Open MrSchism opened 11 years ago
matejcs
commented
11 years ago System requirements are always based on an estimate on what kind of hardware is necessary for a fluid user experience. If you put it low enough, it may not run in a way it's meant to run. If you put the requirements high enough, users with less powerful hardware could be pleasantly surprised how good the software works.
ksnd
commented
11 years ago Still, 2.8GHz dual-core sounds a bit high for a game released in 1998.
matejcs
commented
11 years ago Please consider the following: In 1998, majority of users used a resolution around 640x480 or 800x600 (heavily depends on country). Today, there's a ton of users with a 1920x1200 resolution. That is 7.5x difference. There also still can be suboptimal code in the Linux implementation of the HL engine which just might require much higher CPU frequency to make up for the less optimal code.
Having said that, if someone tests a weaker CPU (e.g. 2GHz) and can still play at Full HD, it would make sense to adjust the requirements.
ksnd
commented
11 years ago If it's worth mentioning, it works just as I thought. Linux Half-Life runs perfectly at 1920x1200, 100fps on Intel Core 2 Duo T9300 running at 800MHz and limited to running on one core. Higher resolutions need just better graphics cards.
MrSchism
commented
11 years ago Having said that, if someone tests a weaker CPU (e.g. 2GHz) and can still play at Full HD, it would make sense to adjust the requirements.
I'm playing on 1024x600 on a machine with a 1.6Ghz processor (single core, 32-bit OS) with 1 GB RAM and an integrated video device and getting impressive performance (not 100 FPS, but well over 30 which is traditionally regarded as "good enough" and technically "smooth" in most regards).
As I mentioned in my initial post... I'm using the Linux client with zero issues on hardware considerably lower than the "minimum system requirements". Minimum system requirements are generally regarded as what is necessary to make the game playable on a basic level.
ksnd
commented
11 years ago The laptop GPU it ran on is NVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M.
matejcs
commented
11 years ago Given what has been measured for the Core 2 Duo and Atom, it makes sense to lower the system requirements.
MrSchism
commented
11 years ago Is it worth mentioning that this goes well beyond just the GoldSrc titles.
From what I understand, there are three primary methodologies used to determine minimal system requirements:
1) See load on a system and estimate system requirements 2) Describe lowest-spec system tested that ran successfully 3) Describe system requirements for program with similar code base (Half-Life/Counter-Strike)
I find that quite often, the second method is used, thus making for a large number inconsistencies.
I'm working on a list now (My copy of which, after this post, will be wholly located at: https://gist.github.com/MrSchism/e415b934de83f08d4afe)
As of writing, this is the list I've compiled:
Just on a whim, I decided to test Half-Life on my netbook (https://gist.github.com/MrSchism/385f8ecd3425deeecd9f), despite it's 1.6Ghz Atom processor (http://store.steampowered.com/app/70/ claims a requirement of 2.8Ghz dual-core) and an Integrated Graphics Device (contrasting to the dedicated graphics listed).
Come to find out that it works. Well. It has some Steam overlay issues (shift-tabbing/alt-tabbing seem to have issues), admittedly, but that's besides the point.
I'm not sure if you guys can get your hands on less-capable hardware (I'm assuming a 2.8 Ghz dual-core was the lowest you could get), but it may be worth testing on lower hardware. This isn't an issue with Half-Life, but rather the requirements listed under the Linux section on the website (and subsequently, in the browser).