Supreme Commander will either be a huge hit, or a total flop. It has hit potential mainly due to the popularity of Total Annihilation... but the steep system requirements could be a hinderance to its success. I still think it's worth a gamble though.
I think it's recommended to have a dual core processor for SupCom because (a) they're available now, and most new laptops have one, and (b) they're subsequently optimizing the game for them just in case someone has one, to make use of their processing power.
My desktop doesn't have a dual core processor, but that's not going to stop me.
I think the problem with the line of thinking (RTS games can be scaled down) is that may be the case w/ SOME RTS games.
SC will be a lot like TA. Although you could turn down the graphics (TA allowed 1600x1200 resolution and that was a decade ago), you can't do anything about CPU intensive operations--primarily the fact that TA and SC allow players to have thousands of units. CPU was my biggest problem with TA. Even with graphics on low to compensate an older graphics card, when everyone in the game has a thousand units in the battle, your old CPU won't cut it. This game recommends a dual core CPU!
no, i dont think that's correct. true, FPSs take the cake for sheer amount of pixels pushed, detail of textures, HDR etc; however, I challenge you to get a shedload of units in a fantasticly huge battle, with plenty of nukes for good measure, and this game will push any PC on the market today.
That is the great thing about RTSs, they are totally scaleable to any PC.
The trend for PC users is increasing laptop use and decreasing desktop use. However, many laptops now ship with 2GB of RAM. Many reviews say you actually should have 2GB of RAM to run Vista well.
System requirements are one of the reasons I keep saying PC gaming is dead and people are just going to go with console games. I really hope Halo Wars and C&C3 for Xbox 360 do well. Then maybe Gas Powered Games may consider doing an Xbox 360 version of SC.
Kaukiller: As I understand it, optimizing the game means making the code more condensed and getting rid of excess things that aren't helping— thus allowing the computer to process everything quicker.
I agree that 2GB is bit steep, but those are the "recommended" requirements, for the beta. The minimum RAM is only 512MB, and I think most "simpler" gamers by now, like me, have at least 1GB. I expect the recommended RAM to fall to maybe 1.5GB, but I am completely certain that it won't exceed the 2GB the beta requires.
optimized = lower system requirements? I would have thought the other way around.
see my problems are 1) I'm on a laptop 99.5% of the time 2) 2gbs of ram seem kind of steep. Don't they? Is it just because I haven't been in the market for a couple of years?
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