As a first-time developer (despite having dabbled in Unity for 4 years), I thought I should get some advice from some more seasoned/experienced developers on this matter.
That are the methods for benchmarking the minimum and recommended specs for game, short of buying 10 different towers at different spec and seeing how it runs?
Are there any programs out there that will help me simulate running specs or speeds to better understand how well my game will run on those specs?
This is something I am really stuck with, I have looked on and off the internet for a clear answer on this, and although I am nowhere near releasing, I feel it is something good to know for when I am ready so I can be prepared for this when I do come to need it. Additionally, I think it is good to know the technological limitations of each specification so I can see how far I can push them to get the most out of them graphically.
Is there any way inside of Unity (a script for example) to limit or set the CPU frequency/usage, RAM allowance, and video RAM usage for that application?
Just a tip for when you do end up setting them, people will always try and play your game with PCs below recommended specs, and some people will try and run it on their 10 year old laptops, and potentially complain when it doesnât work as intended.
So, your best bet is to set your min specs higher than what you actually know them to be anyway, and Iâve found itâs also a good idea to put a notice like âMinimum spec assumes that the game is running at 720p/low settingsâ as well.
Not really, we had tech that was supposed to be able to do that type of stuff at big famous international bank so budget was huge and it doesnât really work.
Or if youâre developing for the consoles you could take the same approach as Bethesda. They determined the PC hardware that would be equivalent to the PlayStation 4 and gave that as their specifications. At least thatâs how it looks considering itâs way off from what you actually need.
Beta testers. They can find bugs while verifying that your game runs on their systems.
Well Iâm not a fan of âMinimum Specsâ because really you know that ainât what they are testing and developing on donât you? Itâs like, really youâre saying to your poorer, potential customers, âya, weâll take your money too.â
Minimum specifications, at least for me, is what the game will run on with the lowest settings.
Personally I view it as âYes, you bought a potato, whether because thatâs the best you could afford or you are just clueless about computer hardware, but we made certain that as long as you meet these requirements you too can play our gameâ.
Both minimum and recommended hardware estimates are designed to assist your customer in making an informed decision when purchasing your game. Giving accurate answers is important as otherwise those estimates have no meaning.
Except they havenât made sure that game will run on those minimum specs in most cases so you have a case of the irresponsible taking advantage of the irresponsible and blaming on the consumer rather than the manufacturer - 100% unacceptable.
The only sure way you can know whether something will run on certain hardware is to test on it. Now, you donât necessarily have you buy it - you can ask your friends to test it, get beta testers, etc.
I donât even know if I would put in minimum specs. You can pretty safely say how much ram you need, but otherwise just mention OpenGL/DirectX version or shader module, and maybe a dual or quad core. With crappy hardware, I wouldnât be surprised that most bottlenecks arenât even the CPU or GPU, but the motherboard and hard drive, and who ever mentions the specs for those.
@RockoDyne : I wonder if weâll ever get to the point where a game requires a solid state drive. Considering HDDs have largely stagnated in speed but SSDs continue increasing it wouldnât surprise me if games eventually started at least recommending them.
My minimum would be the hardware that can still play the game at low settings. My recommended would be the hardware necessary to achieve or come close to the results in the media used to promote the game while staying playable.
The entire purpose of minimum and recommended specifications is to allow the user to make a good purchasing decision.
You could always throw some analytics in. Report on the hardware and software used by your users, as well as some performance critical factor (like frame rate) and crash reporting. Then launch the game with your development machine as recommended specs. A few months later do some data crunching on the stats you got from your users. Use that to provide a minimum spec.
Or you could just not bother figuring out a minimum spec. That works too.
For GPU testing, you can buy old used cards on ebay for cheap. Then just sell them again after testing and get your money back. For CPUs, you can try disabling cores or underclocking, though Iâm not sure how reliable this would be. RAM is easy to just remove a stick or two and test.