I have downstairs an old Dell Dimension from 2003. It wasn’t state of the art, not even back then. It is running a Pentium IV running at 2.8Ghz.  My office machine, powered by a Core i7, is 15 times faster.  So the question is, is it possible to make this machine still useful today and if so, how much and how much work would it take?

One of the things I always hear in support forums or critics of the PC is how expensive it is upgrade hardware.  So let’s take a look. This is a 6 year old PC. What would it take to make it pretty decent?

Let’s start with memory upgrading.  I go to www.crucial.com and learn that it’ll cost around $40 to upgrade its RAM to 2GB (it has 1GB already – which is how it came 6 years ago!).

Second, its ATI 9800 Pro might have been decent 6 years ago but it’s not really capable now.  Because it’s 6 years old, I’ll have to find an AGP card that’s decent.  The dirty little secret about game performance is that RAM matters the most. I will also need to get something that supports DirectX 10.1. Not because I will run Vista or something on this machine but because I know then it has the latest/greatest Pixel Shader support without having to do any real research.  So going over to NewEgg I find this. $76 AGP 4/8X.  I’m also looking at this one too.

I found video cards that were cheaper that could do DirectX 10 but the reviews mentioned driver issues and part of the point of this exercise is to put something together that’s cheap but also easy to do.  So we’re at about $120.

If all goes well, for $120 this PC will be just fine for a long time to come.

Stay tuned…

Using two benchmarking programs: Performance Test 6.1's CPU test  and HD Tach from Simple Software I measured performance I’ve started collecting historical benchmarks on my PCs.

Turtle’s are laptops and Frogs are my desktops.

Frog 2003: Decent Dell Dimension for its time.  Score 132.

Turtle 2006: My ThinkPad T60 which is what I took on business trips in 2006. Score 150.

Turtle 2007 My ThinkPad T61 which is in the process of replacing the T60 once I finish transfering everything to it. A good 2007 laptop. Score 286.

Frog 2007: My work desktop PC is a Dell XPS 710. A quad core monster with Raid 10. It's about the fastest PC you can get. Score 798. State of the art 2007 machine.

Frog 2008: My home PC is a Dell XPS Gen 3. It was state of the art in 2005. Score 125.

Frog 2008: My updated home PC for 2008 an Alienware Area 51. It's state of the art for 2008. Score 885.

Turtle 2008: My updated new ThinkPad T400, fairly state of the art laptop for 2008 which replaced the T61. Score 563.

Frog 2009 The new work machine in training, the Frog 2009. Score 2014!

I also use an ultra portable Thinkpad X40 laptop PC but I didn't have time to mess with it, it's a ThinkPad X40 which I use for surfing that I usually carry around with me. It's slower than the rest.

So below were the results for those of you interested in seeing how these machines stack up.

Hard Disk Benchmarks

This is my hard drive at home. It's a  Dell Dimension XPS Gen 3 from 2005.

 

This is from the ThinkPad T61 laptop. Brand new as of November 2007. My new laptop is about as fast as my state of the art hard drive from my XPS from 2 years ago.

 

This is my ThinkPad T60.

This is from my mega machine at work. Dell XPS 710.

 

CPU Benchmarks

 

My main Dell Dimension box back in 2003. Pentium IV running at 2.8Ghz. Score is 132.

 

XPS Generation 3 (2005): 125.5

XPS 710 (Quadcore, 2007): 798.3 Wow. MUCH faster. AKA Frog-2007.

 

ThinkPad T60 (2006): 149.8. Faster than my XPS Gen 3.  DualCore. AKA Turtle-2006.

 

ThinkPad T61 (2007): 286. Twice as fast as my old ThinkPad.  But still no where near my mega machine (Frog 2007) at the office.

Meanwhile, at home in 2008, I bought an Alienware box.

Alienware Quadcore monster (Frog 2008) This new machine is even faster than my monster machine at work which is saying a lot.  Score: 885.

And then I got a new laptop.

The new Thinkpad T400 (Turtle 2008) is amazingly much faster than the T61 was and nearly as fast as my work monster machine. Crazy. Rating 563 overall. This is my beloved ThinkPad T400. I love it.

Update 2009:

I introduce the new Core i7 monster machine.  Has the Core i7 965 in it. 3.2Ghz.

Almost 3 times faster than Frog 2008 (the monster Alienware box).  Just amazing! Score: 2014!

It’s amazing how fast PCs continue to get. Whenever I get a new PC these days, I try to benchmark it to see how it rates.

For my benchmarking purposes, I use: Performance Test CPU test. I name my desktop PC’s “frogs” with the year I got them and the laptops “Turtles”.

I’m a little bummed that Performance Test 7.0 scores don’t correspond with 6.1 since I have a bunch of historic benchmarks with 6.1…

 

Frog 2003: Decent Dell box with a P4 running at 2.8Ghz. CPU score: 516.

Turtle 2008: Thinkpad T400 laptop with T9600 CPU. CPU score: 1901

Actual Results

Thinkpad T400, state of the art 2008 laptop. T9600 CPU. Score 1901.

 

Frog 2003, decent Dell box with a Pentium IV CPU at 2.8Ghz. Score 516.6

 

 

Commentary

So in the scope of 5 years, a decent laptop has quadrupled its CPU advantage over a 5 year old desktop PC.

More to come…

This week Demigod goes into private Gamma testing.  It’ll be in Gamma for about a week (and no more than a week and a half in order to make the April 14th street date).

So what are the changes you can expect from the beta to final?  We’ll know a lot more this week but here are some general things that are on our mind:

1. Lots and lots of balance tweaks based on feedback. See http://forums.demigodthegame.com/342558 to get a sampling.
    
2. Implementation of Multiplayer Skirmish.  That’s where you choose a Demigod and press fight and the match making finds someone for you to play with.
    
3. Impulse Reactor Overlay. The ability to send messages to friends, chat, user score, etc.
    
4. Impulse Reactor NAT. This is the infamous connectivity stuff. Unlike most games, Demigod is pure peer-to-peer in order to reduce in-game latency. The challenge, however is that EVERYONE has to be able to send and receive UDP packets (in most games, only the host needs to do that).  This past week, the lead developer of RAKNet was at Stardock to help in this area.  We expect to have a new beta of Demigod this week with some of these changes in.
   
5. Impulse Integration.  We’re going to try to put as much useful information into Impulse for finding and getting games going as possible. So data like disconnects, rank, etc. will start to be displayed. You’ll be able to pick a game, click launch and be inserted
   into that game.  This is an area we plan to expand on after release as well.
    

Impulse Reactor: Phase 3 internal beta

Want something in Demigod’s balance changed? Make the case in this thread.

 

 

 

Everyone here at Stardock and GPG can feel the electricity in the air. It’s that feeling, that knowledge that the game you’ve been working on is going to be a hit. Those of you in the game industry know that feel. But for those of you who aren’t let me explain: Game projects take years from start to finish and let’s face it, statistically, most games aren’t very good. And for those on the project, it can be a real morale killer because the teams on those games usually know it long before release but cannot really do much about it.  With Demigod, both teams (Stardock and GPG) know they have something special here.

That said, I’ve put together a list of change requests that are in front of us to see what we can do and what we can’t do. 

This is the official change-request discussion thread. As these features are changed/added/addressed we’ll update this post.

I.                    Game options

d.      Tower Strength

                                                               i.      Weak is 2800. Please change to 4200.

                                                             ii.      Normal is 5600. GOOD.

                                                            iii.      High is 14000. Please change to 8400.

                                              

e.      Grunt strength

                                                               i.      Please change to” Grunt HP”

                                                             ii.      Weak is 240 HP. GOOD.

                                                            iii.      Normal is 390.  GOOD.

                                                           iv.      High is 870. GOOD.

f.        New option: Grunt Damage

                                                               i.      Weak: 75% what it currently is.

                                                             ii.      Normal: what it currently is

                                                            iii.      High is 150% of what it currently is

                                                           iv.      Severe is 300% of what it currently is

g.       Gold rate

                                                               i.      Low. please increase by +1.

                                                             ii.      Normal. Please increase by +2.

                                                            iii.      High. Please increase by +3.

h.      Starting gold

                                                               i.      add: Please add “low: $0”.

                                                             ii.      normal is $1000. GOOD.

                                                            iii.      high is $20,000. Please change to $5,000.

                                                           iv.      filthy rich is $40,000. Please change to $15,000.

II.                  Citadel Upgrades

b.      Building Firepower.  Please reduce cost on each one by 50%.

c.       Currency. 

                                                               i.      Currency I. Please change to 4 gold.

                                                             ii.      Currency II. Please change to 6 gold.

                                                            iii.      Currency III. Please change to 8 gold.

d.      Black Smith

                                                               i.      Black Smith I. GOOD.

                                                             ii.      Black Smith II. Please change to 40%.

                                                            iii.      Black Smith III. Please change to 50%.

                                                           iv.      Black Smith IV. Please change to 60%.

f.        Experience.

                                                               i.      Experience I. Please change to 20%.

                                                             ii.      Experience II. Please change to 30%.

                                                            iii.      Experinece III. Pleae chnage to 40%.

                                                           iv.      Experience IV. Please change to 50%.

III.                In-game Balance

a.       Going up a war rank gives all players on that team 1000G.

b.      When teleporting, the target destination displays an animation to cue players that someone is teleporting in.

See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhuPKYyKu5I&eurl=http://forums.demigodthegame.com/342558/page/4/&feature=player_embedded for refrence

c.       Torch Bearer

                                                               i.      Fireball I. Please increase damage from 300 to 400.

                                                             ii.      Deep Freeze. Cool down penalty on others reduced by 3 seconds on each on.

d.      Rook

                                                               i.      HP decreased by about 10% at all levels.

                                                             ii.      Boulder Roll 3 stun time reduced to 3 seconds.

e.      Unclean beast

                                                               i.      Base speed reduced to 6.0

                                                             ii.      Reduce melee damage by about 10%.

                                                            iii.      Reduce HP or Armor by 10%.

f.        Destroying a tower provides 800 gold, destroying a fortress 1600 gold.

 

IV.                New Items

a.       Scroll of rebound. $250. Upon use any spells cast on that player or area around player within the following 2 seconds are rebounded upon the caster.

b.      Ring of rebound. Instant cast time. Upon use, any spell cast on that player or area around player within the subsequent 2 second are rebound upon the caster.

 

V.                  Ongoing Bug issues that must be resolved

a.       Disconnects in-game

                                                               i.      More consequence for disconnecting

                                                             ii.      The game must be able to cleanly recover from a disconnect.

b.      Connectivity

                                                               i.      Connecting to other players needs to be as reliable as possible

                                                             ii.      Current beta connectivity dialog needs polishing

c.       Pantheon

                                                               i.      Pantheon experience when connecting needs polish

                                                             ii.      AI players should be last resort and there should always be at least 1 human player on both sides.

d.      In-Game (separate bug database not covered in this thread)

VI.                User Interface Requests

a.       Tracking toggle button on screen (for new users, the [T] track option for having th3e camera follow and center on the Demigod is very nice but not easy to get to.

b.      In the lobby screen, display the Experience rating (from the Pantheon) by a player’s name to make it easier for players to balance custom games.

VII.              New Features

a.       New Multiplayer Option: Skirmish [Demigod]

                                                               i.      User selects Skirmish then choose Demigod and then presses Fight

                                                             ii.      Impulse Reactor puts together players that are balanced to battle it out.

                                                            iii.      Pantheon displays separate top players for Skirmish.

b.      Pantheon Teams [Pantheon]

                                                               i.      Players can create and join teams

                                                             ii.      Player s can only belong to one team at a time

                                                            iii.      Various ranking options based on Teams.

c.       Skirmish Tournaments [Pantheon]

                                                               i.      Not to be confused with the Pantheon itself

                                                             ii.      Set begin and end date where players participate in a series of Skirmish games with their rankings filtered during the tournament. Top players win prizes.

 

 

 Version 1.03: Updated March 29, 2009.

Just a heads up that this weekend we're migrating the Demigod back-end servers used for the beta to the high capacity data centers in preparation for release.  

That means hosting of games and such this weekend will be iffy as machines get turned off and moved and such.

As some people saw in the recent deficit graph, President Obama plans to create deficits that are just staggering. They make the ridiculous Bush deficits seem downright responsible.

So what will happen as a result?

There are 4 possible things, none of which are good for our country.

1. We’ll have to print more money to pay for the loans the government is going to have to take out to pay for these crazy programs which means increased inflation. That means your assets will become worth a lot less.

2. We’ll have to raise taxes which means a lot of productive people will work a lot less.  Let me tell you, as someone writing this from an airplane having been away from my family all week, there’s no way in hell I’d work the hours I do if the government is going to take most of it.  Think someone will replace the productive people? Ask Detroit how that’s working out.

3. We’ll have to cut programs which means a lot of people who are dependent on these programs will be hurt.

4. Some combination of the above.

Since I voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004 (not because I liked Bush but because there was no way I’d support Kerry or Gore) I felt pretty bad for the mes Bush made.  But most people I know who supported Obama voted for him because they love him. Well, congratulations. Now he’s your mess.

I’ve pretty much lost my faith in the federal government. They steal your money and then flush it into programs that are huge wastes of time and energy.  

What a week. Visiting GDC is mostly about meetings. At least, that’s how it was for me. 

For most people, GDC means either trying to hire or be hired, licensing a tool, or pitching your services/product/game to someone.

So here is the one thing that really struck me on this trip: Don’t be a platform bigot.

If you’re making a game, you will want to get it into as many places that makes sense.  That means as many different sales channels but also on as many platforms.  Will it work on the iPod? Nintendo DS? PC? Xbox? Whatever? Put it on there.  The future belongs to those who can get their stuff out there in lots of different ways.

I know we’ll have to look seriously at multiple platforms.  My favorites right now are the PC, Xbox 360, and the iPhone. 

 

With GOO:

Walking into the Hall.

Inside the hall.

San Francisco is having great weather.

 

At the OnLive booth.

The OnLive box and controller.

 

Jealousy: A view from TimeGates’s hotel suite.

Another

 

Me videoing around the show.