Netbook support

[hankkk]

Hello
Great game! I really enjoyed the demo today
Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be able to be played on a netbook (Samsung NC10)
Steam says the game is being launched but nothing happens ...

[Brendan]

Hi hankk, just to clarify: you were able to run the demo on your netbook, but not the full game?  Or have you only tried the demo?  (I'm not suggesting you buy the full game to see if there is a difference, there should be none, just want to make sure I'm reading you right)

[admin]

If I'm reading this right, it sounds like you were able to play the game on your desktop PC but not on your notebook.  Cogs is actually pretty GPU-intensive game, so it's less common to find laptop/notebook hardware that fully supports it.  That being said, it should at least give a meaningful error message if it fails.  Can you send me the hardware specs for your notebook? (Especially processor, graphics card and RAM).

I'll pay close attention to this and see if anyone else reports the same error.  If you think that your notebook has full hardware support of DirectX 9.0c, then you also may consider checking that the most recent graphic card drivers are installed.

  - Rob
    Founder, Lazy 8 Studios
    rob@lazy8studios.com

[hankkk]

Well thank you for your answer
I indeed played the demo on my desktop PC and tried to run in on my netbook (cheap and small notebook)
The specs are the following: 1.6 processor, 2gb ram, GMA950 as graphic card ... I know it is an office usage notebook and I guess the game won't work well but I can't even launch it
Also, my screen resolution is 1024*600, I tried turning it down to 800*600 but its still the same

[banzaimonkey]

The specs are the following: 1.6 processor, 2gb ram, GMA950 as graphic card ... I know it is an office usage notebook and I guess the game won't work well but I can't even launch it

Steam lists the GPU requirements as "Graphics: DirectX 9 compatible 64 MB graphics card with hardware transform and lighting (T&L)."  Your chipset only supports software T&L, and I suspect this is the problem.  It's a square peg round hole sort of thing.

[Brendan]

Yeah we had one beta tester who tried it on his netbook with similar results, as banzaimonkey has correctly identified the problem.  We were eventually able to get it to start but it only ran at about 5 frames a minute.  Rob likes his pretty shaders so software rendering kinda got swept under the rug, if it was ever even considered.  Sorry

[hellznrg]

could someone please clarify exactly WHY this game requires hardware T&L? microsoft minesweeper and solitaire don't, so why should this game require it? there are a bazillion games out there that are much better than this one and which don't require hardware T&L...  is this game supposed to be as technologically advanced as crysis or far cry? perhaps it doesn't work on modern computers because it requires a steam engine running on coal and water? unfortunately as u know modern computers with their transistor thingamabobs don't emulate steam engines very well and so run slowly or not at all...

please fix the BUG (hardware t&l) in the game... the developers were absolutely criminal for putting in hardware t&l... why did they put it in? "because it's there"

 

just to clarify... here are just some of the games that run FINE on my eee pc netbook (1000 HE)

1. X2 the threat
2. Diablo 2 + LOD
3. Starcraft
4. Freedom force
5. Alien shooter, zombie shooter
6. Aquaria
7. Braid
8. Trials 2 second edition
9. Sid meier's Pirates
10. Half life et al
11. Mr robot
12. plants vs zombies

cmon people, if X2 can run fine on my NETBOOK, then a SLIDING PUZZLE GAME should be able to run too...

[admin]

Hi, hellznrg -

Believe it or not, we put a lot of effort into lowering the hardware requirements to make Cogs playable on as many machines as possible.  That being said, we also wanted to bring players a level of realism and artistic polish that is seldom, if ever, seen in casual games.

Keep in mind that Cogs has a far more polished appearance than most of the games that you listed.  We spent a lot of time implementing realtime soft shadows, accurate per-pixel specularity and cubemap reflections, post-processed filters and antialiasing.  To do this, we needed to use pixel shaders and vertex shaders, which are only supported by a certain threshold of graphics hardware.

To lower the min specs even further, I recently added a cheat code that can be used with any officially licensed version of the game -- including the demos.  To try it out, just type "ShadersOff" from any game screen to completely bypass all vertex and pixel shaders.  It won't look as nice, but it should run much faster.  If your machine can't keep up, then the software emulation simply can't handle that many polygons.  But let's hope it works for you.

  - Rob
    Founder, Lazy 8 Studios

[caramelzappa]

Rob, I just want to start out by saying you've created a really fantastic game. I'm completely addicted.


However, I too wish I could play it on my netbook. (EEE 900a, upgraded to 2gb of ram and 32gb ssd)

Little puzzles games like cogs are perfect for netbooks, and while the game does look fantastic on a higher end machine, in the end it's a simple puzzle game, and it doesn't need to be so demanding.

Halo PC, a much more graphically intense game, runs just fine on the eee and other netbooks. So does F.E.A.R, so it's hard for a customer to see something like that and then understand why a puzzle game can't match its performance. On my eee the game starts up, but it runs at about a frame per minute. I really hope you update the game to not require hardware T&L. While it makes the game prettier for those that have it, from a gameplay perspective it really shouldn't be necessary.

I mean no disrespect and again I love the fantastic game you've created, but it's my hopes that you'll update it to run on lower end hardware.

-Zappa

[modius13]

Hey,

I'll add my two cents. When I saw the teaser video I was hooked. I downloaded the demo and tried to run the game. I've got an Eee PC 1005. The game opened, but I couldn't get past the menu screen before it froze.

It'd be nice if I could play the game, it looks really awesome.

-Ian

[admin]

Intel is lobbying me pretty hard to produce a netbook version.  So it's in the queue.  But since I'm just one guy, I suspect it's still at least six months away from becoming a reality unless I can hire another programmer to do the work.  Between my consulting work, updates to the iPhone/iPad versions and work on my new game concept, it just doesn't leave enough time in the day.

  - Rob