Your present computer can run SH5 like a pro.

Ships-R-Us · 02-17-10, 12:07 AM

Neal Stevens posted today a letter from a game developer than covered many areas. Michael also gave some great hints on how to help your computer perform the way it was designed to.

I post an excerpt from Michaels letter below in hopes it may help members here struggling with marginal performance from their machines.....

Enough about piracy. Let's talk about hardware vendors. Trying to make a game for PC is a freaking nightmare, and these guys make it harder all the time. Integrated video chips; integrated audio. These were two of our biggest headaches. Not only does this crap make people think - and wrongly - that they have a gaming-capable PC when they don't, the drive to get the cheapest components inevitably means you've got hardware out there with little or no driver support, marginal adherence to standards, and sometimes bizarre conflicts with other hardware.

And it just keeps getting worse. CD/DVD drives with bad firmware, video cards that look like they should be a step-up from a previous generation, but actually aren't, drivers that need to be constantly updated, separate rendering paths for optimizing on different chips, oh my god.

Put together consumers who want the cheapest equipment possible with the best performance, manufacturers who don't give a **** what happens to their equipment once they ship it, and assemblers who need to work their margins everywhere possible, and you get a lot of ****ty hardware out there, in innumerable configurations that you can't possibly test against. But, it's always the game's fault when something doesn't work.

Even if you get over the hump on hardware compatibility - and god knows, the hardware vendors are constantly making it worse - if you can, you still need to deal with software conflicts.

There are a lot of apps running on people's machines that they're not even aware of, or have become such a part of the computer they don't even think of them as being apps anymore. IM that's always on; peer-to-peer clients running in the background; not to mention the various adware and malware crap that people pick up doing things they really shouldn't. Trying to run a CPU and memory heavy app in that environment is a nightmare. But again, it's always the games fault when it doesn't work.

Which brings me to the audience. There's a lot of stupid people out there. Now, don't get me wrong, there's a lot of very savvy people out there, too, and there were some great folks in the TQ community who helped us out a lot.

But, there's a lot of stupid people. Basic, basic stuff, like updating your drivers, or de-fragging your hard drive, or having antivirus so your machine isn't a teetering pile of rogue programs. PC folks want to have the freedom to do whatever the hell they want with their machines, and god help them they will do it; more power to them, really.

But god forbid something that they've done - or failed to do - creates a problem with your game. There are few better examples of the "it can't possibly be my fault" culture in the west than gaming forums.

Arclight · 02-17-10, 10:32 AM

Thread title is misleading, but I can't help but agree with the message.

SteamWake · 02-17-10, 04:47 PM

and people wonder why consoles are winning out.

Some really insightfull comments there.

FIREWALL · 02-17-10, 05:02 PM

The title got my attention. The content gave me info.

Thx Ships-R-Us

Ships-R-Us · 02-19-10, 08:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FIREWALL

The title got my attention. The content gave me info.

Thx Ships-R-Us

I appreciate the thanks FIREWALL. Today was my last chemo treatment, it has me down a small tad but your thanks makes today worth it. Thank you very much sir..

Highbury · 02-19-10, 09:04 PM

I didn't know you were undergoing chemo Ships. Sorry to hear that. I watched my Dad go though it, so as much as someone can from the outside, I know it is rough.

On the main topic, thanks for the post. Most games on the market should have that as a sticky in Tech Support lol.

02-17-10, 12:07 AM	#1
Ships-R-Us Commander Join Date: Nov 2009 Posts: 452 Downloads: 134 Uploads: 0	Your present computer can run SH5 like a pro. Neal Stevens posted today a letter from a game developer than covered many areas. Michael also gave some great hints on how to help your computer perform the way it was designed to. I post an excerpt from Michaels letter below in hopes it may help members here struggling with marginal performance from their machines..... Enough about piracy. Let's talk about hardware vendors. Trying to make a game for PC is a freaking nightmare, and these guys make it harder all the time. Integrated video chips; integrated audio. These were two of our biggest headaches. Not only does this crap make people think - and wrongly - that they have a gaming-capable PC when they don't, the drive to get the cheapest components inevitably means you've got hardware out there with little or no driver support, marginal adherence to standards, and sometimes bizarre conflicts with other hardware. And it just keeps getting worse. CD/DVD drives with bad firmware, video cards that look like they should be a step-up from a previous generation, but actually aren't, drivers that need to be constantly updated, separate rendering paths for optimizing on different chips, oh my god. Put together consumers who want the cheapest equipment possible with the best performance, manufacturers who don't give a ** what happens to their equipment once they ship it, and assemblers who need to work their margins everywhere possible, and you get a lot of *ty hardware out there, in innumerable configurations that you can't possibly test against. But, it's always the game's fault when something doesn't work. Even if you get over the hump on hardware compatibility - and god knows, the hardware vendors are constantly making it worse - if you can, you still need to deal with software conflicts. There are a lot of apps running on people's machines that they're not even aware of, or have become such a part of the computer they don't even think of them as being apps anymore. IM that's always on; peer-to-peer clients running in the background; not to mention the various adware and malware crap that people pick up doing things they really shouldn't. Trying to run a CPU and memory heavy app in that environment is a nightmare. But again, it's always the games fault when it doesn't work. Which brings me to the audience. There's a lot of stupid people out there. Now, don't get me wrong, there's a lot of very savvy people out there, too, and there were some great folks in the TQ community who helped us out a lot. But, there's a lot of stupid people. Basic, basic stuff, like updating your drivers, or de-fragging your hard drive, or having antivirus so your machine isn't a teetering pile of rogue programs. PC folks want to have the freedom to do whatever the hell they want with their machines, and god help them they will do it; more power to them, really. But god forbid something that they've done - or failed to do - creates a problem with your game. There are few better examples of the "it can't possibly be my fault" culture in the west than gaming forums. Last edited by Ships-R-Us; 02-17-10 at 01:06 AM.*

02-17-10, 10:32 AM	#2
Arclight Navy Seal Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Land of windmills, tulips, wooden shoes and cheese. Lots of cheese. Posts: 8,467 Downloads: 53 Uploads: 10	Thread title is misleading, but I can't help but agree with the message. __________________ Contritium praecedit superbia.

02-17-10, 04:47 PM	#3
SteamWake Rear Admiral Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 13,224 Downloads: 5 Uploads: 0	and people wonder why consoles are winning out. Some really insightfull comments there. __________________ Follow the progress of Mr. Mulligan : http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=147648

02-17-10, 05:02 PM	#4
FIREWALL Eternal Patrol Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: CATALINA IS. SO . CAL USA Posts: 10,108 Downloads: 511 Uploads: 0	The title got my attention. The content gave me info. Thx Ships-R-Us __________________ RIP FIREWALL I Play GWX. Silent Hunter Who ???

02-19-10, 09:04 PM	#6
Highbury The Old Man Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: 51.557, -0.102 Posts: 1,311 Downloads: 177 Uploads: 0	I didn't know you were undergoing chemo Ships. Sorry to hear that. I watched my Dad go though it, so as much as someone can from the outside, I know it is rough. On the main topic, thanks for the post. Most games on the market should have that as a sticky in Tech Support lol.