The good news: TOMI is running reasonably well on intel 945 chipset
The bad news is, it takes in my case about 2 minutes, until the game is visible and playable. And I had to choose the lowest graphical level, otherwise the game would only render a few fps. Im running a desktop PC with intel DualCore CPU 2*1.8 Ghz, intel integrated chipset 945GC, 2 GB RAM.
Either TOMI is desperately searching for some D3DX functions which are not implemented in the intel chipset hardware, or when starting the game it is doing a hell lot of calculations by software rendering, which should be done by hardware.
So I'm pleading to Telltale to show consideration for the people with not so decent hardware, a game like TOMI should be playable on older hardware and notebooks.
with kind regards
Either TOMI is desperately searching for some D3DX functions which are not implemented in the intel chipset hardware, or when starting the game it is doing a hell lot of calculations by software rendering, which should be done by hardware.
So I'm pleading to Telltale to show consideration for the people with not so decent hardware, a game like TOMI should be playable on older hardware and notebooks.
with kind regards
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Errr.... why should a game like TOMI be playable with older hardware and notebook?
I don't see people who play Crysis, Fallout3 and GTAIV making such comments...
I'm sorry for people who got stuck with those clunkers, but Telltale have to draw the line somewhere - should they also add a text adventure mode for people that are stuck on a 80x25 VT100 terminal?
You can only support so many generations of graphics chipsets being a small indie company like Telltale is. It's not just about twiddling some options in the engine somewhere - you have to put in extra effort to make things look good without all the shader support of near-current-gen graphics hardware, and there's only so much you can do within the short timeframe of an episode.
np: 2001 - Space Age (B12 - B12 Records Archive Vol. 1 (Disc 2))
As I said, TOMI is running quite well on my hardware, with 1024*768 I feel no lags at all at lowest detail level. Switching between scenes sometimes takes a few seconds, but is still ok. The main problem for me ist the long time, it takes to start. And if I switch focus to another application, it takes quite as long as starting the game, until it is responsive again. My guess is, that TOMI is rendering a whole lot of surfaces etc at the beginning, which the intel chipset can't do in hardware, hence the long waiting time. It should be possible to prerender the stuff for lowest quality and just load it from disk.
So I'm not really asking for something impossible, just a little bit careful programming, less wasting of system resources etc. Just what every programmer should keep in mind. Oh man, I'm really uncool, I know.
This isn't a 4/64kB PC demo in some demo party compo, so I'm pretty sure the game doesn't do any pre-rendering on startup and/or task switch. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure it's loading textures from disk into video memory, and since your abysmal graphics chipset doesn't have *ANY* graphics memory but uses part of your main RAM for that you now probably have the textures in main RAM twice, plus all the other perks of 3D graphics without video memory.
I wouldn't be surprised if the game kept on loading textures onto your emulated video RAM because usually the allocated amount of memory is tiny enough so not all textures the game needs will fit into it.
Abso-freaking-lutely.
np: Musicology - Unkown Future (B12 - B12 Records Archive Vol. 2 (Disc 2))
Hahahaha~! That's a good one.
I'm actually not that impressed with the graphics handling in TOMI, I'm on a computer with an intel GMA X 3100 card, it plays games such as red alert 3, civilization 4 and a number of FPSes with good graphics settings without any lag, but the tomi I have to put the graphics a bit down.
In response to that people shouldn't expect to be running games like TOMI on tht type of computers, that's in truth BS. I'm a computer science major and I have taking classes on game programming and game design, it's not that hard to actually write your 3D engine in a way that doesn't waste resources like TOMI does.
It's also worth to note that games such as TOMI (and adventure games in general (also going to throw strategy games in here)) today are people with low end computers, yes the people with the crap from the bottom of the bin as someone so elegantly put it. It's not the same people who play games such as TOMI and Fallout 3 for the most part. The interrest group is an other one and therefor it's rather foolish of any small indie game developer to demand that people can't have the bottom of the bin computers as this removes a lot of potential sales, something that a small gaming company can't afford to do for the most part.
In short, telltale games can't compete with the graphics intense games such as fallout 3 or gta 4 and they shouldn't try since as someone pointed out, they neither have the time , money or resources to do so. They should instead put their focus on making their games run as smooth as possible on the low end crap people who generally get their computers to do other things then gaming on get.
Final note: Played the game, loved it. Awesome music, awesome voices in it.
Actually the Intel chipset is a 2d chipset which wants to be a 3d chipset...
Intel Island, hello I am i945 and I want to be a 3d chipset :
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You render like a cow
You cannot blame Telltale for adding all those things in higher settings and and then you having a lousy video card not being capable of doing it. The Telltale engine does just fine what it does all you have to do is to play at lower settings. As you said it works for you, you just have to lower the settings.
As for the integrated intel graphics card junk, you really have to draw a line somwhere, those chipsets are pure junk and mostly bought by people who either dont play games or dont know better, I think the biggest problem there is on Intels side by pushing this junk onto unknowing customers by using semi legal tactics while trying to lock out decent alternatives like the nvidia 9400m.
I'm aware that the intel card is a piece of junk but I'm unfortunatly stuck with it as apple for some reason decided it was a good idea to use that card in the macbooks. Gods knows why. But what I'm trying to point out is that way more high end games (all in full 3D as well) runs better on the computer then tomi does. When faced with that one has to point it out and ask why? My guess would be that the telltale tool has grown old and slow as it's been reworked so many times, my money would be on telltale either needing to clean it or re-write it. The life time of code isn't that long until you've changed it enough times to make it slow and crapy.
Is that based on anything other than pure unfounded speculation?
Anything concrete no, it's purely based on having to work with old systems that have been re-written in parts many times (just as we all know the telltale tool has, as it's been the foundation for quite a few games) and the telltale games have been running slower and slower the more come out. Founding my theory, but yes, in essence, it's speculation as I don't know how telltale handle changes within the code base. The pattern has been the same though :-)
A newer game is surely going to run slower than an old game on the same system?
It depends on the settings and what the engine does, the Telltale engine adds anti aliasing anisotropic filtering and shader effects on the higher settings, except for some shader effects none of this is supported by the intel chipsets, so you have to lower the settings simply.
Other games try to detect the chipset and turn everything off, or they do not even allow high settings for those 3d engines. So what you get then is somewhat the same as you would get with the TTG engine on low settings bug you dont even have the choice to enable everything else.
I would also guess that for major 3d engines, there are a lot more programming resources available to put towards coding alternate rendering pathways for craptacular hardware. Combine this with the fact that the engine is going to be somewhat less efficient to begin with and you have this situation.
In any case, it's an easy thing to say that there's an elephant in the room, quite another thing to try to get it out of there.
In the end, people perceiving that this game runs worse then other games and looking worse will not impress them, and that's the important part. The average user won't read these forums nor will they care that they have crappy hardware since, well, this game runs well, why doesn't this one that looks worse?
Which imho proves my point about that telltale should put resources towards speeding up their engine rather then adding new fancy stuff to it.
I'd rather they spend their resources on more animators, more story-writers, more translators, more voice-actors and more marketing people. I'd rather have more games, more sequels and even an original IP from Telltale, than being all stuck with improving non-critical concerns like not compressing the files, rewrite the entire language or implement other changes that are sort of independent from the creative content.