To All ADV Game Developers Who See This

First off I appreciate ll that you are doing in coming out with new games and I readily support all new adv game developers when I'm able to do so. However there seems to be a sort of trend with some lately that are creating games that require high end processors. I have a 1.8 processor in my computer and can play most games with no problems. However some new adv games recently have required 2-3 gig processors as minimum requirements (ex: Secret of Monkey Island SI 3 gig and Art of Murder 2: Hunt for the Puppeteer 2 gig which I can play but the cut scenes are messed up). There are many adv gamers out there who want to support you and buy your games but cannot afford to get state of the art high end computers/processors. Is it really necessary to create these games requiring 2+ gig processors to play them? As I stated before I'm not knocking any of you in any way but want to be able to play your games.

Regards,

Barry

I think they are between a rock and a hard place Barry. If they use older graphic models, they get told it's outdated and if they use the newest best graphics, they are going to require more computer to run it. It's a hard call for a developer to make everyone happy.

Ana

I find the graphics in Sherlock Holmes VS Jack the Ripper and Secret Files 2: Puritas Cordis excellent and they don't require 2-3 gig processors. I can see it with hard core action and RPG games but not necessary at all to with adv to achieve great looking graphics Ana.

Regards,

Barry

Do not believe the high specs needed. They are only a general safe amounts, lower will certainly work imo. Just have to look at the game and realise it wont need a 3ghz processor.

You have a point, Barry, but look how Still Life 2, for example, got panned because of its "poor" graphics. You wouldn't believe how many complaints I've read too about how the game has a fixed resolution (understandable, in a way, but hardly life-or-death like some people make it out to be). As technology improves it's only natural for adventure devs to want to "keep up," so to speak, and some players are growing to expect it, as well. Personally, I'm like you; as long as it's stable, I don't care, it's the game I'm playing for, not the art!

I think the most important thing is that if you are going to include the latest graphical bells and whistles, be sure to offer plenty of settings and options to allow the less fortunate of us players to lower or disable them altogether. SL2, again, has only two: texture detail, and anti-aliasing. Just being able to tweak shadow levels, even, can have a huge impact on framerate and performance.

I certainly feel your pain. At one point, I was running SL1 on a 1.5 gig processor and a 16mb graphics card (the recommended was 128).

Getting better graphics for the games is the reason I bought a new computer,plus more ram. I must admit the graphics are much better than my 2 year old system. Computer Technology just keeps leaving the older computer systems behind.

I'm with you Barry. There are many games that do not run on my system but I sure can understand why a game developer wants to use all of todays technology to make their games as good as possible.

Yes...I hated to see my windows 98 computer go to trash land..

But, You can't stand in the way of Technology...

You can upgrade all you want, but there comes a point where the upgrades cost more then the new computer.

Today's computer is obsolete tomorrow

Alot of gammers might have wanted that windows 98 computer....

Winfrey....

I don't think so....

the mother board was fried & the hard drive hubby took out to burn...So it was not much more then a shell

I believe that a balance can be found if the graphics of modern games are designed to be scalable which is Extremely Rare in Adventure Games. It's either this or that, no in-between options and which really frustrates me. There should be options for low end specifications but also for higher end like almost every other game genre has. It's really annoying to go into the options menu of most Adventure Games and just find controls and whether to turn subtitles on or off. It's 2009 and the graphics should be of very good quality but with scalable options for those who still have lower spec computers. I'd like to have good gameplay in Adventure Games and a good story line but if the graphics are of low quality and cannot be changed or what can be changed is limited, then i am really disappointed and might just uninstall the game or just play it just to say i finished it (like i did for example with Still Life 2, the story also didn't attract me that much which was also a contributing factor).

From what I read on the Secret of Monkey Island Special edition game forum (mght be Steam forum) the game won't even start after install with older processors (I have an athalon 1.8). So I guess I'm out of luck as well as everyone else who doesn't have at least 2.8 . Someone on that forum said they had a 2.0 and it wouldn't run. So save your money gang if you don't meet the specs.

Regards,

Barry

I feel the pain...i play on my winXP which is 5yrs old and has a Nvidia 5200fx graphics card-Pentium 4-HyperThread. By the way..the new Tomb of Zojir(Last Half of Darkness)is running just fine and is great!