[bloated]

I'm installing the Media VP's and prior to install the details talked about how some textures would only work on a higher end system.

What is the minimum gaming card required to run the maximum settings with the updates?

it used to be a 32mb radeon.

Will my HD 9750 get crushed?

[HLD_Prophecy]

I used to run an MSI GX60. Even up until less than a year ago. That was a 2012 vintage gaming laptop, HD 7970M. A10 CPU. Funnily enough the graphics card was bottlenecked by the CPU, the tech wasn't balanced for the period.

Anyway. It ran FSO on high settings without a hitch, crisp and clear, HTL fanmade models and all. Some chugging with intense fights only. Your 9750 should be fine I'd imagine! What processor are you using?

[bloated]

AMD FX 6300, 16gb's of ram, Samsung 850 512GB SSD all hooked to a replacement Asrock mobo after my Asus board died.

It's almost comical considering I upgraded every 9 months from 1996 to 2006 only to stop and eventually sit on this setup which was never considered anything but mid range at the best of times.

I was considering going Ryzen but now with 7nm tech inbound I'm going to hold off even longer.

probably going to go with a 32" 4k display next... possibly a 37"

[HLD_Prophecy]

Yes sir. Yeeees sir, that ought to do it! And I was running FSO off the HDD back then too, SSD should get you great load times!

Sitting on that setup is probably a good idea. Let me tell you I've seen people throw away chances to pay rent, get a car, go to school, just to stay on top of the tech curve. For gaming setups. They just had to have the latest and greatest. Don't get me wrong, I like me some game performance! But that's an underrated skill you got there, the patience to stick with what you have and get your money's worth. 

[Mito [PL]]

I can't seem to find a thing called the HD 9750. Maybe you meant HD 7950? If that's the case, I think you are going to have a really fine experience, however some big battles and missions in asteroid fields will require you to turn off shadows for satisfactory FPS results.

My current setup is a Xeon E5450 (equivalent to a C2Q Q9650) @3,5GHz and a GTX 770 (2GB). And with every visual feature and Full HD resolution many mods can stress that GPU to its edges anyway. I have been using an R7 265 (so something like the HD 7950) before I switched to the GTX, and most more demanding mods usually required turning off shadows back then.

As for the absolute minimum... I heard of people playing FSO on Intelgrated graphics. While it seems possible for retail and older campaigns, I'm not sure how fine will it go with all the new and fancy ones.

I have been wondering for some time now - maybe we should have a topic where people would post their computer specifications, what kind of settings they use and how are the results ingame? It would surely be useful as a part of the newcomer's FAQ.

[CT27]

As far as NVIDIA cards go, would the 1060 (6GB) and 1070 get a good FSO experience (obviously the 1070 would presumably be at least a little better)?

[Mito [PL]]

I guess that the 1060 6GB or the 1070 should be able to run FSO in higher resolutions just fine or just push maaaany frames at max detail levels in 1080p. I guess at this point it would be decided more by the single core performance of the CPU.

[HLD_Prophecy]

@Mito: Sounds like a fantastic idea, we could have everyone contribute/continue to update their computer specs and give an analysis of the results. Could be extremely helpful - we just point new players at the topic to get an idea of how their rig will handle various levels of intensity.   

[Spoon]

I've found that performance differs wildly between the various campaigns/mods/standalones and between all the various FSO builds. The retail FS2 campaign is relatively pretty light on ship models and weapon effects in each given mission and consequently isn't that demanding on hardware even with newer builds. But the newer builds are significantly more demanding on the hardware either way.
For example I have an old laptop, an Intel pentium M 735 with a radeon 9700 mobility, and 1gb of ram. It can run FS2 and old Wings of Dawn with the 3.6.12 builds, albeit not with buttersmooth framerates, but newer builds will simply not start up at all. The videocard just doesn't support any of the opengl that is required.

My next laptop, a i7-2670QM with a GT 555M videocard and 8gb of ram can run the newest builds, but the framerate will be absolutely dreadful in most missions unless I turn off both shadows and deferred lighting. With those disabled, it'll run the more average missions around 60fps. But for particular demanding missions, like for example, Her Finest Hour in BP's act 3, or the final missions in WoD's upcoming episode 2 release, the framerate will drop to the 10-15ish range.

My desktop meanwhile is still an i7-2600k but it has gone through a whole slew of different videocards, starting off with a GTX 570 and currently on a 1070ti. With a GTX 960 the game would chug on quite a few occasions with shadows and deferred lighting enabled. Heavier scenes would frequently pull it down to the 30ish fps range. Putting the 1070ti in made a massive improvement, and the bottleneck on certain things would more frequently be the CPU than the GPU.


So yeah, you do kind of need a modern system for that 60fps @ 1080p with shadows, deferred lighting and all the bells and whistles enabled.
But if your pc is a bit more modest or a case of "I was high end back in 2011" you can still get some very good framerates, if you disable some of the more demanding graphical options. And even then your mileage will vary between campaigns, Blue planet will put your system to more of a test than Derelict will etc.

[Mito [PL]]

Hmm. I'd also want to take note that scenes with lots of particle and weapon effects will very considerably hit the framerate. This is causing the biggest drops with a multitude of fighters unloading everything on a single target so that everything happens in player's field of view.
Another thing tanking performance really much seem to be scenes with multiple suns at different angles, i.e. one certain skybox in BP:AoA that player sees

Spoiler:

during first contacts with Vishnans, just after Forced Entry.

I'm also wondering if -no_glsl flag still works or if there's something that replaces it in modern FSO. While turning off shadows and mayyybe deferred lighting will allow people to play on low-end GPUs even with more pompastic mods, that kind of a flag surely would make FSO playable with even integrated or small, energy efficient graphics chips, right?

Also, this being more of a Knossos thing, but whatever - how about there being a tab for each mod:

Code: [Select]

People played this with:
<system specifications>
<graphical settings (I'd assume everything enabled unless specified here) + resolution>
<results>that both the mod maker and players could add entries to?

[Spoon]

-no_glsl no longer exists, it's disable deferred lighting now.

[bloated]

SSD should get you great load times!

I've seen people throw away chances to pay rent, get a car, go to school, just to stay on top of the tech curve. For gaming setups. They just had to have the latest and greatest.

almost instant actually, seriously, barely even notice them.

I was halfway through my  obsession with motorcycles when I stumbled into my career and started making real money .  Fortunately my fiance left a few weeks before I landed the job and wasn't around to bleed me dry (or talk some sense into me). 


I dealt with being single by buying and selling every motorcycle I'd wanted when I was in High School.  While they didn't cost much compared to new bikes, Computer parts cost almost nothing in comparison.

I can't seem to find a thing called the HD 9750. Maybe you meant HD 7950

correct, my bad.

however some big battles and missions in asteroid fields will require you to turn off shadows for satisfactory FPS results.

haven't had any issues yet, but paving the way is the only asteroid mission I've done so far.

I'll replace the card if I have an issue but for now I hope to wait for 7nm bits to reach the market first.

I'm starting with the FS1 campaign, if I'm still interested I'll do Silent Threat, then FS2.  If all that works out I'm looking forward to doing Homesick.

I may revisit Blue Planet but I haven't looked to see if the final campaign is finished yet and plan on waiting until it is.

P.S. thanks all for the responses and the info.

[Mito [PL]]

Unfortunately, Blue Planet is still in developement. For now, the first part of the trio, Age of Aquarius, is definitely complete, while the second part, War in Heaven, has got 2 of 5 acts completed and act 3 is mostly missing only voice acting.

However, there are many other campaigns that are also awesome that you should check out! https://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=80688.0

[Nightmare]

BP-WiH 4 is still. Act 3 is just as fine as the others but it won't get voice acting (most likely never, unless somebody starts paying them) as the team decided to put the time into playable content instead.

[HLD_Prophecy]

Can you try an older version of FSO?

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure you should be able to run the engine, at least an older version.    I used to run FSO with an AMD Sempron and integrated Radeon graphics, getting acceptable performance in a small window and at lower settings.

If you do get it working I recommend also running in windowed mode at 1024x768 for increased performance.

[CT27]

I apologize for what's probably a simple question:

Will NVIDIA's new "RTX" 20 series cards work with FSO games/mods?  I've heard some say RTX and the previous GTX cards work with different games?

[deathspeed]

They should work fine.  The difference is the RTX cards support ray tracing, which is only available in a few titles so far.  But even those games can run on GTX cards, just without the ray tracing eye candy.

[Rogue Assassin04]

My Setups:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Asus FX504GM Gaming Laptop

Processor: Intel Core i5 (8th Generation) 8 Core processor (4 Physical cores)
Graphics: Nvidia GTX 1060 (6GB)
RAM: 8GB DDR4
SSD: FireCuda SSD
HDD: Kingston HDD

Original resolution of display: 1920x1080 @ 60Hz
Resolution used: 1920x1080p @ 60Hz
Framerate achieved (average): 60 (with VSync) 120 (without VSync)
Settings used: Max (eyecandy)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Custom Built Desktop (assembled in 2012)

Processor: Intel Core i3 (2nd Generation) 4 Core processor (2 Physical cores)
Graphics: Nvidia GT 610 (2GB)
RAM: 8GB DDR3
SSD: Transcend SSD
HDD: 500 GB WDC HDD and 75 GB Seagate HDD

Original resolution of display: 1600x900 @ 60Hz
Resolution used: 1280x720p @ 60Hz
Framerate achieved (average): 52 (with VSync) 65 (without VSync)
Settings used: Medium-High

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mods that i played on both machines:
1) Blue Planet Complete
2) Trimurti
3) FS Media VPs 3.8
4) Retail FS2

[TechnoD11]

Guess I'll throw my specs in as well.
i5 3570K at 4.6GHZ all core OC
GTX 1080 stock clocks
16GB DDR3 2133MHZ
SSD for storage
playing at 1080P, 144Hz
Haven't had trouble with any mods yet, all running on max settings.