Hello,
I am thinking about pledging for Alpha since they may release Alpha this month (Jan 2017) so I could test it with my system:
Windows 10 Pro
AMD FX 8350, Eight Core Processor 4.00 GHz
8.00GB Rams
** GeForce GTX 550 Ti
** I am concerned about my video card that it might be too low but like to test with alpha and see before upgrade in time for Beta/game release.
Thoughts or feedbacks would be appreicated. Keep up good work Novae team!
Erik
(Profoundly deaf player)
From my experiences the GPU is so much more important than the CPU. Although I cant tell for AMD at least at the Intel line you are still on the good side even with a CPU around 5 years old (eg 2600k). On the other hand what makes a huge difference is the GPU and its vram. So I’d go for a GTX 970/80 or preferable 1070 depending on the budget if I was you (I just upgraded from a 570 to a 1070 myself) before comsidering upgrading the rest. My 2 cents…
I have an AMD Athlon II X4, and the prototype barely used 60% of a single core once the game was running. When the game was loading up, it used all cores pretty evenly. My cpu is about 5 or 6 years (more???) old, no overclock. With the future update of multicore support (at this point the game only runs on one core), this will probably be improved. Now, we don’t have any huge ships or large number of players, so that is something to keep in mind when trying to fight in big battles with a weak cpu.
The main bottle neck, as @JoergZdarsky indicated, is the GPU.
Below is an image of MSI afterburner running while loading up the game, which took about 10 minutes (first 2/3 of the timeline). This was before the recent update that cut that time in half, but the principal is the same. I then went to skim a planet’s surface, which I think is the most demanding thing to do so far.
The top shows the real bottleneck with the game, and that’s the video ram usage.
I have a Radeon HD 7950 with 3GB of DDR5. And at high settings, the game uses up pretty much all of it. I don’t know how much ram is used during medium/low/ultra settings, or if this amount changes at all. But I do know that with 3 GB, running on ultra will result in a crash to desktop, along with stutters and low frame rates.
Think of it this way: How much VRAM you have is your right of passage to one of the games detail settings, and whatever GPU power is how well you can run at those settings.
If you have less than 3GB (minimum recommended is 4GB!!!), then it’s really hit or miss. You might be able to play at a low setting, you might not.
i have r7 260x and its just not enough.
It is barely gets to say 20 - 30 fps tops at racing course.
…still its impressive that it is at least this smooth for what is happening on screen.
And if i am not mistaken 550 is weaker :-/
I got a GTX 680 with 2GB VRAM and I can play the Prototype reasonably well on medium at 2560 x 1600.
The Alpha release was pushed back though. There will be weekend events for Alpha backers to play but it won’t release fully.
[quote=“IronSky, post:1, topic:4700”]
I am thinking about pledging for Alpha since they may release Alpha this month (Jan 2017) so I could test it with my system:[/quote]
Alpha was delayed by a few months. We’re going to have an open-test week-end by the end of January though.
[quote=“IronSky, post:1, topic:4700”]
** I am concerned about my video card that it might be too low but like to test with alpha and see before upgrade in time for Beta/game release.[/quote]
I don’t think that’ll be enough, the 550 Ti only has 1 GB of VRAM while the game requires at least 2 ( even at min settings ). It might run very slowly, so you can give it a try but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Thank you for your thought.
That is what I am afraid of. Guess I will need to upgrade my GPU soon.
Roger that! Thanks for responding.
I can also add to this by saying I started with a 750ti and it ran… okay. A bit stuttery in places, particularly near planet surfaces. Since I upgraded to a 1060 I have no problems at all on any settings 
So yes, gpu is important for the prototype.
Word of warning though.
You see since the game is not finished, it might happen that you get a new card that will be good enough now, but not so much in the future, when game is full of people whizzing around massive constructions…
