Best way to detect Sytem Requirements

[BDev]

I have been working on an FPS recently and it's at least 70% done, but i wonder how am i supposed to make the System Requirements. Anyone has any idea? I don't want to be lazy and do as some other devs that for some reason throw some random hardware specifications as "Minimum" or "recommended" and the stuff can't even handle the game... I also didn't find a single software to do it for me or something. The only thing i can be 100% sure of how much does the game need is the RAM bcs of engine limitations. 

[Crunchy Dragon]

Try running it on lower specs until it becomes unplayable, and then go up again to see at which point it can be played fairly easily.

 

 

[emosun]

for cpu : run it on less and less cores till you find the minimum

for gpu: down clock the gpu till you find the minimum

then base your recommended spec on whatever cpu and gpu would match those specifications.

[Crunchy Dragon]

Just now, emosun said:

for cpu : run it on less and less cores till you find the minimum

for gpu: down clock the gpu till you find the minimum

then base your recommended spec on whatever cpu and gpu would match those specifications.

I was getting at this, just not in nearly as many words lol

 

It would probably work to try running with lower end GPUs as well so see which ones work(I'm curious if a 780 could handle it really)

[m0k]

i think it would be a lot more ideal and reasonable to just list "recommended specs" instead of minimum

for recommended specs you can just list your system - what you developed the game on as its literally the most familiar and relevant to your application

[m0k]

the alternative would be to complete the gave development and then start benchmarking on different systems / different system configs.

 

you said you dont want to be lazy so it might be the most demanding work but also the most accurate

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

find a good old gaming machine on the used market. maybe with a first gen i5 - 7, and a gtx 460 - 480, that level of hardware, and see how well it runs. a system like that is pretty much the level of performance that most people today have in their pc's. 

[Guest]

Few ways, 

1. Calculate EVERYTHING by hand. 

2. Get like every computer in the world

3. Guess

4. Check your system usage and stuff. 

5. Combination. 

[LogicalDrm]

Isn't there option in VM to emulate hardware less than what your host has? Or something like that. Like restrict cores, clock speeds, available ram etc.

[Guest]

3 hours ago, LoGiCalDrm said:

Isn't there option in VM to emulate hardware less than what your host has? Or something like that. Like restrict cores, clock speeds, available ram etc.

I know you can choose how many cores and ram to use for that VM, and then in addition you can use GPU passthrough so that the Vm is the only one using a GPU on your system.  

[Mira Yurizaki]

The basic problem I'm seeing is that there was no baseline hardware you wanted the game to run on since the beginning. I think it's bad design to develop an application based on what your development hardware is and hope for the best upon release.

 

That said, you need to set a baseline hardware specifications and software configuration, then tailor your application to run to an acceptable level of performance around that. You don't build your application and then figure out what it can run on, you figure out what you want it to run on, then build your application around that. But given how late you are in the development process, your best bet is to just run at the lowest possible hardware specification you think works, then go midway between that and your development machine and keep jumping between mid points until you find a hardware spec and software configuration that is acceptable.

 

3 hours ago, fpo said:

I know you can choose how many cores and ram to use for that VM, and then in addition you can use GPU passthrough so that the Vm is the only one using a GPU on your system.  

GPU passthrough support isn't on Windows except for the server/enterprise editions, of all things.

[Guest]

@M.Yurizaki is a real programmer, so I agree completely with what was said. 

 

Since this is likely the first game you ever made, you should be fine with saying dual core processor, however much memory, 3D graphics card, and how large the game is on disk being fine. If it's your first game It's likely that 1, no one will play it (sorry!) and 2, if people do, they'll be able to run the game. 3. If they can't, it's probably because the computer lags in Microsoft word too.