Can I run this game?

[thegamemaster1234]

Hi! I'm considering buying Factorio, but I am concerned that my computer may not be able to run it.

Mostly, this is about vram, because all I could find was that you had to have 512mb. However, my old 2007 macbook pro (running Linux and with 4gb RAM, 2.2Ghz dual core CPU) only has a 128mb dedicated NVIDIA card. I can run Minecraft and even Team Fortress 2 well enough to be playable, but since I saw somewhere that this game loads all of its graphics into vram I am genuinely worried that the game won't work at all, or that many graphical elements would simply fail to load.

I have tested playing the demo and it works rather well, though apparently because of its reduced content it has lower hardware requirements.

Can anyone give me a definitive answer? I would hate to buy this game just to find out I can't handle it...

[DaveMcW]

Very doubtful.

[Daid]

You can buy it on steam and refund it within 2 hours of playing time if it doesn't work. I've done this with a few games already. Intel graphics 3000 card here, which is a bit of a hit&mis with various games. Not for vram problems, but other issues. So I am quite happy with steams policy on this.

http://store.steampowered.com/steam_refunds/

I did have performance issues with the smoke in factorio, but you can disable that.

[Deadly-Bagel]

Yeah I've got 1.5GB VRAM and I have trouble with smoke. Just a little jumpy in some areas, though when I did my no-solar run I had to disable it because I couldn't get near them lol.

[ssilk]

I am concerned that my computer may not be able to run it.

You can rock it:

[Deadly-Bagel]

Oh, I'll mention I tried it on my work computer once with a 512mb quad card and it was pretty bad, maybe 5fps on just a starting base before even automation 2, but I was running all four screens at the time (only one on Factorio of course). I suspect if I disabled three screens it would run okay.

[thegamemaster1234]

Thanks for the support, guys! If I buy the game, I'll be sure to let you know how things work out.

EDIT: I bought the game, and things are looking better than expected! Despite having but a fourth of the vram supposedly required, the game loaded up just fine and doesn't seem to have any issues besides some lag (but I was expecting this). After tweaking the graphics settings a bit much of the lag went away, and it looks like I'm ready to go!

[aober93]

Even with the demo you cannot tell if this game runs on your pc, because only a big base puts strain on your cpu. But i guess 2,2ghz is perfectly fine to complete the game, but far from being able to run a megabase.
Completing the game requires you to launch 1 rocket and you have hours time. In megabases you launch 1 rocket every minute or something like that, so essentially they are literally 100 times more complex.