Public Betatester and Dev Computer Specs

[-TD-13-]

Interesting you don't seem to have a Windows 2000 Professional PC in your O/S list.

Since DirectX9.0c runs on Win2000 I bet a fair few people including myself will have this. Never seen the point in upgrading to XP tbh...

What The_Abyss said above.
We actually had several users test with 2000pro, one of them a very active tester.

Here was his set up:

• CPU: Athlon XP 3200+ @2.2 GHz - no overclocking
• GPU: ATI Radeon 9800 XT, 256MB, quality set to balanced (default), Driver: Catalyst 5.6
• Soundcard: Creative Audigy2
• HDD: 120GB Ultra ATA/100, 7200RPM, 8MB Cache
• RAM: 1024 MB Corsair Twin X Low Lat
• OS: Windows 2000 SP4, all updates and patches
• DX: DirectX 9.0c
• Windows res. 1280x1024x32
• Gameplaying res. 1280x1024x32, AA off, AQ Off, BM On Shadows Off

Note that I won't do this for every request, but because it is a common operating system and you are the first one, my treat.

[-TD-13-]

Sigh! Now I understand.

There is not one among them who has an average rig. They al have superexpensive high end rigs. If that's the only thing this game is tested on, no wonder that people have problems.

Your minimum specs on the box say. win me 512MB, pentiumIV 1,7 ghz 128MB d3 direct9 card pixelshader 1.3 suport.

Last time I checked minimum wasn't average, it was below it. If we wanted to put the "average" specs on the box, we would have done so. But we put minimum as it means "this is the bare minimum that you require to get X3 to even work".

And you'll find that the computer specs listed in the topic are about the average of what people own today. And on a side note, yes, several testers had several mixes of 1.7 Ghz, 128mb cards, and 512mb of ram, listed in the photo, which are listed as the minimum on the box.

Remember, this is just a sample of random testers to give you a "feel" of what the game was tested on.

[Angrybeever]

No Geforce 5900xt on the list I know you guys probably had one. Just didnt see any rig close to mine there
2.4p4
1024ram
fx 5900xt
Xp

[Merroc]

Anyone seen my pc yet, shouldnt be too hard .

Number 9.

Glad to see the Dutch Windows XP version requires its own test rig

[OSi]

Sigh! Now I understand.

There is not one among them who has an average rig. They al have superexpensive high end rigs. If that's the only thing this game is tested on, no wonder that people have problems.

That is exagerating greatly. My own system is probably mid range, since i upgraded everything more than 3 years old about 6 months ago to pretty much the second cheapest available all-in-all costing about €500 for processor, motherboard, RAM, and GFX card. This mid-range system is better than 14 of the 26 systems on that list. I don't know how you can say a 1.6 GHz intel with a GF5 is high end. Any computer not meeting the minimum specs is more than 3-4 years and owners can't possibly expect games makers to dumb down performance to accomodate them.

[esd]

I also do the following. (i've previously run a xptweak utility to close down non-essential processes)....*snip*

There's tricks'n'tips to get FPS from your system over here.

[nomad2k3]

Sigh! Now I understand.

There is not one among them who has an average rig. They al have superexpensive high end rigs. If that's the only thing this game is tested on, no wonder that people have problems..

i think you mean not one has a high end rig

still whats the point of having a kick ass system if it stutters, seems i should have bought a rig like no.1 on the list, an all this time the tech heads over at custompc forums said that more is better.....are those guys on that list all from the "under active thyroid" community? do there eyes only register 20fps? or has microsoft told you to riddle the pc version with bugs so the xbox360 version looks good? (most likely as microsoft rescently thought about stopping pc game production to concentrate on their new baby)..

can we have at least a hint why their systems on the list can play the game "well" and yet mine stutters like p*ssed up tramp? one minute im at over 70 fps the next im struggling to get 20

[Dunners]

Number 26 is mine.....

The reason this was done was probably so that people could see whether X3 should be able to run on their systems.

Yes X3 ran when i had only 512MB RAM, but it ran much better with 1.5GB. Its also to dispel the rumour that we all have top of the range PC's. What the above link shows is a cross section of CPU's GPU's and memory type.


Dunners

[Brianetta]

Sigh! Now I understand.

There is not one among them who has an average rig. They al have superexpensive high end rigs. If that's the only thing this game is tested on, no wonder that people have problems.

Check out PC number 10 (mine). It was bought before X2 came out. It has not been upgraded at all since then. I hardly call that a "superexpensive high end rig". I call it old.

Does X3 run on it? Yes. It's above the minimum specification.

Is X3 enjoyable on this PC? Not really. It takes 8 minutes to start a game and then the framerate is about 10 per second on average, sometimes much more or less.

Nevertheless, the game was tested on this PC. Bugs were found on this PC. Real testing happened, as did some coding.

[softweir]

can we have at least a hint why their systems on the list can play the game "well" and yet mine stutters like p*ssed up tramp? one minute im at over 70 fps the next im struggling to get 20

Personally, I hardly ever notice when the framerate drops until it gets down to 4 frames a second or so. Maybe my brain is too good at filling-in bad incoming data, so I'm not very sensitive to low framerates. Also, I never do anything like running FRAPS! Why should I have a program telling me "Hey! Stop enjoying the experience! The framerate is too low!"

The point about turning ACQ off making framerates better is not surprising. Quite a lot of the time when using high-end cards the game hiccups are caused by processor overload, and adding an extra CPU operation, even one that is supposed to monitor framerates and make life easier for the GPU, can slow it down! At least, that seems likely to me in my near total ignorance. I'll give it a try next time I start X3.

[Fusey]

The point about turning ACQ off making framerates better is not surprising. Quite a lot of the time when using high-end cards the game hiccups are caused by processor overload, and adding an extra CPU operation, even one that is supposed to monitor framerates and make life easier for the GPU, can slow it down! At least, that seems likely to me in my near total ignorance. I'll give it a try next time I start X3.

This is what I figured too, will try it when I get home.

[Dunners]

I have AQC switched off.

The graphics are better and the game is almost stutter free.

See number 26 above for specs (although I have recently upped to 1.5 GB).


Dunners

[nomad2k3]

Personally, I hardly ever notice when the framerate drops until it gets down to 4 frames a second or so. Maybe my brain is too good at filling-in bad incoming data, so I'm not very sensitive to low framerates. Also, I never do anything like running FRAPS! Why should I have a program telling me "Hey! Stop enjoying the experience! The framerate is too low!"
.

i run fraps basically because my pc has a matrix orbital lcd which displays and records the fps info as well as temps/voltage/cpu usage/ram/virtual memory and almost everything else you could need to know about with an overclocked machine,
but your right it shouldnt spoil my game, and it dont...the game looks wonderfull and changing the gfx setting lower dont increase the fps so i have it looking its best all the time,
i have to say the work thats gone into the ships/stations is awe inspiring and highly impressive
also the game "feels" a lot more responsive a huge improvement over x2 imho it feels a lot easier to weave in and out of station structures whilst trying to avoid a missile or evade an attacker,

its just with such a high end rig i expected it to play flawless and the little stuttering i encounter is easily ignored,
however being the FPS fan that i am,(trading makes me puke ) i cant ignore the massive slowdown while taking a fleet into battle, lusting for blood and dreaming of "starwars" stylee battles of massive fleets of ships will have to wait i guess

[Player.]

Can i have one?

[Cycrow]

Sigh! Now I understand.

There is not one among them who has an average rig. They al have superexpensive high end rigs. If that's the only thing this game is tested on, no wonder that people have problems.

erm, considering theres not a single GeFroce 7800GTX and only 1 7800GT i really dont know how u can say there top end
and the 5700's which r a mid range card 2 generations ago

[Ecthelion]

What the hell is Windows 2003 Server doing on the list? And I thought only Windows 2000 Server came in an "Advanced Server" version (Microsoft's page only lists the Standard, Enterprise, Datacenter, and Web editions for 2003 Server)? Anyway, what I want to know is if number 14 had SQL Server installed and had all those services running while playing the game - I think it would lower the framerate a bit. I never thought of Windows Server as a gaming platform, but you see something new every day!

[The_Abyss]

What the hell is Windows 2003 Server doing on the list?

Maybe someone testing at work during the day job.....

[Tojx]

Or a bored sys admin "stress testing" their server

[Ecthelion]

What the hell is Windows 2003 Server doing on the list?

Maybe someone testing at work during the day job.....

Kinda hard to imagine a server having a x800XL... sounds like a gamer who decided to play with Windows Server on his gaming system... which generally suggests a not-quite legal copy Of course his workplace might have a MS subscription that has mulitple licenses for Server. In any case, running Windows Server without multiple processors is just wrong.

[Seawolfe]

Running Windows Server at all is just wrong .. UNIX!