[BETA RELEASED] Necro Mutex playtesters? Especially Oculus users.

[mkultra333]

It's probably a week or two away, but I'm wondering if anyone is up for playtesting my game Necro Mutex prior to steam release?
I'm looking for 5 or 6 people to check if things work okay on other systems. Preferably a mix of ATI and Nvidia cards, and a mix of non-VR and VR systems.

The game is playable as a normal first person shooter or a VR game. I've got a Vive but I've no way to test Oculus support. In theory it should work fine since SteamVR supports both, so I'm hoping it works at least as well as the Vive support does. In particular, do the controls work, and what are the best VR settings?

Again, probably a week or two away, (assuming no unexpected delays... which seem to happen all the time.)

There's a post showing the game here, viewtopic.php?f=11&t=94247&p=541904#p541904, I've done some more work since that post.

If anyone is interested and has time to kill, reply here or PM me, thanks.

[EricB]

What's the estimated minimum specs/OS requirements? I may or may not be able to do some play testing, my Windows boxes aren't very powerful.

[mkultra333]

For VR Vive or Oculus play, the spec is an nvidia Geforce GTX 970 or AMD Radeon R9 290 graphics card, and Intel Core i5-4590/AMD FX 8350 CPU. (Although an i7 is probably preferable.)

Windows 7 is fine, I'm guessing 8 and 10 are okay but I haven't tested yet.

For normal, non-VR play, my guess would be that a Geforce GTX 770 or Radeon RX 570 would be pushing the low end of what could mostly maintain 60fps at 1080p. It might be a hardware step more or less than that. I expect an i5 cpu or equivalent would be fine.

[EricB]

So to formulate it better:
VR Minimum Specs:
Minimum Requirements for Vive or Oculus Rift.

Non-VR Minimum Specs:
DirectX10 (Windows 7+)
GTX 770/RX570s.


I've got a XP64 with a HD6750 and a Win 8 Laptop with an A8-6410. So I won't be able to help ya there.


Before you sell it, you may want to get a broader representation of the specs and figure out some optimizations. That's pretty steep requirements. i5's can run the gambit between crappy CPU and fast CPU. Ram requirements you should be able to get straight from your task manager (multiply peak by 1.5).

[mkultra333]

Thanks for the feedback.

The GTX 770 came out in 2013, Windows 7 in 2009. Steam shows most people have DX12 capable cards. So my requirements don't seem that steep to me. I'd expect most PC first person shooter players to easily exceed those levels.

But I guess I'll see.

[EricB]

Thanks for the feedback.

The GTX 770 came out in 2013, Windows 7 in 2009. Steam shows most people have DX12 capable cards. So my requirements don't seem that steep to me. I'd expect most PC first person shooter players to easily exceed those levels.

But I guess I'll see.

DirectX12 capable cards != GTX 770 specs. Plus you're not using DirectX 12.

I am also not arguing against Windows 7 requirements. Steam is dropping support for XP/Vista anyway. My use of old Windows stems from the fact I stopped being a Windows user 15 years ago. I only have it to build binaries to sell video games to Windows users. Otherwise I'd have zero Microsoft machines in my house.

I am just pointing out GTX 770 is fairly high for the graphical quality of your game. You need to figure out a more realistic minimum. Because there is a shit ton of people out there who game on laptops and mid-range GPUs.

Essentially GTX 770 being the minimum means no laptops**, no Intel GPUs, no AMD APUs, and no majority of AMD GPUs. GTX 770 is faster than 1050 TI. The second most popular GPU on Steam. Roughly 26% of the computers in the Steam Survey meet those specs. My internal numbers for my game, it would be closer to 20%. Sure, FPS gamers in general probably have better machines. But you're still cutting off a 5th of your potential revenues and increasing your customer support tickets.

If your game does require that much GPU, fine. But it sounds to me like optimization issues, you're not allowing some settings to be scaled down, or you just don't really know what the minimums are. Purely from a business standpoint, in my opinion that should be addressed.


**Excluding the crazy people laptops that throw in desktop GPUs. Even then, you'll be limited to only the highest of the high end ones.

[mkultra333]

Appreciate the reply. It made me look into this situation more deeply. For reference, I'm using https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html for GPU ratings and https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/videocard/ for info on steam users.

you're not allowing some settings to be scaled down,

Good point about scaling. The VR minimums are pretty much non-negotiable, since it's already as stripped and optimized as possible, but the non-VR quality can be cut down quite a bit. There are options where you can radically cut down the graphics and enemy numbers. I used to run the game on my own old laptop.

I don't think I'd like to sell the game based on that though. Perhaps some compromise there is possible.

or you just don't really know what the minimums are.

Yes, I really just don't really know what the minimums are. The fact that I'm running a beta to find that out and said "For normal, non-VR play, my guess would be..." makes that clear.

I'll mention how I arrived at the ballpark guess for low end specs that could use normal settings at 60fps, 1080p. On my GTX 970 the typical GPU frame takes 5 to 8.5ms. The typical physics frame, which is the lions share of the CPU time, takes 3 to 7 ms. The two happen simultaneously so which ever is longer is the only one that matters. At 60 fps there's 16.6 ms available.

I picked a GTX 770 because it has a passmark of 6,081 compared to 8,593 for my GTX 970. So it's about 70% as fast. Applying that to the frame time, that gives a frame time of 12.2ms. That's fast enough and leaves some slack, so like I said maybe a generation lower than that is okay too.

If I push these numbers to their logical conclusion, then the lowest passmark would be only 4400! That would be a GeForce GTX 570. But that leaves zero slack on the GPU and ignores all the stalls and problems that might cause. The numbers are all approximate and only a real world test can show what actually works.

The CPU has a lot more room for lower quality. A cpu half as fast as mine should be okay, though again only real world tests will show what actually works. Plus a lower power cpu means longer loading times, so again I wouldn't want to push the numbers to their limit.

Non-VR Minimum Specs:
DirectX10 (Windows 7+)
GTX 770/RX570s.

DirectX12 capable cards != GTX 770 specs. Plus you're not using DirectX 12.

I'm not using DX10 either. The point is, most people don't have really old cards running on XP and are at least DX11 capable.

I'd like to clear up another point too. I've had people tell me "You shouldn't make a PC first person shooter. You should make a mobile game because it has a bigger market."

I'm not interested in making a mobile game, or a sim that runs on an ancient laptop. I'm interested in making a hardcore shooter with cool graphics that can even run in VR. So if your argument is I should make a game that runs on the lowest end laptops with ancient integrated graphics cards, that's not my goal.

If making lots of money was my main goal, I wouldn't be an indie game programmer. That said, I'm certainly hoping to make a profit. It's certainly not that I don't care about money. I very much do. But I also care about working on something I'm actually interested in. Otherwise, I may as well stack shelves at the supermarket.

You say you mostly don't use Windows. Given windows is the main PC gaming platform for both first person shooters and VR, it sounds like you aren't aiming at the same gamers I am.

The min specs for PUBG are a GTX 960, the min for Doom is a GTX 670, which is quite close to a GTX 770 (passmark 5,372 versus 6,081, so within about 12%) and I said it could be a step below a GTX 770.

So, with the idea that I should aim for old laptops out of the way, let's look at what cards people are using.

These are the top 10 from the August 2018 Steam survey.

Code: Select all

Card                         Share     Passmark				
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060      13.76%     8,986
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti    8.74%     5,931
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050       4.85%     4,595
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960        4.32%     5,805
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070       4.15%    11,183
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti     3.62%     3,731
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970	      3.51%     8,593
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080       2.80%    12,308
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M       1.96%     2,221
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti    1.50%    14,057

If I just go by my original guess of a GTX 770 then that's a passmark score of 6,081. That's the following from the top 10.

Code: Select all

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060      13.76%     8,986
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070       4.15%    11,183
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970	      3.51%     8,593
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080       2.80%    12,308
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti    1.50%    14,057

Turns out that covers the same number of the top ten than if I'd just set it at a GTX 970 instead of the GTX 770. So I know this group can play the game fine since they all have cards as fast or faster than mine.

That's 25.72% of Steam users, and probably covers the gaming demographic I'm targeting pretty well: People who play first person shooters as opposed to prison simulators, cookie clicker games, MOBAs or whatever.

Also notice several cards only just miss the cut. Allow a little wiggle room of 10%, since it's only a ballpark estimate and I said maybe a generation lower, plus I demonstrated above that I'm being conservative with a GTX 770. That's a min of 5,472, just below a GeForce GTX 680. That means the following out of the top ten.

Code: Select all

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060      13.76%     8,986
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti    8.74%     5,931
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960        4.32%     5,805
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070       4.15%    11,183
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970	      3.51%     8,593
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080       2.80%    12,308
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti    1.50%    14,057

That's 38.78% of Steam users. Again, probably covers my demographic pretty well, while missing out on the dove dating simulator market.

(10% wiggle room is even unnecessary. 5% leeway will be a passmark of 5777, covering all the above cards, only marginally above a GTX 680 at 5678 and just below a GeForce GTX 960 at 5805.)

So on paper it looks like the lower spec of a GTX 770 is roughly correct, but maybe too conservative. A lower estimate might be a GeForce GTX 580 to still get 60fps 1080p at normal graphics settings. That's maybe pushing it too far, only a test can tell.

I guess it depends on what people expect to get if they're using the minimum spec. If they're happy to play at less than 1080p then a GTX 580 could probably handle 1600x900 fairly easily... maybe. I don't know. That's the point of a beta.

Maybe I'm setting too high a standard for min spec... given that low spec is basically the same as for standard spec (1080p 60fps standard settings). I guess I should allow for lower settings, like 900p and the lower texture quality option. Maybe even 30fps instead of 60fps. Those options dramatically lower requirements, especially 30 fps.

Lowering the spec to that level might increase the number of steam users covered up to 45%-50% so I guess that's worth doing, although of those extra people probably less and less are the kind of gamers I'm targeting.

Basically, if I just assume 900p instead of 1080p for min spec users, the game is accessible to half of Steam users. But the top third is probably my main demographic, and I already cover those.

Thanks for making me look at this more precisely. Makes me think I should keep in mind that low spec users should expect lower quality graphics, it doesn't make sense to for them to expect the same quality as recommended spec users. With that in mind, a GTX 770 becomes more like a recommended spec rather than a minimum spec, and it can probably easily go lower than that and still maintain 60fps 1080p standard settings, probably around a GTX 680 to a GTX 960.

[Zonder]

If I get time I can.

Got 2 systems that I could test on

Laptop XPS 9560
4k Display
Nvidia 1050
32Gb Ram
i7 Can't remember which

Desktop
Nvidia 770GTX
3D Monitor
AMD 8350
16Gb RAM

[mkultra333]

Excellent, thanks Zonder.

If you don't have the time, no biggie, I know what that's like. I'll let you know once I got the beta ready. Still doing some final fixes but hope it's within the next two weeks.

The GTX 1050 has a passmark score of 4595, so it'll be good to see if that works as a min spec or a recommended spec. The GTX 770 should theoretically handle recommended spec without breaking a sweat.

It's interesting that you have a 3D system. I have a secret 3DVision setting for the game too but I sort of lost interest in it after moving it to VR. Not sure if it still works, I haven't really maintained it in a while.

[Zonder]

Yeah the laptop wasn't bought for gaming but in theory it should run was just more a system to run it against you never know when you'll get a weird nigggle.

Yeah though i'd mention the 3D vision just incase you wanted any testing there. I never really got into it though tbh

[EricB]

The fact you consider 1080p@60fps to be a minimum is part of the problem. That's a recommended spec. You quote specs for PUBG and DOOM, but lets be a little more honest with ourselves.

Minimum should be the bare minimum to play. Does your game support 720? How about 1024x768? Whatever the lowest resolution you can set it to, and the HUD/GUI works, that's the minimum.

60fps is not a minimum. 24fps is. Only fickle players ~must~ have it at 60fps.

Personally I can hardly see the difference between the two frame rates myself.

Recommended and Minimum specs are given for a reason. Recommended specs are what players should have if they don't want issues. Minimum specs is the lowest settings you can play the game on. If you have a bunch of people playing under minimum specs, it just encourages more people to try the game with their Intel HD4000 GPUs with OEM drivers. Good luck with the negative reviews from those folks.

Anyway, you can target only the high end gamer, that's totally up to you. Its your game. But business wise, we're talking about doubling your userbase by figuring out what the actual minimum is.

I'd like to clear up another point too. I've had people tell me "You shouldn't make a PC first person shooter. You should make a mobile game because it has a bigger market."

I'm not telling you this. I am telling you to get realistic with your numbers so that you can increase your sales. If your game can run 30FPS on 720 monitor with an AMD HD7800, with little to no work from you... guess what? That's 5%? 10%? 20%? increase in revenues and profits. That's why a minimum number exists.

If making lots of money was my main goal, I wouldn't be an indie game programmer. That said, I'm certainly hoping to make a profit. It's certainly not that I don't care about money. I very much do.

Who said anything about making lots of money. In this day and age, you're going to be lucky if you make a quarter of minimum US wage. Specially if you don't run it as a proper software business.

You say you mostly don't use Windows. Given windows is the main PC gaming platform for both first person shooters and VR, it sounds like you aren't aiming at the same gamers I am.

I am not targeting the same user as you. But there is a lot of overlap. 60% of my players own CS:GO for example. My choice of operating system has absolutely nothing to do with the software I write. GearCity is built on Windows for Windows. If you think someone has to be a user of an Operating System to write commercial software for that system, I must say you're pretty naive. My choice of not using Windows boils down to it being a shitty operating system, full of bloat, insecure, and more recently hideously ugly, built in spyware, and most likely turning into subscription based ASAP.



Anyway, good luck! I wish you much success.

[insider]

GearCity is built on Windows for Windows.

You hate the very operating system that your "highly successful" game is intended for and which is the primary operating system for PC Gaming and Development worldwide ?

That's the equivalent of saying "I love Pizza but hate Cheese"

Windows

insecure, built in spyware

Well just buy a top end Gaming rig and don't install network drivers, how can anyone spy on you if you aren't connected to the net ? And if people really wanted to spy on you trust me they will find a way and perhaps already are

[Zonder]

He just needs to get it tested on various systems see what people think get some stats back.

Do you have a stats screen in game to pass back to you?

[al2950]

I can help testing with Rift if needed. I have had serious issues with the Rift+SteamVR+FSAA, i never got down to the exact course, as some machines had the issues, others did not. So I added native support for Oculus as well as steamVr.

[EricB]

GearCity is built on Windows for Windows.

You hate the very operating system that your "highly successful" game is intended for and which is the primary operating system for PC Gaming and Development worldwide ?

That's the equivalent of saying "I love Pizza but hate Cheese"

Windows

insecure, built in spyware

Well just buy a top end Gaming rig and don't install network drivers, how can anyone spy on you if you aren't connected to the net ? And if people really wanted to spy on you trust me they will find a way and perhaps already are

You can try to make fun of me all you want. But I am the one able to profitably do this for a living, using Ogre, whilst not degrading my quality of living for four years now.

Yes, I hate the very operating system my game is written for. I am not writing commercial software for "political speech" or "personal preference". I write commercial software for money. The money is in Windows. So I work in Windows. And I do everything else in FreeBSD or Linux due to personal preference. Simple concept, don't be an idiot about it.

To bring this back on topic:

It's the same reason I gave mkultra333 and ear-full about his minimum specs (particularly with GPU, but if the game works on XP, why not tell users that too). He is essentially writing off a significant amount of revenues due to personal preference (1080p@60FPS, with high graphical quality). Ultimately, it's his choice as a business. But as you (insider) know with your Unity based flop, its a difficult industry now. Every sale counts.

Hopefully, for his business' sake, he lowers his standards and finds someone with a GTX 650, 640, etc until he finds his true minimum. I would offer to help out on this, but I already know it won't work on my hardware. (To me, that's a bit more important than VR testing. But whatever, I'm done with this thread, only visited the forums for a quick search on a topic to which I found the answer. Cheers! And good luck!)

[mkultra333]

I can help testing with Rift if needed. I have had serious issues with the Rift+SteamVR+FSAA, i never got down to the exact course, as some machines had the issues, others did not. So I added native support for Oculus as well as steamVr.

Thanks a lot al2950, That'd be great, I'll let you know when the beta's ready. I'm working through Steam's OpenVR though, so I wonder if that'll still cause issues.

He just needs to get it tested on various systems see what people think get some stats back.

Do you have a stats screen in game to pass back to you?

I do have a stats graphic, I'll make sure to show how to activate it.

-------------------------------------------------
EricB

I am just pointing out GTX 770 is fairly high for the graphical quality of your game.

Forgot to say thanks for this subtle piece of encouragement.

You quote specs for PUBG and DOOM, but lets be a little more honest with ourselves.

Gosh, you mean my game made by a single indie developer with almost no resources, mostly part time while doing other jobs, doesn't look as good as a game made by a team of hundreds of highly paid artists and programmers at the top of their game? Here I was thinking I'd left them in the dust. Thanks for clearing up my delusions.

It couldn't be that, in our discussion about what specs are viable, I was just pointing out that two hugely popular shooters have min specs roughly equal to mine, and that therefore there's obviously plenty of steam users who meet those specs. Nah, instead I'm obviously living in a fantasy land where I think my little indie game is every bit as good as these massive corporate projects.

Lucky you set me straight.

60fps is not a minimum. 24fps is. Only fickle players ~must~ have it at 60fps.
Personally I can hardly see the difference between the two frame rates myself.

60 looks good, 30 looks no where near as smooth. But I already said I should probably consider 30fps for min specs. Obviously my post was TLDR since I covered all of this. I thought you'd at least skim the last few paragraphs where I said I should use lower resolutions and maybe lower frame rates for min spec.

You can try to make fun of me all you want. But I am the one able to profitably do this for a living, using Ogre, whilst not degrading my quality of living for four years now.

Bravo. I'm happy for you, that'd be cool and I've love to be in that position. Myself, I think there's every chance my game will be an utter failure, and I'll be off stocking supermarket shelves soon whether I want to or not.

Nah, not really, because my game's better than Doom.

[EricB]

Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in... I knew I shouldn't have left this tab open on my tablet.

I am just pointing out GTX 770 is fairly high for the graphical quality of your game.

Forgot to say thanks for this subtle piece of encouragement.

Don't get me wrong, I think the game looks great, and I look forward to buying a copy and playing it. My bitching in this thread is only trying to help you find economic success with it.

Gosh, you mean my game made by a single indie developer with almost no resources, mostly part time while doing other jobs, doesn't look as good as a game made by a team of hundreds of highly paid artists and programmers at the top of their game? Here I was thinking I'd left them in the dust. Thanks for clearing up my delusions.

It couldn't be that, in our discussion about what specs are viable, I was just pointing out that two hugely popular shooters have min specs roughly equal to mine, and that therefore there's obviously plenty of steam users who meet those specs. Nah, instead I'm obviously living in a fantasy land where I think my little indie game is every bit as good as these massive corporate projects.

Lucky you set me straight.

Hit a nerve did I? My point is:
1) Your game doesn't require the same specs, so don't tell people it does. Doing so costs you sales and can create bad perceptions of poor code quality when they compare it to games that do require those specs.
2) These games can afford to have extremely high specs. PUBG had millions in marketing dollars spent to launch it, DOOM had an invaluable amount of word of mouth and millions in marketing. 20% of players with these specs own Doom. So Bethesda doesn't really need to lower specs in order to reach profitability. (Not to mention games like these are system sellers. People will buy hardware specifically for this software.)

You have neither of these. Increasing your base is probably the easiest way to boost sales/income. You'll be lucky to convert 0.0001% in your first couple months of sales. 0.0001% of 16 Million is a lot less than 0.000075% of 30 Million.

Obviously my post was TLDR since I covered all of this. I thought you'd at least skim the last few paragraphs where I said I should use lower resolutions and maybe lower frame rates for min spec.

I did glance over this part after reading essentially data I already given you (GTX 770 being roughly at the 26% mark). But you ended your post with:

With that in mind, a GTX 770 becomes more like a recommended spec rather than a minimum spec, and it can probably easily go lower than that and still maintain 60fps 1080p standard settings, probably around a GTX 680 to a GTX 960.

I read this as you looking to make a GTX 680 running 1080@60FPS as minimum specs.

Sorry for the confusion.

You can try to make fun of me all you want. But I am the one able to profitably do this for a living, using Ogre, whilst not degrading my quality of living for four years now.

Bravo. I'm happy for you, that'd be cool and I've love to be in that position. Myself, I think there's every chance my game will be an utter failure, and I'll be off stocking supermarket shelves soon whether I want to or not.

This was more for Insider. We have a history in PM's. He likes to belittle the middle class income my game makes yearly because he can make more money with his job. Or something like that. Hence him putting highly successful in quotes. I'm probably a little too salty about it though. It could all be in humor now, dunno.

Anyhoo, the tab is now closed on my tablet, so I shouldn't be tempted to pop in here until the next time I need something from the forums. Good luck on your success! I hope it sells millions!

[mkultra333]

Hit a nerve did I?

Only when you said 24fps is as good as 60fps.

1) Your game doesn't require the same specs, so don't tell people it does. Doing so costs you sales and can create bad perceptions of poor code quality when they compare it to games that do require those specs.

I don't know exactly what the min specs are and have said so repeatedly, including updating my estimate for min spec.

But if it does need the same min specs as Doom or PUBG (neither of which have particularly advanced low specs) it'll be because at any given moment I'm rendering 100 plus animated enemies with screen space reflections, ambient occlusion, non shadowing deferred point lights, shadowing deferred spotlights, distorting gel that effects lighting that passes through it, motion blur, bloom, black comic outlines, blood stains, gore, translucent real time metaballs and other effects. Generally in 5 to 8 ms. Which is not too shabby.






(VR has different specs and FX, since frames generally need be rendered in about 5 ms tops.)

Plus, I'm a single programmer/artist, not a hundred million dollar company. I don't expect my game to be as brilliant looking or as optimized as Doom. Something to do with them having huge teams of genius specialist experts in modelling, coding, sound, textures, etc versus me being just some guy.

I mentioned Doom to show how widespread reasonably good systems are, not to say I'm in the same league.

2) These games can afford to have extremely high specs. PUBG had millions in marketing dollars spent to launch it, DOOM had an invaluable amount of word of mouth and millions in marketing. 20% of players with these specs own Doom. So Bethesda doesn't really need to lower specs in order to reach profitability. (Not to mention games like these are system sellers. People will buy hardware specifically for this software.)

But they can't sell it if people don't have the hardware. Turns out people have the hardware. If Doom's 3.6 million sales were also system sellers, that works out well for me, since people will have better systems. In my post you didn't read, I showed the numbers. More than a third of steam users will probably meet my recommended spec, and half or more will reach min spec. Subject to real world tests.

[mkultra333]

EricB, all that aside, I do genuinely appreciate your input. My initial estimates were extremely rough, and you were right in saying they were too high for a min spec. My min spec was more like a recommended spec, and I realized my mistake and updated my ballpark estimates accordingly.

I mean, you're right, on the one hand it's best to make it as accessible as possible. Though on the other, probably only a very small percentage of my target audience will be in the bottom half of steam's hardware survey. Probably.

What counts as acceptable "min spec" performance isn't defined that sharply. 900p? 720p? 30fps? I've certainly played games at 30fps, 720p, but I'm hesitant to go that low for min specs. I'll probably have a couple of "min spec" configs, one for 30fps and one for 60fps.

[Zonder]

TBH it's why games use DRS and in game resolution scaling (old school letterbox mode) these arn't things to ignore. But not worth looking at unless its a real issue.

You need to get these stats back

Can I suggest you also give a guide on how to get the worst peformance out maybe even fix the randomisation for the testing so everyone is using the same levels?

[mkultra333]

For the VR renderer I ended up adding resolution scaling because it was really difficult getting good performance. I ended up writing an entirely new, stripped down renderer just for VR. The standard renderer seems fast enough for normal pc play though.

Yeah, I'll have to add some kind of stats log. One more thing on the massive to-do pile.

[Zonder]

For the VR renderer I ended up adding resolution scaling because it was really difficult getting good performance. I ended up writing an entirely new, stripped down renderer just for VR. The standard renderer seems fast enough for normal pc play though.

Yeah, I'll have to add some kind of stats log. One more thing on the massive to-do pile.

Maybe initially just see if everyone can actually run it then think about stats after

[lonewolff]

60fps is not a minimum. 24fps is. Only fickle players ~must~ have it at 60fps.

Really? Not seeing a difference here?



60 FPS all the way.

[EricB]

Thanks for the PM mkultra333, but honestly there is really no reason to drag me back into the thread.

Hit a nerve did I?

Only when you said 24fps is as good as 60fps.

I never said that. Do not put words in my mouth and make outright lies about what I said.

I said,

60fps is not a minimum. 24fps is. Only fickle players ~must~ have it at 60fps.
Personally I can hardly see the difference between the two frame rates myself.

I did not say any fps was "better". I know 60fps is better. I am not a moron. However, the minimum frame rate for acceptable gameplay is 24fps. 30fps is preferable for a standard minimum. 60fps is for the /r/PCMasterRace.

A key word in that quote is "hardly". A definition of that word is: "used to emphasize a minimal amount". Yes, I can tell 60fps is Smoother. But 24fps is not unplayable unless you're a perfectionist or have an fps mental tick.

What counts as acceptable "min spec" performance isn't defined that sharply. 900p? 720p? 30fps? I've certainly played games at 30fps, 720p, but I'm hesitant to go that low for min specs. I'll probably have a couple of "min spec" configs, one for 30fps and one for 60fps.

Whatever the lowest resolution your GUI supports at 30fps. For instance PS3/PS4/Xbone minimum is 720 at 30fps. (There is a bit of post processing and other frame timings etc to make it look smoother than 30fps, but they're all running 30fps.) If your GUI isn't a factor, I'd aim for 720 as a minimum. That'll pretty much cover every monitor except in education.

60fps is not a minimum. 24fps is. Only fickle players ~must~ have it at 60fps.

Really? Not seeing a difference here?

Between 30 and 60, not much. 30 is a little more jankier (obviously twice as jerky), but in the grand scheme of things, its not that noticeable. Why not run at 120fps, it's even smoother than 60! Or 240, or 480fps!

60 FPS all the way.

I never said you shouldn't try to hit 60fps. Hell my game is capped at 60fps. I only argue that 60fps is too high for a minimum. Growing up, I used to play Quake3/HL1/CS/DoD/BF2 even Doom3 at 20fps. It was never a problem playing any of those games at those fps, even in multiplayer. I'd give you a more recent example, but I generally don't play fancy video games anymore. But the point is, if you are happy with setting 60fps as your minimum specs, that's fine. It's your right to do it. I just hope you don't mind losing 5-50% in revenues for nothing.

[lonewolff]

Between 30 and 60, not much. 30 is a little more jankier (obviously twice as jerky), but in the grand scheme of things, its not that noticeable. Why not run at 120fps, it's even smoother than 60! Or 240, or 480fps!

Well you would run at the higher FPS if your screen supported it, and your customers would love you for it.

The difference between 30 and 60 is very noticeable in certain circumstances (take a side-scroller for example).

Each to their own though