Cataclysm Player Hardware Survey

xLemor · 2013-08-14T16:29:23.000Z

First question in the poll has weird answers… Has the creator never heard of pentium 4’s at 3ghz? It is not a dual or quad core specific feature. Most last single cores were 2-3ghz such as mine. It makes a huge difference from 1ghz to 3ghz. Please redo and simply ask how many cores do you have. You wont see a dual core under like 1.5ghz

xLemor · 2013-08-14T16:38:47.000Z

jcannon98188:

I for one think that the game could cut performance and there wouldn’t be too terribly much of a difference. It is a turn based game after all. And the more things simulated, the better the game will get. Realism can greatly help a RL. Especially on things that can kill you, the more accurate they are in calculations the better.

It did make a difference for me. I got rid of windows and installed linux just to get better performances on CDDA. The difference was HUGE. I wouldnt be able to play with the performance of windows version anymore. It was a horrible experience for me. Realism is okay but if the game starts to get slow to a point that you only do a turn per second when yure trying to move across 2000 tiles (2000 secs you do the math how lng it would take :p) it wouldnt be enjoyable at all for me.

MarkB · 2013-08-14T16:43:10.000Z

Yeah, the game’s playable for me when walking on a move-by-move basis at the moment, but when driving a car, with continuous movement for several ‘steps’ between each ‘turn’, the duration taken for each of those steps becomes an issue. Right now it’s okay, but if the game’s speed were halved, I don’t think I could consider it playable anymore.

dwarfkoala · 2013-08-14T16:53:01.000Z

From IRC, you know what type of potato I have. I answered the survey anyways.

i2amroy · 2013-08-14T21:36:25.000Z

xLemor:

First question in the poll has weird answers… Has the creator never heard of pentium 4’s at 3ghz? It is not a dual or quad core specific feature. Most last single cores were 2-3ghz such as mine. It makes a huge difference from 1ghz to 3ghz. Please redo and simply ask how many cores do you have. You wont see a dual core under like 1.5ghz

Take the GHz as the main factor for that particular question, with the descriptions being as a guideline. For cores take a look at the following question.

KA101 · 2013-08-15T01:29:16.000Z

Downloaded & tried 0.7.1 stable. (I like my 28Jun a bit better right now kthx.) Survey answered.

xLemor · 2013-08-16T01:47:13.000Z

i2amroy:

[quote=“xLemor, post:10, topic:2694”]First question in the poll has weird answers… Has the creator never heard of pentium 4’s at 3ghz? It is not a dual or quad core specific feature. Most last single cores were 2-3ghz such as mine. It makes a huge difference from 1ghz to 3ghz. Please redo and simply ask how many cores do you have. You wont see a dual core under like 1.5ghz

Take the GHz as the main factor for that particular question, with the descriptions being as a guideline. For cores take a look at the following question.[/quote]

Yup thats what i did. Anyway it could be interesting if multiple cores could be used for different tasks in the game like fire spreading or anything AI related. I think it could be interesting for a ascii game to use the technology of having multiple cores. My desktop only has a single core but i think the era of single cores is about to end, all recent games requires dual cores and even phone have dual cores now (some even have quads). It could help with game performanceif the team have the skill to code the game that way.

KA101 · 2013-08-16T01:50:09.000Z

Uh, part of the reason some folks play open-source (hi!) is that it’s free…and that helps when you also don’t have the budget for the latest hardware. Requiring multi-core processors would keep me out.

(Granted, some of you may consider that a good thing…)

Williham · 2013-08-16T01:52:10.000Z

[quote=“KA101, post:17, topic:2694”]Uh, part of the reason some folks play open-source (hi!) is that it’s free…and that helps when you also don’t have the budget for the latest hardware. Requiring multi-core processors would keep me out.

(Granted, some of you may consider that a good thing…)[/quote]

There’s a difference between “requiring” and “leveraging”.

No application requires multiple cores, unless it is extremely poorly written; it’s all about multithreading and leveraging the multiple cores if present.

And things running slower on older machines, that’s just the nature of the beast.

paalpeyz · 2013-08-17T20:09:37.000Z

This thread made me try out the SDL version, which is quite a bit snappier than the console version on my system (64bit linux). Good work! This makes a huge difference! Since you play so many turns even a delay of a fraction of a second is incredibly important.

drake1storm · 2013-08-18T02:18:58.000Z

My laptop has fallen way behind. 2.5ghz dual core processor, intel hd 4000 graphics card (which has countless annoyances), 8gb of ram, and 400gb of hard drive space (that is counting the 250gb hard drive I added).

My senior year of college I am hoping to build a top of the line desktop, but I’m not going to shell out 2 grand until then. The last thing I need is to not be able to pay for college.

xLemor · 2013-08-18T17:10:30.000Z

paalpeyz:

This thread made me try out the SDL version, which is quite a bit snappier than the console version on my system (64bit linux). Good work! This makes a huge difference! Since you play so many turns even a delay of a fraction of a second is incredibly important.

You should try with a console like urxvt. Its really fast. The console i had by default on linux ran the game slowly but urxvt runs it like a champ and never had slowdowns with it.

vultures · 2013-08-18T18:21:06.000Z

Expecting roguelikes to require more than an office computer on a coffee break is like wishing for wine when opening cardboard milk.

John_Candlebury · 2013-08-18T18:23:29.000Z

vultures:

Expecting roguelikes to require more than an office computer on a coffee break is like wishing for wine when opening cardboard milk.

My exact thoughts on the subject

CIB · 2013-08-18T18:54:23.000Z

Well there’s a lot of resource heavy simulation going on in this one… like burning down hospitals.

Inquisitor_Dust · 2013-08-18T19:12:51.000Z

CIB:

Well there’s a lot of resource heavy simulation going on in this one… like burning down hospitals.

And eating fetuses!
Anywho, I might as well fill out this survey. I need a reliable internet connection so I have an excuse to build a good desktop rather than just my laptop… /issadbecausemehcomputer

vultures · 2013-08-19T17:17:32.000Z

I’m pretty sure that in time we’d all wish for neat explosions, continuous effects throughout the world map and even eyecandy for mouse and pointer. Writing from only what I know of, that could be a task for a 1 GHz processor with at least half a gig of RAM; and that is only because it would still be based on the old-style code. On the other hand, considering what the game has to “calculate”, latest gdi (cataclysm.exe) builds are freakishly, stunningly fast. I’m not sure exactly what you guys did, but I reckon the whole community gives much, much credit for that.

xLemor · 2013-08-20T01:51:18.000Z

Im surprised that theres so few linux users in the poll. The game runs so much better on the linux curse version for me.That and linux is a better OS overall.

Inquisitor_Dust · 2013-08-20T01:54:28.000Z

xLemor:

Im surprised that theres so few linux users in the poll. The game runs so much better on the linux curse version for me.That and linux is a better OS overall.

I used to run Linux, but my new computer came with Windows so I’ve started doing a bunch more PC gaming (which sadly isn’t very Linux friendly, but it’s getting better!). I’m thinking about dual-booting Ubuntu, or maybe Fedora, eventually.

vultures · 2013-08-20T20:44:08.000Z

Speaking of fast (once again) Tiny-LX with some plugs (which works on a 16 meg machine, or so) running Cataclysm_DDA is a joy to watch. It’s really unperceivable until you see it.