Public Commander Keen Forum

1.) So, I'd like to find out what types of CPU's and GPU's people have, for reference. The poll will be for CPU's, but if you guys would like to tell me about your GPU's, that would be appreciated, too. You can find out all of this information by right-clicking My Computer in Windows.

2.) I am assuming that most people have a 64-bit OS with a dualcore or quadcore CPU and 4-8 GB of RAM.


So, please let me know if those expectations are far off. I'd ideally like to write my engine for 64-bit OS's, although RAM limitations shouldn't be an issue. BTW --There are some rare tricores. Please list as dualcore in the poll, but specify in thread. Thanks!

EDIT: Apparently, the forum has decided to delete my fourth option. Please place all 32-bit OS under the last category, thanks.

I have a 64-bit OS with a Core i7, which is physically quad-core but logically octo-core. The machine has 12 GB of RAM.

Be aware that each process has only 4 GB (or just 2 GB if the process is not large-address aware) of address space on 32-bit Windows without Physical Address Extension. (That was an interesting problem to work around for Abiathar.)

Fleexy wrote:I have a 64-bit OS with a Core i7, which is physically quad-core but logically octo-core. The machine has 12 GB of RAM.

Be aware that each process has only 4 GB (or just 2 GB if the process is not large-address aware) of address space on 32-bit Windows without Physical Address Extension. (That was an interesting problem to work around for Abiathar.)

Indeed, I am aware. This and future compatibility is why I'm almost certainly going to hop up to 64-bit. Granted, that's probably way over-shooting a platformer engine (I estimate that I wouldn't need more than a few hundred MB of RAM), but also I would like this to have maximal future compatibility. These are the things that I'm most concerned about. (But the increased RAM and processing power aren't bad, either.)

But if I do that, I want to make sure I'm not keeping half of the Keen community from playing with it.

EDIT: I'm also interested in seeing what kind of OpenGL people's GPU's are compatible with. I'd like to do OpenGL 3.2, but that again depends on what people have. I have to imagine that OpenGL 3.2-compatible GPU's and quadcore 64-bit CPU's are pretty standard, since both have been around for almost a decade, but again I'd like to verify.

really those are the only options?

I am privately on dualcore 32bit. And I know many that still use a single core.

tulip wrote:really those are the only options?

I am privately on dualcore 32bit. And I know many that still use a single core.

As stated in the OP edit, PCKF continually kept on eating my changes to the poll which had more options.


As for single core, I don't know anyone who still uses single core CPU's. They would have to be using VERY old desktops or rather old laptops. More or less every CPU made for the past 8-10 years has been at least dual core.

This machine says Core i3, but it's not mine. My machine is an 'Itanium 2' Which I'm guessing is the one before, but maybe it's not. I've been told that the next one after the i3 was the i7. Computers are insane.

The i3, i5 and i7 are not successors, rather different chip names. The difference is similar to the old difference been Celerons and Pentiums, with Celerons being the cheaper chip with fewer features. The i3 is low power but good in small devices (though larger than those the Atom is designed for), the i5 covers most general use and light gaming, while the i7 is designed for heavy gaming, video rendering and people with something to compensate for.

Keening_Product wrote:The i3, i5 and i7 are not successors, rather different chip names. The difference is similar to the old difference been Celerons and Pentiums, with Celerons being the cheaper chip with fewer features. The i3 is low power but good in small devices (though larger than those the Atom is designed for), the i5 covers most general use and light gaming, while the i7 is designed for heavy gaming, video rendering and people with something to compensate for.

I agree with this, except that I would disagree on the statement that i5's are for "light gaming." i3's are for "light gaming", and "i5" and "i7" are for "heavy gaming." The key place where i7's outpower i5's is in (as you mention) video rendering (or encrypting, etc, any CPU intensive process). The extra speed is, of course, in principle better for video games, but in modern systems the GPU is in almost every case the bottleneck on the gaming experience. (Sometimes times the RAM also is choking gameplay, if the person has put too little into their system and is running FireFox/etc.)

Levellass wrote:This machine says Core i3, but it's not mine. My machine is an 'Itanium 2' Which I'm guessing is the one before, but maybe it's not. I've been told that the next one after the i3 was the i7. Computers are insane.

Fascinating. How old is your computer?

I don't know, I didn't buy it firsthand. It runs Vista, so it can't be that old. I'm still sorting out the new machine, it updated to Windows 10, then broke and now it tells me I can't un-update.