Metro 2033 System Requirements! - Hardware & Software

[b]Copied from my thread in GGD, thought could fit and be seen here.[/b] The game engine is 4A engine, not X-ray. Holy SHIT! Big Images below~ [b]Minimum:[/b] OS: Windows XP, Vista, or 7 Processor: Dual core CPU (any Core 2 Duo or better) Memory: 1GB RAM Graphics: DirectX 9, Shader Model 3 compliant graphics cards (GeForce 8800, GeForce GT220 and above) DirectX®: DirectX 9.0c Enabling 3D Vision: Metro 2033 utilizes NVIDIA 3D Vision with compatible cards and hardware. To play Metro 2033 in 3D you will require: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 275 and above recommended A 120Hz (or above) monitor NVIDIA 3D Vision kit Microsoft Windows Vista or Windows 7 [b]Recommended:[/b] Processor: Any Quad Core or 3.0+ GHz Dual Core CPU Memory: 2GB RAM Graphics: DirectX 10 compliant graphics card (GeForce GTX 260 and above) DirectX®: DirectX 10 or higher [b]Optimum Requirements:[/b] Processor: Core i7 CPU Memory: 8GB RAM or higher Graphics: NVIDIA DirectX 11 compliant graphics card (GeForce GTX 480 and 470) DirectX®: DirectX 11 [b]Difference between console and PC's[/b] Naturally most of the features are graphics related, but not all. The internal PhysX tick-rate was doubled on PC resulting in more precise collision detection and joint behavior. We "render" almost twice the number of sounds (all with wave-tracing) compared to consoles. That's just a few examples, so that you can see that not only graphics gets a boost. On the graphics side, here's a partial list: * Most of the textures are 2048^2 (consoles use 1024^2). * The shadow-map resolution is up to 9.43 Mpix. * The shadow filtering is much, much better. * The parallax mapping is enabled on all surfaces, some with occlusion-mapping (optional). * We've utilised a lot of "true" volumetric stuff, which is very important in dusty environments. * From DX10 upwards we use correct "local motion blur", sometimes called "object blur". * The light-material response is nearly "physically-correct" on the PC on higher quality presets. * The ambient occlusion is greatly improved (especially on higher-quality presets). * Sub-surface scattering makes a lot of difference on human faces, hands, etc. * The geometric detail is somewhat better, because of different LOD selection, not even counting DX11 tessellation. * We are considering enabling global illumination (as an option) which really enhances the lighting model. However, that comes with some performance hit, because of literally tens of thousands of secondary light sources. :science: [img]http://cdn.steampowered.com/v/gfx/apps/43110/ss_befe0b48985f1e9e87425ea37b40957392e6d0f4.1920x1080.jpg?t=1268176959[/img] [img]http://cdn.steampowered.com/v/gfx/apps/43110/ss_035523d4650d366a040909ea2fa4f32d179d4735.1920x1080.jpg?t=1268176959[/img] [quote] There's no relationship. Back when I was working as lead programmer and technology architect on S.T.A.L.K.E.R. it became apparent that many architectural decisions were great for the time when it was designed, but they just don't scale to the present day. The major obstacles to the future of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. engine were its inherent inability to be multi-threaded, the weak and error-prone networking model, and simply awful resource and memory management, which prohibited any kind of streaming or simply keeping the working set small enough for "next-gen" consoles. Another thing which really worried me was the text-based scripting. Working on S.T.A.L.K.E.R. it became clear that designers/scriptwriters want more and more control, and when they got it they were lost and needed to think like programmers, but they weren't programmers! That contributed a lot to the original delays with S.T.A.L.K.E.R. So I started a personal project to establish the future architecture and to explore the possibilities of the design. The project evolved quite well and although it wasn't functional as a game - not even as a demo, it didn't have any rendering engine back then - it provided me with clear vision on what to do next. When 4A started as an independent studio this work became a foundation of the future engine. Because of the tight timescale we've opted to use a lot of middleware to get things going quickly. We've selected PhysX for physics, PathEngine for AI navigation, LUA as a primary development file format, not a scripting engine, for easy SVN merging, RakNet for physical network layer, FaceFX for facial animation, OGG Vorbis for sound format, and many other small things like compression libraries, etc. The rendering was hooked up in about three weeks - it's easy to do when you work with deferred shading - although it was far from being optimal or feature-rich. Digital Foundry: So, to be clear, there's no shared code whatsoever between the 4A and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. X-Ray engines? Oles Shishkovstov: When the philosophies of the engines are so radically different it is nearly impossible to share the code. For example, we don't use basic things such as C++ standard template library and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. has every second line of code calling some type of STL method. Even the gameplay code in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. was mostly using an update/poll model, while we use a more signal-based model.[/quote] [b]Reason for high specs![/b] [b]Rendering[/b] Using innovative visualisation technology, based on human visual system (HVS) perception and response. The gamma-correct, linear colour space renderer High dynamic range rendering (HDR) Using floating-point buffers, allowing for tone mapping, exposure adaption, and blue shift, for camera/eye perceptual rendering Advanced deferred shading - allows hundreds of lights in frame, in huge, complex scenes All lighting is fully dynamic (including sun and skies), ability to use light-shaders, with dozens of special effects Umbra and penumbra - Correct soft shadows, including shadows correctly curved on bumped surface. Shadows from semi-transparent objects like particles. Weather and day/night model, including light scattering model and god-rays Volumetric fogging and lighting, even in animated, non-constant density media Global illumination effects and real-time reflective lights Parallax occlusion maps and real (geometric) displacement mapping Hierarchical per-pixel occlusion culling Real-time colour correction, film grain and noise, correct depth of field Velocity preserving motion-blur on a scene with millions of polygons and complex shading detail (including object blur) Deferred reflections - allows a lot of planar real time reflections in a single frame, like water, glass, etc. Ambient occlusion calculated on both the global scale (pre-calculated) and in real-time in screen space (SSAO) In addition to standard MSAA, the engine features analytical anti-aliasing (AAA) and "deferred super-sampling" modes which have much lower impact on frame-rate, while correctly ant-ialiasing all surfaces and not just edges Renderer is highly multi-threaded for multiple CPU cores. Plus: per-pixel lighting, bumpy reflections and refractions, animated and detail textures, shiny surfaces, cosmetic damage using albedo and bump blending, soft particles, etc. Physics System Powered by nVidia PhysX technology, can utilise multiple CPU cores, AGEIA PhysX hardware, or nVidia GPU hardware. Tightly integrated into the content pipeline and the game itself, including physical materials on all surfaces, physically driven sound, physically driven animations Rigid body and multi-jointed constructions. Breakable fences, walls , sheds and other objects. Thousands of different physical entities simulated per frame. Cloth simulation, water physics (including cross-interactions) Destruction and fracturing, physically based puzzles Soft body physics on selected special game entities On hardware-accelerated PhysX platforms engine implements full physically correct behaviour of particles such as smoke, debris, etc. [b]Audio[/b] Multi-threaded high dynamic range Audio system with constant memory usage and data-driven design 3D sound positioning, spatialisation and attenuation Sound path tracing and transfer approximation for correct occlusion and obstruction perceiving. Reverb, low-pass/high-pass filtering, pitch shifting - all auto-calculated based on sound-path and adjustable by multi-layer environment zones, scripting or programmatically Dynamically reconstructing audio graphs OGG-vorbis compressed with adjustable quality, multi-threaded decompression [b]AI and Gameplay[/b] Deep story-driven experience, dynamic and remarkable missions Different gameplay styles stealth/brutal, different combat settings Group behaviour (including support for information sharing and creating dynamic groups of agents that act together) Designer-friendly visual scripting system, enables designers to script levels and control advanced AI behaviours using the Flow-Graph visual scripting system, placing most AI gameplay control in their hands. Efficient pathfinding for dynamic environment Advanced 3D topology dynamic analysis Virtual vision, hearing, "smelling" - realistic, believable and time and memory efficient implementation enables characters to sense objects in a natural way, depending on the object velocity, luminocity, etc. Multi-threaded Animation system controlled via visual scripting and flow graph

Well at least I can barely run minimum

[QUOTE=Henry Townshend;20673974]Well at least I can barely run minimum[/QUOTE] The nice thing is that even with the minimum specs, it will still look really good.

Fucking hell, this better not be an nvidia only game by the specs. Personally I think it should be illegal for a company to pay a developer to make it run better on their cards or have more features.

[QUOTE=Second-gear-of-mgear;20674034]Fucking hell, this better not be an nvidia only game by the specs. Personally I think it should be illegal for a company to pay a developer to make it run better on their cards or have more features.[/QUOTE] They could simply be sponsored or whatever. I don't think it will make much of a difference.

Looks sexy. Wonder if it's gonna be a competitor for STALKER.

Shit my 8800 is bare minimum now?!!

[QUOTE=SatansSin;20674321]Looks sexy. Wonder if it's gonna be a competitor for STALKER.[/QUOTE] some of the team from SOC are making this

[QUOTE=OCELOT323;20674371]some of the team from SOC are making this[/QUOTE] Awesome, just hope it's initial release isn't as buggy as the SoC initial release.

[QUOTE=SatansSin;20674590]Awesome, just hope it's initial release isn't as buggy as the SoC initial release.[/QUOTE] Most likely not, the STALKER series and this share no code at all.

[QUOTE=Kabstract;20674850]Most likely not, the STALKER series and this share no code at all.[/QUOTE] and it's coming to the 360

Is it just me, or does he look funny with the goggles on his forehead :saddowns:

[quote]Memory: 8GB RAM or higher[/quote] What the fucking shit?

[QUOTE=gazzy_GUI;20675191]What the fucking shit?[/QUOTE] Rumors on several Russian forums say the game will have both a 32bit and 64bit mode. Also note that "optimum" includes to graphics cards that aren't even out yet, the "GeForce GTX 480 and 470" EDIT [QUOTE=Kabstract;20674850]Most likely not, the STALKER series and this share no code at all.[/QUOTE] Actually, that's wrong. 4A games accidentally left a beta build on a PC at some Ukrainian games expo last year and GSC got their hands on it. GSC had a private company compare it with the retail version of Shadow of Chernobyl. The company found that roughly 1/3 the code present in 4A's beta build of Metro 2033 was line for line the same as ShoC. They posted about it on GSC's Russian language forums about a year ago, and tried to have some legal action taken against 4A. But apparently in the Ukraine there aren't that many legal protections for software (from what I can understand. My sources are questionable). Sorry for going kinda off topic, I just felt like posting that.

[QUOTE=gazzy_GUI;20675191]What the fucking shit?[/QUOTE] I agree, Crysis doesn't even use 2gb of ram. Why is 8gb the optimum?

[QUOTE=Kabstract;20674850]Most likely not, the STALKER series and this share no code at all.[/QUOTE] they both use the X-Ray Engine. [editline]05:56PM[/editline] I think [editline]05:57PM[/editline] [QUOTE=Frost 31;20675264] Actually, that's wrong. 4A games accidentally left a beta build on a PC at some Ukrainian games expo last year and GSC got their hands on it. GSC had a private company compare it with the retail version of Shadow of Chernobyl. The company found that roughly 1/3 the code present in 4A's beta build of Metro 2033 was line for line the same as ShoC. They posted about it on GSC's Russian language forums about a year ago, and tried to have some legal action taken against 4A. But apparently in the Ukraine there aren't that many legal protections for software (from what I can understand. My sources are questionable). Sorry for going kinda off topic, I just felt like posting that.[/QUOTE] ^that

[QUOTE=Rooster Assassin;20675184]Is it just me, or does he look funny with the goggles on his forehead :saddowns:[/QUOTE] but its nightvision, nightvisions hardcore shit

Wow. Interesting specs :v:

[QUOTE=Frost 31;20675264]Rumors on several Russian forums say the game will have both a 32bit and 64bit mode. Also note that "optimum" includes to graphics cards that aren't even out yet, the "GeForce GTX 480 and 470" EDIT Actually, that's wrong. 4A games accidentally left a beta build on a PC at some Ukrainian games expo last year and GSC got their hands on it. GSC had a private company compare it with the retail version of Shadow of Chernobyl. The company found that roughly 1/3 the code present in 4A's beta build of Metro 2033 was line for line the same as ShoC. They posted about it on GSC's Russian language forums about a year ago, and tried to have some legal action taken against 4A. But apparently in the Ukraine there aren't that many legal protections for software (from what I can understand. My sources are questionable). Sorry for going kinda off topic, I just felt like posting that.[/QUOTE] I read a recent tech article and it says they share absolutely no code (feb. 25 [url]http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-tech-interview-metro-2033[/url]) They don't use basic C++ either anymore. It is on the 4A engine now, not X-ray.

These requirements are pretty fucking high, is this gonna be the new Crysis or something?

[QUOTE=Kabstract;20675904]I read a recent tech article and it says they share absolutely no code (feb. 25 [url]http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-tech-interview-metro-2033[/url]) They don't use basic C++ either anymore. It is on the 4A engine now, not X-ray.[/QUOTE] uh... the 4A Engine is the X-ray Engine but it's modified. [editline]06:28PM[/editline] oh cool, they changed the story of how they got/made the engine..

Snip

[QUOTE=Kabstract;20676042]It is the 4A engine now, plus they don't use basic C++.[/QUOTE] A4 = X-ray + heavy modification.

[QUOTE=Makol;20676032]uh... the 4A Engine is the X-ray Engine but it's modified. [editline]06:28PM[/editline] oh cool, they changed the story of how they got/made the engine..[/QUOTE] Yes, I know. But they are very different. It doesn't matter what it was before, STALKER could never run on the 4A engine. [quote]So, the final answer is "no", we do not have shared code with X-Ray, nor would it be possible to do so.[/quote]

[QUOTE=Kabstract;20676082]Yes, I know. But they are very different. It doesn't matter what it was before, STALKER could never run on the 4A engine.[/QUOTE] it never could since the A4 Engine was made after STALKER and a new team develops STALKER now. and the two engines operate in differently anyways.

[QUOTE=Makol;20676167]it never could since the A4 Engine was made after STALKER and a new team develops STALKER now. and the two engines operate in differently anyways.[/QUOTE] Exactly, so why would the other guy be accusing the game of using 1/3 of the same code as SoC and you agreeing with him?

[QUOTE=Kabstract;20676220]Exactly, so why would the other guy be accusing the game of using 1/3 of the same code as SoC and you agreeing with him?[/QUOTE] because the A4 Engine IS a modified X-Ray Engine, I really need to find the articles on that. [editline]06:38PM[/editline] there was even a lawsuit... that failed. [editline]06:45PM[/editline] [QUOTE]4A Games was founded by people who split off from GSC Game World a year before the release of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, in particular Oles' Shiskovtsov and Aleksandr Maksimchuk, the programmers who worked on the development of X-Ray engine used in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series.[7] The game will utilize multi-platform 4A Engine; there is some contention regarding whether the engine is an original development (as claimed by 4A Games) or whether it is an adapted and improved branch of pre-release X-Ray engine (as claimed by Sergiy Grygorovych, the founder of GSC Game World[8], as well as users who have seen the 4A Engine SDK screenshots). Among the improvements compared to X-Ray, 4A Engine will feature nVidia PhysX support, enhanced AI, and a console SDK for Xbox 360.[9][/QUOTE] ^ Wikipedia, not a great source but I'm still looking for the main article

[QUOTE=Kabstract;20675904]I read a recent tech article and it says they share absolutely no code (feb. 25 [URL]http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-tech-interview-metro-2033[/URL]) They don't use basic C++ either anymore. It is on the 4A engine now, not X-ray.[/QUOTE] Let me put it this way. At some point in its development the 4A was, for all intents and purposes, a custom build of the X-Ray engine that supported some more advanced features. When the 4A devs split from GSC they took a then beta version of the X-Ray engine with, albeit illegally. To try to hide the fact that they were using a modified version of the X-Ray engine without a license they renamed it the 4A engine. This all happened around 2006-07. They've obviously made some very significant modifications to it since then. Now, as I have previously said, around 1-1.5 years ago GSC got their hands on a then beta build of the 4A engine and compared to an earlier version of the X-Ray engine (the version used in Retail ShoC) and found ~1/3 of the was line for line the same. But it sounds like the retail build, as indicated in the article you just posted, no longer has that similarity. 4A games likely went through and removed or otherwise reprogrammed most of the legacy X-Ray code (I assume this happened around summer-fall of last year, when THQ had them delay the game to march 16). I'd also like to point out, when they were using the heavily modded version of the X-Ray engine they planned to bring Metro 2033 to PS3, but they've long since dropped that plan because of tech issues and the reasons mentioned in your article. Finally, the following is a link to several screenshots from Metro 2033 on the 4A engine from late 2006. Assuming you're familiar with STALKER, do you think they look similar? Look at the lighting. [URL="http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/metro2033thelastrefuge/images.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=gsimage&tag=images%3Bheader%3Bmore&page=2"]http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/metro2033thelastrefuge/images.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=gsimage&tag=images%3Bheader%3Bmore&page=2[/URL] EDIT Found one of the links I was looking for. The google translation is passable, to an extent. 8th question down, second paragraph of his response the guy mentions it. There was another interview and more, but I can't seem to locate them right now. Oh well. [url]http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fprogames.mail.ru%2Fpress_conference%2F3%2Fview&sl=ru&tl=en&hl=&ie=UTF-8[/url]

plus just look at pictures of the games and compare them. they're pretty much the same except of the graphics, duh.

I'm sure they got paid to create those "Optimum Specs" so idiots would run out and buy new hardware and shit for no reason. I mean, really, 8 GB RAM? GTX4xx cards? [B]I know it was you, NVIDIA![/B] :argh: