that my games run as smooth as possible on both, not too slow and not too fast. Of course, running to the best specs available gets the most out of your projects, and is good for future-proofing (practically nothing commercial in 3d games runs on 8M graphics nowadays), but of course, you will need to cater for as many people as possible. |
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| Yes I think we're generally much higher in the spec dept. than Gary Public. My strategy is, to get requirements as low as possible without compromising what I actually want to do too much. The only real concession I have made so far is reducing the resolution of my sprites a little more than I would have done ideally, with all the vidRAM in the world to play with... but then I am restricted in this dept. by the need to keep download size small, too. I am also trying to do whatever I can to get the game to run, in some reduced form, on the lowest system I can manage. Which I *think* should be about P2-400 with voodoo 1, in this case (although it won't be pretty). But for the most part I can do everything I want to do without super-high specs, without compromise. |
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| Yes I have found PC programming, let alone learning to write games very frustrating. With varying CPU's Graphics cards etc. A friend was testing my game and said it was slightly jerky. I couldn't understand this as it ran v smoothly on my systems - she then told me she had bought a flatscreen (not ideal for 2d). I re-wrote the program and it works fine now. |
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| One good thing about those flat screens - some damn fine CRT monitors are now going cheap... |
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| The first system I had was a PIII-450mghz, 128mb, GeForec 2 MX 32mb, Win98. Blitz 2D ran without a problem. Don't know about 3D, as I didn't have it at the time. My current system is an AthlonXP 1600 (1400mghz), 768mb RAM, GeForce4 Ti4800SE, SoundBlaster Audigy with WinXP Pro. I agree with the comments that have been mentioned above by a few people. Us programmer types generally upgrade our systems more regularily than Joe Public does, so aim for a system that's a few years old. E.g, 450mghz, 64mb RAM, early GeForce/late Voodoo and Win95. As also mentioned, a lot will depend on what you want in your game and how much you're prepared to compromise in order to get it to run on a lower spec machine. There's always the option of making extra details optional. |
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| i have tnt2 lying around which i can stick into my low spec comp, thats the speed id be aiming for, if it runs good on tnt2 im happy. |
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| I agree, sinu, cos I'd like my friends to be able to play my game(s), and they are not all equipted with high spec computers. I am just messing with 2D for fun really, and I was surprised that my game didn't play well on some low tech boxes, untill I read some of the issues about DirectX in these forums. Maybe Blitz+ has answered some of these issues. |
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| P III 1ghz Win 2000 pro. 128meg RageFuryPro Video Card Here is an interesting point. If you develop with a computer that is current, and the game has some limitations, by the time you are done a commercial grade game (1 year) the market is already into better hardware. Justa theory, but maybe thats good thing...lol |
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| Look at my sig! :-D |
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| Am I the only person without a 3D-empowered card (or chipset) in their only/main machine? I tend to use my own machine as a near-minimum spec for the 2D stuff I do, and with a healthy dose of speed-controlling code. :o) |
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