Possible to run on lower end computers?

[karzbobeans]

I have two computers. One is a laptop with only onboard graphics but it has a solid state harddrive. The other is a gaming machine souped up with a really nice card etc.

Darkwood runs fine on my gaming machine but crawls too unplayabley slow on the laptop. Even the SSD can't load the world at a decent speed. However most 2D indie games run just fine on it. I'm wondering if its possible for the devs to work on the efficiency of the game so that it can run smooth on low end machines like laptops?

Is it the line of sight math that slows it down? The graphics? I don't mind if there's a "low detail" setting as long as the game is still fun.

Thanks!

[Gustaw]

It's probably your graphics card. We use a lot of overlapping sprites, which cause much strain on the GPU. I will definitely research this, but I can't promise we will make much progress.

[karzbobeans]

Big sprites usually aren't so bad, its usually a high number of sprites that can cause a strain. Is the entire world and entities within it loaded at once and constantly given CPU time?

Not that you asked for my advice but, try getting your source code onto a lower end system with integrated graphics. Then try disabling different things that are happening in your draw and update loops. Also try disabling any pixel shaders (if you have any). It's a good way to find the culprit (or culprits) of lag.

Are you using XNA to make this?

[ShadyS]

If you ask me about performance, I found that world is fully generated before game starts but it proceduraly rendered because I have some short freezes while moving to new locations, then fps returns to "great". Also, I have massive fps boost in zones between biomes.

[tomtentp]

They are using Unity for this.

Not that you asked me for my opinion , but I think they should focus on the core game mechanics and reach beta before starting to optimize things. Optimization should be handled at the very end of the production cycle.

When everything is in place they can start thinking about shaders, drawcalls and bottlenecks in the update loops etc...

[karzbobeans]

Not that you asked me for my opinion

Sure didn't

I dont know what the devs will decide to focus on but my vote goes to getting this game running on lower end machines.

[ShadyS]

Tested on integrated graphics cards, can run close to 5 fps in lowest resolution but can handle 30+ average framerate probably on any GDDR3 512 mb card in full HD.