Xonotic system requirements

I still play Nexuiz.

It's a question of system requirements. My computer—a netbook purchased in 2010 with the Intel N455 and underpowered GMA 3150 chipset (PassMark score of 69, compared to nearly 4,000 for a high-end video card) can not run Xonotic at anything resembling a decent framerate (2-10 FPS), even with everything turned off. Nexuiz 2.3, on the other hand, gets 60-70 FPS at 800x600 on some maps with everything turned off.

So, the question is this: What system requirements are the developers looking at for Xonotic? Is it worth it for the developers (and model makers) to take the time to have Xonotic run decently on a system this slow? Or do they all have Radeon 6990 cards and developing Xonotic as a showcase of what a state-of-the-art video card can do?

More seriously, the developers probably would have to devote too much time (time not paid for, should I point out) and make too many compromises in the game for the majority of today's gamers to get this to run decently in cheezy Netbook video card. I personally would target a high-end netbook (AMD E-350 with Radeon 6310M, for example) as the minimum system to run Xonotic on.

What do you guys think?

With everything turned down Xonotic should run as fast as nexuiz did. The main differences are (as far as performance go) are new models and higher resolution textures. Darkplaces now also has a DirectX rendering mode, something that should be faster on intel gpu's from when i heard. to test it, launch with +vid_dx9 or drop console and enter "vid_dx9; vid_restart". Other then that, you can try "exec effects-omg.cfg" in the console.

to test it, launch with +vid_dx9 or drop console and enter "vid_dx9; vid_restart".

Doesn't work. I get a dialog box that says "Video modes failes" and Xonotic then exits. Indeed, I can't get Xonotic to restart so I'm looking for the configuration file or registry entry that broke.

I'll keep everyone updated.

- Sam

I'll keep everyone updated.

Real quickly:

• I fixed the borked configuration that didn't let me start Xonotic by removing all files in c:\Users\Name\Documents\My Games\xonotic\data\
  
• exec effects-omg.cfg does work, but it gives me an unattractive untextured look with about the same FPS as I get in Nexuiz 2.3 with textures.
  

Summary: The AMD E-350 with Radeon 6310M is probably the slowest system that can reasonably play Xonotic. In a pinch, Xonotic is playable on a Intel 3150 using "exec effects-omg.cfg".

Since omg "works", heres something to try: "exec effects-omg.cfg; r_showsurfaces 0; gl_picmip 3; vid_restart". If its still to slow, use a higher number for gl_picmip. if its fast enough but to bury, use a lower gl_picmip.

Odd that vid_dx9 fail, whats your os?

I made this specially for people like you. It pretty much elliminates the "main difference" by replacing a large amount of models with sprites or simple ones, and scaling most textures down (in-game ones to even 1x1). It, however, is based on the preview release, but I can adjust the DSX script to build out of the GIT version if it's really needed.

EDIT: Well, but if you're not okay with an "unattractive untextured look", this is not for you, as the goal was to achieve performance by all somewhat sane means.

Since omg "works", heres something to try: "exec effects-omg.cfg; r_showsurfaces 0; gl_picmip 3; vid_restart". If its still to slow, use a higher number for gl_picmip. if its fast enough but too blurry, use a lower gl_picmip.

On my N455 GMA 3150 netbook, showing any textures at all (no matter how blurry) slows down the framerate to an unacceptable level.

Odd that vid_dx9 fail, whats your os?

Windows 7 Starter

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I made this specially for people like you. It pretty much elliminates the "main difference" by replacing a large amount of models with sprites or simple ones, and scaling most textures down (in-game ones to even 1x1). It, however, is based on the preview release, but I can adjust the DSX script to build out of the GIT version if it's really needed.

It runs really well on a netbook, and I do appreciate builds that target netbooks. As you already noted, the graphics aren't the most attractive.

- Sam

(Edited to clarify that I do appreciate the hard work being done by the developers)

Resurrecting this old thread (given the AMD E-350 was mentioned, which has two CPU cores @1.6 GHz and integrated "Radeon HD 6310" graphics), I hereby provide some benchmarks for my E-350 Nettop, which should perform quite exactly like any E-350 netbook. I used the new keybench demo from current GIT, which should ship with Xonotic 0.6. System is Xubuntu 11.10. Resolution is 1280x720.

low settings: 29/53/81 (min,average,max)
medium: 26/43/76
normal: 24/46/76
high: 17/33/47
ultra: 8/26/43

So basically I think that current low cost computers can be used to play Xonotic, albeit power-gamers for sure will look somewhere else.

Running Xonotic right now on my HP DM1-4000 netbook with normal settings:

Minimum: 28
Average: 51
Maximum: 82

AMD E-450 with Radeon HD6320
4GB DDR3
Windows7 Home Premium

Cheers

Run the benchmark and post your results.

Also, on the same config as before, i got 35/68/101 with Medium settings (on the 0.5 version).

I have yet to setup git here.

Cheers