Hard Light Productions Forums

General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: freespacefanatic73 on July 21, 2011, 11:17:00 pm

Title: recommended system requirements
Post by: freespacefanatic73 on July 21, 2011, 11:17:00 pm: I have been away from Freespace for several years, and just revisited hardlight a few days ago. Holy crap! The mods! The graphical enhancements! Oh my! I had no idea what I have been missing over the years! Ok i'm done screaming like a teenie-bopper at a Justin Beiber concert. What I need to know is how boss of a pc will I need to build to run Freespace Open with every single bell, whistle, and tweak running? I plan on building big but I want to make sure all bases are covered.

A big thanks, and keep up the good work.
Kevin
Title: Re: recommended system requirements
Post by: Bob-san on July 22, 2011, 12:04:39 am: Quote from: freespacefanatic73 on July 21, 2011, 11:17:00 pm
I have been away from Freespace for several years, and just revisited hardlight a few days ago. Holy crap! The mods! The graphical enhancements! Oh my! I had no idea what I have been missing over the years! Ok i'm done screaming like a teenie-bopper at a Justin Beiber concert. What I need to know is how boss of a pc will I need to build to run Freespace Open with every single bell, whistle, and tweak running? I plan on building big but I want to make sure all bases are covered.

A big thanks, and keep up the good work.
Kevin
4GB RAM
Dual-core processor (fastest clock)
1GB+ graphics card (GTX 460 or better)
Title: Re: recommended system requirements
Post by: LordPomposity on July 22, 2011, 12:25:58 am: That should do the trick provided no Karunas are in the mission. If there are, nothing will save you.
Title: Re: recommended system requirements
Post by: MatthTheGeek on July 22, 2011, 12:31:11 am: Lies. My rig is 900€ worth and runs anything at 60 fps without any issues.

To be honest, any decent, recent gaming rig will do the job for FS.
Title: Re: recommended system requirements
Post by: Mongoose on July 22, 2011, 12:52:54 am: Seriously, those stats are massive overkill. I have an old P4 processor and a Radeon HD4670 card, and just about everything is as smooth as butter.
Title: Re: recommended system requirements
Post by: The E on July 22, 2011, 02:35:07 am: Quote from: The E on July 12, 2011, 09:43:01 am
For basic, no mediavps use, minimal system requirements would be something like a Pentium 3, 256 MB RAM, and an OpenGL 1.2-capable GPU.

With basic mediavps, I would suggest a Pentium 4 or better, 1 GB of RAM (2 if using Win Vista/7), and a GPU capable of handling OpenGL 2.1 or better.

Advanced mediavps would need more RAM, and a GPU capable of handling OpenGL 3, with at least 512 MB of dedicated video RAM.
Title: Re: recommended system requirements
Post by: headdie on July 22, 2011, 07:11:54 am: 2 requests in the same week lould it be a good idea to have a locked stickied thread in FreeSpace & FreeSpace Open Support listing minimum and recommended spec for FS2, FSO and the current Media VPs?
Title: Re: recommended system requirements
Post by: Spoon on July 22, 2011, 09:02:49 am: Quote from: Bob-san on July 22, 2011, 12:04:39 am
4GB RAM
Dual-core processor (fastest clock)
1GB+ graphics card (GTX 460 or better)
Dude, that's false information

Spoiler:
You need at least 2 460's or better in a crossfire/sli configuration.
Title: Re: recommended system requirements
Post by: LoneKnight on July 22, 2011, 09:27:18 am: Quote from: Bob-san on July 22, 2011, 12:04:39 am
4GB RAM
Dual-core processor (fastest clock)
1GB+ graphics card (GTX 460 or better)

Recommand and Minimum are entirely different things.
Title: Re: recommended system requirements
Post by: Damage on July 22, 2011, 01:15:26 pm: I'm running a 2.3g single-core processor with 1 gig of RAM and 256MB graphics. I've been completely fine up until I started playing Blue Planet. Those ultra-high poly models are killing me.
Title: Re: recommended system requirements
Post by: MatthTheGeek on July 22, 2011, 01:17:56 pm: They're not higher poly that what you have in the MVPs. They're just terribly mapped and as unoptimized as you can nightmare of.
Title: Re: recommended system requirements
Post by: roaddog_665 on July 22, 2011, 06:38:31 pm: I keep reading these "minimum requirement" posts and then wonder how in the world my old dinosaur of a machine manages to run FSO as well as it does.

AMD Athlon XP 1800+ ( which, until yesterday, was underclocked to 1.15 Ghz, FSB was set to 100Mhz, now set to 133)
1 gig RAM
GeForce 7800GS AGP

I'm using the Advanced MVP'S, and usually get 50-60 FPS, once in awhile it drops to around 30. I've only had a couple times that it dropped enough to affect gameplay....WiH, I'm looking at you :nervous:
Title: Re: recommended system requirements
Post by: Drogoth on July 23, 2011, 12:17:12 am: My computer just likes to be a problem child.

I've never lagged with Karunas, but i play on low settings. Lag with the first mission in WiH? You bet. Lag during the assassination of the Elder? Check. Lag during random points of AoA? roger that.

It was weird. On one play through, the final mission in AoA (with the Dante and all) Was unplayable lag. Nothing I could do would fix it. Restart campaign, get back to mission, lag gone.

My computer likes to do that though, on various games. I swear to god the thing is spawning gremlins.
Title: Re: recommended system requirements
Post by: Trivial Psychic on July 23, 2011, 07:54:48 am: Perhaps you switched to a newer and faster build for the latter attempt.
Title: Re: recommended system requirements
Post by: Drogoth on July 23, 2011, 06:44:33 pm: All I did was quit the mission and clicked restart campaign in the campaign room.
Title: Re: recommended system requirements
Post by: Bob-san on July 25, 2011, 04:00:43 pm: Quote from: LoneKnight on July 22, 2011, 09:27:18 am
Quote from: Bob-san on July 22, 2011, 12:04:39 am
4GB RAM
Dual-core processor (fastest clock)
1GB+ graphics card (GTX 460 or better)

Recommand and Minimum are entirely different things.
Considering that the OP posted "recommended system requirements", I was inclined to post what I recommend. I'm unaware of any official requirements (other than a Pentium II 266, 64MB RAM, and Glide/DirectX graphics card).
Title: Re: recommended system requirements
Post by: Jeff Vader on July 25, 2011, 04:05:43 pm: Considering
Quote
What I need to know is how boss of a pc will I need to build to run Freespace Open with every single bell, whistle, and tweak running?
giving some bare minimum specs would be quite misleading. Never mind the retail FS2 (minimum) specs.
Title: Re: recommended system requirements
Post by: freespacefanatic73 on July 28, 2011, 08:18:47 am: Thanks for all the input guys. I'm looking to build a quad-core machine most likely using an i7 2600k processor and a 2GB GeForce GTS 460 video card. I just wanted to make sure all my bases were covered. I basically fix PC's and do tech support for a paycheck, but I haven't built one to truly enjoy for myself in a few years and it's so well overdue. :nod:
Title: Re: recommended system requirements
Post by: Dragon on July 28, 2011, 09:51:18 am: Just to not, FS doesn't support multithreading, so while dual core would improve performance by running system and FS on different cores (doable with an external program), on a quadcore you'd have 2 cores doing absolutely nothing.
Title: Re: recommended system requirements
Post by: The E on July 28, 2011, 09:55:43 am: Wrong. On such a system, you have 2 cores doing everything else. Meaning more net power available for FSO.
Title: Re: recommended system requirements
Post by: Dragon on July 28, 2011, 10:12:10 am: But what exactly there's to run while playing aside from various system stuff, a security program, and perhaps controller and sound profilers. Couldn't one core handle that, while FS would have the second one?
Title: Re: recommended system requirements
Post by: The E on July 28, 2011, 10:13:22 am: You just answered your own question.
Title: Re: recommended system requirements
Post by: JCDNWarrior on July 28, 2011, 10:22:42 am: In my opinion, recommended system requirements is anything that that can fluidly run Blue Planet WiH, pretty much the benchmark at this time. Of course, there are even larger, crazy benchmarks...
Title: Re: recommended system requirements
Post by: Dragon on July 28, 2011, 10:29:25 am: Quote from: The E on July 28, 2011, 10:13:22 am
You just answered your own question.
Considering that all of them now take about 8% of the processor time, I'd say that if I assigned FSO (and only it) to the second core, I wouldn't really have anything to do with two more of them (I'd most likely even be able to run a headtracker on the first core without any problems).
Title: Re: recommended system requirements
Post by: Insomniac34 on July 30, 2011, 12:46:30 pm: Recommended specs for highest settings & resolution with all MVPs and enhancements activated? I think any Core 2 series CPU and a GeForce 8600 series GPU are reasonable. Obviously MUCH older hardware can still run the game pretty well, but for near-perfect performance in WiH I'd say that's fair. Any good gaming computer since 2007 shouldn't have any issues IMO.

Strangely, I have a Core 2 Quad Q9400, GeForce GTX 295, and 6GB of RAM and Karunas still tend to give my computer a run for its money.
Title: Re: recommended system requirements
Post by: Kopachris on July 30, 2011, 04:59:00 pm: 2.8GHz Athlon II X4 (quad-core)
4GB RAM
1GB GeForce 9400GT

No problems with BP here at 1600x1200 and all the bells and whistles. Lowest it got to was 30fps on that one mission
Spoiler:
where we met the Vishnans in the Carina Nebula
.

DISCLAIMER: I have not played WiH at all, nor have I played BP since upgrading to 3.6.12 and MediaVPs_3612. Also, I built my rig for rendering 3D animations, not playing games, and on a budget. It could be much better.