- Jun 23, 2001
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So, back in November of 2013, the new consoles dropped. Won't rehash the full details, we all know what that hardware is. When the XB1 and PS4 dropped, even PC gamers started to get excited as games and engines would no longer be chained to the 9 year old hardware in the 360 and PS3.
Finally, we thought, we would see a massive increase in visuals and capabilities as games became truly multithreaded and 64 bit, taking full advantage of modern high end graphics cards, gobs of system RAM and VRAM.
Now, multiple games have announced their system requirements. Most notably, Watch Dogs, Wolfenstein, and Galactic Civilizations 3. And people are bitching that the games require 6GBs of system RAM, i7s, and 64 bit operating systems.
I know the majority of PC gamers know full well that their hardware won't play the latest titles forever, and sooner or later they'll be forced to either upgrade or drop the detail settings. But it seems like a fairly vocal, what I hope is a minority, honestly thought they'd be able to game on their 32 bit Windows XP, Core 2 Duo machine indefinitely.
Now, lets be fair, and assume that there's going to be sloppy ports and poorly optimized games that make poor use of RAM, GPU power, and CPU threading. Those will never go away. But we are going to see games that do make full use of modern Core iX CPUs, 8GBs of system RAM, 3+ GBs of VRAM, etc.
In the GalCiv3 thread in this forum, there's people bitching that the game requires a 64 bit OS and a DX10 compatible card. These aren't high system requirements at all, and I hate to break it to you, but there's probably not going to be a 32 bit version of Windows 9 at all. Almost every video card made since 2007 had been DirectX 10 ready. Today, every single integrated solution is DX11 ready. Referencing the Steam Hardware Survey, a full 52.5% of every Windows user on Steam has Windows 7 64 bit. Add in 14.6% for W8.1 64, 2.4% for Vista 64, and 9.3% for W8 64. That's 78.8% of users with a 64 bit OS. And I didn't even add the .3% of people using XP 64 into that tally.
Any PC gamer whose even slightly serious about their games already goes above and beyond these requirements.
We're finally starting to leave the old 360 & PS3 generation in the retirement home, where it should have been left back in 2010. I will say wholeheartedly, I can't wait to see developers fully utilize my quad core Haswell and 290X. There are recent and modern released games that only load 1 or 2 cores, and don't even break the 32bit RAM barrier. Thats not acceptable in 2014.
We're going to see a rapid jump in system requirements over the next year before they level off again, once every ounce has been scraped from the PS4.
If you're one that minority who's still clinging to that XP32 and Core 2, you need either shut your pie hole or purchase a new set up.
Finally, we thought, we would see a massive increase in visuals and capabilities as games became truly multithreaded and 64 bit, taking full advantage of modern high end graphics cards, gobs of system RAM and VRAM.
Now, multiple games have announced their system requirements. Most notably, Watch Dogs, Wolfenstein, and Galactic Civilizations 3. And people are bitching that the games require 6GBs of system RAM, i7s, and 64 bit operating systems.
I know the majority of PC gamers know full well that their hardware won't play the latest titles forever, and sooner or later they'll be forced to either upgrade or drop the detail settings. But it seems like a fairly vocal, what I hope is a minority, honestly thought they'd be able to game on their 32 bit Windows XP, Core 2 Duo machine indefinitely.
Now, lets be fair, and assume that there's going to be sloppy ports and poorly optimized games that make poor use of RAM, GPU power, and CPU threading. Those will never go away. But we are going to see games that do make full use of modern Core iX CPUs, 8GBs of system RAM, 3+ GBs of VRAM, etc.
In the GalCiv3 thread in this forum, there's people bitching that the game requires a 64 bit OS and a DX10 compatible card. These aren't high system requirements at all, and I hate to break it to you, but there's probably not going to be a 32 bit version of Windows 9 at all. Almost every video card made since 2007 had been DirectX 10 ready. Today, every single integrated solution is DX11 ready. Referencing the Steam Hardware Survey, a full 52.5% of every Windows user on Steam has Windows 7 64 bit. Add in 14.6% for W8.1 64, 2.4% for Vista 64, and 9.3% for W8 64. That's 78.8% of users with a 64 bit OS. And I didn't even add the .3% of people using XP 64 into that tally.
Any PC gamer whose even slightly serious about their games already goes above and beyond these requirements.
We're finally starting to leave the old 360 & PS3 generation in the retirement home, where it should have been left back in 2010. I will say wholeheartedly, I can't wait to see developers fully utilize my quad core Haswell and 290X. There are recent and modern released games that only load 1 or 2 cores, and don't even break the 32bit RAM barrier. Thats not acceptable in 2014.
We're going to see a rapid jump in system requirements over the next year before they level off again, once every ounce has been scraped from the PS4.
If you're one that minority who's still clinging to that XP32 and Core 2, you need either shut your pie hole or purchase a new set up.
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