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LordKronos
06-20-2003, 01:08 PM
Posted by Mike Boeh at 04-19-2003 01:02 AM

Hi all:

Most developers are also PC enthusiasts, so I thought it might be fun for us to share the specs of our development systems.

I am not too big into always upgrading my system, but here are the specs:

CPU: AMD Athlon XP 1700+
Motherboard: IWill XP333-R
Memory: 512 meg DDR
Video: Regular Geforce 3, 64 Meg
Hard Disk: 80 Gig IBM Deskstar 7200 RPM
CD-ROM: 32x12x48 CDRW (I have no idea what brand)
Sound: C-Media sound that comes on the motherboard
Monitor: Mag 810FD CRT
Operating System: Windows XP Professional
Connection: 1.5/256 ADSL from SBC


__________________
--
Mike Boeh
Retro64, Inc.
Downloadable Games





Posted by Guardian_Light at 04-19-2003 01:14 AM

I don't like to upgrade (instead preferring to just build a new PC all at once) but here's what I have now:

AMD 1.33Ghz (MSI mother board)
512 MB DDR RAM
Geforce3 (Regular)
SB Live w 3pc setup
40 Gig hard drive
Viewsonic 19-inch CRT
Win98SE

I've been to the point of having the WinXP CD in my drive (to upgrade my OS) but I just can't bring myself to leave Win98SE. It's so reliable!

Michael Sikora
Guardian Light Studios





Posted by Mike Boeh at 04-19-2003 02:24 AM

98se stable? I have to disagree there. I have crashed my box from bad DirectX code a million times on 98se. But 2k/XP chug right through that!


__________________
--
Mike Boeh
Retro64, Inc.
Downloadable Games





Posted by Guardian_Light at 04-19-2003 02:39 AM

It's all in the video card drivers (although I admit 98SE is NOT stable like Win2000, I was thinking "reliable" in terms of compatibility/performance ). Nvidia's newest win9X drivers have some stability issues, which the older ones did not.

On the other hand I have an old P3 500 with a Voodoo3. I have never been able to make the whole OS crash with my DirectX code. (Even with some major no-no's like changing screen resolutions while locking the primary surface...) I don't know why, it's actually kind of like "voodoo magic" or something


Michael Sikora
Guardian Light Studios





Posted by MirekCz at 04-19-2003 03:48 AM

My box is being upgraded atm with some upgrades still coming.. atm it looks like

xp 1700+, kt266 mb. (upgraded last week from d600+kt133, very happy, much shorter compilation times)

256mb sdram 133 (upgrade to 256 ddr333 soon)

nvidia tnt (upgrade to ati 9100/9200 soon)

belinea lcd panel - 101715 (great for programming, i LOVE it), upgraded from old 15" CRT which started flickering, ugh...

80gb wd 800jb hd (or sth, the se version 7200rpm/8mb cache, neat...:-)
+old 13.5gb ibm drive , 7200rpm, also nice

w2k - rock stable

sb128 with creative inspire 4.1 4400 oem speakers


Like I said, I will upgrade shortly to ddr ram and better graphic card... and that will be everything for a year or so.
As for dev. machine it's working great, it's not much use for most new games because of TNT card.


__________________
With best regards,
Mirek Czerwiński





Posted by Peter Sokolov at 04-19-2003 03:54 AM

Hi,

My new PC configuration:
CPU: AMD AthlonXP 1700+ Thoroughbred step-B (Overclocked to 2400+ as 200x10)
Motherboard: EPoX 8RDA+
Memory: 512Mb (2x256Mb)
Video: Albatron Ti4680 TURBO (GeForce4200Ti) 128Mb
HDD: Baracuda ATA V 80Gb
CDRW: Teak 540E
DVD: Toshiba
Sound: Build-in nForce2 5.1 sound
Monitor: SyncMaster 755df
OS: Win2000

--
Best Regards.
Peter Sokolov, Warlock Studio
http://www.warlockstudio.com
"Fun is just a click away"





Posted by svero at 04-19-2003 04:13 AM

Well I'm not into all this new fangled 3d hardware this and directx that. No sir...

I'm still on my gool ol' dependable Vic20. But I have all the expansion cartridges and a sweet sweet tape drive so it's really still pretty good.


__________________
Steve Verreault
Twilight Games
http://www.twilightgames.com
http://www.sharewaregaming.com

"There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness." - Alexandre Dumas - The Count of Monte Cristo





Posted by Fenix Down at 04-19-2003 04:59 AM

Here's my PC:

Athlon 1.4 ghz (Via chipset MSI moh board)
512 mb DDR RAM
Geforce 2 MX 400, 64 mb
40 GB 7200 RPM IBM hard drive
8x Pioneer DVD
48x12x48 Cendyne CD-RW
Sound Blaster Live Value
View Sonic 17" monitor
Windows 2000
5000/1000 kbps cable internet





Posted by jhocking at 04-19-2003 08:47 AM

At the moment I am using a 450MHz PIII with 128MB RAM and an ATI Rage Pro. I plan to upgrade soon but even when I do I'm going to hang on to this old thing because it is great for keeping min specs low while developing and testing. I see no reason to stop using this to develop 2D games on; I mostly need to upgrade because my current system is obsolete for the 3D I do.


__________________
-Joe Hocking
www.3darteest.com





Posted by Nick Bischoff at 04-19-2003 09:53 AM

Im using a Thunderbird (Athlon 1ghz) with 512 megs of ram, 2x100 gig h/d's. Geforce 2MX400. 21' monitor. ms optical mouse that I got yesterday

Ive had this for over a year and a half and its still nice and quick.

Im running XP pro, but I am a die hard 2k pro fan. XP is stable but not as stable as 2k. I ran 2k Adv.svr as my desktop os for a year and it was slower than pro, but very stable.

Im buying a p4 notebook soon, just waiting for a decent price.


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Click here to Email me.





Posted by Ratboy at 04-19-2003 10:28 AM

Mine's a homebrew, and designed around doing a lot of 3D Lightwave stuff for my regular clients.

P4 2.4ghz, 1 gig RAM, 40gigs of hard drive space, GF4ti 4600 w/128mb VRAM, big ol' giant Wacom tablet, Samsung 19" SyncMaster 955df monitor. Behind me, there's a fairly lonely VIAO laptop that I use when I'm doing day-long renders on the main machine. Both run XP Pro.


__________________
Charles Oines
Irrational Designs





Posted by Siebharinn at 04-19-2003 11:20 AM

I actually have two. I do a lot of development on my laptop, because I end up carrying that around to various locations. I use sourcesafe to keep everything synchronizied.

Home machine
1.4 Ghz Athlon
1 Gig memory
nvidia Ti4400
40 gig drive
19" viewsonic
15" dell secondary display

Laptop
Dell mobile precision
2 Gig P4
1 Gig memory
nvidia quado4 500
40 gig drive
15" XGA
15" secondary display (at the office)

I'm a big believer in the dual monitor setups. I'd rather have two smaller monitors than one big one.

Both run Windows XP pro.

My fileserver is getting old, time for a shiny new PowerEdge!





Posted by Jake Stine at 04-19-2003 01:01 PM

My machine is built from pieces and parts other people were throwing out after upgrading over the years.

Celeron 1.2gig
384 megs ram
Geforce 4 - 128meg <-- birthday gift woh!
70 gigs HDD
CTX 19" monitor (5 yrs old)
Windows 2000

My roomate has 320 gigs of hard drive space in his machine, so the hard drives I'm using are the ones he upgraded from when he picked up his 80's and 120's. As of just two months ago I was running on 12 gigs HDD (with about 6 free) and a Voodoo 3 3000.

This machine has been as reliable as a rock in a desert. I've never had a major hardware failure (or even a minor one that I can recall). I managed to run Win98 for 14 months straight without having to reinstall or delete my registry or anything like that, before switching to 2K (thanks to VS.NET).

- Air





Posted by hanford_lemoore at 04-19-2003 01:25 PM

The PC I built Rocknor with:

HP Pavilion 6465 - Celeron 433MHz, 96 mb RAM
Windows 98 osr 2
9gb hard drive
CD-R

Pretty much stock except for a TNT Ultra 2 video card.


The PC I'm currenting using to develop:

Dell Dimension 8200
P4 2.0GHZ
64MB DDR NVIDIA GEFORCE3 TI 200,DVI
Win 2000
200gb worth o' hard drive
CD-ROM, CD-RW 16X/10X/40X

21 Inch montior running at 1600 x 1200


Quite a jump between the old and the new.

~Hanford


__________________
Rocknor's Bad Day
http://www.monolux.com





Posted by Gmicek at 04-19-2003 01:46 PM

I don't develop, but I do play a lot of games. Here are my three main systems that I use daily, the rest are machines I rarely touch, if ever.

Primary machine:

CPU: AMD Athlon XP 1800+
Motherboard: Epox 8KHA
Memory: 512 meg DDR
Video: GeForce 4 Ti4600 128meg
Secondary Video: Quantum Obsidian (2 Voodoo 2 12meg cards running in SLI on a single card)
Hard Disk: 100gig, 30 gig, and another 30 gig
CD-ROM: Some anchient no name 44x
Sound: SBLive!
Monitor: 21 inch KDS
Operating System: '98se
Connection: 1.5/256 cable from comcast

Laptop:

Model: Compaq Presario 2105us
CPU: AMD Athlon XP 1800+
Memory: 512 meg DDR
Video: 64 meg Radeon mobility
Hard Disk: 40 gig
CD-ROM: cd burner/dvd player
Sound: Sound blaster pro (ACK!)
Operating System: Windows XP

Old School Gaming Machine:

486 dx2 100mhz
48 megs ram
800 meg hard drive
sole oldschool CD rom drive
I have no idea what kind of video card is in there, still shopping for a good one
Sound Blaster 16
DOS 5.0
Use the same KDS monitor that I use on the main system. Have a switch box set up.


__________________
Gregory Micek
Editor-In-Chief
Do It Yourself Games
http://diygames.com





Posted by elund at 04-19-2003 01:48 PM

I'm running three machines, all networked.

"GEAR2K" Desktop, built from parts, used for development:
Abit KT7A-RAID AMD 1.8ghz
512Mb RAM SDR
GEForce 3 Ti 500 64mb video
Cheapo SB Value sound card
Viewsonic 19" < 1 year old already broke once
Lite-On 50X CD-ROM
Two 7200 RPM drives, 40 + 80 gig
Primary partition: Win2k
Win98se and Linux on other partitions
Cable modem for broadband

"VAIO" Laptop, used for newsgroups, forums, IM, testing, and travelling:
Sony Vaio PCG-F560, PII-600MHz, 196Mb, 10Gb hard drive, CD/DCD, Win98 SE.

"BENDER" Test machine, a Frankenputer, built from older parts:
PII-300 Asus P2L97, 128Mb SDRAM, 10Gb hard drive, currently Win98, but will downgrade to Win95. I have a 486 mobo and case I keep around in case I feel 300mhz is not slow enough. ;-)


__________________
Eric W. Lund
Gearhand Studios





Posted by cliffski at 04-19-2003 04:17 PM

My home machine is rubbish which is fine coz my work one rocks. My home one is a 800MHZ athlon. The only rel cool bit is the brand new black 17 inch iiyama flat screen monitor runs at 1280 1024 and looks very cool, even has a blue power-on LED


__________________
Positech games





Posted by John Cutter at 04-19-2003 05:29 PM

This thread made me realize that I haven't upgraded my computer in a LOOOOONG time. In fact, I don't think I've ever been this far behind the technology curve. I'm ony developing 2D games at the moment, so I don't need a "killer" machine, but a better system would make my life easier.

How does this machine sound for a development platform? If I order this from Dell before Tuesday, I can get the entire system plus shipping for $1038.00. There's no monitor included, but I have a nice 19" monitor already. (I removed the mouse, modem, keyboard, warranties from the info below.)

Am I deficient anywhere? Should I get XP Professional? A bigger hard drive? I've included a ZIP drive -- do I need a floppy? (There are other floppy systems on our home network.)

------------------

Dell Dimension 8250 Series: Pentium® 4 Processor at 2.40GHz w/533MHz front side bus/ 512K L2 Cache
Memory: FREE UPGRADE! 512MB PC1066 RDRAM 2X256 modules
Video Cards: 64MB DDR NVIDIA_ GeForce4 MX™ Graphics Card
Hard Drives: 60GB Ultra ATA/100 7200RPM Hard Drive
Floppy Drive and Additional Storage Devices: No Floppy Drive
Zip Drives: 250MB Iomega Zip Built-In Drive
Operating System: Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition
Network Interface: Integrated Intel® PRO 10/100 Ethernet
Main Drive: CD or DVD Drive: 16 Max DVD-ROM Drive
Secondary Drive: FREE UPGRADE! New 4x DVD+RW/+R Drive w/CD-RW
Sound Card: SoundBlaster Live! 5.1 Digital Sound Card
Speakers: Harman Kardon® HK-395 Speakers with Subwoofer





Posted by MirekCz at 04-19-2003 06:37 PM

About this system...
1.p4+rdram - fast, but really expensive... I prefer fast and cheap athlon machines with ddrams :-)

2.hd? which brand? currently best ultraata drives come from wd (special edition series like 800jb or sth) and seagate-barracuda IV/V.. I have got WD SE and it works great

3.geforce mx graphic card? guy, that's CHEAP. If you're into any 3d or will want to do any 3d anytime soon better get something decent... at least radeon 9200 (old radeon 8500) or geforce 4200ti... radeon9500pro seems to be the best performace/price thing money can buy atm (really great performace with vs/ps 2.0)... you won't get far with geforce 4mx.

4.win2000 preffered here

rest seems quite ok.


__________________
With best regards,
Mirek Czerwiński





Posted by Fenix Down at 04-19-2003 07:50 PM


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by MirekCz

3.geforce mx graphic card? guy, that's CHEAP. If you're into any 3d or will want to do any 3d anytime soon better get something decent... at least radeon 9200 (old radeon 8500) or geforce 4200ti... radeon9500pro seems to be the best performace/price thing money can buy atm (really great performace with vs/ps 2.0)... you won't get far with geforce 4mx.

4.win2000 preffered here

rest seems quite ok.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



MX cards aren't that bad, I have one. In fact it's a Geforce 2 MX. You do want something better if you plan on playing newest games though, yes. Especially now that the graphics cards are much cheaper than when I bought my GF2 MX. It was like $70, and my friend got a GF2 TI for like $250 at the time, and according to pricewatch.com you can now get a GeForce4 TI 4200 64MB for just over $100.

I have to second the Windows 2000 though, better OS than XP IMHO, but of course MS banned distributors from bundling it and only let them bundle XP...





Posted by Davaris at 04-19-2003 07:53 PM

Heh you guys are going to laugh...

For programming I use a P200 with 64 meg of RAM, Tseng Labs 1 meg card, a Sound Blaster sound card, Win 95 and Vis C++ 5.0.





Posted by bernie at 04-19-2003 07:53 PM

Wow, iz dis a regular who's dick is bigger compo?

Ok here is my entry, a dev computer I have built in may 2001:

Intel celeron2 pcpga 700
asus cusl2-ca
512 samsung sdram133
asus v7100 32m
19" fujitsu-siemens crt
quantum 80G and a quantum 6.4G hdd
asus 52x cdrom
nec zip100 ide
microsoft trackball optical and a microsoft intelli optical
a funky hungarian mitsumi keyboard
creative sb128 pci
hp sj 3300c
canon s400
win2kpro, debianv2.2, win98se, winxppro for testing

And I have my old pentium166 with wierdo OSs like basic win95, winnt sp3 and redhat7 to test princec and others' buggy games.


__________________
Bernie Kirschner
BKGames.com





Posted by bernie at 04-19-2003 08:02 PM

And I have an always running English-Hungarian dictionary and corrector but as it seems it's totally useless.


__________________
Bernie Kirschner
BKGames.com





Posted by Si Design at 04-19-2003 09:16 PM

I consider it important to develop projects on a variety of systems, so I have three PCs at home - a low spec one, a medium spec and high-spec.

Low-spec: PIII 1Ghz, 512Mb, GeForce2 MX
Med-spec: P4 1.7Ghz, 512Mb, Radeon 9500 Pro
High-spec: P4 3Ghz, 1GB, Radeon 9700


__________________
www.superhamsterball.com





Posted by Fenix Down at 04-19-2003 09:39 PM


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Si Design
I consider it important to develop projects on a variety of systems, so I have three PCs at home - a low spec one, a medium spec and high-spec.

Low-spec: PIII 1Ghz, 512Mb, GeForce2 MX
Med-spec: P4 1.7Ghz, 512Mb, Radeon 9500 Pro
High-spec: P4 3Ghz, 1GB, Radeon 9700
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



By your definition I have a low spec PC. I don't think the typical PC user has 512 MB of RAM or a 1 GHZ processor (though that could be "medium spec"). Low spec would be like 300-400 mhz.





Posted by Akura at 04-19-2003 10:30 PM

P4 2.0
256 sdram 133 (crap i know)
80gb hdd 5200rpm
gf3

audigy card
19 inch monitor
and in a few days, the new desktop multimedia wireless black keyboard and mouse from MS


In response tt Si Design, why the heck do you think you think it is important to
develop projects in low end pcs? Testing, yes, but develop ? I can't see the gain you get from taking 4 times more time to compile a program. Development platforms are rarely the target machines for the games, either different OSs, GFX cards, processor speed, etc, as for development you usually need more power (the user may require Pixel shaders for the 20 hours he plays the game, but you need a fast processor for the 2000 hours you spend on it).


__________________
Genius at work...





Posted by gilzu at 04-20-2003 02:51 AM

Well...

1700+ AMD Athlon
256MB RAM
20GB Hard Drive (dont need much, just burn all backups & Music)
GeForce 2 DDR
and a nice 750K Cable connection

also, my museum piece:

XT Turbo 5Mhz (!)
640KB Ram
CGA screen (4 Color)
2 - 5 1/4 floppy

hye, i need to play digger sometimes!


__________________
Gil Zussman
http://www.gilzu.com
gil@gilzu.com

LordKronos
06-20-2003, 01:09 PM
Posted by MirekCz at 04-20-2003 04:26 AM

Fenix ge2/4mx -> no pixel shaders and that's a real pain for any decent 3d.

Many ppl have got now a pixel shader 1.2 or so card and you can quite easily add some funky effects like nice water etc with ps, so if you're going into decent 3d it is worth to explore this path to add to your game quality for higher specs PCs.

All in all, I think I like radeon9100 more (not much more expensive, but much better image quality then ge4mx)


__________________
With best regards,
Mirek Czerwiński





Posted by zoombapup at 04-20-2003 05:31 AM

Usually dont like to indulge in these sorta comparisons. But Ive seen a few trends here that are interesting.

Anyway, my current setup (which will change pretty soon).

P4 2.2g
512
GF4 TI4600

P3-450
256
GF2

Athlon 700
128
GF1

Right now Ive got around 400gig of diskspace, setup in different machines. Each one of my working machines will eventually have at least a 120gig 7200rpm drive with 8meg buffer. Probably two per machine.

This is all networked (thinking of going wireless for part of that).

Ive collected a mishmash of older machines too, from a Pentium 166+voodoo1 upwards. Also, Ive collected a bunch of vid cards, from TNT2, Voodoo1 and 2 (SLI), ATI 8500, 9000, 9500, Matrox Millenium, Mystique, 440, GF1, GF2, GF4.

So I guess I need a GF3 ) As theyre quite common. Perish the thought of actually buying one tho!

I'm going to convert the Athlon into a linux box, everything else is currently W2k, which Ive found to be better than XP.

Also, I'm trying to negotiate a nice Mac for development, because I take that market seriously. Finally, I'm after a good quality laptop with wireless network for when I'm overseas or away from the office.

.Z.


__________________
-----------------------
Game Programmer





Posted by patrox at 04-20-2003 07:49 AM

k6 400. 128 MB Ram, TNT2 M64.

pat.
http://www.phelios.com





Posted by jaggu at 04-20-2003 07:50 PM

Mine is probably the slowest machine on here:

PII 400 Celeron
96 MB ram (88 for apps, 8 for video)
8 gig hdd
broken cd drive





Posted by Siebharinn at 04-20-2003 08:17 PM

Hey jaggu, maybe it's time to think about that "goals" and "missions" stuff again. Sometimes having enough to survive isn't all it's cracked up to be.







Posted by Davaris at 04-21-2003 02:32 AM

Jaggu:
My main machine is slower than yours so don't sweat it.

I've seen a lot of people go out and buy the best gear for what ever they do. Be it sport or programming. In most cases they don't do anything with it.

Then I've met people who really want something and they do what ever it takes with whatever they have at hand to reach their goals.

There must be a quote from Yoda that describe the above.





Posted by DCoder at 04-21-2003 10:04 AM

Well, I can't believe I'm going to do this. It's like offering lambs to the slaughter...


Apple Powerbook G4 Titanium Laptop
Apple MacOS Jaguar (10.2.5)
800 MHz PowerPC G4 processor
1 GB PC133 SDRAM
60 GB Ultra ATA HD
Slot-load DVD-ROM/CD-RW
15.2-inch TFT display
ATI Mobility Radeon 9000
Airport 802.11b Wireless card
10/100/1000Base-T gigabit ethernet
FireWire (IEEE1394)
USB 1.1


Oh, did I mention it's 1 inch thick?


Generally, on my desk, I connect it to:
19" ViewSonic monitor
Microsoft Natural Pro Keyboard (can't type on anything but)
Logitech M-BA47 ergo-mouse
Wacom 4x5 tablet

-daniel


__________________
"There are 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary, and those who don't."





Posted by jaggu at 04-21-2003 11:09 AM


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Siebharinn says: Hey jaggu, maybe it's time to think about that "goals" and "missions" stuff again. Sometimes having enough to survive isn't all it's cracked up to be
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



I dont have to. I am quite pleased with this machine. If I can get my game to scream on this box, I know I've done well. If Doom can amaze me on a 486/33, I have a machine thats at least twice as fast.


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Davaris says: I've seen a lot of people go out and buy the best gear for what ever they do. Be it sport or programming. In most cases they don't do anything with it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



True. Many hi-fi machines are being used just for browsing, weblog writing, forum posting and post count monitering





Posted by ggambett at 04-21-2003 11:41 AM

I recently upgraded to

AMD Athlon XP 1800+ / MSI KT266
512 MB DDR
GeForce 4
40 GB HDD

I thought your standards would be much bigger, because hardware costs about 2x the US price here. I'm surprised, really.

PS : I forgot, Red Hat Linux 8.0


Last edited by ggambett on 04-21-2003 at 12:19 PM



Posted by Siebharinn at 04-21-2003 11:41 AM

Read Akura's post above. Sure, having a game that runs on a bottom end machine might have some merit, but it's just silly to develop a game on that, if you don't have to.

Writing software is my craft, I take it seriously, and my tools reflect that.





Posted by BioDeathWalker at 04-21-2003 11:51 AM

I recently downgraded to a P-200 with 64mb and some crappy no-name graphics card. I never knew win98 was so fast!

I also recently started programming on a top-of-the-line imac 350mhz

I find it much easier to debug stuff when you can watch the scanlines being drawn





Posted by DCoder at 04-21-2003 12:09 PM


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by BioDeathWalker
I also recently started programming on a top-of-the-line imac 350mhz

I find it much easier to debug stuff when you can watch the scanlines being drawn
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



LOL!

Especially if you're running MacOS X! It's nothing if not resource-intensive.

-daniel


__________________
"There are 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary, and those who don't."





Posted by jhocking at 04-21-2003 12:36 PM


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Siebharinn
Read Akura's post above. Sure, having a game that runs on a bottom end machine might have some merit, but it's just silly to develop a game on that, if you don't have to.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Ultimately you want both of course, a high end machine and a lower spec system, but the opposite conclusion to yours makes a lot of sense too. Why would you develop on a better machine than you intend the game to run on? If you want your game to run on older hardware then it is silly to develop it on bleeding edge latest technology.

That certainly is my take on things; it is easier to start small and work up than to take a game which needs the latest hardware and optimize it to run on older computers. But if you work on a brand new machine you will naturally tend to write code designed for the new machine.

I've seen posts on GarageGames where people are recommending $20,000 systems for developing games with. If you look at postmortems on Gamasutra, videogame companies usually just use higher-average systems for developing XBox games; why on earth would an indie developer need hardware better than they use?


__________________
-Joe Hocking
www.3darteest.com





Posted by Siebharinn at 04-21-2003 12:53 PM


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you want your game to run on older hardware then it is silly to develop it on bleeding edge latest technology.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



That's absurd. Writing a game is fundamentally a different task than playing a game, and the hardware requirements are different. Your game might run on win95 with 8 meg of memory, but you can't expect your development IDE to run in that.

Let me give an example. Let's say that you're writing a sprite based top-down shooter. You want to have rendered 3D artwork for the game. So you fire up 3D Studio to do your art work.

Now 3DS benefits immensely from a good 3D video card (will it even run without one?). It also has high memory requirements. Even though you're writing a 2D sprite based game, you need a 3D card. If you limited yourself to your target hardware, you would either not be able to do the 3D graphics, or they would be painful to do.

At this moment, doing normal programming tasks, my computer is using 308 meg of memory. The IDE by itself is 84 meg. You can't do that on a bottom end machine with 64 meg total, even if that's the target for your game.

You're right, you do have to be careful and not write your game to you dev machine's specs. Having a low-end machine for testing purposes is essential.





Posted by MirekCz at 04-22-2003 07:17 AM

hmm, actually, you don't need a low-end machine to develop games for low-end systems... althrought they are helpfull :-)

What counts is the knowledge about low-end systems and how to use them efficiently. If you know them well you will "automatically" perform most optimizations during dev. and only some specific asm optimizations might need target low-end system to get the "best" results.


__________________
With best regards,
Mirek Czerwiński





Posted by LordKronos at 04-22-2003 10:27 AM

I'm about 4 days behind on checking these forums...I hate when I see a thread and it's already 2 pages long But anyway, better late then never.

My current machine:
PIII 450MHz,
Abit BX6 motherboard (original, not revision 2)
320 MB PC100 memory
64MB GeForce 2 (although I recently swapped this out for a 32MB PowerVR Evil Kyro...see below)
SoundBlaster Live Value
27GB and 5.6GB hard drives (both 5200RPM)
Plextor 12/20 SCSI CD-ROM
Ricoh 2X SCSI CD-RW (yeah, go ahead and laugh)
19" Samsung monitor
Win2K

My new machine (which I'm still setting up and hoping to switch into production in the next day or two).
AMD XP 1800+
Asus A7N8X Deluxe motherboard (nForce w/out the IGP)
512MB PC3200 memory
64MB GeForce 2 (the one I swapped out of my current machine)
60GB Seagate ATA V hard drive (this drive is virtually silent)
Lite-On 52/24/52 CD-RW
DVD Drive (I don't know what kind or speed)
WinXP

Once I switch over, I'll still be using my 19" samsung, and I'll just have the other one on a 14" and/or use VNC. I also like the fact the my new computer has only 1 card in it (my GeForce 2)...everything else is on the motherboard (that means I only have 2 drivers to download for everything). I also like how silent the machine is, especially with the Seagate drive. My old computer is very loud. I think I'm gonna upgrade to a quiet power supply to make things even nicer on my ears. The DVD drive I have I got for free (I actually got 2 of them). The university threw it away because they were broken. I took them apart and found out some student put a penny in one of them, and an entire ball point pen in the other (some people )

I have some other computers I use for performance and compatability testing. My wife's is a Celeron 266 (although once I switch to my new computer, I'm gonna trade her the Celeron 266 for the PIII 450), with 192 MB, a 32MB TNT 2 Ultra, and Win98SE. I also have a Pentium 60 upgraded with the P120 Overdrive with 48MB memory, and a P133 with 64MB, both running Win98SE

Finally, for 3D compatability testing, I have a nice little collection of 3D cards I swap in and out of systems:

64 MB GeForce 2 GTS (AGP)
32 MB TNT 2 Ultra (AGP)
32 MB PowerVR Evil Kyro (AGP)
4 MB Voodoo (PCI)
8 MB Voodoo2 (PCI)
8 MB (?) ATI RageIIc (AGP)
4 MB Permedia (PCI)
8 MB Permedia 2 (AGP, I think)
4 MB (?) Rendition Verite 2200 (PCI)
4 MB Matrox Mystique (the very original version) (PCI)
[edit...I forgot to add the following]
8MB Riva 128 (AGP)
16 MB 3dfx Banshee (AGP)
16 MB (?) Intel i740 (AGP)



I know I have a couple more but I can't remember what they are. I probably should get some newer Matrox, ATI, and 3dfx cards.


__________________
Ron Frazier
Kronos software
http://www.kronos-software.com


Last edited by LordKronos on 04-22-2003 at 01:53 PM



Posted by BioDeathWalker at 04-22-2003 11:45 AM

I'm curious as to why most of you don't have dual monitor systems (aside from Siebharinn) ? I find it much easier to program and debug when using two monitors. It comes in very handy when you've got your IDE opened on one and the program debugging on the other. I even plug a second monitor in to my laptop to go dual screen when I'm using it at home. You get so much more screen space when you run everything dual monitor at 1600x1200. Testing is also a breeze since you can go single monitor on either one and test out the particular graphics card the monitor is plugged into without opening your case.





Posted by Jeff Evertt at 04-22-2003 12:41 PM


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by John Cutter
Video Cards: 64MB DDR NVIDIA_ GeForce4 MX™ Graphics Card

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Hey John,
The GF4 MX is really a GF2 with a fancy name. I'd recommend upgrading it to give your machine a longer life.





Posted by BioDeathWalker at 04-22-2003 12:51 PM

True, but I'd be willing to bet that they sold way more Geforce4 MX's then any other higher end Geforce4. So, the mx version is the one you want to use for developing games for the mass market.

For personal gaming I'd say upgrade it in a year or so with the next mx version for half the price. Its not like many games benefit from higher end cards yet anyway.





Posted by Fenix Down at 04-22-2003 01:30 PM


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by BioDeathWalker
I'm curious as to why most of you don't have dual monitor systems (aside from Siebharinn) ? I find it much easier to program and debug when using two monitors. It comes in very handy when you've got your IDE opened on one and the program debugging on the other. I even plug a second monitor in to my laptop to go dual screen when I'm using it at home. You get so much more screen space when you run everything dual monitor at 1600x1200. Testing is also a breeze since you can go single monitor on either one and test out the particular graphics card the monitor is plugged into without opening your case.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



I didn't mention it but I have a dual monitor setup as well. The second card is a cheap 2 meg Matrox Millenium but it gets the job done. You're right, it's nice to be able to step through the code and see what's going on in the game at the same time.





Posted by SopiSoft at 04-23-2003 05:52 PM

P3 1.0 GHz
384 MB SDRAM
GeFORCE 4 TI 4200 128 MB DDR
36 GB HD
SoundBlaster Live 5.1
Lite-ON 12X CD-RW
DVD Drive
Windows XP Pro SP1





__________________
SopiSoft's website!





Posted by chain at 04-27-2003 02:54 PM

Here's my development box... If your wondering "what the hell" well I run a website other then Webforce Creations called Comp-Shop (www.comp-shop.com). Comp-Shop is a website for computer enthuiasts. Check it out!

Project Cool
Created by: Patrick Hankinson (Founder of Comp-Shop.com)

System Specs.-
- AMD Athlon 1300 overclocked to a 1.56 GHz
- K7T Turbo 2 Motherboard
- Geforce 2 MX 100/200
- 256 MB of Ram
- Microflow II heatsink
- Runs at 43.5C

Features-
- Excellent Cooling
- Arcylic Window and Fan Grill
- Tri-Colored Fan
- Front Bay has a Indiglo Clock
- Wire Managment
- Cold Cathode Lighting Kit


Check out the pictures:
http://www.comp-shop.com/Cases/Project-Cool-6.jpg

http://www.comp-shop.com/Cases/Project-Cool-7.jpg

http://www.comp-shop.com/Cases/Project-Cool-8.jpg

http://www.comp-shop.com/Cases/Project-Cool-9.jpg


__________________
"Making games doesn't cost a dime, only all of your time."
- Patrick Hankinson

Webforce Creations -
www.webforcecreations.com






Posted by Duncan at 04-28-2003 07:32 PM

Heres the specs for my machine:

AMD T-Bird 1GHz
384Mb RAM
20Gb Hdd
GeForce 2 GTS
Soundblaster 128

Recently, I've gone full time as a game developer. I was willing to spend lots of money upgrading but I decided not to touch the above components, and instead I bought a silent power supply and a couple of silent fans to make my work environment at home a lot better. I upgraded from Win98SE to WinXP too. Bad DirectX code could bring win98 down in a second but winxp is considerably harder to bring down.
Gotta have a slow machine to make sure your games will work for everyone too! I have parts of a P200 lying around, I should really get that going and stick win98 on it as a test platform.


__________________
Duncan Rumbold
Creative Director
Tiny Tiger Studios

http://www.tinytigerstudios.com

PaulNZ
06-20-2003, 03:37 PM
Just to be different...

iBook
800Mhz G3
384MB Ram
ATI Radeon 7500 (I think)
OS X (10.2.6)

:p

I also have a 1.2Ghz AMD tbird PC, but I don't use that a lot anymore...plus my GeForce 2 blew up :(

Balron
06-20-2003, 06:25 PM
My toys;

(This One)
1.5 ghz P4
512mb RAM
40gb HD
32mb SiS video card (its a pos I know)
CD-RW (40 spd )
Floppy Woppy
WinXP Pro
SoundBlaster something or other

(The Unstable POS, if it runs without crashing here it is god)
800 mhz P3
512mb RAM
20gb HD
32mb SiS video card
CD-R (8 spd)
Floppy Woppy
NT4 Workstation

(Low, Low, Low Spec Laptop)
133 mhz P1
32mb RAM
800mb HD
Floppy Woppy
(Broke the CD-R years ago)
Some POS video card.