Poor performance / Minimum system specs

[Alex]

Have you played Dyson on a fairly low-spec machine? Did you experience poor performance even at the start of a level?

If so, please post your system specifications here. We are trying to determine some minimum system requirements.

Many thanks!

[M0rtii]

Win XP
P4 3.0 GHz
4GB RAM
Geforce 6800 256mb
Running ver.1.20

I notice a little lag when further into the game and I've got upwards of 1000 seedlings and trees everywhere, but it's only slightly noticeable.  Start games off with 60fps.  Next time a play though I'll run FRAPS and get some benchmarks throughout.

Also, not sure if it is a game limit or task build up, but when I'm shuffling seedlings around by the hundreds and giving dozens of movement orders continuously, the game doesn't respond immediately.  It can take up to 20 or 30 seconds before the movement order even goes out.  It's like there is a movement queue that gets backed up.

[dnz32]

Win XP SP 3
CPU: PM (Pentium Mobile?) 1.7 GHz
RAM: 1GB
GFX: Intel 915GM/GMS, 910GML

Good enough to play through all builtin levels

[Alex]

Thanks guys, I was beginning to think nobody would post any!

[stubblyhead]

I'm experiencing horrible frame rates, even on the menu screen (like 2-3 fps). 

I'm running:
Windows XP SP3
dual-core Centrino 2.26 GHz
2 GB ram
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3400, 256 MB

I'd really like to try the game, but I can't with the kind of performance I'm getting.

[wogan]

I'm experiencing horrible frame rates, even on the menu screen (like 2-3 fps). 

I'm running:
Windows XP SP3
dual-core Centrino 2.26 GHz
2 GB ram
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3400, 256 MB

I'd really like to try the game, but I can't with the kind of performance I'm getting.

That is odd. I'm running:

Vista Business (SP1)
Pentium Dual-Core E5200 ~2.5GHz
3gb RAM
ATI Radeon HD 3450 (Sapphire)

And Dyson runs like a dream... Could be XP SP3 , maybe?

[dnz32]

Could be XP SP3 , maybe?

Nah, don't think that would be a reason, I have XP SP 3 on all my PCs and never had any problems with it (neither Dyson nor other games) - can't speak for the original poster of course. If I should guess I would say it's using OpenGL emulation instead of the graphics card. Updating drivers to a version with OpenGL support could help (at least I've heared of some ATI having problems with OpenGL, dunno, I don't have any).

Now, ontopic, I've also installed it on my old PC but only tried the first levels (the new version is much harder than the older ones, takes me quite a bit longer to beat a level now )

Win XP SP 3
CPU: AMD Athlon XP 1800+ (1.51 GHz)
RAM: 512 MB
GFX: NVidia GeForce 4 MX 4000

Had several fights with about 100 units on a planet each side, no slowdowns.

[wogan]

Win XP SP 3
CPU: AMD Athlon XP 1800+ (1.51 GHz)
RAM: 512 MB
GFX: NVidia GeForce 4 MX 4000

512MB ram and 1.5ghz? It looks like the deciding factor is the graphics card, then - which makes sense, given the way Dyson handles visuals.

It also probably has very little to do with the memory capacity of the cards. A GeForce MX4000 has 128mb RAM - my Sapphire HD3450 has 256mb, and it sounds like they're running at comparable speeds.

So it looks like you're right - it's got something to do with the way the PC and the card handle OpenGL / SDL.

FYI: Mobility Radeon + Centrino == Laptop. Evidently Dyson doesn't handle well on laptops - but that could be any number of things...

[Jaguar343]

Works with XP64 like a dream.

[adam a]

1.7ghz, Pentium M
2gb ram
Intel 945 (something like that - old Acer laptop) gfx card
Ubuntu Linux

I found it ran pretty reasonably, it slowed down a bit once I had a lot of seedlings (around 1000+) but was still playable. I agree with the comment that movement orders sometimes seemed to be delayed. As it's quite slow paced anyway the slow down didn't affect the game too much but I could tell by the lag from menus appearing and selecting planets.

The only major annoyance was that when I wanted to select several hundred seedlings from a planet, but not all, it takes an absolute age to count up to the number I want. Maybe this is because of poor performance or it's just designed to be slow like that, I don't know as I haven't got anything faster to try it on.

Btw, big props for releasing a Linux version (I hope the the final version will get a Linux release too).

[Alex]

Leigh says (21:12):
 well it runs
 i'd say about 10fps, but i'll grab fraps and give you an accurate figure
 unless theres a fps counter hidden
Alex says (21:14):
 intersting
 and the specs are?
Leigh says (21:16):
 1.8ghz 960mb ram (1gb, but shared onboard gfx) and a VIA/S3G UniChrome Pro IGP (onboard gfx)
 xp
Alex says (21:16):
 thanks
Leigh says (21:17):
 amd sempron
 http://imagebin.org/46532
Alex says (21:18):
 14 ok
Leigh says (21:18):
 its playable, but just on the threshold

[killybilly]

i just registered and this is my first post the dyson works very good
since
i have a really strong computer  it has

6GB RAM
64-bit operating system
2,67 GHZ
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU
and works pretty quiet
i dont know if you have heard for this computer,but it is called Saggita

[AUSisp*cry*]

Eeepc 904HA:
1.6 Ghz Atom
2 Gb ram
got the hard drive, not solid state
Mobile Intel 945 Express on board 128mb

i have a bit of trouble when zoomed in any amount after i have 200+ seeds in view.

[whitebear]

For fun I tested with my secondary computer.

amd 1.2ghz
radeon 9250
500+ ram
windows XP sp3

Works fine but very rarely freezes for few seconds and continues smoothly.
Also Would do wonders to have possibility to change resolution... especially on fullscreen.

[nuitei]

My Specs

Proc: Athlon 64 2800+ ~1.8GHz
RAM: 704MB
MoBo: MSI MS-7142
Video: VIA/S3G UniChrome Pro IGP 64MB
Sound: Vinyl AC'97 Audio

It runs smoothly but sometimes (rarely) it freezes a few seconds and then continues. If I play with, I don't know..., Google Chrome and some music behind, it is not soooo smooth, but completely playable and I didn't even notice.

Oh, I don't know in v1.20 but in earlier versions (since procedural compo) in fullscreen it just freezes and can't come back and I had to reboot. I think that if it has a variable resolution maybe fullscreen wouldn't freezes.

I'll try in other PC


Thanks for your work, hope that everything goes perfect in the future!
ps: Sorry my "inglich" but I'm from Chile (so it's not my native language)

[Widget]

Win XP SP 3
CPU: AMD Athlon 4000+ (no idea of approx. clockspeed, I'm afraid)
RAM: 3Gb
GFX: NVidia GeForce GV-3D1 (effectively dual-GeForce 6600GT with 128Mb VRAM each)

Runs without issues most of the time, but occasionally freezes up for 1-2s before dropping back in. Never had a full hang and it's only ever stuttered when I start gathering large (600+) groups of seedlings.

Edit: After playing on some of the custom maps, it seems to stutter depending on the total number of seedlings. I've had it crop up when I've had a relatively small population but not within a short time after starting.

[nautillus]

Dyson slows down pretty badly on any of the big levels, so much that it takes a lot of patience to finish. But it is very playable at the beginning.

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo - 2.2 GHz
RAM: 4gb
GFX: Intel GMA X3100 (integrated)
Mac OS X 10.5.6

[Alex]

Whoops I edited your post by accident.

Dyson slows down pretty badly on any of the big levels, so much that it takes a lot of patience to finish. But it is very playable at the beginning.

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo - 2.2 GHz
RAM: 4gb
GFX: Intel GMA X3100 (integrated)
Mac OS X 10.5.6

Great, thanks for the info - Is it still very slow even when you're fully zoomed out or is it mostly when you're zoomed in?

[ShinseiTom]

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad - 3.2 GHz
Ram: 4GB (3 in XP)
GFX: 8800GT
Windows 7 x64 RC (or) XP Pro x86 SP3

Run perfectly until later-game, and that includes every custom map I have played.  When I have lots of seedlings (2000 and up), the game gets unbearably sluggish when issuing orders.
Noticed game only uses 1 core.  Is the game not multithreaded?

[nautillus]

Great, thanks for the info - Is it still very slow even when you're fully zoomed out or is it mostly when you're zoomed in?

It's actually much faster while I'm zoomed in -- zooming out slows it down.

[Kapyrna]

CPU: Core i7 920 2.67gHz quadcore (logically an octocore processor)
Mobo: Asus P6T SE
RAM: 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 1066mHz
GPU: 9400GT running one 1920x1080 on DVI and one 1440x900 on VGA (a GTX 285 is on the way for the 1080p monitor)
HDD: 80GB for system and utilities and a 1TB RAID1 array for personal files and programs
OS: Windows 7 RC

I've got a wireless G NIC for net access and a Creative Fatal1ty headset but no speakers.

Oh and I've unsurprisingly never had problems running v 1.20 on this machine  Never tried to see how many seedlings it takes to slow down though.  It positively shines in a shorter game where the most I get is 500 or so.

[Raptus]

Got 2GB ram
Vista
Onboard Graphics (because I am lame)
2GHZ dual core

Can not run menu screen.
Thats it, I run the screen, no buttons just flickering screen. Got into a level once, could see anything besides the sphere.
I've played games where this happens, I believe this means Dyson requires Vertex shading and HW transform and lighting.

[Alex]

Onboard graphics usually lack a whole load of really basic OpenGL extensions. Dyson actually doesn't require shaders, but does use vertex arrays which I'm told is Quake 3-era technology. It's a shame so many laptops don't come with slightly more powerful onboard graphics, but I guess cost is a factor. Dyson would run pretty slowly in OpenGL Immediate Mode, sadly.

[Alex]

I can't offer official support for Mac right now, sorry. The game doesn't check for Mac OS version - if you can install Mono then you should be able to get 1.20 running somehow - have a look at the Mac thread.

[stephen1341]

Ok I played the without problem on my laptop 2.0 ghz intel dual core, 4gb ram, ati 2600 hd 512mb video ram
However when I tried to install in play it on my moms computer it was unplayable. intel centrino 512 mhz, 768 mb ram, no video ram
My moms comp really really sucks though.

[velusip]

Digging up bones here in this old thread.  Still related:

Under normal conditions the game runs really smoothly until somewhere between 2000 and 3000 seeds (the easy waves seem to allow for this kind of massing, haha).  However, when tabbing out and back into the game the frame rate drops quite a lot.  I'm going to run a few more tests tonight to see if it has something to do with other programs I started while tabbed out, but  I think Ventrilo had a hand in this performance drop.  Could be a sound driver issue over anything else.

AMD Phenom 9850+ BE
3GiB DDR2 (800)
GTX 260 (55nm)
WinXP (SP3)
onboard Realtek sound, will plug in an M-Audio card later tonight for testing.

[DeeJay]

Downloaded the demo, played the skirmish arena mode ran flawlessly even when i zoomed all the way in.

Intel Core2Duo P7350 @ 2.00 GHz
2.00 GB RAM
GeForce 9400 M 256MB Shared VRAM
Vista Ultimate x86
It's a 13'' Aluminum Macbook by the way.

[Baja Boojum]

Do you think the latest version will work on my netbook?

Sorry I can't figure this out for myself, but I don't want to buy Eufloria if it isn't going to work well on my netbook.  I did try Dyson a year or so ago, but when it got to the upper levels it just stopped responding, or it was so slow it was unplayable.  I'm hoping the latest version will work on Windows 7, which is much faster than Vista on my machine.

Here are my specs:
HP 2133 Mini-Note
Windows 7 HP
VIA C7-M 1.2 GHz
2 GB RAM
VIA VN896 Chrome9 HC IGP

Thanks!

[Baja Boojum]

FYI:

I've now played through all the story levels and am in the dark matter mode.  Using a performance monitor during intensive levels I've seen the CPU run at 100% quite a bit of the time, but so far, so good.  Occasionally the display will become a little jerky near the end of a level with high numbers of objects and actions.  On a few similar occasions it freezes, but when this happens I've been able to go to Main Menu and use Resume to continue.  I don't use the music, and the only sound glitch is once in a while when an enemy tree explodes the sound crackles.

What seems to help is Full Screen mode, which apparently disables the Windows 7 Desktop Windows Manager, giving me some extra CPU. 

If it matters to anyone, I've stripped my processes and services down to a minimum, and I've set my Norton Internet Security to go into silent mode during full screen.  I wonder if this netbook would handle it as well with everything running.

[polppol]

(v2.02)
Win 7 Pro x64
Intel Core 2 Duo T7300
RAM 4GB DDR2
VGA ATI HD2400XT

fps greatter than 15
but always hang(Not responding and automatic exit) at almost the end of level 14  (due to 100% cpu use or when my cpu is load in high level)
i dont know why but i did't try 2.04 yet

[Alex]

Thanks for the info! That crash sounds nasty, sorry about that. Will look into it.

[polppol]

(v2.02)
Win 7 Pro x64
Intel Core 2 Duo T7300
RAM 4GB DDR2
VGA ATI HD2400XT

fps greatter than 15
but always hang(Not responding and automatic exit) at almost the end of level 14  (due to 100% cpu use or when my cpu is load in high level)
i dont know why but i did't try 2.04 yet

OK my problem is gone in v2.04,
now everything is working fine for me!

[twilsonb]

CPU: Pentium IV 3.2GHz
RAM: 2GB
Graphics: Intel(R) 82865G Integrated 96MB
Windows XP SP3

Playable but slow, as listed in http://www.dyson-game.com/smf/index.php?topic=922.0

Not sure how to check the framerate

[annikk.exe]

Not sure how to check the framerate

Funny story.
I was optimising my new level, and needed to check the framerate, and ran into the same problem - there doesn't seem to be a framerate indicator built into the game.
So I just coded one.  :P
Shame it will never see the light of day - it was for testing purposes only and has since been removed from the level.

[Pilchard123]

Fraps?

EDIT: Ctrl-D, F12. Look in the top left-hand corner.

EDIT 2: Also, what on earth is the second layer of F12ness? It gives me a headache.

[annikk.exe]

Serious?
::goes to check::