Requirements creep

[WildW]

Okay, this is a winge thread, I'm just feeling bad about my PC being too slow.

So anyhow, at the moment I'm very sensitive to game requirements because all my gaming is done on my laptop. It's not a bad laptop - 2GHz Core2Duo, nVidia 9600M GT graphics card. Some things I play on the laptop at native res (1366x768) and when I'm at home I game on my monitor via HDMI at 1920x1200.

It plays older stuff really quite well. . . Battlefield 2 on medium to high settings at 1920x1200 yields 50 to 60fps. But it's really struggling with a few newer things.

I bought Dawn of War 2 at the weekend as Steam had it on sale. I can barely run it at 1366x768 on all low settings, and it looks awful. I have the original Dawn of War, it runs super smooth at 1600x1200 (maximum res) with everything on maximum.

It just doesn't make sense to me that the newer game runs much slower at lower res, lower settings, with everything looking worse. Logically you should be able to turn down the graphics to look about the same as Dawn of War 1 and it should run about as fast. It's basically the same game. . . really. . . sort of. I disbelieve that there's that much more for the CPU to do, and if the models have more polygons then let me turn them down.

Rant over

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

Welcome to PC gaming. It's only been like this since the dawn of the computer. No serious gamer would use a lappy for their primary machine.

 

[WildW]

My laptop ran everything I play at 1920x1200 only a month or so ago. Time to stop buying new games I think

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

Originally posted by: WildW
My laptop ran everything I play at 1920x1200 only a month or so ago. Time to stop buying new games I think

Keep your eyes open for some of the better performing stuff. I'm in a similar boat to you, verging on an upgrade myself. I recently bought F.E.A.R.2 and was amazed at how silky smooth it runs at 1920x1200 and it looks amazing.

 

[aka1nas]

How much RAM do you have on that laptop? DoW2 is pretty RAM-hungry in general, it requires a 64-bit OS to run on the Ultra settings because it hits the 2GB process limit then.

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: GodlessAstronomer
Welcome to PC gaming. It's only been like this since the dawn of the computer. No serious gamer would use a lappy for their primary machine.

I would disagree. There are some damn powerful laptops out there, if you got the cash and are willing to have a laptop that would be accurately be described as luggable rather than portable. The 18in Sager 9850 boats SLI GF 280Ms and Core i7, the 17in 8760 boats i7 and single GF 280M. These are more powerful than most desktops out there. You lose a lot of upgrade ability, but if you got the cash, these are more than able to serve as a gaming machine.

 

[TheVrolok]

Originally posted by: Bateluer

Originally posted by: GodlessAstronomer
Welcome to PC gaming. It's only been like this since the dawn of the computer. No serious gamer would use a lappy for their primary machine.

I would disagree. There are some damn powerful laptops out there, if you got the cash and are willing to have a laptop that would be accurately be described as luggable rather than portable. The 18in Sager 9850 boats SLI GF 280Ms and Core i7, the 17in 8760 boats i7 and single GF 280M. These are more powerful than most desktops out there. You lose a lot of upgrade ability, but if you got the cash, these are more than able to serve as a gaming machine.

The heat in confined spaces those things put out just scares me.

 

[zerocool84]

Originally posted by: WildW
Okay, this is a winge thread, I'm just feeling bad about my PC being too slow.

So anyhow, at the moment I'm very sensitive to game requirements because all my gaming is done on my laptop. It's not a bad laptop - 2GHz Core2Duo, nVidia 9600M GT graphics card. Some things I play on the laptop at native res (1366x768) and when I'm at home I game on my monitor via HDMI at 1920x1200.

It plays older stuff really quite well. . . Battlefield 2 on medium to high settings at 1920x1200 yields 50 to 60fps. But it's really struggling with a few newer things.

I bought Dawn of War 2 at the weekend as Steam had it on sale. I can barely run it at 1366x768 on all low settings, and it looks awful. I have the original Dawn of War, it runs super smooth at 1600x1200 (maximum res) with everything on maximum.

It just doesn't make sense to me that the newer game runs much slower at lower res, lower settings, with everything looking worse. Logically you should be able to turn down the graphics to look about the same as Dawn of War 1 and it should run about as fast. It's basically the same game. . . really. . . sort of. I disbelieve that there's that much more for the CPU to do, and if the models have more polygons then let me turn them down.

Rant over

RTS's like DoW2 really need a quad to shine. Your videocard is anemic also. It sucks that it's a laptop or else you'd be able to overclock your processor to give it some longevity. It you turn down the settings it still has to calculate physics and the units as well.

 

[Mike Gayner]

Originally posted by: Bateluer

Originally posted by: GodlessAstronomer
Welcome to PC gaming. It's only been like this since the dawn of the computer. No serious gamer would use a lappy for their primary machine.

I would disagree. There are some damn powerful laptops out there, if you got the cash and are willing to have a laptop that would be accurately be described as luggable rather than portable. The 18in Sager 9850 boats SLI GF 280Ms and Core i7, the 17in 8760 boats i7 and single GF 280M. These are more powerful than most desktops out there. You lose a lot of upgrade ability, but if you got the cash, these are more than able to serve as a gaming machine.

No, he's right and you're wrong. Those ungainly "laptops" (I use that word reluctantly) are just a giant, expensive compromise. They're absurdly large, heavy and hot with a stupid small battery life. Anyone with two braincells to rub together would save themselves a money and buy a more powerful desktop with a larger monitor.

GodlessAstronomer is right - no serious gamer would use a laptop as their primary machine.

To the OP - your assertion is only correct if the only difference between older and newer games is the graphics. You're ignoring scale, AI, physics and myriad other improvements.

 

[Fenixgoon]

my bet is the M at the end of your video card being your problem. typically the mobile versions are nowhere near as powerful as their desktop counterparts. i have an ATI3870 512mb running it at 1920x1080 just fine with 2gigs of ram and an E4300 1.8ghz.

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

Originally posted by: Bateluer

Originally posted by: GodlessAstronomer
Welcome to PC gaming. It's only been like this since the dawn of the computer. No serious gamer would use a lappy for their primary machine.

I would disagree. There are some damn powerful laptops out there, if you got the cash and are willing to have a laptop that would be accurately be described as luggable rather than portable. The 18in Sager 9850 boats SLI GF 280Ms and Core i7, the 17in 8760 boats i7 and single GF 280M. These are more powerful than most desktops out there. You lose a lot of upgrade ability, but if you got the cash, these are more than able to serve as a gaming machine.

Sure it's powerful, today. But you're effed in the A in two years when it's just another mid-to-low end machine that you can't really upgrade. On top of this there are the intrinsic flaws in gaming laptops, like the weight, heat, small fixed monitor, etc. You get none of the advantages of a laptop and none of the advantages of a desktop, all you get is raw, overpriced power.

 

[s44]

Originally posted by: GodlessAstronomer
Welcome to PC gaming. It's only been like this since the dawn of the computer. No serious gamer would use a lappy for their primary machine.

^ this

With a desktop, you start lagging? Just replace something. With a laptop, you're stuck until you dump the whole outdated thing.

 

[fatpat268]

Exactly, if you want to do some serious PC gaming, don't use a laptop. You save yourself a lot of money and headache if you game exclusively on a desktop. I do light gaming on my laptop and use it for multimedia, work, and general web surfing. When I game, I go to my desktop and huge monitor.

There's some nice gaming laptops that I admit are more powerful than my current desktop, but I have the piece of mind that I can overhaul my entire pc with similar parts for less than 1/3 the price.

 

[WildW]

Originally posted by: aka1nas
How much RAM do you have on that laptop? DoW2 is pretty RAM-hungry in general, it requires a 64-bit OS to run on the Ultra settings because it hits the 2GB process limit then.

I have 4GB . . . though Acer in their infinite wisdom shipped it with 32 bit Vista so I only have 3 to use. Hopefully when my free Win7 upgrade appears (hopefully in a couple of days) I'll be able to reinstall with 64bit.

I know folks, I only have a laptop and am therefore stoopid. Like I said, I'm just whinging, and fighting the urge to buy a new desktop. I'm not a serious gamer, I generally play weedy things like strategy games. DoW2 is just a hog. Call of Duty World at War ran better.

The 9600M GT is about equivalent to a desktop 8600GT (maybe GTS) in terms of shaders, clocks, and so on. It has a gig of dedicated DDR2 slowing it all to hell. Taking all bets on how long until I upgrade

 

[zerocool84]

Originally posted by: WildW

Originally posted by: aka1nas
How much RAM do you have on that laptop? DoW2 is pretty RAM-hungry in general, it requires a 64-bit OS to run on the Ultra settings because it hits the 2GB process limit then.

I have 4GB . . . though Acer in their infinite wisdom shipped it with 32 bit Vista so I only have 3 to use. Hopefully when my free Win7 upgrade appears (hopefully in a couple of days) I'll be able to reinstall with 64bit.

I know folks, I only have a laptop and am therefore stoopid. Like I said, I'm just whinging, and fighting the urge to buy a new desktop. I'm not a serious gamer, I generally play weedy things like strategy games. DoW2 is just a hog. Call of Duty World at War ran better.

The 9600M GT is about equivalent to a desktop 8600GT (maybe GTS) in terms of shaders, clocks, and so on. It has a gig of dedicated DDR2 slowing it all to hell. Taking all bets on how long until I upgrade

It looks to be as powerful as a 7850GTX so yea not that powerful.

 

[minmaster]

yea i noticed this on some games. sure they're beautiful if everything's turned up, but if you turn down the settings to make them run on a mid to low hardware, then the game looks ugly, uglier than games that are few years old (running max settings now on the same hardware).

there's something to be said for balancing graphics/performance. i don't care if a game can't look like crysis, but as long as it looks decent and runs okay, i'm fine with it. but like someone said, "newer games looking horribly when scaling down the settings to run on older hardware" isn't something new. it's been this way for a while.

 

[Malak]

Originally posted by: GodlessAstronomer
Welcome to PC gaming. It's only been like this since the dawn of the computer.

No, no it hasn't. I'm guessing you weren't there.

No serious gamer would use a lappy for their primary machine.

This used to be true. It no longer is. There are laptops that even have SLI'd video cards. Technology has surpassed a size hurdle in the last year that makes gamer laptops entirely feasible now.

 

[brblx]

but you pay twice as much for the same amount of power, and it might as well not have a battery. thus the point of a laptop is lost and you could save money by just buying a desktop.

gaming laptops are much more feasible, yes, but i don't see any reason for a typical hardcore gamer to have one, as the only settings are going to be home and maybe lan parties. are you really going to play intensive 3D games on a plane or something? and for an hour or less, at that? just read a book.

 

[Mike Gayner]

Originally posted by: Malak

Originally posted by: GodlessAstronomer
Welcome to PC gaming. It's only been like this since the dawn of the computer.

No, no it hasn't. I'm guessing you weren't there.

No serious gamer would use a lappy for their primary machine.

This used to be true. It no longer is. There are laptops that even have SLI'd video cards. Technology has surpassed a size hurdle in the last year that makes gamer laptops entirely feasible now.

Way to not read the rest of what was said.

RE: you retort to the "dawn of computing" comment, I'm not sure it was meant to be taken literally. But this has ALWAYS been the case with PC gaming. Right since the beginning.

 

[Malak]

Originally posted by: brblx
but you pay twice as much for the same amount of power, and it might as well not have a battery. thus the point of a laptop is lost and you could save money by just buying a desktop.

gaming laptops are much more feasible, yes, but i don't see any reason for a typical hardcore gamer to have one, as the only settings are going to be home and maybe lan parties. are you really going to play intensive 3D games on a plane or something? and for an hour or less, at that? just read a book.

Yes they are stupid expensive and they have drawbacks, but that doesn't stop people from buying them. There was no mention of a smart hardcore gamer anywhere in the thread.

 

[Malak]

Originally posted by: Mike Gayner
Way to not read the rest of what was said.

I quoted the entire post.

RE: you retort to the "dawn of computing" comment, I'm not sure it was meant to be taken literally. But this has ALWAYS been the case with PC gaming. Right since the beginning.

No it hasn't. Again, you obviously haven't been playing games since the beginning. Video cards have only been around for half the life.

 

[Mike Gayner]

Originally posted by: Malak
No it hasn't. Again, you obviously haven't been playing games since the beginning. Video cards have only been around for half the life.

Yes it has you smug shit. No I haven't been around since the very beginning, but I suspect neither have you.

My earliest exposure to PC gaming was on a mates 386. His system was good enough to run a lot of line-based games, and some OK side scrollers. He had Doom installed, but it ran like shit due to his slow CPU. He also had a version of Street Fighter than ran OK, but because his system didn't have an audio chip it relied on MIDI sound, which was weak.

Soon my family got our 486DX66. Doom ran buttery smooth on it, and the sound chip was a huge improvement. Not too long down the track Duke 3d came out, and unfortunately was quite slow on the 486. An upgrade from 8mb to 16mb RAM helped, but it wasn't until we got our next PC that we had the CPU capability to run that game nicely.

I don't know what your point is with the graphics card comment - there's more to "requirements creep" than video cards. CPU and RAM requirements are the other considerations we think of today, but back then it was also important that you had a system with the right sound chip, hard drive capacity, storage medium and OS.

The fact is that since the beginning of PC gaming, developers have taken advantage of constantly improving technologies. Unless you'd like to provide some examples of when this didn't occur?

 

[KMFJD]

Originally posted by: Malak

Originally posted by: GodlessAstronomer
Welcome to PC gaming. It's only been like this since the dawn of the computer.

No, no it hasn't. I'm guessing you weren't there.

No serious gamer would use a lappy for their primary machine.

This used to be true. It no longer is. There are laptops that even have SLI'd video cards. Technology has surpassed a size hurdle in the last year that makes gamer laptops entirely feasible now.

No serious gamer would use a laptop over a desktop, the ONLY reason to buy a laptop is portability and the laptops you are talking about are big/heavy ones with extremly limited battery life. I mean if you have a lot of cash you could upgrade every 9-12 months , unless you are living out of a hotel room, i don't see the point.

 

[CPA]

Originally posted by: Fenixgoon
my bet is the M at the end of your video card being your problem. typically the mobile versions are nowhere near as powerful as their desktop counterparts. i have an ATI3870 512mb running it at 1920x1080 just fine with 2gigs of ram and an E4300 1.8ghz.

I was going to say I have an 8800 in my desktop and run DoW2 with no issues.

 

[CPA]

Originally posted by: Malak

Originally posted by: Mike Gayner
Way to not read the rest of what was said.

I quoted the entire post.

RE: you retort to the "dawn of computing" comment, I'm not sure it was meant to be taken literally. But this has ALWAYS been the case with PC gaming. Right since the beginning.

No it hasn't. Again, you obviously haven't been playing games since the beginning. Video cards have only been around for half the life.

Just because video cards have only been around half the life, doesn't mean that there hasn't been creep with other components. Think about it, just going from 5 1/4 to 3 1/2 floppies is creep, because without the upgrade you couldn't play most games in the early 90s, and not all computers came with the 3 1/2 drive then. Plus, you had the megahertz/turbo creep for years and then the Ram years (which is still the case many times) and now video cards.