Horizons: 64 bit only; DX11 only

[Remus]

Nobody to stop you from trying.

Minimum requirements are usually set higher than necessary....call it a safety margin.

Of course, with your setup, you can't expect graphical glory and high performance, but you're close enough to the minimum specs to give it a go.

I suspect you might be able to run the game, and then you can save up for the needed upgrades.

I'll give it a go then, fingers crossed !

I was planing on buying a new pc next year, but until then I really hope I'll be able to have my space fix, even if it is on low graphics.

 

[OriginalBadBoy]

MOST console games however are P2P,

Actually that's not entirely correct, the majority of the games on the Xbox one with multiplayer use Azure now so its pretty much dedicated servers from here on in. The rest are generally dedicated servers from people like EA. Even most of the higher end 360 games use dedicated servers now as well.

No idea about the PS4 as I wouldn't use PSN for MP ... ever ..

Saying that ED on the Xbox still uses P2P as far as I am aware .. so go figure.

 

[Kristov]

Actually that's not entirely correct, the majority of the games on the Xbox one with multiplayer use Azure now so its pretty much dedicated servers from here on in. The rest are generally dedicated servers from people like EA. Even most of the higher end 360 games use dedicated servers now as well.

No idea about the PS4 as I wouldn't use PSN for MP ... ever ..

Saying that ED on the Xbox still uses P2P as far as I am aware .. so go figure.

MS has been moving their games over to servers instead of P2P, more secure, better experience, but they did P2P originally and that was a lot of games. Most of the game developers used P2P because it was easy and it worked for the limited player amounts on the consoles, still does really, but the security issues are so massive that MS is pushing the non-P2P network setup, and with the XBOne and it's networking/online systems, definitely the best choice. Game devs can still use P2P, as FD did with Elite on the XBOne, that's always the developer's call...but MS really would prefer non-P2P, so maybe, with some luck, MS will push FD to go with a serverside setup in the future for the XBOne at least, and that would easily translate to the PC...one can hope!

Sony...yeah, that's a joke when it comes to security, the main reason I've never owned a single Playstation console and have no plans on getting one anytime soon. Sony security..that's more of an oxymoron than military intelligence!

 

[Cynaqq]

Running games on server clusters and streaming to the clients isn't new by any means, that's been going on for over a decade. WoW, EQ, UE, hell most MMOs and quite a few FPS games on the PC, all serverside games. MOST console games however are P2P, as Sony and MS didn't feel like paying for server farms to run the games on, but that's getting looked at again with a different view, it's more secure to have server farms for starters, and it provides better gaming experiences, so they are looking into that now, but since I was getting paid to admin and maintain server farms for PC games in the late 90s by hosting companies, it's not a remotely new concept or technology

Are you serious?

I'm not talking about server side multiplayer. I'm talking about running the game itself on the server and sending the video to you.

My turn to be needlessly educational while subtly insulting the intelligence and knowledge of my reader... I'll explain like everybody is a 5 year old.

'WoW, EQ, UE, hell most MMOs and quite a few FPS games on the PC' run on each player's local machine. The computer games run on a software called the 'engine'. This 'engine' software takes the necessary information to draw pictures on our screen from special files that make up the 'assets' of the game. Assets are like your toys but separated to their parts like lego or your Barbie^TM doll! The game engine takes the naked dolls and their clothes from the special files and put the clothes on them. Then it turns on the lights of the dollhouse and moves them around according to 'scripts'. Yes! you are right! Games have scripts just like movies. Do you like movies? Some video games don't have scripts for all the dolls it will draw on the screen. Instead they ask people sitting in front of their computer where they would like their dolls to do and move them as the players tell them to do. These kind of games are called 'multiplayer'! Just like playing house with your friends, you can run around with them in the computer. But it's a little bit different. Imagine you are playing house with a lot of friends but you are not allowed to see each other while you play for a moment. You choose a friend as a messenger to run around, ask everyone what they are doing and then tell everybody what everybody else is doing in turn! This friend is called the 'server'. The game server in video games can be a special computer with a different software only working to tell everyone what everyone else is doing. This kind of servers are 'dedicated' servers. They do not play the game themselves but make sure everybody else can play. Some other games have one of the players also go around telling everybody what everybody else is doing. This player is also called a server but because she is also one of the players she is friends with everyone. Now everybody likes this server and thinks they are equals. When everybody loves and respects each other the same amount, they are called 'peers'. Therefore a game with one of the 'peers' as also a server is called 'peer to peer' multiplayer game.

As you hopefully see by now, I'm not talking about what kind of networking is used for matchmaking. I'm talking about running the entire simulation serverside, only receiving control input from the client device (since it does not have to be a computer, any audio-visual device capable of joining a data network and sending inputs, such as your phone), requiring no further computing from it and sending the video back in real time. Think of it like a twitch tv stream where you are controlling the game which is running on the streamers computer but for everyone playing the game. This way if your toaster had a screen and USB port, it could virtually be played on a toaster, since it is actually not played but only viewed and listened to on client devices.

Edit: On reading your previous post again, I saw where the confusion came from in another light. Yes, a lot of games will do more than relaying positional information to clients on the server side, such as calculating hits and damage, control the NPCs etc. This is also not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about everything from physics to npcs to graphics being server side.

TL;DR: Absolutely no game computing on client side. Just sending inputs and streaming video. Everything else is server side.

 

[Kristov]

Are you serious?

I'm not talking about server side multiplayer. I'm talking about running the game itself on the server and sending the video to you.

My turn to be needlessly educational while subtly insulting the intelligence and knowledge of my reader... I'll explain like everybody is a 5 year old.

'WoW, EQ, UE, hell most MMOs and quite a few FPS games on the PC' run on each player's local machine. The computer games run on a software called the 'engine'. This 'engine' software takes the necessary information to draw pictures on our screen from special files that make up the 'assets' of the game. Assets are like your toys but separated to their parts like lego or your Barbie^TM doll! The game engine takes the naked dolls and their clothes from the special files and put the clothes on them. Then it turns on the lights of the dollhouse and moves them around according to 'scripts'. Yes! you are right! Games have scripts just like movies. Do you like movies? Some video games don't have scripts for all the dolls it will draw on the screen. Instead they ask people sitting in front of their computer where they would like their dolls to do and move them as the players tell them to do. These kind of games are called 'multiplayer'! Just like playing house with your friends, you can run around with them in the computer. But it's a little bit different. Imagine you are playing house with a lot of friends but you are not allowed to see each other while you play for a moment. You choose a friend as a messenger to run around, ask everyone what they are doing and then tell everybody what everybody else is doing in turn! This friend is called the 'server'. The game server in video games can be a special computer with a different software only working to tell everyone what everyone else is doing. This kind of servers are 'dedicated' servers. They do not play the game themselves but make sure everybody else can play. Some other games have one of the players also go around telling everybody what everybody else is doing. This player is also called a server but because she is also one of the players she is friends with everyone. Now everybody likes this server and thinks they are equals. When everybody loves and respects each other the same amount, they are called 'peers'. Therefore a game with one of the 'peers' as also a server is called 'peer to peer' multiplayer game.

As you hopefully see by now, I'm not talking about what kind of networking is used for matchmaking. I'm talking about running the entire simulation serverside, only receiving control input from the client device (since it does not have to be a computer, any audio-visual device capable of joining a data network and sending inputs, such as your phone), requiring no further computing from it and sending the video back in real time. Think of it like a twitch tv stream where you are controlling the game which is running on the streamers computer but for everyone playing the game. This way if your toaster had a screen and USB port, it could virtually be played on a toaster, since it is actually not played but only viewed and listened to on client devices.

That's a different critter all together, and it's also not new, it's just never been practical, due to the lack of high bandwidth connections that could handle the data flow required or the server hardware to run the game for multiple players at once. High bandwidth connections are more common now, so that's one issues down, but the server hardware required to run a real time game for a lot of people at the same time, not really there yet. It's getting closer, not quite there yet, but definitely getting closer, it's quite possible we'll see this within the next decade on the outside, maybe sooner. We definitely have the client end hardware for good graphics, audio, and able to handle the data, another thing that's been a hold up, as your average cellphone today is easily capable of handling the feed from such a system, you can even get VR on Samsung's Galaxy 6 devices, won't be long before the other makers follow suit, provided it goes over well. $99 for a good VR experience on a cellphone? Yeah, I think it'll go over well, so I'm sure we'll see Apple, Motorola, LG and HTC all jumping on the bandwagon for cellphone VR soon, and that will push the pure serverside gaming you are talking about as the cellphone won't have the power to BOTH run the game AND do VR.

It's like streaming movies, Netflix only recently started doing that, previously you got movies from Netflix in the mail, an actual physical cd/dvd. Now, you stream the movies, and in the past year or so, you stream HD movies. 10 years ago no one would have said this could be done, now it's the standard, so common that T-Mobile, a cell service provider, is offering unlimited streaming of Netflix and Hulu on their cell service plans, streaming a movie does NOT count against your data usage for the month. A year ago a couple of movies a month ate your data allotment, now, watch em all day long, every day of the week, doesn't count as data usage.

It will be awesome when they can finally get the server run gaming going that you are actually talking about, I didn't realize that's what you meant as it's not exactly a known thing, my apologies.

 

[Cynaqq]

Snip

I knew what the confusion was the second time I read your answer carefully but didn't delete my post because I figured it could actually be informative for a five year old out there .

Nice to be on the same page pal, fascinating opportunities when we have a little bit more affordable technology on the servers and consumer level networking options. A man can dream, can't he?

have a +1.

 

[Kristov]

I knew what the confusion was the second time I read your answer carefully but didn't delete my post because I figured it could actually be informative for a five year old out there .

Nice to be on the same page pal, fascinating opportunities when we have a little bit more affordable technology on the servers and consumer level networking options. A man can dream, can't he?

have a +1.

It's getting even better, there are control interfaces common in Japan that you don't see elsewhere for cellphone apps, tails that wag according to your mood, as detected by sensing electrical currents in your body and your temp, ears that do the same, and they tie into an app that shows your friends your mood and where you are at. Now, take that same tech base, which is basically sensing electrical impulses in the body, and attach sensors to the hands via a glove, and you've got your control inputs for a VR game on your cellphone that's run on a server somewhere on the other side of the globe, complete with video comms, since medium and up grade cells all have dual cameras for video chatting now. So, you'll BE your own avatar, as you talk it talks, as you move your real eyes, the avatar's eyes move and so on.

Give it 20 years, tops, full body suits and all that accompanies that perhaps? Oh gods, just think, that could be the end of the human race, or at least the Japanese

 

[Cynaqq]

It's getting even better, there are control interfaces common in Japan that you don't see elsewhere for cellphone apps, tails that wag according to your mood, as detected by sensing electrical currents in your body and your temp, ears that do the same, and they tie into an app that shows your friends your mood and where you are at. Now, take that same tech base, which is basically sensing electrical impulses in the body, and attach sensors to the hands via a glove, and you've got your control inputs for a VR game on your cellphone that's run on a server somewhere on the other side of the globe, complete with video comms, since medium and up grade cells all have dual cameras for video chatting now. So, you'll BE your own avatar, as you talk it talks, as you move your real eyes, the avatar's eyes move and so on.

Give it 20 years, tops, full body suits and all that accompanies that perhaps? Oh gods, just think, that could be the end of the human race, or at least the Japanese

Knowing the Japanese people, I think we can all predict where this is going first and foremost

 

[OfftheRails]

My computer has an Nvidia 460GTX graphic card, with 1gb of Vram.

Compatible directx 11.

But the minimum specs say that i need a 470 gtx, which has only .25 vram more than my card !

Should I still change it ? I really hope not, I dont have the budget right now.

I'd put money on it working. They need to draw a line somewhere about what constitutes "acceptable quality".

 

[Faybs]

I'd put money on it working. They need to draw a line somewhere about what constitutes "acceptable quality".

I'm pretty sure that the main requirement is the shader model. Do a quick bit of online research (being careful to check the exact model number for your one, some OEMs will tweak the GPU), and if both cards support the same shader model send a PM to Frontier Support and see if your card is really unsupported.

 

[Remus]

I'm pretty sure that the main requirement is the shader model. Do a quick bit of online research (being careful to check the exact model number for your one, some OEMs will tweak the GPU), and if both cards support the same shader model send a PM to Frontier Support and see if your card is really unsupported.

after a quick search, I found out that the 470gtx and 460gtx both support shader model 5.0.
.

now to be sure, how do I contact FD support ?