Comparing Vulkan and OpenGL Software Rendering in Thrive (No GPU)

[HyperbolicHadron]

I would doubt it. But I think that the 3D World generator might start out as a benchmark first before it makes it into the prototype stages.

[hhyyrylainen]

@aah31415

That shouldn’t mean we ought to abandon these lower-performance-device playerbases.

We aren’t. This is just the benchmark that doesn’t matter for most people.

I’m just avoiding work with very little return, which it would be to add a special benchmark mode for low-end devices that cannot reach 60 FPS.

@HyperbolicHadron

“Spawns until no 60 FPS” test even with settings lowered to a reasonable amount that gives a good experience in game.

I would not personally recommend trying to play Thrive on a system that cannot with any settings reach 60 FPS in the benchmark.

And this is just the microbe benchmark. The later parts of the game are expected to be even heavier. So a system that struggles with the microbe stage is not intended to be able to complete a Thrive playthrough.

@HyperbolicHadron

One of my goals is to get a really solid report of minimum and recommended specs for Thrive for the 1.0 release. I am testing some silly setups along the way like the software rendering mode, but that is more for the fun of seeing how far the boundaries can be pushed. So far, it looks like the minimum spec systems are still capable of running a playable Thrive game, and is even better than before with the resolution scaling options.

We’ve had min spec requirements on Steam since 2021. The unfortunate reality about them is that if the game doesn’t run at a decent framerate with those minimum specs, then we actually have to open a high priority bug report about low game performance and fix it. That’s why the min spec is given as a reasonable pretty old gaming desktop.

As we get further and further along, that min spec system is like almost 10 years old now. By the time we have a few complete stages, we’ll be targeting a computer that’s like 20 years old. I think that is extremely reasonable (assuming we don’t significantly need to bump up the min spec).

[aah31415 (The maker of SitF, Radiostrocity, The Lifenote and TGBing; The Second Ascended...; And just maybe a security warning come alive...?)]

Since computers will probably get significantly more powerful in these later years of Thrive’s development, should we try to use this extra computing power in some way or stick to having all features be old-computer friendly?

[hhyyrylainen]

Apparently people never want to upgrade their computers and instead try to run Thrive with them… so I kind of don’t see it being realistic to increase the system requirements. (or at least much, we might want to do something like keep updating the system requirements to be a 10-year-old laptop, as that should be what a reasonable person could expect a proper desktop game to run on)

[aah31415 (The maker of SitF, Radiostrocity, The Lifenote and TGBing; The Second Ascended...; And just maybe a security warning come alive...?)]

@hhyyrylainen

keep updating the system requirements to be a 10-year-old laptop

You mean from the current standing or relatively, so for instance in 2035 we’d be talking about a laptop from early 2020s?

[hhyyrylainen]

Relative to current year, not to a fixed laptop that’s 10 years old now, as that would basically mean no change for the minimum requirements.

[aah31415 (The maker of SitF, Radiostrocity, The Lifenote and TGBing; The Second Ascended...; And just maybe a security warning come alive...?)]

I see. I suppose this also means at some point the main reasonage for having the opengl mode might just drop?

[AnthropocenianAge (AnthropocenianAge Arthropleura wants to give you a hug!)]

I hope this is not the case, since OpenGL mode is what I and many people with older pcs/desktops play on.

I do wonder if updates to OpenGLMode (like what is it the current version now, 4.3?) may resolve some of these issues found with the game using older versions of OpenGL.

[HyperbolicHadron]

Do you have your computer specs posted anywhere? I am trying to figure out what kind of hardware people have that run opengl mode.

[aah31415 (The maker of SitF, Radiostrocity, The Lifenote and TGBing; The Second Ascended...; And just maybe a security warning come alive...?)]

Eh, keeping it shouldn’t be too big of a hassle I hope.

[AnthropocenianAge (AnthropocenianAge Arthropleura wants to give you a hug!)]

Does this help?

OpenGL API 3.3.0 NVIDIA 376.54 - Compatibility - Using Device: NVIDIA - GeForce 840M, from

0.7.0 General Feedback Thread

Here is a picture of the blank metabolism menu. It just happened after loading an autosave of the same playthrough: [image] Here are the game logs; the game also crashed when exiting: Playing 0.7.0 for Windows (Latest) Thrive is starting. Log output (due to buffering this is likely not in real time): Note: error lines may not match up when they happened in relation to normal output due to buffering. Error lines are any lines received from the game’s stderr output stream. ERROR: WARNING: …

[HyperbolicHadron]

Yes, it is helpful. Though I think the GeForce 840M GPU should support a high enough version of Vulkan to run Thrive’s Vulkan mode. What is the problem if you don’t run it in opengl mode?

[AnthropocenianAge (AnthropocenianAge Arthropleura wants to give you a hug!)]

A pop-up emerges that is compelelty blank, and it stays the way.

[HyperbolicHadron]

Have you updated the GPU drivers in a while? It looks like the 376.54 version drivers are very old, from 2017 it looks like, they are now up to 576.52 from what I can tell. Updating the drivers might help there.

Like this:

GeForce Driver Results | NVIDIA

[aah31415 (The maker of SitF, Radiostrocity, The Lifenote and TGBing; The Second Ascended...; And just maybe a security warning come alive...?)]

How could one forget about updating their computer’s GPU drivers for that long? Unless they cannot be upgraded for some reason.

[hhyyrylainen]

I suppose this is why many AAA games have a popup warning the user about very outdated GPU drivers…

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@AnthropocenianAge

I hope this is not the case, since OpenGL mode is what I and many people with older pcs/desktops play on.

Are you still going to be using your current computer in 20 years? Or is there a chance that we are allowed to update the Thrive system requirements.

Oh and if you actually have GPU drivers from 2017, that’s probably the issue as almost any nvidia GPU that has Windows 10 or newer drivers should actually be able to run Vulkan just fine as long as the latest drivers are installed.

I do now wonder how many of the people who need to use opengl mode do actually have a capable GPU but their software is just not up to date…

[aah31415 (The maker of SitF, Radiostrocity, The Lifenote and TGBing; The Second Ascended...; And just maybe a security warning come alive...?)]

@hhyyrylainen

I do now wonder how many of the people who need to use opengl mode do actually have a capable GPU but their software is just not up to date…

Do we even know what percentage of the users uses opengl?

[Oncpapa]

Hm. I was just posting my specs to confirm that the current version of thrive is still compatible, I don’t expect it to remain a performance target into the future.
I plan to get a new PC when windows 10 is shelved anyways (with linux, I am sick of microsofts belgium).

[hhyyrylainen]

Isn’t that illegal / against the terms of use, and as such piracy, which is not allowed to be discussed on the forum?

Installing Linux on an older computer is a very good way to play Thrive.

[aah31415 (The maker of SitF, Radiostrocity, The Lifenote and TGBing; The Second Ascended...; And just maybe a security warning come alive...?)]

I just might do the later within a few months. We’ll see.

I suppose I’ll redact the post of mine then.