SpaceSimCentral

Since we've had a couple of posts lately about the hardware that people are using I'd just like to get an idea of what machines people are using.This isn't a chance to slate peoples machines but just to give me an idea of the range of equipment.There are 4 things that I'd like to know:1) operating system, i.e: Win7 32/64bit, WinXP, Mac OSX, Linux (+distro).2) CPU3) RAM4) GPU/GraphicsYou can find most of this out by downloading CPU-Z[url]http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html[/url] start us off as I have two machines that I use for dev.Laptop (That I got just before being made redundant!):1) Win7 64bit2) AMD Phenom II N620 Dual-Core @ 2.8GHz3) 4GB4) ATi Mobility HD 4250 / HD 5470 (switchable)Desktop PC:1) Win7 64bit2) Intel i7 920 Quad-Core @ 2.66GHz3) 6GB4) nVidia GTX 470I have no issues running the game and thus I tend to forget that others might when I'm implementing a feature as I treat my Laptop as the minimum spec!Obviously that isn't fair on some people, it also might affect what work gets done one which feature in the future. For example, layering on more and more terrain processing and atmosphere rendering might make things prettier as discussed in the other thread, but it might also prevent some people from playing the game _at all_ which probably isn't what anyone wants. On the other hand this might reveal that there's no reason for maintaining fixed function pipeline code (only used as an example guys) and point out where it may be possible to shift some workload.Cheers,Andy

1) Windows Vista 64-Bit Ultimate Edition2) Intel Core2 Quad Q6600 @ 2.4GHz3) 4GB DDR2 PC64004) nVidia GTX 260 w/ 896MB GDDR3 RAM

laptop-Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (6.1, Build 7600) (7600.win7_gdr.110408-1633)HP G62 Notebook PC AMD Athlon(tm) II P340 Dual-Core Processor (2 CPUs), ~2.2GHz3072MB RAMATI Mobility Radeon HD 4200 SeriesThis one runs fine on the lower graphical settings but has the usual ati related bugs. Things are much better on the latest builds though.Desktop-Windows xp 32bitintel e220 dual core 2.4 ghz 3072 RAMNvidia geforce 9500gt 1gbThis runs the game much smoother and can even run on higher settings with hdr enabled. I attribute this to the much better (but still quite rubbish) gpu.One thing I would like to mention is that on both computers, the real fps killers are the cities. I can have terrain either on high or the highest on either pc but as soon as I get near a city it begins to crawl. Does anyone know if anyone has made any progress on optimising cities? I wish I could do 3d modelling as I would crack out a few temporary low-poly replacements if I could.

Luomu wrote:
I run this on a single-core 2.3ghz laptop with Radeon HD4200 just fine, so I would say getting "1-2 fps" is a bug somewhere.
Cross-posted n' quoted from the other thread until Loumo can give us more info.

Quote:
Does anyone know if anyone has made any progress on optimising cities? I wish I could do 3d modelling as I would crack out a few temporary low-poly replacements if I could.
Nothing much has been done, AFAIK the problem is not with the the buildings themselves as they are all very low poly, I think most of them are scripted actually which would mean they have perfect LOD calculation too. If you feel up to it you could try a bit of play testing to see what the cause really is, by removing the various buildings in groups, if it suddenly speeds up then you know one of the buildings you removed was responsible :)Oh and:Win7 x64Intel Q6600 2.44 GB DDR2.285GTX 2GB version

1: Win 7-642: AMD 64 X2 5400 @2,83: 2GB PC64004: ATI HD4850 512MB

1. Debian Linux 6.0/sid, kernel 2.6.38 (32 bit)2. Core 2 Duo T9600 @ 2.80GHz3. 4GB DDR24. Mobility Radeon HD3650 (w/ fglrx/Catalyst 11.4.2)Also testing regularly with Windows builds on Wine, and the open source Radeon drivers.

So most of the developers at least seem to have a minimum of dual-core machines with decent shader capable graphics and 2GB ram.No-one with single-core, integrated graphics or Mac hardware has posted but I'm sure that people have complained about those things before

I'm probably at the low end of the hardware spectrum.WinXP homeAMD Athlon 2500+1 gig ramATI Radeon 9550 w/256mb ramSingle core, no shaders or hdr, but Pioneer is looking pretty good and plays well on medium detail levels.

Funny, the Radeon 9550 should support OpenGL 2.0 and Shader Model 2.0 if you did want to use shaders. Might not be blisteringly fast though *edit* stoopid typos.

My personal computer at the moment is:Ubuntu 11.04 64-bitAMD V140 2.3GHz (single core)Radeon HD42002GB RAMMy desktop PC is in a box on another continent.

1. Windows XP SP32. Athlon64 2 GHz (single core)3. NVidia GeForce GT 4404. 2 GB RAM

Quote:
Funny, the Radeon 9550 should support OpenGL 2.0 and Shader Model 2.0 if you did want to use shaders. Might not be blisteringly fast though
It doesn't though. I can click the button to no effect only to find it unclicked again when I press [esc].

Another low end user. On an old laptop.OS: Win7 x64CPU: Turion 64 @ 2Ghz (Single core)GFX: Onboard Radeon XPress (about the same as the old 9xxx series of desktop cards i think, but for laptop)MEMORY: 2 GB

OS: SnowLeopard 10.6.8CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 3.06GhzMemory: 4GB 1067 DDR3GFX: ATI Radeon HD 4670 256MbThis is the machine I dev and play pioneer with - runs well.

Marcel wrote:


Quote:
Funny, the Radeon 9550 should support OpenGL 2.0 and Shader Model 2.0 if you did want to use shaders. Might not be blisteringly fast though
It doesn't though. I can click the button to no effect only to find it unclicked again when I press [esc].
Might I be rude and suggest... an upgrade? [url]http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-024-HS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1842[/url] was quite surprised to actually _find_ an AGP card for sale these days, I have an spare PC with a GeForce 6800 that could do with upgrading... if I ever get another job *grumble, grumble*Hmm, on the other hand how about checking out either the latest drivers or some of the hacked "Omega" driver packs for Ati to see if they enable those features?

Right the results suggest that we have a few people running single core machines, though all of them are at reasonable clock speeds - that means mean any threading work done will have to keep in mind that there'll be virtually no benefit on some of our machines and probably even some negative impact if done naively.As far as GPUs go we have a few people that might just be below the OpenGL 2.0 spec. I thought there'd be more though!Those two seem to go hand-in-hand rather unsurprisingly with the majority enjoying at least a couple of cores and a good spread of everything from DirectX9 to DirectX11 GPU hardware.Not sure quite what this will mean to developers but it's handy to know roughly what hardware you're targetting, does change some of the plans I had for the future

@flufflyfreak, that card looks real nice, but I'm planning to get a better computer before too long. Last time I checked, ATI hadn't upgraded the drivers for mine in years.

Marcel wrote:
@flufflyfreak, that card looks real nice, but I'm planning to get a better computer before too long. Last time I checked, ATI hadn't upgraded the drivers for mine in years.
[url]http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Legacy/Pages/radeonaiw_xp.aspx?type=2.4.1&product=2.4.1.3.13&lang=English[/url] Last updated: 24.2.2010

Laptop - Alienware M17 R3Windows 7 x64Intel i7 processor16GB RAM256GB SSD hard drive (I strongly recommend getting yourself an SSD - makes the OS fly)Radeon 6870 1GB graphicsRuns Pioneer like a dream (as you would expect with those hardware stats) - Max planet detail, medium city detail