HW info for non-casual games

[Vorax]

I thought this link would be useful for anyone developing non-casual games (action, sim, FPS, etc.)

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

Turns out my PC is about as typical as it gets for the market. Good info to have since it's where I do most of the testing.

[Fantus]

I'm not sure if the steam users are the same audience indie developers are targeting. Non casual games doesn't necessarily mean it needs a high-end pc. I'm for instance interested in the configuration of users that play games like Bridge Builder.

[bill]

Steam primarily targets TripleAAA hardcore gamers and their tech stats for user configurations are probably higher than the average computer user out there. Still, all games, be they casual, mainstream or AAA should run on XP to give a good chance for the game to reach a maximum number of consumers.

[Vorax]

I agree that not all non-casual games fall into a category similar to Steam users, but for those of us developing games that will require more horse power (mostly 3D action, FPS, sims, detailed RPG's, etc.), I thought the info would be useful. It's certainly useful for me and I know there are a few Indy games in the works with even higher requirements then my project.

[gpetersz]

Deduct 500 Mhz from the stats and halve the memory and you are there...
The tendency what counts, in my opinion.

So, thanks for the link! :)

[tentons]

Yeah thanks for the link. I would like it if indie games was not automatically equated with puzzles and arcade shooters. There's so much more territory that can and will be covered.. just nobody's there quite yet. :) But this is useful info anyway.

(Actually, Tribal Trouble is a good example, and they are there now.)

[Spaceman Spiff]

One interesting takeaway from the Valve survey is that about 15% of HL2 players still have DX7 class video cards (i.e. no hardware shaders).

If I had to make system requirments for our audience, it would be this:

Min-Spec: 1.0 ghz CPU, 128 Mb RAM, DX7 Capable Video Card w/ 32mb RAM

Recommended: 2.0 ghz CPU, 256 Mb RAM, DX8 (Geforce 3 or higher) Video Card w/ 64 Mb RAM

[Jim Buck]

If it were me, I'd be aiming for the type of hardware and software that vanilla Win98 first came out on.

[Robert Cummings]

Win98 and WinXP
600MHZ
Geforce2 MX
256 MEG RAM
DirectX7

-way- more realistic.