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Unsure if paid version will run.
Posted: Tue May 13, 2014 6:52 pm
by jdiboss
Hi all. I've just played through the demo/tutorial version and found it really good fun; it ran without any slowing or other issues. I was about to buy the Alpha version when I noticed that the minimum requirements are for 512mb of dedicated video memory.
I would be running the game on a mid-2010 MacBook Pro, it has 4GB RAM but the graphics card is a NVIDIA 320M 256 MB.
Does this mean I would be unable to run the game?
Thanks.
Re: Unsure if paid version will run.
Posted: Tue May 13, 2014 7:24 pm
by muzzy
The VRAM requirements are rather high at the moment, so you'd probably get garbled graphics. The devs are working on it, but reducing the video memory requirements will take a while.
Unfortunately, I believe you won't be able to run the game now. 256M might be enough in the future, but not currently as far as I know
Re: Unsure if paid version will run.
Posted: Tue May 13, 2014 7:51 pm
by jdiboss
Awh, oh well. Thanks for the advice. I may start saving up for a real computer now, I think.
Re: Unsure if paid version will run.
Posted: Tue May 13, 2014 8:11 pm
by muzzy
Remember to check back later even if you don't buy a new computer!
In two months from now 256M might be enough, maybe, but I'm not the developer so I can't know for sure what their planned schedule is.
Re: Unsure if paid version will run.
Posted: Tue May 13, 2014 8:32 pm
by BurnHard
The game has some sort of "low graphics mode" where it should work on your system:
https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=7&t=3077
Re: Unsure if paid version will run.
Posted: Tue May 13, 2014 8:37 pm
by FreeER
I don't think that low graphics mode is guaranteed to work (even on 256mb)...more of an "I hope this works for most people" kind of option...just saying so that jdiboss doesn't buy it "knowing" that low graphics mode will work and then be upset IF it doesn't...
Re: Unsure if paid version will run.
Posted: Tue May 13, 2014 8:39 pm
by BurnHard
I always thought that if the demo works, the full game should work as well. But yes, I can't guarantee it.
Re: Unsure if paid version will run.
Posted: Tue May 13, 2014 8:49 pm
by muzzy
The demo has less entities, thus less graphics to load into memory.
I have 1024M of VRAM on my Mac and I have to use low graphics mode. Since low graphics mode is just 50% scaled down images (on both axis, so 25% memory usage), I'm pretty confident 256M is not going to be enough for low graphics if 1024M is not enough for full.
Re: Unsure if paid version will run.
Posted: Thu May 15, 2014 11:49 am
by Gammro
1GB of VRAM should be enough to run the game without having to enable "low graphics" mode. I have a HD5850 1G myself, and it runs fine. I'd check if your GPU is actually powerful enough to run it. An Intel HD graphics card(or equivalent) with 1GB of VRAM probably won't be able to draw everything on a high resolution.
Likewise, my laptop has a graphics card with 512MB VRAM, which should be enough to load all sprites into memory, but it just doesn't have the rendering power to do this with 60fps. Low graphics mode and disabling shadows and smoke does help a lot. After doing this, I can at least have a moderately large factory on screen before it goes down again.
Re: Unsure if paid version will run.
Posted: Thu May 15, 2014 8:00 pm
by jdiboss
Just an update for anyone with a similar dilemma who finds this thread. I decided to buy it anyway and it runs fine.
Re: Unsure if paid version will run.
Posted: Thu May 15, 2014 8:13 pm
by BurnHard
muzzy wrote:I'm pretty confident 256M is not going to be enough for low graphics if 1024M is not enough for full.
The problem then has to be found somewhere else (some undiscovered bug) 1024M is more than enough for all the full sprites normally.
jdiboss wrote:...I would be running the game on a mid-2010 MacBook Pro, it has 4GB RAM but the graphics card is a NVIDIA 320M 256 MB...
...Just an update for anyone with a similar dilemma who finds this thread. I decided to buy it anyway and it runs fine.
Nice to hear... Have fun
Re: Unsure if paid version will run.
Posted: Fri May 16, 2014 11:43 pm
by muzzy
BurnHard wrote:muzzy wrote:I'm pretty confident 256M is not going to be enough for low graphics if 1024M is not enough for full.
The problem then has to be found somewhere else (some undiscovered bug) 1024M is more than enough for all the full sprites normally.
Well, this got me curious, so I closed a bunch of other apps and I can now run in full graphics mode just fine. I took out the OpenGL Driver Monitor and it seems Factorio with full graphics uses some ~500M of VRAM perhaps.
Now that I've restarted all the applications I had running before, Factorio still runs with the full graphics enabled. I tend to keep firefox running a month at a time and since each tab can create their own opengl contexts and use VRAM, something ugly must've been happening with it... Can't think of any other explanation.