Game dev feasible with old specs?
Author
Recently I've been reading about and taken an interest in game development. A few years ago I used to dabble in C and C++, and the idea of programming games has resparked my interest. Normally I wouldn't be able to do such things on my work laptop, but a friend of mine has just given me a relatively old desktop that I'd like to play around with, and I am interested if game development is even a feasible concept on a system with specs like this:
700Mhz Intel Celeron CPU
GeForce4 MX GPU
64MB RAM
Windows 98SE
Visual Studio 6
Thanks for the input guys, much appreciated!
It sure is! There have been plenty of games written on machines similar to that, targeting machines similar (and worse) to those specs. It all depends on the type of game you want to write.
There are some things you won't be able to do, and VC 6 was pretty lenient with non standard C++ (which is a bad thing when you upgrade/write bad code.)
But overall, since you're probably not going to write Gears of War 3 you should be fine.
There are some things you won't be able to do, and VC 6 was pretty lenient with non standard C++ (which is a bad thing when you upgrade/write bad code.)
But overall, since you're probably not going to write Gears of War 3 you should be fine.
What sort of computers do you think we were developing games on in the eighties and nineties? [grin]
Those specs seem fine to me. A decade or so ago we were making cutting edge games on computers with lower specs then that, and the tech for those kinds of games are plenty powerful enough for any hobbyist or indie developer.
Those specs seem fine to me. A decade or so ago we were making cutting edge games on computers with lower specs then that, and the tech for those kinds of games are plenty powerful enough for any hobbyist or indie developer.
Author
Well that's good news, just one following up question. Because I have an older version of Visual Studio can I still use tutorials written for Visual Studio 2005 and the like or do I need to do some searching for older tutorials?
Thanks again.
Thanks again.
Quote:Original post by riginger
Well that's good news, just one following up question. Because I have an older version of Visual Studio can I still use tutorials written for Visual Studio 2005 and the like or do I need to do some searching for older tutorials?
Thanks again.
The question is a bit moot since Visual Studio 2008 Express Edition is free.
Unless you have a bought, professional edition of VS6 and really need the additional features (unlikely for a solo hobbyist game developer), there is very little reason not to upgrade.
I'd recommend downloading the ISO and burning an installation CD though as the download installation takes hours.
Author
Actually because of my hardware VS 2008 won't run (needs XP or better, faster CPU, and more RAM). I could probably get away with upgrading the OS or running .NET but I don't want to make the system slower than it is, and I'd like to avoid spending money if possible. Is there a way VS6 could work, realistically?
Is it that you can't run the IDE or can you install the IDE in the first place? Because you can run it through a command line if you can install it. What's important here is a decent compiler. VS6 is outdated, and we really wouldn't recommend it. If you can get it installed, great. Get a plain text editor and use the commandline to compile programs. If not, perhaps MinGW may be the way to go. That will definitely install.
Quote:Original post by rigingerVS6 will work fine. It will still compile code and produce working executables.
Actually because of my hardware VS 2008 won't run (needs XP or better, faster CPU, and more RAM). I could probably get away with upgrading the OS or running .NET but I don't want to make the system slower than it is, and I'd like to avoid spending money if possible. Is there a way VS6 could work, realistically?
If I were you though, I'd install MingGW / GCC just to be up to date with C++. Don't even try to run VS2008. I couldn't run 2003 with a system many times better than what you have there.
VS didn't run well until I had a gig of ram (and now I'd never give it up), so I wouldn't want to run it in your case.
Try codeblocks.org. It's a nice IDE and can come with MinGW/GCC installed. Even if the IDE doesn't run, you can just call gcc from the command line, and use whatever editor you want to write out the code.
http://mingw.org/
Quote:Original post by EasilyConfused
The question is a bit moot since Visual Studio 2008 Express Edition is free.
It needs a Gig of RAM. His machine has 64 Megs.
Quote:Original post by riginger
Is there a way VS6 could work, realistically?
It works. There are simply problems with it that you need to be aware of. The nature of these problems is such that someone who is not well-versed in C++ may experience difficulties.
- VC6 was released in 1998. C++ was standardized in 1997, finally. Consequently, VC6 has a number of issues with regard to its adherence to the standard. In particular, the version of the Standard C++ Library it shipped with is buggy; get fixes here.
- VC6 has issues under Windows XP, such as the values of static variables not showing up in the debugger. Get the processor pack here to fix this and other problems.
- VC6 is built on an older, pre-integration version of MSDEV. (MSDEV is the IDE for the Visual Studio series of tools; it wasn't until Visual Studio 7 or 7.1 that the IDE truly became shared across all the tools, to the point that the individual tools are really just modes for the IDE. There are loads of useful enhancements in newer versions of MSDEV, and tutorials may refer to them, but their absence will not prevent you from building your applications.
Good luck, and happy hacking! [smile]
Quote:Original post by DaaarkGo with VC6 instead. Sure, you'll loose a bit of standards compliance, but Visual Studio 6 is lightyears ahead of Code::Blocks as an integrated development environment. I'd rather write plain C in VC6 than be forced to use Code::Block's sorry excuse for a debugger..
Try codeblocks.org. It's a nice IDE and can come with MinGW/GCC installed. Even if the IDE doesn't run, you can just call gcc from the command line, and use whatever editor you want to write out the code.
This topic is closed to new replies.
Advertisement
Popular Topics
Advertisement
