Requirements overated?

[Jerry000]

Are those minimum requirements for real? I mean...seriously? Game looks just a bit better than baldurs gate but with 10000x higher requirements?

[Swesal]

System requirements are pretty low.... it needs shader model 3 compatible GPU with 512 MB which is like what a ten year old card? And a Pentium4, which is more then ten years old.

[Jerry000]

but it says i3 processor...

MINIMUM:
OS: Windows Vista 64-bit or newer
Processor: Intel Core i3-2100T @ 2.50 GHz / AMD Phenom II X3 B73
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: ATI Radeon HD 4850 or NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT
Hard Drive: 14 GB available space
Sound Card: DirectX Compatible Sound Card

[CDsmasher]

...unfortunately, the game is terribly optimized. I see a lot of places where my framerate drops to near 40 all the way from 60. I do not see how it's possible for a game with a mostly 2D background and f*cking terrible, low detailed 3D characters to be so system intensive. I can run Crysis 3 on ultra with better framerate ffs, I have a gtx 970 G1, i5 4690k lol...

[CDsmasher]

The good thing is since theres not much going around visually (lol), you won't be really bothered with framerates dropping to even 30fps. Your characters movements will not look very smooth, that's all.

[Kordanor]

Don't forget that this Game is based on Unity, which, while being a great and easy way for developers to realize their vision and focus on game design rather on engine design, is also not the most ressource efficient engine.

That said, the game looks extremely well, for such low requirements.
My PC about hits the minimum requirements and the newest parts (CPU and GFX) are about 5 years old.
Phenom II X3 @2,8 GHz
6 GB RAM
Geforce GTX 260

So with that setup the Game runs perfectly smooth, no stuttering at all (well, it happened on one map but that was probably a bug). And while doing so it looks great.

This is because the game uses a mix of 2D and 3D. The Background is a pre-rendered 2D image, while the character models and things like water are 3D stuff done on top.
So there is less processing power required than Wasteland 2 for example, while looking better.

[CDsmasher]

^ A good example of what I just mentioned. He is probably playing at a terrible framerate but does not realize it and thinks it's perfectly smooth.

[Kordanor]

Yeah, of course it also plays a big role that it's not being a shooter / First person game.
I just checked the FPS with fraps, loaded a late savegame, and ran around in Cad Nua. The Framerate was at stable 33-35 frames per second, which can only be regarded as smooth in an isometric game.
I never saw any stuttering. Which I cannot say for Wasteland 2 (which goes full 3D) but also Spiderweb Games like Avernum or Avadon, which look far worse but had some stuttering in fights when using AOEs, where the game starts redrawing some stuff.

[Steefy_92]

Originally posted by Swesal:

System requirements are pretty low.... it needs shader model 3 compatible GPU with 512 MB which is like what a ten year old card? And a Pentium4, which is more then ten years old.

That doesn't mean it will run well because it's CPU demanding game not GPU .... heck all unity games are like that.Also those min requirements are there just for show, an actual min requirements for this game to be playable is slightly lower than recommended requirements .. in other words min req is sufficient enough to run game but not play it .. ( unless you think that 20-30 fps is playable if you meet min spec ).

Believe me it's quite annoying to see game drop from 55-60 to 30-40 and sometimes lower even though it's isometric.So yeah requirements are overrated because of poorly handled optimization.Having finished game day ago, I have no intention of playing this game until this is addressed (which will never happen),even after two expansions get released.I am more eager to wait for sequel instead which will hopefully be better polished experience in terms of performance.

[DarkExcalibur42]

Originally posted by Jerry:

Game looks just a bit better than baldurs gate

I encourage you to do a side-by-side comparison with Baldur's Gate. The visual differences are quite dramatic, and PoE looks dramatically better.

[xsys]

Originally posted by Jerry:

Game looks just a bit better than baldurs gate...

Sorry for your vision problems. Those are 3d models that you can zoom in on and actually see detail in their face and armour, unlike BD where you have little 8 bit blobs of...whatever they are. The animations are fluid and detailed in PoE compared (again) to BD with 2 frames per sec. smears of movement that can hardly be called animation.

My apologies to all of you BD fans :)

[DarkExcalibur42]

No offense taken. Baldur's Gate remains a beautiful game, but the level of detail on PoE's characters and terrain is superb.

[Legion-21]

Hello folks. First time poster. I'm about to drop cash on this game, and most of my requirements are met, except RAM: I have 4 GB, but however Windows displays 3.9 GB usable RAM. Will I get locked out of the game for not meeting requirements?

[Jerry000]

well i have dual core 2800, and nvidia geforce 8800GT...i cant belive for this kind game i dont meet minimum...game does not look waw

[Kordanor]

Originally posted by ShadowLegion:

Hello folks. First time poster. I'm about to drop cash on this game, and most of my requirements are met, except RAM: I have 4 GB, but however Windows displays 3.9 GB usable RAM. Will I get locked out of the game for not meeting requirements?

Though it cannot be guaranteed, players report that it also runs with 32bit systems, which don't even support 4 GB of ram. So I guess you should be fine.

[Legion-21]

Originally posted by Kordanor:

Originally posted by ShadowLegion:

Hello folks. First time poster. I'm about to drop cash on this game, and most of my requirements are met, except RAM: I have 4 GB, but however Windows displays 3.9 GB usable RAM. Will I get locked out of the game for not meeting requirements?

Though it cannot be guaranteed, players report that it also runs with 32bit systems, which don't even support 4 GB of ram. So I guess you should be fine.

This is encouraging. Thank you!