An example of a single player game that recently embraces this accessibility (and I could not include in the script due to time) are most games on the RE Engine. Devil May Cry 5, the Resident Evil 2 and 3 Remakes, Resident Evil 7 and Village all can look spectacular at higher settings on capable PCs but can easily run on Integrated GPUs (and still look pretty acceptable). This level of optimization was likely not easy or cheap, but it shows what can be done when this is a consideration!
Also the rush of "that game" that works with just some frame drops in 3 times of your playthrough are really blessed... Like that was my experience with Yakuza 0 a game that i loved.
I wish steam had a feature that allows you to filter the games that are too demanding for your pc. If they can give us a filter about prices then they can give us a filter about ram and operating system.
Even as an animator I immediately try to turn both these options off. I want to see what I’m doing with as few bells and post processing as possible. One reason unreal engine is actually less preferable than Unity.
@@AgentTasmania yes that one too, hdr and bloom can be excessive too. I wonder how many games have this enabled by default, just cause the engine can do it.
Honestly the biggest issue my family are having is new games taking larger and larger memory. Like my sister likes playing sims, but a big update nearly rendered the game unplayable on the old family computer
That's also on Microsoft as well - every major update of Windows 10 uses the OS to use more RAM, leaving less for other programs. You might try if not already on the lowest graphics option that Sims has, lowering it one notch. Lower graphical settings are less taxing on regular memory in addition to less taxing on Video card memory. That goes double if that computer is on an integrated graphics processor.
For me it's not just low spec. I have a decent amount of memory, but if I'm not gaming, I like to have my browser open. I use, perhaps, too many tabs (currently have 412 open), and I can run memory light games without too much problem, but when it comes to bigger memory games, it becomes less like I have to choose which windows to close, and more like which windows can I afford to keep open.
The last generation or two of games and software in general just pilled on RAM and hard drive consumption. The results can be worth it, but it's definitely not something that they can keep doing forever.
As a person who uses a quote-on-quote "Gaming" Laptop that fails to meet the minimum requirements of many indie games, as well as tends to stutter and lag on 2D games, I find this topic highly important. Also, the stuff about cats and 2nd Dinner is too true.
There's also the recent trend of games that used to be console-exclusive now also available on PC. Yakuza games, Horizon Zero Dawn, Final Fantasy games, SMT Nocturne remaster, etc. If this trend continues, I think I won't buy any consoles anymore going forward. Most console game developers whose games I care about have started to consider getting more of their works released on PC, because obviously they also realized that there's money to be made there.
I'm also seeing PC games being ported over to consoles. Including Grand Strategy Games. Basically the publishers want to make sales and are now not only willing to port (or contract that to someone else) , but are also starting to spend the effort to allow multiplayer across different platforms where player X could be on a PC, player Y on a Max, and player Z on a console.
But this is the thing, game consoles may what makes the PC versions of gpu/cpu prices stays down to earth. Do you want to pay scalper prices for eternity?
One problem I've had with a lot of ports is that the game still pretends its on a council with the game constantly telling you to press buttons that you don't even had. I was playing one game and I had to hunt around for the button to press to close a pop up that happened before I could do anything.
@@ributsuria That is not how this works. TSMC and Samsung make chips for every electronics company. This means fabricators working on chips for PS5's are taking up space, which would otherwise be used on RTX 3080's. What reduces the prices is more than 2 fucking buildings on earth making them XD
Absolutely this. As I get older, having an expensive machine just dedicated to my hobbies has becoming so much of a pipe dream. Getting a cheap computer has allowed me back into gaming but there's so much I can't do because my machine didn't cost £3000 and glow magenta
@@Jallorn do gotta say that's often still a big ask. say ya work in the usa. entry level jobs have a hard time payin rent. having basic insurances cost a large chunk. so on and so forth. so setting aside that kinda cash over necessities either often means going without the basics for a while. or being in a place where ya have those covered already like being an adult in a parents house. tldr: due to life stuff costing more than it should dat kinda cash is a big ask
@@majorfallacy5926 Only if you feel the need for the latest and greatest. There are plenty of solid gpus that are a couple years old but can still manage modern games. Maybe you don't run them at max capacity, but you can run them.
@@Jallorn he cited Brazil as an expensive country I have the numbers already, imagine these prices 5x higher, or if you prefer, the entire country with 5x less purchasing power. Before the pandemic, not the prices now. We still love games and the market is huge, because people still pay for it.
I have this issue too. With a PC built to do large spreadsheets and run Word, when I load up big games the lowest gtaphics settimg can often barely, if at all, run.
Indeed - actually those computers with "only" two cores are frequently better for games. Because most games won't use anything past the second core anyway - multi threading is hard so main business loop maxes out one processor, and the second handles the graphics at 25% use. Basically for gaming machine you want higher processor speed instead. You then run into issues where different types of games need different things - a machine optimized for a Paradox Grand Strategy game is different than a machine optimized for a Multiplayer First Person Shooter.
Config files for me is inaccessible. If the game doesn't allow me to run min settings within the game itself then I probably will never pick it up again. How am I to know what settings to aim for to be able to actually play my game? Especially if it comes with a "not supported" warning. If it's not supported then I'm not a player.
Yup, exactly this. I’m a frequent .cfg tinkerer. For me, the ability to alter a game to be the game I want to play is the best thing about PC gaming. I can’t go back to consoles now - they are too restrictive and prescriptive.
It's also a Plus when Indies Tittle also took this accesibility and they also craft the game to low end players, and its play same as cool. Stardew Valley, or Blaphemous for a Example.
Um, i don't hear gamers asking for game-consuls that can push more hard-core graphics and processing power. I honestly hear more, as in a LOT more, asking for back-wards compatibility. The people who tend to demand MORE processing Power and higher-graphics, are the game execs (and I'm sure that has nothing to do with just charging more.)
When 4K monitors started appearing, I did see a bunch of whining on forums that X game isn't using the 4K mode of the monitor I payed for. But more common was the complaint of on highest resolution the game supports that the font size of the text isn't legible
Oh they do, generally in the form of complaining when games don't look "next gen" enough. They aren't any more a majority than those asking for backwards compatibility or higher frame rates, but their thing is the one with the broadest appeal. Even those who "don't care" about graphics appreciate fancy visuals after all.
As someone that had a super potato pc for a while (even your “entry level” gpus would’ve been a huge upgrade) I am now going to work really hard to make my games run on old PCs.
---30s are business cards(e.g. GTX930 etc), ---50 are "entry level" gaming cards and the 70/80/90 ranges are the "pro gamer" versions of each generation. Of course, these designations are made by the marketeers selling the products, not the consumers buying them, who will often buy a GTXxx30 card for school or work, and then try to figure out what games will run on the machine they already have.
I am from Brazil and games here are way too expensive, specially with the increase of dollar. Using my computer is more viável with chapar prices of games (and use of emulators) than consoles. I still prefer to play on the Switch than my PC, but I need to save more money and get less games to do so.
Fellow brazilian here. I own a PS2, and once the PS3 generation started rolling around and their game acquisition was centered around a non-existent-in-Brazil online stores, I moved to boost my PC and focus on Steam. Most of the reasoning behind it is spot-on on the episode: HIgh end PC was the same price of a modern console, but I could use it for more things than just play games. I only bought a Nintendo Switch recently because of Nintendo games, that stand as the only console exclusives never ported to PC. Everything else I prefer to play on PC, and even choose to play on PC if multiplatform is an option (eg, I'm waiting for the PC version of Monster Hunter Rise).
We in Argentina are getting closer to you guys, in regard to taxes we have 65% for buying online so we have to pay half of the price of every game. They didn't attack the consoles yet.
@@lautaro3365 at least there still the option to play free game. And Epic offer free stuff often. And Prime also give some games for Twitch as part of the package, so there are options to save money. But this are also others advantage PC have over console, even if you don't have a gaming PC
Thank you for talking about how lowering graphic options and stuff makes a game accessibility to those of us who can't afford better CPUs, I can't afford to buy a fancy tech device just for gaming and I'm pretty sure that I ain't the only one
The mention of possible bugs reminded me of an issue I had in No Man's Sky where setting the graphics to low made the LOD cutoff so short that interacting with most anything would pull the camera out past a detail shift and kick me out of the interaction, or just never load the full detail model and collision mesh at all. I thought my save was corrupted or something.
When Hello Fresh says they have a smaller carbon footprint, they are quoting an intentionally flawed and morally wrong experiment. They had students at Uni of Michigan buy full sized items (boxes of pasta, whole cabbage, etc) then cook a single serving meal, and throw the rest in the trash. Plus the fact that they only got 25% carbon savings over this incredibly wasteful process shows how bad for the environment Hello Fresh actually is.
Yea, and if you happen to be someone who needs a low carb diet, they are no help. So you still have to spend time scrutinizing their recipes to see what ones are good, and if you look at the mean plans the smallest option is for two people eating so if your by yourself there's always going to be leftovers, but as the meals keep coming no time to eat them.
Config files can also allow people with monstrous computers to push the limits the other way as well. For example, Minecraft shaders have many, many customisation options that you can tweak to make the game look exactly the way you want it to, from things like general quality all the way to the temperature that torches appear to burn at.
I can't tell you how happy I was when I learned that my 5 yro laptop could play Dragon Quest 11. Never before have I seen a game that lets you adjust render resolution. This is also why I appreciate demo's. I would have never bought the game without being able to try it for free.
Really enjoyed watching this episode. Brought back memories of editing CS config files and and I think it's a topic that should be talked about even more.
Do you mean Doom or Doom? Because Doom ran just fine on early 90s hardware, while Doom's min spec puts it to early 2010s or later. Edit: and, yes, it is silly that they released two fairly different games with exactly the same name...
Yup - my most recently purchased game came out the same year as my machine so I can play that one on medium. And I can play the older games on high. But indeed - it's basically always the case that any game bought after the machine has to be kept on the low graphics setting.
@@jonnunn4196 i know that feeling, to be honest im surprised i can still run recent games on min settings and still having fun, im surprised of my laptop being capable of running most stuff ive tried on the minimum since it is a 6 year old laptop and wasnt supposed to be for gaming, since nothing of it says it is good for gaming, yet it had a dedicated gpu
Man, fuck those games where you press "video settings" and you are greeted with a whole 2 settings: resolution and graphics quality, each with 4 whole options Also let me choose where the audio comes out of
Dev here. Would depend on the game, but for many games, they just want the frame rate to be as high as possible. Thus we can interpret “very low” as “give me the highest FPS”. Normally you would at least have VSYNC shown as well.
3:58 I've legitimately played many games on 800X400 windowed mode, just so that I can run it at a stable 30FPS. This is very true and I wish more companies took notice of that.
Config files and advanced settings can be great, but something to be careful of is what the defaults are. If 99% of players change a setting to something else, maybe consider making that the default. For example, starter guides for the first person shooter TF2 often have a huge section what to settings change to make the game far more playable. This can include raising the fov up from 70 to 90, hitsounds, damage numbers, better weapon switching, fixing overbearing view models, etc. All of these are big improvements to the experience but some of them are hidden in the advanced settings or even variables only accessible from the dev console. Config files are great, but please make the important stuff accessible in the settings and have a good default value.
5:38 as that one friend that often has to look up system requirements first before joining friends on a new game they discovered, I can say it is one of the feelings.
Graphics is only half the experience. The other half is the CPU(s). The AI in many games is limited not by how smart they can make it but by how much time it has to do the smarts. If the frame rate is 30 fps, then the CPU must go thru the decision tree of each unit 30 times a second. That's a lot of work. Smaller CPUs mean smaller decision trees. Which means the experience is not as rich for those on less powerful equipment.
This is a lovely episode, I started and still play on a PC. My first PC was actually a laptop and it was old and rather slow, after all I used if for school as well. I've always been into history (which I'm currently majoring in) so my parents got me a game that I could play as a 14-y.o. kid with terrible eyesight. The game they got me was Civilisations V which is a turn-based grand-strategy which is perfect for people with a visual disability. However wayy too heavy for my laptop and only by scaling down the graphics I would be able to play it. Now, a solid 6 years later I'm very thankful for that because it got me into gaming.
As a political lefty, I appreciate this video. In my opinion, the political left in recent years hasn't spent nearly enough time talking about the most oppressed group of all: *The poor.* Tackle poverty in general and watch as most other problems magically evaporate.
I used to be a poor boy with a poor computer and now I'm a poor boy with a fantastic computer so I know the struggle of playing my favorite games with poor graphics to get it to work
Sometimes lowering fidelity can lead to balance issues, such as environmental render distance in hardcore survival games. Being able to change to a lower setting can lead to an advantage in spotting enemy players trying to hide, which results in some players lowering their settings just to get an advantage. But in general I agree that trying to widen a game's options to include all sorts of hardware types should be an ethical choice for a developer as much as an economic one.
Optimization really is something awesome to see in games. By coding the games to do more with less, you're simultaneously allowing lower end systems to pull off the same feats that would be expected from a higher end one, while simultaneously freeing up more of the resources of the higher end systems for even higher quality effects, or just simply letting the computer use those resources for other software like video chat or streaming. Just make sure that said optimization doesn't come at the expense of clear code and maintainability.
My last pc was 14 years old. For my own pc i’ve always use pcs from the trash or relatives giving theirs away as they upgraded. Low end is the whole reason I love indie titles. Games like Cave Story, 20XX, Offspring Fling, Recetear, Crystal Crisis, and Spelunkey Classic are what I think of as default when playing pc games. Its definitely shaped my taste in gaming on pc.
My taste was developed by this factor too, in my case i went to indies but especially emulators of older consoles and pc games. I sort of became a video game historian, going backwards to discover several classical games like Sonic 2D, Doom, SNES, Donkey Kong, And ROM hacks of those.
as a kid i had only a old family PC to play on. right now i have gaming laptop... but my friends don't haha. so i'll still end up playing low spec friendly games!
This summerizes my pc gaming philosophy since 1995. I didn’t get consoles until they were 10 years old, I learned to game on other people’s discarded PCs from age 8. I’m building my first gaming PC from scratch in 12 years, gaming on a toughbook cf-31 I picked up on ebay for $300 until I have enough parts
THANK YOU for covering this! As someone that grew up poor each family member (3 of us) could have at MOST a pre-made $600-$700 computer, preferably a laptop in my case as a teenager and later a university student, which would inevitably last only 3-4 years due to problems in the physical design of the laptop or computer as a whole (ask me about them in the comments). My family didn't know anyone who could magically custom build better computers for the price, and even then think of how few people that can make better custom build laptops for that price. It was only through a long series of coincidences that I recently had enough money to buy a $1,800 gaming laptop which WILL have to last me at least 10+ years. It's the first time anyone in my family has or likely ever will "have a computer with a graphics card that can make Minecraft look like the face of God." or "One of those computers with a fancy graphics card that has letters before it." Prior to this, my old laptop over the span of 3-4 years became unable to even play Overwatch (with a wired connection) without 3-4 seconds of lag every 8 seconds with graphics set to "cheese grater".
I play on a laptop that is, at this point, SEVERAL years old. I bought it off a more computer-savvy friend while it was still pretty new, and though I'm still impressed by all the things it can run (most notably for me, Overwatch, Civ 6, Guild Wars 2, and Crusader Kings 3), I do have to run most of those games on lower graphical settings and with an external fan so that my machine doesn't try to achieve vertical liftoff with how hard the fans go. Guild Wars 2 is particularly nice for this, since it puts all the visual settings under an easily accessible menu and even has 3 automatic settings to select from if you don't want to mess with things individually - Best Appearance (all graphics, including other player's models, are set to the highest setting), Best Performance (all graphics are set to the lowest setting), & Autodetect (which...is exactly what is says on the tin), and all of these can be further customized within these settings.
A lot of fans have been speculating that Halo Infinite may be sticking to a simple art direction for these exact reasons. The past few games were SO graphically intense it's not even funny. Halo 2 Anniversary Edition takes crazy processing power, and Halo 5 didn't even get a proper PC version. A big part of Halo Infinite's marketing has been that "the game will launch fully optimized for PC". And while recent screenshots have improved since July's horrendous gameplay demo, it's still clear that the game is taking a "clean and simple" approach to it's graphics, instead of going full "next gen" high fidelity. And honestly? As a PC player who has experienced THE PAIN of running all my games at low settings to prevent my potato from catching fire? I'd say Halo Infinite could be taking a great step in the right direction here.
I play on a 2011 imac, when I play CS:GO I have to close nearly every program I'm using or else the framerate tanks when a player comes into view for the first time in a while as the computer scrambles to render them; ever since a few updates ago Warthunder dropped support for apple OS versions that didn't have the "metal" engine, this old computer can't be updated to a version with such engine; Xcom 2 won't open, hollow knight has render issues and often plays at less than 1 frame per second. As if playing on a platform PC games don't always get ported to wasn't enough, most non-indie modern games wouldn't even run on my computer. :'D Maybe catering to a 10 year old computer is a bit too much to ask for, but I hope companies do start thinking a bit more about low spec computers, maybe that way when I do upgrate to a contemporaneous computer it won't be rendered utterly obsolete in just 2 years? :'D
Honestly having to mess with files in my game, especially if they come with a "not supported" warning scare me to the point that if mjnimum options within the game itself doesn't allow me to play the game on my potato, then I'm not playing it. I've had too many poor experiences playing games on my laptops that I don't even try anymore. Consoles give me the assurance that the game SHOULD run on my hardware, so there's more confidence in what I buy.
While I am all for more accessible gaming. I feel like its worth noting that this doesn't always work for multi-player games. Sometimes it can cause some bad ripple effects in the game. For example, the game planetside 2 is an mmofps that had a configurable ini file. The most common use for this accessibility was to disable particle effects so that smoke grenades couldn't blind you, creating an enormous advantage.
This was an excellent one to hear about. I wish you guys did more game-related videos but I understand that Extra History and Extra Mythology tend to get higher view counts. I just miss having more game videos.
The big reason I mostly play old games and indie games is because my dusty little laptop can't handle big games. And it's also why I absolutely adore Borderlands 2 for running on what is realistically a toaster if you reduce the visuals just a little bit
Yes! LowSpecGamer, and an episode speaking about games and their minimum specs. As someone literally being addicted to a game I can barely play with my very underpowered computer, I can't tell you the joy of seeing someone tackling the issues of accessibility of gaming money-wise. I personally believe Mobile is a great equalizer when it comes to the issue but so many good mobile games do not care about optimization. A phone doesn't have to be a dedicated gaming thing, so it's easier to justify the price and bite the bullet. My phone currently is legitimately only very slightly worst than my computer specs-wise.
Loved this episode. Here in Latin America consoles (and console games) are ridiculously expensive, so PC is often the only viable way one has to play. Steam having prices on my local currency is the main reason I stick with them: I can buy games from Steam at a reasonble price, which is just not true for games on consoles or even other virtual stores. Also, my main PC for gaming is my four year old laptop. It's really good as a work/study PC, but it's clearly not meant for gaming. So I love it when a game is either really well optimized or gives me the option to lower the graphical settings as much as I want to. Right now I'm playing Trails of Cold Steel 4, and they have a set of settings called "portable" for this kind of machines: It works really well, and the game looks pretty much the same as it does on PS4.
and Steam could very well have stopped with regional pricing when people started using VPNs or asking people to buy games on countries were they are a lot cheaper, but instead they implemented restrictions so I can still buy my games for half the price I would pay if they had real conversion.
Sometimes, those ULQ settings give an unfair advantage over the default settings, meaning those who don't know or want to decrease the quality are at a disadvantage simply because they dont have the time, patience, know how, or interest to change it in that way War Thunder is one of the most egregious examples
Really wish the video went more into design for a lower spec as well. There are some titles that just due to some design choices and really good art direction look and play excellent on many different tiers of hardware. This titles play so well to the limitations they often hold up better into the future as well.
Playing on consoles and a late 2013 Macbook Pro (Mojave obviously). I find a lot games I want to play run pretty good on my system (both via Steam and Epic). Especially the more indie ones that sacrifice graphics for the sake of gameplay, story etc. I always go for the console version of a game if I have to choose between that and my MBP, but I'm glad a lot more developers today support macOS as well as Linux, not just Windows.
3:35 I have never heard of this. Honestly, I remember trying to run it when it launched and getting 5FPS even using LowSpecGamer's tips to make it work. Right now I'm playing another Battle Royale (Super Mecha Champions) which I'm enjoying greatly, but it is not designed for my computer (I barely top at 25 fps, with many many possibilities of lag, freezing, and often even crashing). Might look that up honestly.
The fact that you and Nick Pulos are friends is a crossover that I always find unexpected when he appears in your vids. I follow you for work out advice and I follow Nick for... ah...other kinds of inspiration 😉
I would like to add something to the conversation here: "Accessibility" settings, when referring to graphics, doesn't _only_ mean for low spec gamers. *TL;DR-* Some people need config files and graphics settings to make games playable for physical or mental reasons, not just hardware. There's obvious things like color blind settings, but also things like screen shake and particle density. I personally have severe difficulty processing what's going on in many games when there's too much going on onscreen, or when the screen is shaking or wobbling around too much, or when there're too many flashy particles or UI elements cluttering my view. Config files, and in some cases mods (In games where modding's acceptable, mind you!) allow for some games to be significantly more enjoyable, or in some cases even playable for me, by removing these effects. And i wouldn't be surprised if lots of other people have the same experience. I also have sensitive eyes, so being arbitrarily locked at a low framerate can hard on my eyes. Also, some games' implementations of anti-aliasing can be immediately painful to look at. Monster Hunter: World's for example. In some games i have to sacrifice performance to turn up the render scale or field of view for the sake of my health. Which of these options i go with generally depend on the game i'm playing and its art direction. Games with flatter colors and larger objects might not need as a high a framerate to be comfortable to look at, or i might be more comfortable turning _down_ my resolution to reduce eyestrain with things like grass, trees, and some games' fog effects. Overwatch is an example of a game that could really use some more graphics settings aimed at accessibility, or really even a full redesign in some areas. I find myself going effectively blind for what can sometimes be several seconds at a time due a combination of lots of factors. Screen shake disorients me, excessive UI elements can be hard to read, (White-on-white healthbar, anti aliasing on the crossshair making it less sharp, etc...) or HUD clutter that often provides no gameplay benefit and force my brain to tune out some portions of my screen entirely. (IE; The "on fire" mechanic, or random lines, pictures and patterns) Large bloom effects come off of everything causing important game elements to blend together or be completely obscured. The low field of view makes it harder to track where i am in 3D space. And the lighting in many maps can be either too dark, too bright, or in the worst cases- a mix of the two right next to each other. Meanwhile Hollow Knight became waaaay more fun once i installed a few mods to reduce a few visual effects and force my camera to stick to the knight, thus removing screen shake. I could actually process what i was looking at and had a blast.
In Brazil, minimum wage is LESS than 200USD. Depending on which platform you choose, games are only available if you import them (which costs $60 for the game + $15-20 shipping, and then add 60% over it all as taxes). Imagine playing minimum wage for a single AAA physical game. Even for consoles that are officially distributed here (like Playstation and Xbox) a new AAA release can cost almost $100.
Oh thank you thank you thank you. Someone understands me an my country. I went the console route because pc games are single-minded on higher visual quality, to the point of my modest pc not being able to run 5 year old games.
I admire games that put in the work to allow a game to run at low settings - it's seriously impressive to see a game so well designed that it actually looks pretty nice at low settings. The Resident Evil games in the RE engine in particular must have used some kind of witchcraft to be able to run on half a potato and still actually look decent.
You know what is likely going to be really good for this? VR. Lightweight, comfortable, and affordable stand-alone VR headsets are the way VR will (and already kinda is) become mainstream. And that means designing games that output high resolutions and high frame rates on what are effectively moderately powerful smartphones.
Not even just people playing inflated prices in other countries, but even right here at home a lot of low-income people are going to opt for a $300-$400 computer the whole family can enjoy rather than a $400-$500 console that half the family can't or wont use. Low-income kids and families deserve to play games too! And it's not only about accessibility, it's also just plain good business. Consider this: Everybody wants their game to be the next viral smash. The next major cultural talking point. But it's important to remember that the people most likely to be driving that sort of (to call it what it is) word-of-mouth marketing? The ones most likely to be making and sharing memes, fanart, and tiktok videos? Are kids and teens. And what demographic is the least likely to have a lot of personal disposable income and the most likely to be playing on underpowered hardware? Kids and teens. Remember that essentially every game that's ever become a huge viral sensation, and I mean EVERY game from Among Us to Fortnite to Minecraft to Fall Guys to Undertale, didn't just get huge because they were good games but also because EVERYBODY CAN PLAY THEM. The game on that list with the HIGHEST minimum requirements is Fortnite which asks for a GTX 660 and an i5. Come on. It's not that hard.
"Of the five most popular GPUs, three could be considered entry-level." Me, where most of the machines we use are laptops with onboard graphics only: "A GTX1650 is entry-level? Hahaha, good joke..." 😕 Seriously though, if you own a laptop that doesn't have dedicated graphics (because, y'know, gaming laptops aren't cheap), finding games that are actually playable can be an... interesting experience. Also, this is one of the reasons why I find I spend more time and money on indie titles than ones from the big companies: you don't need to spend thousands of dollars on a computer able to experience the game as intended. Low hardware requirements FTW, IMHO.
I feel represented ! I'm from Brazil and buying a current generation console with a minimum wage, if you live by yourself, is pretty much impossible since it would take 5 or 6 months of salary to buy
My tastes lean heavily to retro style indie games, but I wonder how much of that is preference and how much a long stretch of low income, an older computer, and unreliable internet has shaped that. I now have an immediate drop in interest if a game trailer looks too pretty.
This is especially important with Iris XE graphics coming out and AMD apu's on the horizon. By the end of the year, pretty much every computer on store shelves will be capable of running low end graphics
Hmm... Point taken. I would generally deny the option to set graphics to something that I don't feel properly represents the look and feel/mood (that usually a lot of effort have gone in to) trying to convey... But I suppose if the option is people not experiencing any of it, at all... Then that's even worse :) Whether or not to adhere to this I think could/should be calibrated to the level of importance that the look/feel/mood has to the experience overall... There are genuinely great experiences that just wouldn't come through properly if you compromise it... I think that's far from most games though.
As someone who’s too young to get a job and to buy top of the line PC stuff that I’ve wanted to get, I’m super bummed out that I can’t play or can hardly play games like Warzone or even modded Minecraft with a hand-me-down laptop that’s starting to show its age. Having settings like this would be a god send, especially if they’re easy to figure out how to change
I've been struggling running games on a laptop for many years because of space and mobility constraints. I can't wait to have these alleviated, but until then I'll have to be very careful what games I buy. Even disk space has been a struggle at times!
I'd like to share a story of my own as to just how ready players with "bad" computers are to compromise. This is already a few years back and is about my friend who only had a very cheap pc. And he loved the game Wolfenstein (Don't ask me which) and did everything to play it and he had to deal with really low framerates and I don't know how but he was still really good at the game. and when I mean low fps don't mean like 20 but more in the region of 1-3 fps throughout the game. So yeah if they want to play a game a player is ready to put up with a lot of things just to be able to play it even if it is basically unplayable in the eyes of others
+1 I'm literary happy just being able to play the game @ a reasonable framerate XD (more so when i was younger and couldn't afford more beefy hardware, but it's still the same now.. just that I can financially afford to crank up the settings now )
This is why the companies publishing games for Playstation 3's and XBox 360s really missed the mark on a far larger potential user-base, during those couple years during that console generation when companies just would not publish their multi-format games on PC (around 2010 to 2012ish), under the excuse that "it wasn't profitable enough" - when really it would have been if they had just bothered to put the minimum amount of effort in. Eventually they all did start publishing their titles to PC too (though for some reason would always strip out the couch co-op in games that had it), but it took them a long time - too long a time - to realise how lucrative the market they were skipping actually was. Always reminds me of how Dragon's Dogma originally didn't get a PC port, and the game slipped under the radar and was ignored as another "me-too" fantasy RPG, being only a console title, by the vast majority of gamers, until it finally got noticed and reached the critical acclaim it absolutely deserved when they released it on PC many many years later. They could have had that so, so much earlier if they had just bothered to release a PC version in the first place. While Dragon's Dogma is always my most memorable example of this, I know there was many many other games that followed this trend and originally were not going to release a PC version during this era of gaming.
Approve of Lord Gaben dropping the sales. It’s one of the reasons why I actually enjoy Ace Combat 7. Despite being a AAA, my 1050TI makes the game look amazing still. (Yes, it’s a potato, call me when I can get an RTX 30 equipped laptop that I can cram 4TB HDD in, or M2 storage exceeds 2TB).
An example of a single player game that recently embraces this accessibility (and I could not include in the script due to time) are most games on the RE Engine. Devil May Cry 5, the Resident Evil 2 and 3 Remakes, Resident Evil 7 and Village all can look spectacular at higher settings on capable PCs but can easily run on Integrated GPUs (and still look pretty acceptable). This level of optimization was likely not easy or cheap, but it shows what can be done when this is a consideration!
Hi
Love to see it still, especially with today's markets, and past issues.
Interesting
@@MartinPurathur indeed
Siii!!!! Eres un héroe compadre. Primero LTT ahora Extra Credits. Poco a poco nos comemos el mundo. Que vivan los Potato PC!!!!
As one of The Poors, being able to run games on my decade-old laptop with decent results will absolutely increase my chances of purchasing said games.
I wish more of my friends understood this. Can we please just play stardew?
You have Mario 64 with low-poly Mario
As he gets farther away from the camera, the game swaps out the round bod for a chunky one
Also the rush of "that game" that works with just some frame drops in 3 times of your playthrough are really blessed...
Like that was my experience with Yakuza 0 a game that i loved.
Have you tried league of legends, that game can run on a graphics calculators.
@@walterhaider869 then I've had some really bad graphics calculator as my previous pc chugged on it... Haven't tried with my current one
I wish steam had a feature that allows you to filter the games that are too demanding for your pc.
If they can give us a filter about prices then they can give us a filter about ram and operating system.
All hail gabe. Do not question his ways!
*me uses filter*
Me: hey where did all the games go?
Also me with a super shitty pc
Screw "artistic vision", if a game doesnt let me turn off motion blur, then its dead to me.
Even as an animator I immediately try to turn both these options off. I want to see what I’m doing with as few bells and post processing as possible.
One reason unreal engine is actually less preferable than Unity.
@@AgentTasmania yes that one too, hdr and bloom can be excessive too.
I wonder how many games have this enabled by default, just cause the engine can do it.
@@Kuuribro Motion blur and depth of field are totally features you can disable on UE cameras in their post processing section.
@@AgentTasmania Whoever decided that depth of field belonged in gameplay, and not just movies/cutscenes can die in fire.
motionblur is the most useless of all
i already have bad eyesight, i dont need a reminding
Honestly the biggest issue my family are having is new games taking larger and larger memory. Like my sister likes playing sims, but a big update nearly rendered the game unplayable on the old family computer
Mmm. I don’t think about this enough but you are right.
That's also on Microsoft as well - every major update of Windows 10 uses the OS to use more RAM, leaving less for other programs.
You might try if not already on the lowest graphics option that Sims has, lowering it one notch. Lower graphical settings are less taxing on regular memory in addition to less taxing on Video card memory. That goes double if that computer is on an integrated graphics processor.
Memory Leaks. Ugh. Those are terrible.
For me it's not just low spec. I have a decent amount of memory, but if I'm not gaming, I like to have my browser open. I use, perhaps, too many tabs (currently have 412 open), and I can run memory light games without too much problem, but when it comes to bigger memory games, it becomes less like I have to choose which windows to close, and more like which windows can I afford to keep open.
The last generation or two of games and software in general just pilled on RAM and hard drive consumption. The results can be worth it, but it's definitely not something that they can keep doing forever.
As a person who uses a quote-on-quote "Gaming" Laptop that fails to meet the minimum requirements of many indie games, as well as tends to stutter and lag on 2D games, I find this topic highly important.
Also, the stuff about cats and 2nd Dinner is too true.
We're the same.
Emulators are our saving grace, every game until and including PS1 on consoles and GBA on portables runs smoothly on my weak computers.
There's also the recent trend of games that used to be console-exclusive now also available on PC. Yakuza games, Horizon Zero Dawn, Final Fantasy games, SMT Nocturne remaster, etc.
If this trend continues, I think I won't buy any consoles anymore going forward. Most console game developers whose games I care about have started to consider getting more of their works released on PC, because obviously they also realized that there's money to be made there.
I'm also seeing PC games being ported over to consoles. Including Grand Strategy Games. Basically the publishers want to make sales and are now not only willing to port (or contract that to someone else) , but are also starting to spend the effort to allow multiplayer across different platforms where player X could be on a PC, player Y on a Max, and player Z on a console.
We’ll see.
But this is the thing, game consoles may what makes the PC versions of gpu/cpu prices stays down to earth. Do you want to pay scalper prices for eternity?
One problem I've had with a lot of ports is that the game still pretends its on a council with the game constantly telling you to press buttons that you don't even had. I was playing one game and I had to hunt around for the button to press to close a pop up that happened before I could do anything.
@@ributsuria That is not how this works. TSMC and Samsung make chips for every electronics company. This means fabricators working on chips for PS5's are taking up space, which would otherwise be used on RTX 3080's. What reduces the prices is more than 2 fucking buildings on earth making them XD
Absolutely this. As I get older, having an expensive machine just dedicated to my hobbies has becoming so much of a pipe dream. Getting a cheap computer has allowed me back into gaming but there's so much I can't do because my machine didn't cost £3000 and glow magenta
If you can assemble it yourself, you can manage a decent gaming pc for ~$800-$1000
@@Jallorn These days that's the price of the graphics card alone
@@Jallorn do gotta say that's often still a big ask. say ya work in the usa. entry level jobs have a hard time payin rent. having basic insurances cost a large chunk. so on and so forth. so setting aside that kinda cash over necessities either often means going without the basics for a while. or being in a place where ya have those covered already like being an adult in a parents house.
tldr: due to life stuff costing more than it should dat kinda cash is a big ask
@@majorfallacy5926 Only if you feel the need for the latest and greatest. There are plenty of solid gpus that are a couple years old but can still manage modern games. Maybe you don't run them at max capacity, but you can run them.
@@Jallorn he cited Brazil as an expensive country I have the numbers already, imagine these prices 5x higher, or if you prefer, the entire country with 5x less purchasing power. Before the pandemic, not the prices now. We still love games and the market is huge, because people still pay for it.
Yes, this! Performance on PC is a huge hurdle non-gamer players have, since they don't have gaming oriented computers!
I have this issue too. With a PC built to do large spreadsheets and run Word, when I load up big games the lowest gtaphics settimg can often barely, if at all, run.
Indeed - actually those computers with "only" two cores are frequently better for games. Because most games won't use anything past the second core anyway - multi threading is hard so main business loop maxes out one processor, and the second handles the graphics at 25% use. Basically for gaming machine you want higher processor speed instead.
You then run into issues where different types of games need different things - a machine optimized for a Paradox Grand Strategy game is different than a machine optimized for a Multiplayer First Person Shooter.
It's also VERY confusing to those who don't know the difference between RAM and VRAM.
@@bencetary6094 Thats because you run spread sheets.... its not the games fault thats what you do...
Config files is also real handy when dealing with mods.
YES
and servers. I love the way that the 7 Days To Die file is set up. Very straightforward to change things =)
Config files for me is inaccessible. If the game doesn't allow me to run min settings within the game itself then I probably will never pick it up again. How am I to know what settings to aim for to be able to actually play my game? Especially if it comes with a "not supported" warning. If it's not supported then I'm not a player.
Yup, exactly this. I’m a frequent .cfg tinkerer. For me, the ability to alter a game to be the game I want to play is the best thing about PC gaming. I can’t go back to consoles now - they are too restrictive and prescriptive.
Or when you can't bother to make your DX12 not take a literal half hour to load every map or menu
_cough cough_ BATTLEFRONT 2
It's also a Plus when Indies Tittle also took this accesibility and they also craft the game to low end players, and its play same as cool.
Stardew Valley, or Blaphemous for a Example.
I'm a laptop gamer and I'm glad you covered this, though I wish you went more in depth
the writer lowspecgamer has a channel dedicated to this, check him out
Um, i don't hear gamers asking for game-consuls that can push more hard-core graphics and processing power. I honestly hear more, as in a LOT more, asking for back-wards compatibility. The people who tend to demand MORE processing Power and higher-graphics, are the game execs (and I'm sure that has nothing to do with just charging more.)
When 4K monitors started appearing, I did see a bunch of whining on forums that X game isn't using the 4K mode of the monitor I payed for. But more common was the complaint of on highest resolution the game supports that the font size of the text isn't legible
Oh they do, generally in the form of complaining when games don't look "next gen" enough. They aren't any more a majority than those asking for backwards compatibility or higher frame rates, but their thing is the one with the broadest appeal. Even those who "don't care" about graphics appreciate fancy visuals after all.
In India I have a second hand pc I got for studying and I love every game I played.
Is your picture Luz from that Disney show "Owl House"? Love that show
@@anthonydavis5288 yes
As someone that had a super potato pc for a while (even your “entry level” gpus would’ve been a huge upgrade) I am now going to work really hard to make my games run on old PCs.
Age of empires is a great example of how to preserve a playerbase for a long time.
wait...that game is still alive!?
wow that game is almost as old as I am and I am only half alive.
And Doom 1/2
Sadly AoE2 DE actually has too high systems requirements for me to play (while e.g. Factorio runs butter-smooth).
@@WitherBossEntity i believe you need 4 gb ram and sonething like a core 2 duo, it won’t be in best settings, but it’s not that high
@@tengma9902 All three have definite editions to them.
"How often have you been short a squad member the would usually play with you but can't run the game" yeah never but then im the one who missed out
"entry level" GTX1050s...
Meanwhile, here's me with a GT730...
I'm kind of scared of the future if the amount of money I shelled out for my gaming is considered "entry level".
I don't even know if my laptop has a specific graphics card or which it would be or which ones ar eminimum? Pc gaming is hard.
Oof I had a similar model until a year ago
---30s are business cards(e.g. GTX930 etc), ---50 are "entry level" gaming cards and the 70/80/90 ranges are the "pro gamer" versions of each generation. Of course, these designations are made by the marketeers selling the products, not the consumers buying them, who will often buy a GTXxx30 card for school or work, and then try to figure out what games will run on the machine they already have.
@@ajbXYZcool you can check your system info. Google is your friend. But, if you don't know, then you most likely just have an integrated gpu
Do you know why payday 2 is one of the most played games on pc?
Low spec PC acess.
I am from Brazil and games here are way too expensive, specially with the increase of dollar. Using my computer is more viável with chapar prices of games (and use of emulators) than consoles.
I still prefer to play on the Switch than my PC, but I need to save more money and get less games to do so.
Fellow brazilian here. I own a PS2, and once the PS3 generation started rolling around and their game acquisition was centered around a non-existent-in-Brazil online stores, I moved to boost my PC and focus on Steam. Most of the reasoning behind it is spot-on on the episode: HIgh end PC was the same price of a modern console, but I could use it for more things than just play games.
I only bought a Nintendo Switch recently because of Nintendo games, that stand as the only console exclusives never ported to PC. Everything else I prefer to play on PC, and even choose to play on PC if multiplatform is an option (eg, I'm waiting for the PC version of Monster Hunter Rise).
We in Argentina are getting closer to you guys, in regard to taxes we have 65% for buying online so we have to pay half of the price of every game.
They didn't attack the consoles yet.
@@lautaro3365 at least there still the option to play free game. And Epic offer free stuff often. And Prime also give some games for Twitch as part of the package, so there are options to save money.
But this are also others advantage PC have over console, even if you don't have a gaming PC
@@lautaro3365 65% ? BRUH... I mean, yeah, i understand the pain of terrible exchange rate but 65% is madness!
@@lautaro3365 son tiempos jodidos para ser un pc gamer en Argentina jajaja
Thank you for drawing attention to this!
Thank you for talking about how lowering graphic options and stuff makes a game accessibility to those of us who can't afford better CPUs, I can't afford to buy a fancy tech device just for gaming and I'm pretty sure that I ain't the only one
The mention of possible bugs reminded me of an issue I had in No Man's Sky where setting the graphics to low made the LOD cutoff so short that interacting with most anything would pull the camera out past a detail shift and kick me out of the interaction, or just never load the full detail model and collision mesh at all. I thought my save was corrupted or something.
When Hello Fresh says they have a smaller carbon footprint, they are quoting an intentionally flawed and morally wrong experiment. They had students at Uni of Michigan buy full sized items (boxes of pasta, whole cabbage, etc) then cook a single serving meal, and throw the rest in the trash.
Plus the fact that they only got 25% carbon savings over this incredibly wasteful process shows how bad for the environment Hello Fresh actually is.
Yea, and if you happen to be someone who needs a low carb diet, they are no help. So you still have to spend time scrutinizing their recipes to see what ones are good, and if you look at the mean plans the smallest option is for two people eating so if your by yourself there's always going to be leftovers, but as the meals keep coming no time to eat them.
Well, at least its not a VPN.
That and they'll be so much packaging.
Config files can also allow people with monstrous computers to push the limits the other way as well. For example, Minecraft shaders have many, many customisation options that you can tweak to make the game look exactly the way you want it to, from things like general quality all the way to the temperature that torches appear to burn at.
I love the fact when you said to set the graphics to low in the intro and the video quality went to 144p automatically.
I can't tell you how happy I was when I learned that my 5 yro laptop could play Dragon Quest 11. Never before have I seen a game that lets you adjust render resolution. This is also why I appreciate demo's. I would have never bought the game without being able to try it for free.
Really enjoyed watching this episode. Brought back memories of editing CS config files and and I think it's a topic that should be talked about even more.
Meanwhile Doom: Yeah, you can run it on anything year
2000+
the 2016 version? is it that easy to run? it looks great
Meanwhile Original Doom: Yeah, you can run it on literally anything
Yes
Do you mean Doom or Doom? Because Doom ran just fine on early 90s hardware, while Doom's min spec puts it to early 2010s or later.
Edit: and, yes, it is silly that they released two fairly different games with exactly the same name...
wait, you mean to tell me there is a higher setting than low?
Yup - my most recently purchased game came out the same year as my machine so I can play that one on medium. And I can play the older games on high.
But indeed - it's basically always the case that any game bought after the machine has to be kept on the low graphics setting.
@@jonnunn4196 i know that feeling, to be honest im surprised i can still run recent games on min settings and still having fun, im surprised of my laptop being capable of running most stuff ive tried on the minimum since it is a 6 year old laptop and wasnt supposed to be for gaming, since nothing of it says it is good for gaming, yet it had a dedicated gpu
Man, fuck those games where you press "video settings" and you are greeted with a whole 2 settings: resolution and graphics quality, each with 4 whole options
Also let me choose where the audio comes out of
Dev here. Would depend on the game, but for many games, they just want the frame rate to be as high as possible. Thus we can interpret “very low” as “give me the highest FPS”. Normally you would at least have VSYNC shown as well.
I've always thought that one of the major reasons for the success of Minecraft in the first place is that it can run on potato computers.
Fucking java man crazy.
3:58 I've legitimately played many games on 800X400 windowed mode, just so that I can run it at a stable 30FPS. This is very true and I wish more companies took notice of that.
Config files and advanced settings can be great, but something to be careful of is what the defaults are. If 99% of players change a setting to something else, maybe consider making that the default. For example, starter guides for the first person shooter TF2 often have a huge section what to settings change to make the game far more playable. This can include raising the fov up from 70 to 90, hitsounds, damage numbers, better weapon switching, fixing overbearing view models, etc. All of these are big improvements to the experience but some of them are hidden in the advanced settings or even variables only accessible from the dev console.
Config files are great, but please make the important stuff accessible in the settings and have a good default value.
5:38 as that one friend that often has to look up system requirements first before joining friends on a new game they discovered, I can say it is one of the feelings.
Graphics is only half the experience. The other half is the CPU(s). The AI in many games is limited not by how smart they can make it but by how much time it has to do the smarts. If the frame rate is 30 fps, then the CPU must go thru the decision tree of each unit 30 times a second. That's a lot of work. Smaller CPUs mean smaller decision trees. Which means the experience is not as rich for those on less powerful equipment.
This is a lovely episode, I started and still play on a PC. My first PC was actually a laptop and it was old and rather slow, after all I used if for school as well. I've always been into history (which I'm currently majoring in) so my parents got me a game that I could play as a 14-y.o. kid with terrible eyesight. The game they got me was Civilisations V which is a turn-based grand-strategy which is perfect for people with a visual disability. However wayy too heavy for my laptop and only by scaling down the graphics I would be able to play it. Now, a solid 6 years later I'm very thankful for that because it got me into gaming.
As a political lefty, I appreciate this video.
In my opinion, the political left in recent years
hasn't spent nearly enough time talking about the most oppressed group of all:
*The poor.* Tackle poverty in general and watch as most other problems magically evaporate.
I used to be a poor boy with a poor computer and now I'm a poor boy with a fantastic computer so I know the struggle of playing my favorite games with poor graphics to get it to work
"All the way from spain"
I could make an entire video about everything cursed with that map...
Well, it's a good thing my game idea is already graphics-light, and I was _already_ thinking of a global audience. : )
You forgot TF2, it's still being updated against hacks.
Sometimes lowering fidelity can lead to balance issues, such as environmental render distance in hardcore survival games. Being able to change to a lower setting can lead to an advantage in spotting enemy players trying to hide, which results in some players lowering their settings just to get an advantage.
But in general I agree that trying to widen a game's options to include all sorts of hardware types should be an ethical choice for a developer as much as an economic one.
Optimization really is something awesome to see in games. By coding the games to do more with less, you're simultaneously allowing lower end systems to pull off the same feats that would be expected from a higher end one, while simultaneously freeing up more of the resources of the higher end systems for even higher quality effects, or just simply letting the computer use those resources for other software like video chat or streaming. Just make sure that said optimization doesn't come at the expense of clear code and maintainability.
Super cool seeing low spec gamer on here
I always wanted someone to address this problem
Watched this video at 144p
Mmmmmmm
My last pc was 14 years old. For my own pc i’ve always use pcs from the trash or relatives giving theirs away as they upgraded. Low end is the whole reason I love indie titles.
Games like Cave Story, 20XX, Offspring Fling, Recetear, Crystal Crisis, and Spelunkey Classic are what I think of as default when playing pc games.
Its definitely shaped my taste in gaming on pc.
My taste was developed by this factor too, in my case i went to indies but especially emulators of older consoles and pc games. I sort of became a video game historian, going backwards to discover several classical games like Sonic 2D, Doom, SNES, Donkey Kong, And ROM hacks of those.
as a kid i had only a old family PC to play on. right now i have gaming laptop... but my friends don't haha. so i'll still end up playing low spec friendly games!
Being able to use a laptop to take my games with me on the go would be awesome even though they would have to be at lower visual quality.
This summerizes my pc gaming philosophy since 1995. I didn’t get consoles until they were 10 years old, I learned to game on other people’s discarded PCs from age 8. I’m building my first gaming PC from scratch in 12 years, gaming on a toughbook cf-31 I picked up on ebay for $300 until I have enough parts
THANK YOU for covering this!
As someone that grew up poor each family member (3 of us) could have at MOST a pre-made $600-$700 computer, preferably a laptop in my case as a teenager and later a university student, which would inevitably last only 3-4 years due to problems in the physical design of the laptop or computer as a whole (ask me about them in the comments). My family didn't know anyone who could magically custom build better computers for the price, and even then think of how few people that can make better custom build laptops for that price.
It was only through a long series of coincidences that I recently had enough money to buy a $1,800 gaming laptop which WILL have to last me at least 10+ years. It's the first time anyone in my family has or likely ever will "have a computer with a graphics card that can make Minecraft look like the face of God." or "One of those computers with a fancy graphics card that has letters before it."
Prior to this, my old laptop over the span of 3-4 years became unable to even play Overwatch (with a wired connection) without 3-4 seconds of lag every 8 seconds with graphics set to "cheese grater".
I play on a laptop that is, at this point, SEVERAL years old. I bought it off a more computer-savvy friend while it was still pretty new, and though I'm still impressed by all the things it can run (most notably for me, Overwatch, Civ 6, Guild Wars 2, and Crusader Kings 3), I do have to run most of those games on lower graphical settings and with an external fan so that my machine doesn't try to achieve vertical liftoff with how hard the fans go. Guild Wars 2 is particularly nice for this, since it puts all the visual settings under an easily accessible menu and even has 3 automatic settings to select from if you don't want to mess with things individually - Best Appearance (all graphics, including other player's models, are set to the highest setting), Best Performance (all graphics are set to the lowest setting), & Autodetect (which...is exactly what is says on the tin), and all of these can be further customized within these settings.
A lot of fans have been speculating that Halo Infinite may be sticking to a simple art direction for these exact reasons. The past few games were SO graphically intense it's not even funny. Halo 2 Anniversary Edition takes crazy processing power, and Halo 5 didn't even get a proper PC version. A big part of Halo Infinite's marketing has been that "the game will launch fully optimized for PC". And while recent screenshots have improved since July's horrendous gameplay demo, it's still clear that the game is taking a "clean and simple" approach to it's graphics, instead of going full "next gen" high fidelity. And honestly? As a PC player who has experienced THE PAIN of running all my games at low settings to prevent my potato from catching fire? I'd say Halo Infinite could be taking a great step in the right direction here.
Man, I love XCOM 2. I would really love if the game finally loads on my laptop. Maybe someday soon.
I play on a 2011 imac, when I play CS:GO I have to close nearly every program I'm using or else the framerate tanks when a player comes into view for the first time in a while as the computer scrambles to render them; ever since a few updates ago Warthunder dropped support for apple OS versions that didn't have the "metal" engine, this old computer can't be updated to a version with such engine; Xcom 2 won't open, hollow knight has render issues and often plays at less than 1 frame per second. As if playing on a platform PC games don't always get ported to wasn't enough, most non-indie modern games wouldn't even run on my computer. :'D
Maybe catering to a 10 year old computer is a bit too much to ask for, but I hope companies do start thinking a bit more about low spec computers, maybe that way when I do upgrate to a contemporaneous computer it won't be rendered utterly obsolete in just 2 years? :'D
Honestly having to mess with files in my game, especially if they come with a "not supported" warning scare me to the point that if mjnimum options within the game itself doesn't allow me to play the game on my potato, then I'm not playing it. I've had too many poor experiences playing games on my laptops that I don't even try anymore. Consoles give me the assurance that the game SHOULD run on my hardware, so there's more confidence in what I buy.
While I am all for more accessible gaming. I feel like its worth noting that this doesn't always work for multi-player games. Sometimes it can cause some bad ripple effects in the game. For example, the game planetside 2 is an mmofps that had a configurable ini file. The most common use for this accessibility was to disable particle effects so that smoke grenades couldn't blind you, creating an enormous advantage.
This was an excellent one to hear about. I wish you guys did more game-related videos but I understand that Extra History and Extra Mythology tend to get higher view counts. I just miss having more game videos.
I've appreciated low settings just because bitcoin's priced me out of building a new PC for a while now.
Victoria II, for all its challenges and learning curves, is very easy to edit and configure in the files thanks to the good work done by Paradox.
The big reason I mostly play old games and indie games is because my dusty little laptop can't handle big games. And it's also why I absolutely adore Borderlands 2 for running on what is realistically a toaster if you reduce the visuals just a little bit
And then there's me who plays from a goddam second-hand Asus using my mom's wifi.
low spec gamer is amazing, got me to try out some of the games my computer couldn't run normally
Yes! LowSpecGamer, and an episode speaking about games and their minimum specs.
As someone literally being addicted to a game I can barely play with my very underpowered computer, I can't tell you the joy of seeing someone tackling the issues of accessibility of gaming money-wise.
I personally believe Mobile is a great equalizer when it comes to the issue but so many good mobile games do not care about optimization. A phone doesn't have to be a dedicated gaming thing, so it's easier to justify the price and bite the bullet. My phone currently is legitimately only very slightly worst than my computer specs-wise.
Loved this episode. Here in Latin America consoles (and console games) are ridiculously expensive, so PC is often the only viable way one has to play. Steam having prices on my local currency is the main reason I stick with them: I can buy games from Steam at a reasonble price, which is just not true for games on consoles or even other virtual stores.
Also, my main PC for gaming is my four year old laptop. It's really good as a work/study PC, but it's clearly not meant for gaming. So I love it when a game is either really well optimized or gives me the option to lower the graphical settings as much as I want to. Right now I'm playing Trails of Cold Steel 4, and they have a set of settings called "portable" for this kind of machines: It works really well, and the game looks pretty much the same as it does on PS4.
As someone who uses a non gaming pc I would love these settings
Whenever the exta credits, intro plays I don't know why super Mario 64 comes into my mind.
1:46 in central america, a console is worth 3 times more than in the US, games also have that problem
and Steam could very well have stopped with regional pricing when people started using VPNs or asking people to buy games on countries were they are a lot cheaper, but instead they implemented restrictions so I can still buy my games for half the price I would pay if they had real conversion.
@@danilooliveira6580 Basically even Steam isn't happy about the price they have to set for Australia.
Sometimes, those ULQ settings give an unfair advantage over the default settings, meaning those who don't know or want to decrease the quality are at a disadvantage simply because they dont have the time, patience, know how, or interest to change it in that way
War Thunder is one of the most egregious examples
Really wish the video went more into design for a lower spec as well. There are some titles that just due to some design choices and really good art direction look and play excellent on many different tiers of hardware. This titles play so well to the limitations they often hold up better into the future as well.
Playing on consoles and a late 2013 Macbook Pro (Mojave obviously). I find a lot games I want to play run pretty good on my system (both via Steam and Epic). Especially the more indie ones that sacrifice graphics for the sake of gameplay, story etc. I always go for the console version of a game if I have to choose between that and my MBP, but I'm glad a lot more developers today support macOS as well as Linux, not just Windows.
3:35 I have never heard of this. Honestly, I remember trying to run it when it launched and getting 5FPS even using LowSpecGamer's tips to make it work. Right now I'm playing another Battle Royale (Super Mecha Champions) which I'm enjoying greatly, but it is not designed for my computer (I barely top at 25 fps, with many many possibilities of lag, freezing, and often even crashing).
Might look that up honestly.
The fact that you and Nick Pulos are friends is a crossover that I always find unexpected when he appears in your vids.
I follow you for work out advice and I follow Nick for... ah...other kinds of inspiration 😉
I would like to add something to the conversation here: "Accessibility" settings, when referring to graphics, doesn't _only_ mean for low spec gamers.
*TL;DR-* Some people need config files and graphics settings to make games playable for physical or mental reasons, not just hardware.
There's obvious things like color blind settings, but also things like screen shake and particle density. I personally have severe difficulty processing what's going on in many games when there's too much going on onscreen, or when the screen is shaking or wobbling around too much, or when there're too many flashy particles or UI elements cluttering my view. Config files, and in some cases mods (In games where modding's acceptable, mind you!) allow for some games to be significantly more enjoyable, or in some cases even playable for me, by removing these effects. And i wouldn't be surprised if lots of other people have the same experience.
I also have sensitive eyes, so being arbitrarily locked at a low framerate can hard on my eyes. Also, some games' implementations of anti-aliasing can be immediately painful to look at. Monster Hunter: World's for example. In some games i have to sacrifice performance to turn up the render scale or field of view for the sake of my health. Which of these options i go with generally depend on the game i'm playing and its art direction. Games with flatter colors and larger objects might not need as a high a framerate to be comfortable to look at, or i might be more comfortable turning _down_ my resolution to reduce eyestrain with things like grass, trees, and some games' fog effects.
Overwatch is an example of a game that could really use some more graphics settings aimed at accessibility, or really even a full redesign in some areas. I find myself going effectively blind for what can sometimes be several seconds at a time due a combination of lots of factors. Screen shake disorients me, excessive UI elements can be hard to read, (White-on-white healthbar, anti aliasing on the crossshair making it less sharp, etc...) or HUD clutter that often provides no gameplay benefit and force my brain to tune out some portions of my screen entirely. (IE; The "on fire" mechanic, or random lines, pictures and patterns) Large bloom effects come off of everything causing important game elements to blend together or be completely obscured. The low field of view makes it harder to track where i am in 3D space. And the lighting in many maps can be either too dark, too bright, or in the worst cases- a mix of the two right next to each other.
Meanwhile Hollow Knight became waaaay more fun once i installed a few mods to reduce a few visual effects and force my camera to stick to the knight, thus removing screen shake. I could actually process what i was looking at and had a blast.
In Brazil, minimum wage is LESS than 200USD. Depending on which platform you choose, games are only available if you import them (which costs $60 for the game + $15-20 shipping, and then add 60% over it all as taxes).
Imagine playing minimum wage for a single AAA physical game. Even for consoles that are officially distributed here (like Playstation and Xbox) a new AAA release can cost almost $100.
Oh thank you thank you thank you. Someone understands me an my country. I went the console route because pc games are single-minded on higher visual quality, to the point of my modest pc not being able to run 5 year old games.
I admire games that put in the work to allow a game to run at low settings - it's seriously impressive to see a game so well designed that it actually looks pretty nice at low settings. The Resident Evil games in the RE engine in particular must have used some kind of witchcraft to be able to run on half a potato and still actually look decent.
I only play games from the past decade bc. All my backlog are there.
Clearing backlog is more important then watching pretty color move fpr me
You know what is likely going to be really good for this? VR.
Lightweight, comfortable, and affordable stand-alone VR headsets are the way VR will (and already kinda is) become mainstream.
And that means designing games that output high resolutions and high frame rates on what are effectively moderately powerful smartphones.
Not even just people playing inflated prices in other countries, but even right here at home a lot of low-income people are going to opt for a $300-$400 computer the whole family can enjoy rather than a $400-$500 console that half the family can't or wont use. Low-income kids and families deserve to play games too!
And it's not only about accessibility, it's also just plain good business. Consider this: Everybody wants their game to be the next viral smash. The next major cultural talking point. But it's important to remember that the people most likely to be driving that sort of (to call it what it is) word-of-mouth marketing? The ones most likely to be making and sharing memes, fanart, and tiktok videos? Are kids and teens. And what demographic is the least likely to have a lot of personal disposable income and the most likely to be playing on underpowered hardware? Kids and teens.
Remember that essentially every game that's ever become a huge viral sensation, and I mean EVERY game from Among Us to Fortnite to Minecraft to Fall Guys to Undertale, didn't just get huge because they were good games but also because EVERYBODY CAN PLAY THEM. The game on that list with the HIGHEST minimum requirements is Fortnite which asks for a GTX 660 and an i5.
Come on. It's not that hard.
"Of the five most popular GPUs, three could be considered entry-level." Me, where most of the machines we use are laptops with onboard graphics only: "A GTX1650 is entry-level? Hahaha, good joke..." 😕 Seriously though, if you own a laptop that doesn't have dedicated graphics (because, y'know, gaming laptops aren't cheap), finding games that are actually playable can be an... interesting experience.
Also, this is one of the reasons why I find I spend more time and money on indie titles than ones from the big companies: you don't need to spend thousands of dollars on a computer able to experience the game as intended. Low hardware requirements FTW, IMHO.
Are you sure that you aren't holding a netbook in your hands?
I feel represented !
I'm from Brazil and buying a current generation console with a minimum wage, if you live by yourself, is pretty much impossible since it would take 5 or 6 months of salary to buy
My tastes lean heavily to retro style indie games, but I wonder how much of that is preference and how much a long stretch of low income, an older computer, and unreliable internet has shaped that. I now have an immediate drop in interest if a game trailer looks too pretty.
This is especially important with Iris XE graphics coming out and AMD apu's on the horizon. By the end of the year, pretty much every computer on store shelves will be capable of running low end graphics
Hmm... Point taken.
I would generally deny the option to set graphics to something that I don't feel properly represents the look and feel/mood (that usually a lot of effort have gone in to) trying to convey...
But I suppose if the option is people not experiencing any of it, at all... Then that's even worse :)
Whether or not to adhere to this I think could/should be calibrated to the level of importance that the look/feel/mood has to the experience overall... There are genuinely great experiences that just wouldn't come through properly if you compromise it... I think that's far from most games though.
As someone who’s too young to get a job and to buy top of the line PC stuff that I’ve wanted to get, I’m super bummed out that I can’t play or can hardly play games like Warzone or even modded Minecraft with a hand-me-down laptop that’s starting to show its age. Having settings like this would be a god send, especially if they’re easy to figure out how to change
a good example of an out of game config file is planetside 2. That game gives you all the options in its in file
2:16 way to ignore GOG
I've been struggling running games on a laptop for many years because of space and mobility constraints. I can't wait to have these alleviated, but until then I'll have to be very careful what games I buy. Even disk space has been a struggle at times!
I'd like to share a story of my own as to just how ready players with "bad" computers are to compromise.
This is already a few years back and is about my friend who only had a very cheap pc. And he loved the game Wolfenstein (Don't ask me which) and did everything to play it and he had to deal with really low framerates and I don't know how but he was still really good at the game. and when I mean low fps don't mean like 20 but more in the region of 1-3 fps throughout the game. So yeah if they want to play a game a player is ready to put up with a lot of things just to be able to play it even if it is basically unplayable in the eyes of others
im glad you made this video even with an upgrade i made to my pc i still cant run rdr2
2:18 Love that "no 3" T shirt
+1 I'm literary happy just being able to play the game @ a reasonable framerate XD
(more so when i was younger and couldn't afford more beefy hardware, but it's still the same now.. just that I can financially afford to crank up the settings now )
This is why the companies publishing games for Playstation 3's and XBox 360s really missed the mark on a far larger potential user-base, during those couple years during that console generation when companies just would not publish their multi-format games on PC (around 2010 to 2012ish), under the excuse that "it wasn't profitable enough" - when really it would have been if they had just bothered to put the minimum amount of effort in. Eventually they all did start publishing their titles to PC too (though for some reason would always strip out the couch co-op in games that had it), but it took them a long time - too long a time - to realise how lucrative the market they were skipping actually was.
Always reminds me of how Dragon's Dogma originally didn't get a PC port, and the game slipped under the radar and was ignored as another "me-too" fantasy RPG, being only a console title, by the vast majority of gamers, until it finally got noticed and reached the critical acclaim it absolutely deserved when they released it on PC many many years later. They could have had that so, so much earlier if they had just bothered to release a PC version in the first place. While Dragon's Dogma is always my most memorable example of this, I know there was many many other games that followed this trend and originally were not going to release a PC version during this era of gaming.
I see that Pacific centered map you snuck in there! Nice!
Watching this video in 144p because it's apropos.
love ya guys keep up the amazing work!
I have been gaming a lot on a pretty low to mid-range pc recently, so this episode is kind of about people like me.
Approve of Lord Gaben dropping the sales.
It’s one of the reasons why I actually enjoy Ace Combat 7. Despite being a AAA, my 1050TI makes the game look amazing still. (Yes, it’s a potato, call me when I can get an RTX 30 equipped laptop that I can cram 4TB HDD in, or M2 storage exceeds 2TB).