Mirror's Edge Catalyst won't run on Pentiums

[Yuriman]

I'm largely in agreement with Larry here, but I can see where others are coming from. I think it really boils down to this, though:

Well if past versions of games that wont run on 2 threads are any indication, it is not a matter of parallism or multithreading. It is simply a matter of the way the consoles assign cores, and it should be relatively trivial to make the ports run on a high performance 2 thread cpu.

^ This is very likely what's going on. Lazy port, wants to leave 2 cores unused, and thus won't run on any CPU with only 2 cores, nevermind that it would probably still run better on a modern Pentium than on any FX CPU.

 

[Flapdrol1337]

Looks like they delayed the game another 2 weeks.
http://www.mirrorsedge.com/news/mec-update-april-21

but it's to "perfect" the game

 

[ShintaiDK]

Looks like they delayed the game another 2 weeks.
http://www.mirrorsedge.com/news/mec-update-april-21

but it's to "perfect" the game

Haha, what features to cut

The Warhammer delay was the same deal, damage control pretty much. But I keep being a fool and preorder those Total War games.

 

[JeffMD]

Because its been so all the previous times. Got a quad one way or the other? You win 2 idle cores.

There is no reason but artificial that everything cant run on a single core. You can argue about performance, but unless artificially restricted it will run.

I'll let you in on a little secret. The PS4 and xbox one are running more cores then any pc you'll have in the next couple of year. They went with many cores and lower speeds, probably because AMD sucks at making cpus with a strong single core.

This is also why I have my doubts on some xbox 360 emulation, but so far I've been surprised. I'll be shocked if they get like halo3 running smooth.

 

[itsmydamnation]

You act like they released bug free games, they didn't.

You act like bug free games exist, they don't.

 

[MajinCry]

I'm okay with programmers having quad cores be their minimum intended hardware; more core usage is good usage.

Wonder if it's to do with something like dynamic batching, which can only really be done well across loads o' cores. Same gig with dynamic navmesh generation 'n' complex AI.

 

[Raduque]

The only requirement is to remove the lockout of core 0 and 1. Should be extremely easy.

But again, we see console ports you cant even exit in a normal fashion.

I didn't know you were on the dev team for this game. When did you start working as a coder at DICE again?

. I'll finish by saying that I've seen you spend a lot of time defending low end hardware on here, and sometimes I think you have a decent enough point in doing so, but here you've officially lost me. I just don't get what you think you or anyone else has to gain by clinging to dual cores in this day and age.

I believe he does this because he's cheap, and just doesn't want to admit it. I spent ~$300 on my 8/16 Xeon server, and I can log into it remotely and do all of his CPU-bound tasks faster than all his low-end PCs running together can do them.

 

[Silverforce11]

No.

You act like they released bug free games, they didn't.

Bugfree? No, they had bugs. Not as bad as some other AAA developers though.

But top notch visuals for the performance? Yes. By far.

I expect this Mirror's Edge to continue that trend, and early signs are positive from beta. Great visuals, high performance, modest GPU requirements. Just like the new Need for Speed.

 

[Carfax83]

You must be joking right.

DICE PC games have always been excellent optimized and they've set the standard on that front.

Battlefront still is the best visuals vs performance on PC.

Gameplay wise, they bombed since BF4 but their engine is top notch by far.

Frostbite 3 is an impressive engine, but I rank UE4 and CryEngine 3 above it. The main reason why Frostbite 3 runs so well comparatively speaking, is because the global illumination system they use is baked. I can't think of a single Frostbite 3 title which uses dynamic global illumination.

Other engines like Unreal Engine 4, and even CryEngine support dynamic global illumination which looks fantastic, yet obviously requires more power to run.

 

[Ranulf]

Intel conned people with the Anniversary Pentium, people who hadn't realized that it's not 2007 and the E2140/E2160 is ancient history.

Change that to mid '09-10 and I'd agree. My q8400 wasn't that much better than my c2duo at 2.4ghz and there is no way quad was worth it until 2011-12. Unless you went i7 class.

 

[Silverforce11]

Frostbite 3 is an impressive engine, but I rank UE4 and CryEngine 3 above it. The main reason why Frostbite 3 runs so well comparatively speaking, is because the global illumination system they use is baked. I can't think of a single Frostbite 3 title which uses dynamic global illumination.

Other engines like Unreal Engine 4, and even CryEngine support dynamic global illumination which looks fantastic, yet obviously requires more power to run.

I only care about the final visuals, and I've not see many impressive looking UE4 or CryEngine games that ran well.

The latest, the walking simulator on CryEngine (http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2470449), runs like a crippled donkey and it doesn't look next-gen at all.

Compare Need for Speed to any released UE4 game, it blows it away and runs twice as fast.

 

[Carfax83]

I only care about the final visuals, and I've not see many impressive looking UE4 or CryEngine games that ran well.

I remember you extolling the virtues of Fable Legends before because it used asynchronous compute :sneaky:

Anyway, there are plenty of examples around. You just have to look for them. Off the top of my head, you have Star Citizen for CryEngine, and Paragon and Unreal Tournament IV for UE4.

Because most studios nowadays seem to be using in-house engines, you don't see many AAA titles using CryEngine or UE4. But we'll have two AAA titles using UE4 by the end of the year; Gears of War 4 and Hell Blade.

The latest, the walking simulator on CryEngine (http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2470449), runs like a crippled donkey and it doesn't look next-gen at all.

Just because a game is designed with a particular engine, it doesn't mean it's using all of that engine's capabilities. No game so far has even begun to tap into UE4's capabilities, as most games that use the engine so far have been indie titles.

Compare Need for Speed to any released UE4 game, it blows it away and runs twice as fast.

This is what convinced me that UE4 is the most cutting edge engine out there.

It's all real time, and it apparently runs very well. There's youtubers that have run it at 1440p on a single GTX 980 Ti at 30 FPS..

To me it looks very reminiscent of a Pixar movie..

 

[Erenhardt]

EU4 can even properly utilize 4 CPU cores. With 8 cores, 2 are idling at 0%. Even some android apps are better than that.

Compared to Frostbite 16 thread scaling:

 

[ShintaiDK]

EU4 can even properly utilize 4 CPU cores. With 8 cores, 2 are idling at 0%. Even some android apps are better than that.

Compared to Frostbite 16 thread scaling:

Can Frostbite that without heavy networking?

Also the scaling isn't that impressive is it. When dual cores with HT performs like 8 cores.

You also forgot to post this:

You can try call that 16 threads again...

 

[Silverforce11]

The problem with tech demos are that they aren't games. Until then, I've seen zero great looking UE4 titles, the ones that come close to looking good, run very badly. This applies to CryEngine too, it CAN make great looking games, but it comes with a major performance hit. Including Star Citizen which is currently a mess.

If GOW4 is an amazing looking game, I will change my mind about UE4.

 

[Carfax83]

EU4 can even properly utilize 4 CPU cores. With 8 cores, 2 are idling at 0%. Even some android apps are better than that.

Like Shintai said, FB3 does not scale to 16 threads.

The most any engine will use today is 6 threads, and that includes FB3. That graph you posted, the reason why the 5960x is out in front like that is because of it's large L3 cache, which is 20MB, and not because it has 16 threads.

That said, UE4 just received a major update which improved it's threading capabilities:

UE4.11 released!

The problem with tech demos are that they aren't games. Until then, I've seen zero great looking UE4 titles, the ones that come close to looking good, run very badly. This applies to CryEngine too, it CAN make great looking games, but it comes with a major performance hit. Including Star Citizen which is currently a mess.

For me, Paragon definitely qualifies as a fantastic looking UE4 game. The amount of particle effects, cloth simulation and animations in play, combined with the PBR look stunning for an online game.

Example of Paragon gameplay.

And another

Plus more importantly, it easily runs at 60 FPS on midrange hardware. For an MMO, I'm impressed, and I don't even game online.

If GOW4 is an amazing looking game, I will change my mind about UE4.

I think the Coalition wants GOW4 to be a graphically defining game, like the original GOW, so I have high expectations..

Despite the rough launch of GOW U.E, the Coalition have patched it up very well and it now easily runs at a smooth and locked 60 FPS.

GOW4 on PC should be a real treat :thumbsup:

 

[myocardia]

Are you saying that my computer science is wrong, just because the implementation doesn't exist today to buy? What about in the future? You think PCs, from this day forth, won't improve? That there will NEVER be a dual-core CPU, as fast as an equivalent 5.4Ghz SKL?

But Larry, you aren't making this argument in the future, you're making it today. That would mean that a not insignificant amount of people would need to own ~5.4 Ghz dual-cores, before your argument could be valid. Whether or not I think that Intel will continue to sell desktop 2 threaded CPUs in the future has nothing to do with it.

 

[Magic Carpet]

That said, UE4 just received a major update which improved it's threading capabilities:

UE4.11 released!

Dammit, I spent loads of time on UT99/UT2K4 back in the day. UT4 keeps getting mentioned here and there, but where is the actual game? Hmm.

 

[VirtualLarry]

But Larry, you aren't making this argument in the future, you're making it today. That would mean that a not insignificant amount of people would need to own ~5.4 Ghz dual-cores, before your argument could be valid. Whether or not I think that Intel will continue to sell desktop 2 threaded CPUs in the future has nothing to do with it.

Like I said earlier, if minimum performance is an issue for this title, then it should benchmark the running hardware, and decide if it should be allowed to run. It shouldn't arbitrarily refuse to run on dual-cores.

 

[mohit9206]

I agree with @ShintaiDK and disagree with @RussianSensation.
Making the game run on a Pentium should be fairly easy given that games like Ryse,AC:Syndicate,etc worked on a Pentium(source:I played those games on my Pentium G630).So what reason could Mirror's Edge's developers have that the game cannot run on dual cores but other more demanding games can run? Like Shintai said i'm sure its just a 0+1 core lockout that could be easily be disabled by them allowing it to run on Pentiums.

 

[Carfax83]

I agree with @ShintaiDK and disagree with @RussianSensation.
Making the game run on a Pentium should be fairly easy given that games like Ryse,AC:Syndicate,etc worked on a Pentium(source:I played those games on my Pentium G630).So what reason could Mirror's Edge's developers have that the game cannot run on dual cores but other more demanding games can run? Like Shintai said i'm sure its just a 0+1 core lockout that could be easily be disabled by them allowing it to run on Pentiums.

If you're a developer, you want to deliver a certain standard of experience on whatever platform you're developing for.

While I'm sure a dual core could work with Mirror's Edge, I also believe that the gaming experience would be very subpar compared to a quad core or greater CPU..

With a dual core, you could look forward to much longer loading times, streaming problems, stuttering, hitching and God knows what else..

Case in point.

That link is from PCgameshardware.de's review of The Division. They tested it with a simulated dual core processor with HT. They found that the load times increased dramatically with a dual core CPU (several minutes long), and there were all sorts of ugly streaming issues like running into invisible walls and barriers because the streaming was so slow..

Using Google translate:

users of older and frail processors from Schlage Core i3 must be prepared for moderate to severe problems in The Division. With four CPU threads the game logs when starting the shortfall of its minimum requirements, then runs but more or less - as long as you can tolerate minutes long load times and smooth liges streaming. With only two cores / threads the Open Beta launched not only - the final version already, as we discovered surprised at posttest. What we saw then, is unprecedented. Expected we have endless loading times and low frame rates. The what we got, but with a curious Extra: When we wiggled our way through the first measurement, ran our alter ego in an invisible wall (see picture). A real showstopper - the game with two cores in a unique way unplayable.

So with this in mind, it's not surprising why DICE or any other developer would not want to risk having their customers try to run the game on a dual core CPU.

It's not because they can't do it, it's because they want to deliver a good experience; something which a dual core is unable to do.

So just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should do it. I can walk all the way to Toronto, but flying is a helluva lot easier and faster..

 

[ShintaiDK]

You just list a quad as minimum. You dont artificially limit it. The game isn't exactly going to block you from launching it on a quad Atom or Kabini is it.

 

[Carfax83]

You just list a quad as minimum. You dont artificially limit it. The game isn't exactly going to block you from launching it on a quad Atom or Kabini is it.

Then you run the risk of some ignorant fools gamers trying to run the game on their dual core, are genuinely surprised that they get a craptastic experience and now makes it their mission in life to post a bad review of the game every chance they get and bad mouth it all over the internet.

Just not worth it imo.. If an engine is designed to run with four threads, then trying to make it run with less is just a disservice.

 

[frozentundra123456]

You just list a quad as minimum. You dont artificially limit it. The game isn't exactly going to block you from launching it on a quad Atom or Kabini is it.

Exactly. And it is impossible to know, but I bet that the game would run better on a pentium and a decent discrete dgpu than on the APUs that so many are advocating as gaming platforms in these forums.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Then you run the risk of some ignorant fools gamers trying to run the game on their dual core, are genuinely surprised that they get a craptastic experience and now makes it their mission in life to post a bad review of the game every chance they get and bad mouth it all over the internet.

Just not worth it imo.. If an engine is designed to run with four threads, then trying to make it run with less is just a disservice.

Games already run with 50+ threads. Its just a matter of the utilization.

If you go beyond minimum specs, you do it on your own.

Artificially limiting the game to a quad isn't solving anything. The "ignorant fools" will still buy the game and just complain that it doesn't launch.