Spec Question

Pro versions of 64 bit windows is the only way to open the bandwidth right up. As PA isn't out yet windows 8 pro is probably going to be the best option. What i did was upgraded an old copy of vista to win8 pro 64 for 25 quid. then you just copy the boot file onto a disk or a pen drive these days.

I am not aware of any bandwidth limitations in the Home editions of any version of Windows.

Windows 7 and later will slow down when transferring files via samba to Vista/XP but this is due to Vista/XP not supporting samba v2 or whatever and has nothing to do with any artificial limits in Windows itself. Its really just a limitation of the earlier version of the protocol that holds the older OS's back. I am glad that they finally fixed it in Windows 7. I was never able to get good transfer speeds over a VPN in XP without switching to FTP.

I kind of also have something of a question. Believe it or not my PC still runs Windows XP and 99% of the time I can play pretty much any game, usually on descent graphics. I know XP is pretty outdated, (it belongs on a museum!) but I'm slightly worried that PA won't be compatible with XP.

I know upgrading is a good idea in general and it is highly overdue but would PA run with that Operating System? Or is an upgrade pretty much mandatory. I'm a guttersnipe of a student right now so I'm not sure I can afford a shiny new OS.

Some advice for this little issue would be nice. I'd consider Linux but I know nothing of coding and I'm not even sure I could get that to run. Even so,, any advice on switching OS on a PC?

If indeed it is necessary, for me to run PA.

Given the significant market share that XP still (for some reason) has, I would be very surprised if PA didn't run on XP. However I suspect that a modern 64 bit OS such as Windows 7 or 8 will run PA better due to the larger amounts of RAM such an OS can support.

Linux really isn't that bad. You don't need any coding or computer skills to install, run, or generally use Ubuntu in common day to day tasks. Download an Ubuntu install DVD, burn it to disc, and boot it as a live CD. You can play around with it as much as you like and then reboot into Windows when you are done.

If you don't like it then you have lost nothing. If you do like it then you can install it and dual boot it along side Windows. Honestly installing Ubuntu is easier than installing Windows XP.

PA uses OpenGL so I doubt you have anything to worry about, OpenGL has access to all the same GPU functions as DirectX 10 and 11 but without the need to have Windows Vista+, the only issue you might have is not being able to run the 64bit version. Of course I don't work for Uber so I can really say for sure that it'll run on XP.

Yeah I was planning to use the SSD for only my OS. If you can believe it, the laptop I'm using to type this post hasn't been updated since XP support pack 3 (which I didn't even realize I had until just now).

The thing about this 60GB guy is that it's FREE. Will Windows 7 really take up that much space over time? The biggest HDD I've owned is around 200GB and that computer runs Vista. The vast majority of the space is used on media I downloaded or created. I can't imagine an OS using more than 30GB after a couple years of updates. Except for Java. If you forget to delete your Java updates those eventually take up space. lol

(Also yes, the temperatures I listed were in Fahrenheit.)

I was not aware OpenGL had Tessellation or Variable Penumbra?

A quick check reveals that the Windows folder on my fully updated copy of 64 bit Windows 7 is 24.3 gigs in size. Now this doesn't include the parts of Windows that are in other folders like Program Files nor does it include my paging file. But the former probably aren't that large and the latter can always be moved to another drive. But even so I don't think I would go with less than 40 gigs for a Windows 7 partition. I am not sure on the size of Windows 8 though.

I know I've personally installed W7 Pro x64 on a 24gb SSD. It's tight but it can be done. I believe I got the install size down to ~10gb. Not entirely sure though, it's been quite some time.

My Vista Ultimate x64 install is hovering around the 40gb mark, and you should really install any applications that have services and poor load times on the SSD too for best performance (things like office, adobe products, apple products, ect.), with a 60gb it'll be cutting it close though it is doable, and since you are getting it free then you might as well give it a shot, but personally I'd never buy a 60gb for my OS partition as I tend to find I need 80-100gb to avoid running into space issues these days.

Yeah both are readily available in OpenGL, and OpenGL often has access to other features that aren't available in any DirectX versions. OpenGL uses "extensions" which allows the use of pretty much all features of video cards without the need for the manufacturers to have to wait for the API standards to be updated. This means that if there's a new feature that a video card manufacturer is trying to push they can get it out into the world for people to use without needing a new version of DirectX or OpenGL to be released they can just push it with their own drivers which then allows the feature to be used in OpenGL through the "extensions" system. The only caveat is that because OpenGL has been less popular than DirectX the manufacturers tend to focus on getting the DirectX implementations done before making the feature available via OpenGL in their drivers so sometimes it can take a little longer to get some features in OpenGL (especially with ATI), and IIRC that was the case with hardware tessellation, but it was made available soon after DirectX 11 was released and I think it is now even part of the OpenGL 4 standard.

Don't buy into the Microsoft hype over DirectX features, usually they are just BS, I remember all the fuss over hardware tessellation and how much better it made things look but none of the comparisons showed OpenGL or even DirectX 9 with parallax/relief mapping which can achieve very similar results so the comparisons were heavily biased and just trying to push people to get DirectX 11 video cards and upgrade from Windows XP.

I've been stalking this game for months now but things have appeared to firm up enough to start getting serious about prepping for the best RTS experience ever.

My understanding of the server/client system is that if I want to play solo I'll just run the 'server' software and the 'client' software at the same time on my machine and go to town.

That also means while Uber will have online servers for community gaming, individuals will also be running servers on spare rigs. I've heard/seen Mavor bring this up lots of times that its likely to be someones previous generation rig and not have a graphics card.

I've personally been waiting for a price break on a few pieces before making my move on building a new rig. Mine is two years old and I bought an off the shelf i5 2320 prebuilt and threw in a 560ti and a 650W power supply under the intentions of waiting 2-3 years and then pulling them to put into a real ground up built machine.

PA seems like it should be the opportunity to do so. So two things...

1) My internet is great. I have ~4mbs upload stable 24/7. I would love to contribute to the community by running a server. However does it sound worth it to try to run a server on an i5 2320 with 8gb RAM? It seems like from the above talk that should result in PLENTY of CPU power server wise to handle moderately large games (8 players, several thousand units) Am I mistaken (or do we just not have enough info yet to make the call?)

2) It was my intent to buy a cheap CPU and put in a quality GPU, then 3 years later build a real rig with a high end CPU(i7 3770k)/Mobo/SSD/32g DDR3 1600, the works and put the old GPU in it for at least a little while. I don't really care about graphics much when playing games, but for the first time I want to run a duel monitor for this game. Am I going to bottleneck a monster rig like that really badly running a 560ti? (I did get the 2gb memory version though)

Seems like the 660ti is really sweet for the price right now, but I haven't really gotten my money out of my current card it feels to me and benchmarking I've seen puts it at only around 140% performance on what I have. I would much rather wait 18-24 months and get in after the first price break on the next generation cards. The GTX titan is just beastly.

I couldn't imagine specifically buying a laptop with PA in mind however. You're going to burn it up before new years.

Wait. There is no sense in buying anything now before the alpha is even out.

We still have no idea what the requirements will be to run a "Moderately large games (8 players, several thousand units)". Everything you have read so far is merely speculation.

Everyone is getting excited over the game, but the best thing to do is to hold out until the game is actually released. The longer you wait, the cheaper tech gets. By then it will probably be Aug/Sep, maybe Nov, and Black Friday & Cyber Monday will be just around the corner for the best deals.

Yep that's pretty much how it'll work, except that Uber will probably make the server run from within the client for single player so you wont have to actually launch any server stuff yourself (the same may even be true for hosting a multi-player game), of course I can't guarantee that to be the case but I think Mavor mentioned it in a live stream.

Yeah, I have a secondary PC with a quad core CPU and no GPU that I use for overnight downloads and hosting my subversion and media servers that I could also use to host games of PA, though I suspect the i7 in my primary PC may be better for that even if I'm running the client on it at the same time.

I think that will probably be about the performance level they would be aiming for, 8 players with an i5 hosting sounds reasonable, at least for smaller games, but we'll have to wait and see if they can actually manage that.

It'll probably be fine, consoles have been holding back the graphics of games so much it's rare for anything to push a modern PC graphics card to unplayable levels so they are actually a lot more powerful than they are given credit for. However deferred rendering has a pretty heavy toll per pixel so the extra screen of pixels may cause slow downs, but I'd definitely advise against buying a new GPU till you see how well the 560ti holds up in PA as it's entirely possible it'll be perfectly fine.

Definitely wait it out, I usually don't upgrade my GPU till I get at least a 200% increase in performance and a new API standard (like DirectX 9 to DirectX 10).

Indeed. And with Intel getting ready to release Haswell silicon (and a new CPU socket) in June you will be able to get something faster and/or cheaper if you wait a couple of months on the CPU front.

I'm currently on my home machine that I only installed late last year (maybe 6 months ago); the Windows folder is a mere 18GB, but the whole C: drive is pushing 40GB (44.1 reported). This will fit on a 60GB disk ok, but I don't have Office or anything else installed; all programs go on the HDD where space is cheap.

My work machine (which I checked when I posted the last time) was over 100GB for the whole C: drive. That actually has Office and other bloatware installed direct to C: though, so your experience may vary, especially if you'll be putting space hungry programs (like Office, CAD programs, Steam etc.) on the spinning rust instead of the SSD.

It'll definitely be enough for a while, and with a bit of luck you won't break 60GB, since this machine is actually smaller that I thought it was. Other than that just keep an eye on it, and look at migrating things like the pagefile and hibernation file off the SSD (where they'll go by default, and is 15GB of my used C: drive space) onto the HDD if you start to get a bit squeezed.

However now that I actually bother to look at the system requirements information at http://www.uberent.com/pa/ I see that XP is not listed as a supported OS. I wouldn't consider this a set in stone thing, but even so I would look into getting a modern OS.

Someone actually asked on the Facebok post about Windows XP.
Uber replied that it should work, but it is not officially supported.

As much as I may believe in the guys at Uber, I have heard that same thing before from other software vendors. Most prominently Cisco regarding their 32 bit IPSec VPN client (which was designed for XP the time) and 32 bit Windows Server 2003, which is based on XP.

To make a long story short, "should work" should be taken with a metric ton of salt and mile long list of obscure conditions in a small font.

I really thought I had already been exceedingly patient :?

The real impetus for the post was the 3770k got a pretty big price break in recent months. They were 500 USD forever and now 330 to your door free shipping seemed like a good time to buy. I didn't expect any chance of another pricebreak for quite some time even after the next generation of CPUs comes out. Its still going to be the price/performance king at that price, so why go even lower?

I'm also in the alpha, which obviously isn't going to be burning in any machines with requirements just due to the nature of an alpha, but at the same time I doubt we'll have too much optimization either. I'd like to have the rig done and running for alpha launch if possible. If I dont start looking for sales now I may not get all the pieces in time.

I guess the most important thing is I wanted second opinions (or baseless speculation from this knowledgeable community) on was if a low-ish end i5 would be a reasonable server, and if a 560ti 2gb would be a reasonable GPU to run a duel moniter set up on medium to low graphic settings.

My own baseless speculation is I should be totally fine, but I may be having cloudy judgement from my excitement for this game (which is considerable).