CRAP! Why aren't more games made with the Source engine?

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HockeyTownUSA - 23 Jul 2007 06:11 GMT

Sheesh! I just bought a new laptop recently. Nothing special, cost $500 and
came with AMD Turion MK-36 (2GHz), 2GB PC5300, and ATI Radeon Xpress 1100
256MB graphics.

Just for kicks, I installed Steam and then Half-Life 2. Lo and behold, it
runs fine on this laptop. Yes I have to drop down the res and details a
little bit but it looks good and plays smoothly. Quite surprising as the
graphics on this laptop are kinda crappy.

That being said, it woudl be nice if more games were made with the Source
engine. It scales very well. Not only will it tax my Core 2 Duo E6600, 8800
GTS desktop with max details, at high res, but will also run fine on my
meager laptop. Quite impressive.

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Shawk - 24 Jul 2007 09:02 GMT

> Sheesh! I just bought a new laptop recently. Nothing special, cost $500 and
> came with AMD Turion MK-36 (2GHz), 2GB PC5300, and ATI Radeon Xpress 1100
[quoted text clipped - 9 lines]
> GTS desktop with max details, at high res, but will also run fine on my
> meager laptop. Quite impressive.

I believe it's down to the data they gather. They know that the
majority of customers still have fairly slow PC's (slow in comparison to
the latest offerings) and they make their engine scale accordingly. I
much prefer that approach to those devs that just go for the latest
shiney tricks in engines and exclude most of the gaming public from
having a great experience. On the other hand the Source engine did need
more than a gig of ram to make the stuttering that many saw bearable.

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Neil Jones - 24 Jul 2007 11:20 GMT

> > Nova Prospekt, before the sound stuttering and variable framerate made
> > it unpleasant to play.

> Sounds like issues other than the PC unless the PC was really, really dire.

and then

> > Just for kicks, I installed Steam and then Half-Life 2. Lo and behold, it
> > runs fine on this laptop. Yes I have to drop down the res and details a
> > little bit but it looks good and plays smoothly.

> On the other hand the Source engine did need
> more than a gig of ram to make the stuttering that many saw bearable.

Bingo. If you consider the ram to be 'issues other than the pc', then
fair enough, but I think that nails my problem in the one sentence :)

Nice to know exactly what it was.

___
Neil
aka HighVis

--

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Shawk - 24 Jul 2007 12:11 GMT

>>> Nova Prospekt, before the sound stuttering and variable framerate made
>>> it unpleasant to play.
[quoted text clipped - 12 lines]
> Bingo. If you consider the ram to be 'issues other than the pc', then
> fair enough, but I think that nails my problem in the one sentence :)

'unless the PC was really, really dire'. I've had PC's with less than a
gig down as dire for around two and a half years. I've now started
calling PC's with less than 2 gig pretty dire too ;-)

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Jimbob - 24 Jul 2007 18:15 GMT

>> Bingo. If you consider the ram to be 'issues other than the pc', then
>> fair enough, but I think that nails my problem in the one sentence :)
>
> 'unless the PC was really, really dire'. I've had PC's with less than a
> gig down as dire for around two and a half years. I've now started
> calling PC's with less than 2 gig pretty dire too ;-)

Don't call my PC that, she'l be very offended :p

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HockeyTownUSA - 24 Jul 2007 22:28 GMT

>> Sheesh! I just bought a new laptop recently. Nothing special, cost $500
>> and came with AMD Turion MK-36 (2GHz), 2GB PC5300, and ATI Radeon Xpress
[quoted text clipped - 17 lines]
> experience. On the other hand the Source engine did need more than a gig
> of ram to make the stuttering that many saw bearable.

I'd rather have to add more memory as it is quite inexpensive and can be
upgraded on almost any PC and even by a novice, instead of needing a top end
CPU and/or video card. While I don't mind games programmed for cutting edge
technology, they should also support the average gaming PC. Should we expect
a P4 1.5 GHz GeForce Ti4200, 256MB RAM, and Windows 98 to be able to run, of
course not. But if a chipset can handle DirectX 9 calls, then it should be
able to run fairly well.

Looking at Steam's hardware survey, average specs are quite surprising:

CPU: Intel 2.3GHz or Faster ( > 60% ) / AMD 1.7GHz or higher ( > 75% )
Memory: 1GB or more ( > 75% )
Video: > 50% default to SM3.0 (interesting) and only 64MB RAM (approx 50%)
Sound: Mainly onboard audio

Except for the SM3.0 spec, this is essentially a top end PC from over three
years ago!

I recently read an interesting article about future games and Vista, but
can't find the link right now. It essentially stated taht Microsoft has
their work cut out for them since game developers will be working to nVidia
8600 graphics for games to be available two years from now on the low end of
the spec. DirectX 10 needs a lot more CPU and GPU horsepower to be useful,
which will isolate developers user base. Not a good idea.

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