Factorio Forums

Hello there,

I found this game yesterday on Steam, and it immediately seemed worth buying. The only problem is that I have a prehistoric graphics card (256 MB instead of the required 512 MB), and while I plan on getting a new one or even an entirely new PC, for now I don't have anything better.

However, I decided to at least try the demo, and not only did I really enjoy it, it also ran flawlessly without having to manually adjust any settings or anything. So while I assume the full game is a bit more intensive, I felt like I might as well ask in case it does work.

I don't really mind having to run it on low quality or with reduced FPS (as long at it doesn't look like a slideshow), if it runs it runs and like I said, I'm also looking to get a new PC fairly soon so then I will be able to run it anyway.

You should be able to run it with heavily reduced settings, but it will run poorly and look very bad and you can not expect official support if you do not meet minimum hardware requirements either.
If you plan to buy it anyway you can just buy it now, it is not getting cheaper any time soon.

Thanks for the quick reply! I guess I'll just try it and if it is really unplayable I can always get a refund from Steam.

I do feel like it's a bit odd that the demo is apparently much easier to run than the actual game, seems a bit misleading for people like me who use it to find out whether their PC can run it.

The demo isn't much easier to run graphics wise, it's around the same as the normal game. But the point of the game is to build big which brings every computer to its limit at some point. The demo doesn't allow you to build big enough to get to that limit, but freeplay (the normal sandbox) doesn't limit you in any way. So, if you play long enough, you will get to that limit. I for example have a shitty laptop and reached the point where the game actually slowed down after around 200 hours of gameplay at which point I was launching a rocket per minute. (Launching the rocket is the win condition, to give you a sense of scale. Most poeple who seriously go for that take around 40-50 hours to reach their first rocket launch). Others still don't reach the point at which the game slows down with truly gigantic structures because their computers are much better.

Ah, that makes sense. Also good to hear that I should be able to play for quite some hours until I reach the point where things become so complex that it becomes unplayable, and by that time I will probably have a better PC.

Thanks for the help!