Please change store page to reflect honest requirements

[Elegant Caveman]

I can't play more than an hour at a time (sometimes less) before crashing due to an "out of memory" error. It usually happens when saving (auto save or manual save), but sometimes it'll just happen by itself.

I've read up on my issue as much as I can, and this seems to be a common problem with 32-bit windows. Though the /3gb switch apparently fixes this for some people, that's not always an option.

If I meet the minimum requirements but can't play the game, that means the minimum requirements are a lie. Being able to play for only one hour at a time before crashing does not count as being able to play.

Please put a note on the store page that people with 32-bit systems and low RAM will not be able to play. This game is expensive enough as it is (worth it, but expensive); false advertising like this is quite insulting.

I don't want a refund. I love the game. I look forward to having a computer that can run it. But I would very much like to see the store page reflect honest requirements. That's all I'm asking for.

It seems the minimum requirements are a 32-bit system with 3gb+ of RAM -or- a 64-bit system with 1gb. If you have a 32-bit system, it looks like you need to do the /3gb switch.

EDIT:

I started a new game with 400 stars and 8x8 sectors to see if that would help. The crash still happened, but "only" after ~3h of play. That's better, but that's still not good enough.

The bottom line is that 32-bit system + 1gb memory = not enough to play this game. The store page is an outright lie. This is false advertising.

[Xerberus86]

they are "honest" requirements, but minimum requirements in a video game means that you can't pay that game on these settings with full detail and / or full scope. distant worlds has no graphic settings (you basically can change resolution if you decrease your desktop res) and the only thing really impacting the performance is:

- amount of stars
- amount of empires
(- physical size maybe)
- and objects in general, maybe making space creatures fewer and pirates, but in general the amount of stars has the biggest impact.

now if you increase the size of the galaxy by star amount then at the top of the screen a bright yellow text tells you what GB RAM is required to play this, if you don't have this (or didn't read the text) then its not the dev's fault for you playing in a setting of that scope.

so you might wanna try to reduce the star amount and the amount of empire you play with for the moment.

[smidlee]

This is a common problem when game require a lot of memory for 32-bit systems. This is do to the limits of the 32 bit OS which will only allow 4gb (including virtual) mapped total per program (2gb is reserved for the OS and 2gb for the program itself) . I wonder if you tried to lower the size of the galaxy, the number of pirates and races ,etc to solve this problem.

[Xerberus86]

Originally posted by smidlee:

This is a common problem when game require a lot of memory for 32-bit systems. This is do to the limits of the 32 bit OS which will only allow 4gb (including virtual) mapped total per program (2gb is reserved for the OS and 2gb for the program itself) . I wonder if you tried to lower the size of the galaxy, the number of pirates and races ,etc to solve this problem.

i think that he didn't read the warning text and maybe maxed out the settings and is wondering why he has problem when he's only fulfilling the minimum specs^^.

[Elegant Caveman]

Originally posted by Xerberus86:

i think that he didn't read the warning text and maybe maxed out the settings and is wondering why he has problem when he's only fulfilling the minimum specs^^.

That's a pretty insulting assumption. I'll kindly suggest you get off your high horse and be a bit less condescending, please.

I'm still playing the tutorial map; minimum requirements should be fine for those settings. It's the tutorial.

That said, I -have- looked at the new-game settings, out of curiosity, and I -did- notice the warning.

This is the warning in question: "Determines how many stars are in the galaxy. Dwarf, Tiny, Small and Standard galaxies require 1Gb of memory to play. Large and Huge galaxies require 2Gb."

Standard is 700 stars, which I'm assuming is what the tutorial map uses (this would be logical, and at the high-end of the memory requirement, but still within the 1Gb tier). I did notice the tutorial map uses 10x10 sectors (though there's no warning about memory size in regards to sector size).

If the default tutorial map is too big, then the tutorial map settings should be changed to work at minimum requirements.

But just for the fun of it, I'll start a new game with a Small (400) star amount and Medium (8x8) sector size. Let's see how that goes.

[Xerberus86]

me being insulting wasn't meant to be, but you deliver us no hint to what settings you have used (or what are you playing) and just shouting that the game doesn't meet the minimum requirements.

minimum requirements allow people in most games to play the game with somewhat sufferable framerates if they drop all settings down.

in the tutorial however i give it to you it shouldn'T happen. have you lowered the stars in the background? i don't know if that might help the performance, but other than that most games minimum specs aren't really 100% accurate tbh.

[Elegant Caveman]

Star density is halfway (default; haven't touched it - I'll try lowering that, though I doubt it'll make much of a difference). System Nebulae Details (in Advanced Display Settings) is at low.

I didn't provide further detail because this is a known issue with running the game on a 32-bit OS. I'm not posting here to fix it (I've already posted in the technical support forum for that, which I linked to), I'm posting here in the hopes that the issue will be recognized and that a warning will be put on the store page, instead of being swept under the rug.

It's been covered in other threads (such as this one, this one and this one in the Steam technical support forums, and this one[www.matrixgames.com], this one[www.matrixgames.com] and this one[www.matrixgames.com] on the official Matrix Games forum), and the issue seems to be specific to 32-bit systems.

When someone has enough RAM, using the /3gb switch can help alleviate the problem, but when someone has low RAM (I only have 2gb total, with ~1-1.2gb available), the /3gb switch is not an option.

Because of this, it seems that the 1gb minimum RAM only applies if someone has a 64-bit system, and because of whatever the problem is, 32-bit systems need more.

If I knew about this issue before buying the game, I wouldn't have bought it. This is false advertising.

I don't usually buy games on release, and I don't usually spend anywhere near this much money on games, but I've been wanting this game for a while and wanted to support the dev, so I bought it on launch (knowing that launch sales are important, business-wise).

Like I said in my technical support thread (link in my first post), I could easily get a refund from Steam; I've never asked for one before, and they generally give refunds when games don't work. But I don't want to do that. I want Elliot to keep my money. I love this game.

All I'm asking is that the system requirements on the store page reflect the game's actual needs.

I think that's fair, no?

[Thimple ThighMan]

Originally posted by Elegant Caveman:

All I'm asking is that the system requirements on the store page reflect the game's actual needs.

I think that's fair, no?

Absolutely.

I hate to think what the game would run like in the late stages of even a small galaxy on a "Pentium 4 @1.5 GHz "!

It's a slide show late game on a Standard 10 x 10 above the recommended requirements. Been that way since Legends.

[Xerberus86]

Originally posted by TaliskerTaster:

Originally posted by Elegant Caveman:

All I'm asking is that the system requirements on the store page reflect the game's actual needs.

I think that's fair, no?

Absolutely.

I hate to think what the game would run like in the late stages of even a small galaxy on a "Pentium 4 @1.5 GHz "!

It's a slide show late game on a Standard 10 x 10 above the recommended requirements. Been that way since Legends.

don't you have universe or at least the shadows expansion? in shadows they made a HUGE performance boost and improved it in universe even further. but the difference between legends and shadows was tremendous.

[Thimple ThighMan]

Yes, I have Universe. I haven't tried a late game in 1.9.5.2 yet, but in 1.9.5.1 it was still a slide show late game.

In Shadows, there was a slight improvement late game. Slight in that the difference between 3 fps and 5 fps doesn't make the game more playable particularly! Even though on paper it's a 66% improvement. Is that what you mean by HUGE? :)

There were lots of complaints about the late game performance on the matrix forums.

[Xerberus86]

Originally posted by TaliskerTaster:

Yes, I have Universe. I haven't tried a late game in 1.9.5.2 yet, but in 1.9.5.1 it was still a slide show late game.

In Shadows, there was a slight improvement late game. Slight in that the difference between 3 fps and 5 fps doesn't make the game more playable particularly! Even though on paper it's a 66% improvement. Is that what you mean by HUGE? :)

There were lots of complaints about the late game performance on the matrix forums.

since 6 month i have a new pc now so i can't really complain now, but until the end of the last year my specs looked like that:

intel core 2 duo E8550 (2x 3.2 GhZ)
AMD Raden HD 4870 (512 MB RAM)
4 GB RAM

<-- i had never a problem with the game.

now i have a intel i5 4440 with 4x 3.1 ghz and amd hd 7850 2gb and 8 gb ram...even less problems^^.

[relnu]

@ElegantCavemen:

What do you mean with reduced star density? The slider above the nebulae in the options?
That doesnt affect the performance as far as I know, purely cosmetical. (the nebulae option does affect performance though)

You need to play on smaller maps when you start a game. Therefore it is essential to play a "custom game":
400 stars
8x8
10 empires or so max

[Thimple ThighMan]

Originally posted by Xerberus86:

<-- i had never a problem with the game.

My specs are similar to your previous setup. E8400 CPU instead. i.e. 3GHz dual-core, which is well above the recommended spec of 2Ghz. As I said, slide show, quite literally late game.

If anyone has a 1.9.5.2 Standard 10x10 late game (everything explored, large empres with lots of ships) save they can upload to test, it would be interesting to see if the nebulous improvement claims bear any truth.

Of course it begs the question, that IF, as you said - you 'never had a problem with the game' - then why did they feel the need to improve mid-late game performance in Universe?! LOL

Someone must have had a problem with it, surely?

Am I imagining the slide show?!

[Elegant Caveman]

Originally posted by relnu:

@ElegantCavemen:

What do you mean with reduced star density? The slider above the nebulae in the options?
That doesnt affect the performance as far as I know, purely cosmetical. (the nebulae option does affect performance though)

You need to play on smaller maps when you start a game. Therefore it is essential to play a "custom game":
400 stars
8x8
10 empires or so max

I was going with Xerberus86's suggestion.

Originally posted by Xerberus86:

have you lowered the stars in the background? i don't know if that might help the performance

"Star Density" in options. Doubt it'll do anything (it doesn't make much difference visually, and I highly doubt it'll make the difference between crashing and not crashing, performance-wise), but it can't hurt to try.

I'm presently playing on a custom game with 400 stars and 8x8, no issues yet, but I'm only about an hour in. This is usually when the problems start happening, we'll see.

I'm playing pre-warp and don't have warp yet, so at this stage of the game, performance/resource requirements are relatively low. I'll see how things go later on.

Even if this gets rid of the crashes, though, my overall point still stands. Except that "change the minimum requirements on the store page" then becomes "please make the tutorial actually playable on minimum specs".

[ORATREE]

i play this game in 32bit operating system windows 7. and i give the 4gb memory to my computer, windows 7 reconigze 3.25gb. and i occure this something error like your problem, bot i operate 3gb switch and this problem is gone.

[Elegant Caveman]

Originally posted by neem693:

i play this game in 32bit operating system windows 7. and i give the 4gb memory to my computer, windows 7 reconigze 3.25gb. and i occure this something error like your problem, bot i operate 3gb switch and this problem is gone.

And that's exactly my point.

1gb (minimum requirement) is fine -if- you have a 64-bit system (and don't play on huge map with lots of stars).

OR

32-bit system (minimum requirement; at least by omission, since 64-bit isn't specified as a minimum) is fine -if- you have enough memory to do the /3gb switch.

BUT

1gb (minimum) with 32-bit system (minimum) -isn't- good enough.

That's why I'd like to see this reflected on the store page.