New Tim Sweeny interview, mostly about tech-specs

[OblivionLord]

Releases?
Can you say DEMO?

Im tired of upgrading. Im tired of new games comming out that the mainstream cant hope to play. Ive got a thousand other choices.

If it doesnt run good with a Intel P.D 2.8, GF6800 PCIE, and 2gigs of ram, then Ill not be getting it any time soon. The funny thing is neither will the majority of online FPS players, who have specs lower than mine according to quite a few serveys hosted by top gaming companies.

I dont give a rats butt about Vista, DX10, or 2006 hardware. If thats the target, and the target is mainstream, Epic missed the shot and killed the family cat.

It is clear that you are not a Pc Gamer by any means. 2 reasons... #1 the Pc Gaming market is not pointed towards those with old hardware expecially yours and mine. #2 that is a fact since the games aren't designed to run on hardware that is exact by everyone who owns a PC therefore within the game there are grafic options to best accomidate what it can for the system. This is a main reason why consoles exceed Pc Games for the gaming market as a whole simply because the games are coded on Hardware that doesn't change for 5 years till the machine is replaced by it's successor. Any port from PC to Console is obviously gutted to run on the old hardware of the console such as a few titles on Xbox and it will be the same for the 360. Still the fact is that the hardware isnt changing for the next 5 years and will be the same for every xbox360, PS3, Wii. You just simply can't do this for the PC Market.

Another thing... Your graphics processor is now going on 3 years of age. Exactly why should any developer of a PC game really concentrate on someone with such an old card that compares with a budget card of today such as the 7600GS? What are they to gain? Please don't tell me that what you have is what the majority of PC Gamers have in simular fashion in terms of hardware just on the video card alone since the rest of your system is decent enough. That is complete nonsense. The PC gaming market doesn't point itself towards the budget savvy by any means since its bad enough that people need to upgrade sooner than consoles being replaced. That is just how it is and has been for many years. You just can not code a game to run efficiently on old hardware and expect it to shine on the latest and run a company producing games competitively all at the same time. There is just way too much code to be written.

I can show you benchmarks on just how bad a 7600gs/6800Ultra are in HL2, BF2, Doom3, Prey, Quake4.. etc etc etc.... HL2 and Doom3 play decent at high settings on the 6800Ultra however the min FPS are bad in certain areas and Doom3 also kills it on Ultra settings. This is not even getting into modern titles like Supreme Commander or Rainbow 6: Vegas which both extremely kill the 7600/6800 out of the water.

[drakeslayer]

it's a good thing to know that my new computer 'll be able to run UT2007(3)

[DX-GAME]

It is clear that you are not a Pc Gamer by any means. 2 reasons... #1 the Pc Gaming market is not pointed towards those with old hardware expecially yours and mine. #2 that is a fact since the games aren't designed to run on hardware that is exact by everyone who owns a PC therefore within the game there are grafic options to best accomidate what it can for the system.

Cmon man.
What qalifications do you require for being a PC gamer?
Ive had this discussion before. What, Im not a PC gamer because I dont go out and buy the latest everything and MS's new O/S? Let me tell you, most PC Gamers dont. I only have a PS2 which my daughter and Wife use. I use it for madden, and dont plan on getting a a newer one till the price drops to the usual $150 or so.

#1. The PC gaming developers do, and currently are, developing games for the mainstream PCs. Games which are either at, a little above, or below my rig, as well as offer continued support for them.


2# Its a fact that there are new games coming out that will only support High end systems to run any where near fluid. Games that require DX10 only will not only leave people who dont have Vista behind, but those that dont have a DX10 compatible card. Another fact is that most PC gamers do not have Vista, much less a DX10 compatible card. Is this the deveopers problem? No, but its going to hurt their sales and alienate their customers.

I posted this before, and its a good place to post again.

http://www.steampowered.com/status/survey.html

While it doesnt show the numbers for all developers players, It does show what the people that are playing the most popular and successfull deveopers games are using. Judging by those numbers, if UT3 was released by Steam, how many players would it have? Or another way, how many Steam players is UT3 going to get?

Judging from that survey, do you think Steam should publish alot of games that require high end systems any time soon?

World Of Warcraft:
Windows® System 2000/XP OS:
Intel Pentium® IV 1.5 GHz or AMD XP 1500+ MHz
1024 MB RAM
64 MB 3D graphics card with Hardware Transform and Lighting, such as NVIDIA® GeForce™ FX 5700 class card or above

Oops. Thats not successfull or populated game..

BTW, Im currently playing D3 on Ultra with surround and EAX. I dont know what my frames are, but it is seamless, even when adding 10 or so sentry bots. Vegas, after a lil engine tweaks, I get 28-40FPS. Yup, not alot at all, but its fluid. Oblivion runs pretty good, fluid at lower settings. Dark Messiah, is also fluid at low settings. But, the last three mentioned are also have the highest system requirements of any game at their release, around December of last year. All of them arent doing so well in sales.

[roadrash]

The pillow biting over steep system requirements and DX10 is fairly funny.

Having dx10 features does not detract from the game in dx9. Obviously dx10 will have some items that can’t be done in dx9, but this doesn’t mean you’re getting any less of a game, you’re getting the exact same thing regardless. Unless it’s just envy that some people will have a system that allows them to run the game with slightly better settings, or slightly faster. And if that’s the case then why bother with PC gaming? Somebody will always have a better system. I have dx10 hardware and no intention on running the game in dx10, but I’m not going to cry sour grapes for those who intend to. If Vista is no longer a disaster.

I also don’t think the steam system requirements are a good source for what the baseline PC community has. People upgrade to play specific games. If you want to play CSS or other steam games a system built around the components when HL2 came out will do just fine. So there is little point in upgrading. However there are lots of gamers who have upgraded to play FEAR, Sup Com, R6 Vegas, or who will be upgrading for Crysis, Bioshock, and other modern titles that are coming out this year. On the other hand if your game of choice is Starcraft your system specs are going to be pretty low.

Interestingly enough he doesn’t list any card model numbers, just the “since 2006” comment. 2006 covers the main stream radeon x1k, and nvidia 7 series models. Those cards aren’t that much better then the upper end 6800 cards. They also go out of their way to mention that it’s even better on high end models. That doesn’t sound that steep really, though of course you shouldn’t expect to run it full blown.

[TheDeviot]

Don't forget folks, Nvidia has a DX10 line out for under $100. You're not going to play UT3 at more than 1024x768 with it probably, but it's still going to best my aging 6600 card at a price most people could afford.

Honestly I wish the component makers (Especially Intel, Nvidia, and AMD/ATI) would put out some more educational events about their product lines for the average joe. Not every rep at Staples, Best Buy, Circuit City, Sears, or Radio Shack is a wealth of information, and knowledge. If they were, (or if the component makers would set up localized events that didn't only involve the retail employees, and Certified Techs who have to sell this stuff)The average consumer would realize that the majority of them need something upgradable unless they only ever plan to check mail, and type spreadsheets (Sure most will tell you that's all they do, but then they're the first to go to a repair business, or the store, and complain that Flight Sim X doesn't run).
Moreover those who don't want to spend $2000 on a machine so their bratty kids can play games, would realize they could get one for $800 that would do it adequately. They have dual core Athlon systems out there for $700. Slap in a 8500 series, have the OS speed tweaked, and you're in business. Granted I can explain this stuff, at the service center, but it'd be nice if commercials pointed that out instead of showing morons dance behind a processor.

[xappie]

The pillow biting over steep system requirements and DX10 is fairly funny.

Unless it’s just envy that some people will have a system that allows them to run the game with slightly better settings, or slightly faster. And if that’s the case then why bother with PC gaming?

BINGO! You win a cookie.

[durtytarget]

What Kind of Physics could be there in UT3 that would actually stress the CPU. In UT2k there was almost no physics apart from the very basic rag doll physics and very very minute amounts of collision physics i.e in onslaught. I can not think of any other physics detail. And if you are gonna say terrain deformation do explain it to.

[BobtheCkroach]

World Of Warcraft:
Windows® System 2000/XP OS:
Intel Pentium® IV 1.5 GHz or AMD XP 1500+ MHz
1024 MB RAM
64 MB 3D graphics card with Hardware Transform and Lighting, such as NVIDIA® GeForce™ FX 5700 class card or above

Oops. Thats not successfull or populated game..

...your point? WoW is 2.5 years old now. I mean, heck, StarCraft has some crazy incredible popularity still, and that only requires like a 133mhz processor! ZOMG! Doesn't mean that it wasn't demanding at the time, though, for many.

BTW, Im currently playing D3 on Ultra with surround and EAX. I dont know what my frames are, but it is seamless, even when adding 10 or so sentry bots. Vegas, after a lil engine tweaks, I get 28-40FPS. Yup, not alot at all, but its fluid. Oblivion runs pretty good, fluid at lower settings. Dark Messiah, is also fluid at low settings. But, the last three mentioned are also have the highest system requirements of any game at their release, around December of last year. All of them arent doing so well in sales.

First, Doom 3 has been out for almost 3 full years. To brag that your rig can really handle it now isn't *that* amazing. 3 years ago when the game was new, did you have a rig that good? If you did, you certainly had just purchased it, probably in anticipation of either D3 or HL2.

At the time, most folks didn't have rig capable of running D3 or HL2 at any kind of amazing level.

Secondly, not sure where your dates come from. I don't know about Vegas, but Oblivion is over a year old now. Messiah isn't that old, but it's older than last December. Of course their sales have calmed down.

The fact of the matter is, games push hardware sales. There's a reason that NVidia puts it's $$ into games like UT3...when they come out, users turn around and drop $$ into a new video card, a new CPU, more ram..etc,etc,etc. Doom 3 had requirements that were on another planet when it came out. Oblivion was incredibly demanding when it came out...it goes on and on and on. The people that had PCs for playing Doom all upgraded when Quake came out and needed that crazy dedicated graphics memory!

Some people will wait for prices to drop before they play a game - that's totally fine. Others will upgrade in anticipation of the game b/c it's just that important to them - that's fine too. Making a game that's more forward thinking and leaves a few games in the dust is the right move from a business standpoint. Just because it's not true for you, doesn't mean it's not true.

[os][ris]

What Kind of Physics could be there in UT3 that would actually stress the CPU. In UT2k there was almost no physics apart from the very basic rag doll physics and very very minute amounts of collision physics i.e in onslaught. I can not think of any other physics detail. And if you are gonna say terrain deformation do explain it to.

I believe every (or most) movable object in the game will have physics applied if i'm not mistaken. That means your flak shards will bounce off the wall in the exact angle it should lol..

[Benfica]

I'm so tired of this BS. Maybe I'm getting old and grumpy

Another thing... Your graphics processor is now going on 3 years of age. Exactly why should any developer of a PC game really concentrate on someone with such an old card that compares with a budget card of today such as the 7600GS?

d00d, because the 6800 has the same programming capabilities of 2x 7950GX2 SLI. Any shader code that runs on one, runs on the other.
AND some code or features are optional, examples:
- Shadows, soft shadows
- Blur
- HDR
- Post processing
- Texture size
- AF

Disabling all the above, you don't have *incorrect* or distorted rendering in the sense that ruins gameplay. Also you can play at any res you like, from 640x480 up to 2048x1536

[edit]Ah, and when a game is demanding (a.k.a slow as f&/""), there will be a lot of friends that go play something else. This is what some guys don't understand.

To M$ bashers, the ones that do that without a solid reason, just because... : www.gatesfoundation.org

To the ones that put everything on max, want holy $hit settings and then say that the game is demanding, you wouldn't have fun with:
- A ZX spectrum in 1983
- A Commodore Amiga in 1986
- A Celeron 300A PC on 1993
- A PS1
You wouldn't even consider buying a fun as hell Nintendo Wii because it's sooo last generation.

[Blade[UG]]

Athlon XP 2000+ with a GF6200 here. I didn't even think 2004 would run, although it does, to a degree. I've got people that want me to help them dev things for UT3 already, but since I'm basically poor, I don't have money to buy new hardware, and that leaves me screwed. :|

[Benfica]

since I'm basically poor, I don't have money to buy new hardware, and that leaves me screwed. :|

Man, so are most of the gamers. That's what a lot of people don't have a clue about. That may mean say, 60% of US, 70% European, 80% of Latin America and Asia gamers.

And then there are guys with laptops only (I'm not talking about the pathetic Intel video here), the 6 million Nintendo Wii owners, Dells and other PCs with lower end GFX cards, the new Macs, etc...

[Blade[UG]]

Well, you can't blame them for using the power that's available in newer generations. It doesn't make sense to knock out a bunch of **** so that those of us with 5+ year old processors can still play it. Whenever I upgrade, I get the best thing that I can afford at the time, and I hope that it lasts me. So far, this has lasted me until approximately... now, when I can just barely run anything new. Not a terrible run. In fact, probably the longest run I've ever had for hardware.

Still, I can complain

[Haten]

NVIDIA Geforce 6100 DX9

How bad will the DX9 look compared to the D10 with a better Nvidia Card

[Benfica]

Sure, but then don't even consider your 6200. A 7600GT ran R6V at 640x480 low, 30fps when it was released