I creating a game for PC, and just wondering which cards should I at least get my game working smoothly on?
I have a Radeon 5870 at home, so obviously my Unity game will be on max detail with a high framerate.
But if I had to run my game on some lower spec machines, which graphics cards should I at least make sure my game has a decent framerate on?
Obviously some gfx cards are not made for gaming, and I’m not really going to worry about those, but if you guys could give me a rough range I should be aiming for that would be great.
What are the graphics like on the game? If they are pretty high in detail, then you can’t really expect them to run on lower-end hardware… It’s just kind of trial and error where the starting point depends on the graphics.
The traditional method consists of buying a bunch of different speced hardware and testing it on all of it to get a general idea, and then releasing the beta (either publicly or privately) to fine tune the data… This can be expensive though, and thanks to communities like this one, you can do it the way charlie mentioned and most likely get similar data for less money.
Jonbazza, with all the detail/image effects on, on a 8400GS the game was running at 3-5 fps.
I will admit I haven’t optimised my geometry batching and combining yet. So yes, it is graphically intensive, on max its going to take a decent gfx card to run smooth.
I was thinking of getting a laptop, an entry level thing with an entry level gfx card, and running builds on that, and testing the different settings. If I can get fast quality running smoothly on that I should be good to go.
@Charlie, that sounds like a good idea, get some beta testers to request a beta, filling in a form and giving them a beta of the game. Then show an FPS counter in the top right and ask them to report back on the various settings/resolutions what performance they are getting.
sm2 capable cards (which are now like 7-5 years old) is a good measurement (like the Gforce 6 series or Ati/Amd equivelant).
But sm2 will do nicely, in graphical terms, if you build you scenes for it (thus not using SM3 stuff). Otherwise it will not show on older cards (and thus those users might feel left alone, compared to the current gen users by looking at the promotional screenshots/movies)
Eric, my initial target is PC desktop. Ironically I was looking at a laptop today with a GMA chip, how do those fare graphic wise?
I would assume if your game can run smoothly on that at low settings, that is a good benchmark?
Most casual users don’t have SM3 cards (e.g. laptop users which is a huge percentage of the userbase mind you!).
Think of students, regular households etc, aka the non tech savvy users.
Most families (as being researched), upgrade their tech once every 5 or so years. While tech savvy users upgrade every 2 or so years.
From personal experience (by working in the IT), i have seen alot of computers at peoples homes. Most of them where OLD in tech terms.
(so called previous generation machines)
Still many AAA titles are SM2 compatible, guess why… otherwise their target audience will be small = less sales.
You are right that many AAA titles do allow for SM2 cards, however I don’t see why… Almost all of those same titles also won’t run on those same cards anyway because the game are too graphiucally intensive… Hell, hardly any AAA games released anymore run on my 3 year old XPS, not because of the SM version, but because my video memory is inadequate, and I bought the best card I could upgrade to at the time of purchase.
Can anyone suggest a cheapo laptop I should buy to do this minimal testing?
I would also be using the laptop to test my game’s multiplayer performance.
