Shinji Mikami has been developing a survival horror game, which makes sense given a good portion of his portfolio. He created Resident Evil and much of the following franchise. The Evil Within is about to release, having recently gone gold. At around this time, publishers begin to release system requirements and Bethesda does not disappoint in that regard.
Are the requirements… RAGE-inducing?
A case could be made for disappointing requirements, themselves, though.
Basically, Bethesda did not release minimum requirements. Instead, they said "This is what we recommend. It will run on less. Hope it does!" This would not be so problematic if one of their requirements wasn't a "GeForce GTX 670 with 4GBs of VRAM".
They also recommend a quad-core Core i7, 4GB of system memory, 50GB of hard drive space, and a 64-bit OS (Windows 7 or Windows 8.x).
Before I go on, I would like to mention that The Evil Within is built on the RAGE engine. Our site has dealt extensively with that technology when it first came out in 2011. While I did not have many showstopping performance problems with that game, personally, it did have a history with texture streaming. Keep that in mind as you continue to read.
A typical GTX 670 does not even have 4GBs of VRAM. In fact, the GTX 780 Ti does not even have 4GB of VRAM. Thankfully, both of the newly released Maxwell GPUs, the GTX 970 and the GTX 980, have at least 4GB of RAM. Basically, Bethesda is saying, "I really hope you bought the custom model from your AIB vendor". They literally say:
Note: We do not have a list of minimum requirements for the game. If you’re trying to play with a rig with settings below these requirements (you should plan to have 4 GBs of VRAM regardless), we cannot guarantee optimal performance.
Each time I read, "You should plan to have 4 GBs of VRAM regardless", it is more difficult for me to make an opinion about it. That is a lot of memory. Personally, I would wait for reviews and benchmarks, specifically for the PC, before purchasing the title. These recommended settings could be fairly loose, to suit the vision of the game developers, or the game could be a revival of RAGE, this time without the engine's original architect on staff.
The Evil Within launches on October 14th.
By the looks of it the game
By the looks of it the game does not look like it needs 4 GB of VRAM. My guess its horribly optimized, and on top of that it’s a Japanese developed game. They don’t always have the best track record when it comes to console ports or PC games in general.
I hope that didn’t sound too racist, because that was not my intention.
In regards to bad ports i
In regards to bad ports i thought x86 would make it better, one area that needs improving is the Vram situation most thought it was a bug but i think it here to stay the more vram requirement will plateau at 6 gigs eventually for 1080p for this generation.
You’re right in theory the
You’re right in theory the new consoles move to x86 should make porting much better.
This keeps coming up. the
This keeps coming up. the Xbox1 and PS4’s processors are very closely BASED on standard x86, but not quite desktop processors. M$ and Sony have both said as much in various statements, that it’s not just a “plop in a standard AMD apu, load the PS OS and bang it’s done,” but instead it’s a custom x86 apu with several subtle yet incredibly significant custom changes. The exact difference is unclear, that’s their “Secret Sauce” and they have a right to protect their intellectual property for sure.
REMEMBER, no one official actually said that porting would be easier, we the Gamers just assumed it would be.
Some developers hinted about
Some developers hinted about the programming language for at least one of the consoles being fairly similiar to Mantle, which wouldn’t be strange since both of them are based on Graphic Core Next.
not exactly similar. i think
not exactly similar. i think it only similar in terms of low level API. both are based on GCN but both have their own low level API. DirectX for Xbone and custom API (which i believe based on OpenGL) for PS4.
i think it is quite well
i think it is quite well known that japanese dev are not really used with PC. even in japan the most popular gaming platform is not home console. it was hand held actually. and it seems they are the type that will not jump into next gen console easily (because of player base).
I avoid anything on this POS
I avoid anything on this POS engine
60fps hard cap, optimization is a joke with no hope from adding a 2ng GPU for better performance becasue this POS engine doesn’t support SLI/CF
What is funny about this is
What is funny about this is that Crytek recommend also 4GB of VRAM for Ryse… at 3840×2160. And I’m pretty sure that Ryse is a more graphic intensive game than The Evil Within.
And Shadow of Mordor requires 6GB of VRAM for the “ultra textures” even when the game is rendered at 1080p. If it’s justified I’m ok with that but it seems rather excessive.
It’s actually not so strange.
It’s actually not so strange. Rage for example have to my knowledge almost no repetetive textures. And if you wanted to best textures 3GB of memory was required. Now I dunno how many years later somebody creates a game on the “same” engine with probably much higher resolution textures, and if you want to use the best ones 4GB is required. Not strange at all imo, but bloody annoying, and perhaps not the most wise decision by the developer, since such a small percentage of users actually have that amount of VRAM.
About shadow of mordor, same thing there. Prolly have really good texture quality. Most games doesn’t look that great when u get really close to something. Also annoying cuz Titan Black seems like the only option if you wanna max it out. Which gamer would buy a Titan Black today? It’s old technology, compared to the new Nvidia cards. It’s way to expensive, which isn’t strange as it’s not a pure gaming card. Basically it’s impossible today to buy a card thats remotely future proof (if there ever was sucha thing).
You are right. What I intend
You are right. What I intend to said with “funny” is “amusing”, not “odd/strange”. I’m not a native English speaker and I was thinking in a common expression in my own language when I wrote that. “What is funny about this is…” = “Lo gracioso de esto es…”
Sorry for the misunderstanding.
Lol is said this b4 want
Lol is said this b4 want something more future proof you need more vram the 780ti was more than $700 a few months back cant even max this game, ryse also required 4 gigs for 4k. My take is that both gpu vendors benefit causing disruptive upgrade cycles to their benefit. 4 gig vram will be the new recommend requirement for most games to come! Eventually 6 gigs will be a requirement with next gpu pascal architecture which is only 2 years away!
I knew the 770 4GB was ahead
I knew the 770 4GB was ahead of its time
The salesman at Microcenter
The salesman at Microcenter thought I was crazy when I purchased a 4gb gtx 760 a year ago. 2gb is enough they said. last laugh and all that.
You weren’t crazy, just
You weren’t crazy, just stupid.
You need a gpu that can take advantage of the extra VRAM, 760 can not. 4gb makes sense on the fastest cards like the AMD R9 290/x and the new nVidia 970/980. 4gb is a waste on slower junk cards like the GTX 760. GTX 770 with 4gb *might make sense, but even there it’s not really fast enough to take advantage of 4gb VRAM.
This seems to be a thing with
This seems to be a thing with Bethesda. Their recommended specks are always way over-shot. The ones for Wolfenstein NWO were incredible pree release. They said you NEEDED a I7 and a 6850, but I had a fine time using a A10 with integrated graphics. Yea it looks better the better the system, but that’s always true. I think they are somehow in a old-school mindset, where needing the craziest system ever for this game makes it a crazy game.
Or the engine is just not very efficient. Could be that
Yep- exactly.
“”This is
Yep- exactly.
“”This is what we recommend. It will run on less. Hope it does!” This would not be so problematic if one of their requirements wasn’t a “GeForce GTX 670 with 4GBs of VRAM”.
They also recommend a quad-core Core i7, 4GB of system memory, 50GB of hard drive space, and a 64-bit OS (Windows 7 or Windows 8.x).”
I’m just going to say it: You CAN get away with a lot less. If you can’t get a dualie with a 1.5GB 460 card to run it on HD. It’s not an old-school mindset, it’$ a kick-back to $ell new hardware mind$et.
My only question is if they might package it with a 980 or even 970 card … ?
Nice summation, rage engine
Nice summation, rage engine without the support, and a bad port – so the game will be probably be hosed coming out of the gate for the PC, will sort of work in the ps4 – almost work on the xboxone and the devs will wonder why people just don’t understand them
otherwise we will see a reboot of the rage experience – you know i never did finish that game
We’ll see when it comes out.
We'll see when it comes out. The point is… wait and see when it does come out.
Awesome! I hope they use as
Awesome! I hope they use as much of the GPU RAM as possible and that other developers follow their example. I’m tired of anemic GPU memory increases – I don’t want to have to spend a metric ton of money to get a card that can game well and do GPGPU decently.
Red flags, red flags
Red flags, red flags everywhere…