Project Eternity and Surface Pro 2

[guiskj]

Any chance the new Surface Pro 2 will be able to run Project Eternity well?

 

Here are the specs:

 

Operating system Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit

CPU Dual-core 1.6 GHz (Turbo Boost to 2.7 GHz) Intel Core i5-4200U

Storage capacity 64 GB, 128 GB, 256 GB, 512 GB and microSDXC card reader

Memory 4/8 GB dual-channel DDR3-1600 (25.6 GB/sec)

Display 10.6 inches (27 cm) 1920 x 1080 px(208 ppi) ClearType HD screen with 16:9 aspect ratio

Graphics Intel HD Graphics 4400

Sound Stereo speakers

[Elerond]

Very probably, because it is lower end machines. Although 10.6 inch monitor is quite small, which probably will hinder playing experience, as game is mainly targeted on bigger screens. And you probably need mouse or touch pad (which I think is in keyboard add-on for Surface machines), to play it, as in my understanding Obsidian don't have any plans to support touch screens.

[AwesomeOcelot]

We'll know when Project Eternity is out, probably have a good idea when Obsidian release recommended specs. From what Obsidian, specifically Josh Sawyer, has been saying then the Surface Pro 2 should be able to run Project Eternity with that CPU/GPU. "Well" is a relative term, you're probably going to have to turn options like AA and AF off to get decent frame per second, also at native resolution you're probably going to get frame drops when there's lots of action on screen, so you may need to knock the resolution down. A major factor is whether it's plugged in or not, because the CPU and GPU will not run as fast on battery, it's probably going to struggle on battery. I'd be surprised if more than 4GB is required for RAM. If it's anything like the last Surface Pro Windows will take up a lot of the standard 64GB so you'd probably want the 256GB model at least, that's $1300.

[mstark]

The surface pro 2, and its previous iteration, will be able to run Project Eternity without a hitch. Just keep in mind you might need upwards of 50GB storage for the game's texture files. The only weakness of laptops is their integrated graphics, but this is near irrelevant in Project Eternity, since only characters and spell effects will be polygon-based. You should be able to run it medium to high settings, you won't really need to use AA on a screen with that pixel density (the technology was only invented to combat pixelation on lower resolution screens), and this will improve your performance.

 

However, due to the high pixel density, you may want to play it on a resolution lower than the native 1080p in order for the game to remain playable (UI elements will become tiny, and it'll look a bit like you're playing with an ant farm).

 

The surface pro 2 can drive an external monitor, so you could get a larger screen to connect it to for an improved experience. I'm considering getting a Vaio Tap 11 (similar to the Pro, but with a weaker CPU), I really like the portable form factor combined with the ability to turn it into a full desktop experience once you connect a screen, mouse, and keyboard .

 

Either way, if the game would struggle at any point, you only have to lower the quality of 3D props (spells, characters, monsters, npcs...), the 2D backgrounds will remain as gorgeous as ever, especially on the high pixel density surface pro screen. The Intel HD4000 (4400, 4600, 5000, 5200 etc.) are surprisingly capable graphics cards, but few games are/have been optimized for them. This is changing now that these cards are posed to pretty much take over the (non-hardcore 3D gamer) market. I'm convinced Obsidian will make it a priority to make the game run on an average (Intel HD4000) laptop.

 

Regarding the touch screen, you will be able to use it since touches and drags are OS native (if you touch the screen it'll count as a left click). The game, however, will be unlikely to have any support for bespoke touch commands like pinch-to-zoom, this was addressed by a developer at some point (unless this changes before release).

Edited October 11, 2013 by mstark

[exodiark]

I predict yes. Even better, some modders could tweak the UI for Surface Pro 2 screen.
But I doubt Obsidian will modify PE for touch screens, since it's outside the kickstarter scope, they promised a mouse-and-keyboard RPG after all.

[Justinian]

I play Shadowrun Returns on my Surface Pro just fine, albeit at a lower resolution because of the smaller screen. It hitches slightly during combat at times, but is quite playable.

 

I imagine Eternity will be slightly more resource intensive than SR but with the 20% improved CPU performance and 50% improved graphics performance in Surface Pro 2, it shouldn't be an issue.

[Ieo]

Honestly, I'd expect Surface Pro 1 to play PE well, besides the whole screen res thing making everything impossible to see.

 

I might have to see how my Surface 2 will play it on my desktop via remote login.

[J.E. Sawyer]

I predict yes. Even better, some modders could tweak the UI for Surface Pro 2 screen.

But I doubt Obsidian will modify PE for touch screens, since it's outside the kickstarter scope, they promised a mouse-and-keyboard RPG after all.

 

While it's true that we're not designing the game with touch screens in mind, we have had the game running on a Fujitsu Windows 8 tablet and it worked fine.  We are trying to make the game one-button friendly, so while there is functionality on right-click, it's usually ease-of-use functionality rather than core.

 

E: Also our min res is 1280x720.

[mstark]

Is it possible, at all, to play the game on a lower resolution screen? If no, is there also a maximum allowed resolution?

Edited October 18, 2013 by mstark

[Sensuki]

While it's true that we're not designing the game with touch screens in mind, we have had the game running on a Fujitsu Windows 8 tablet and it worked fine.  We are trying to make the game one-button friendly, so while there is functionality on right-click, it's usually ease-of-use functionality rather than core.

I liked the IE right-click functionality of where you could spin the direction of your party formation. Are you keeping that function to right click+hold when interacting with pathable terrain ?

 

Left click+hold was marquee select IIRC.

Edited October 19, 2013 by Sensuki

[SunBroSolaire]

 

I predict yes. Even better, some modders could tweak the UI for Surface Pro 2 screen.

But I doubt Obsidian will modify PE for touch screens, since it's outside the kickstarter scope, they promised a mouse-and-keyboard RPG after all.

 

While it's true that we're not designing the game with touch screens in mind, we have had the game running on a Fujitsu Windows 8 tablet and it worked fine.  We are trying to make the game one-button friendly, so while there is functionality on right-click, it's usually ease-of-use functionality rather than core.

 

E: Also our min res is 1280x720.

 

Probably a dumb question, but by "one button friendly", do you mean one button and keyboard, (e.g., Mac users, tablet+keyboard, etc...) or that you are designing the game to be played with only one button, (tablet w/out keyboard)? 

[SophosTheWise]

 

 

I predict yes. Even better, some modders could tweak the UI for Surface Pro 2 screen.

But I doubt Obsidian will modify PE for touch screens, since it's outside the kickstarter scope, they promised a mouse-and-keyboard RPG after all.

 

While it's true that we're not designing the game with touch screens in mind, we have had the game running on a Fujitsu Windows 8 tablet and it worked fine.  We are trying to make the game one-button friendly, so while there is functionality on right-click, it's usually ease-of-use functionality rather than core.

 

E: Also our min res is 1280x720.

 

Probably a dumb question, but by "one button friendly", do you mean one button and keyboard, (e.g., Mac users, tablet+keyboard, etc...) or that you are designing the game to be played with only one button, (tablet w/out keyboard)? 

 

I think one-button-friendly is supposed to mean the same thing it did for the other IE games. It was absolutely possible to play IE games with the mouse alone. 

[Hormalakh]

 

I predict yes. Even better, some modders could tweak the UI for Surface Pro 2 screen.

But I doubt Obsidian will modify PE for touch screens, since it's outside the kickstarter scope, they promised a mouse-and-keyboard RPG after all.

 

While it's true that we're not designing the game with touch screens in mind, we have had the game running on a Fujitsu Windows 8 tablet and it worked fine.  We are trying to make the game one-button friendly, so while there is functionality on right-click, it's usually ease-of-use functionality rather than core.

 

E: Also our min res is 1280x720.

 

This is a terrible decision. I want to voice my opposition to this sort of mentality.

 

One-button functionality as a design choice limits you and is a slippery slope. As soon as you begin to consider limiting yourself from the availability that is provided with a compter, there is no real reason why you wouldn't continue to limit yourself to "fit" your game to tablets or other consoles. If you allow one-button functionality then soon you will limit your game to the resources found on a tablet to allow for the one-button functionality to continue to make sense.

 

Please do not do this. If you are limiting yourself you one-mouse button, you are putting in a bunch of handicap UI elements and engine modifications that are unnecessary for computers. This is a waste of time/resources in order to appease a market-crowd larger than what you originally intended and sort of goes against what Chris Avellone discussed when he spoke about the benefits of the PC vs the console. One of his gripes was the limitation that lay in joypads.

 

Do not do this. Do not limit yourself to one-button. Make a game for PC/MAC/LINUX and only them.

[AwesomeOcelot]

I'll agree this tends to happen, especially with gamepads but also now with tablets, but it doesn't always happen. AFAIK you could use one button on a lot of squad based RPGs and RTS on the PC if you really wanted to, it was just much better to use keyboard short cuts and right click context menus.

Edited October 22, 2013 by AwesomeOcelot

[SophosTheWise]

 

 

I predict yes. Even better, some modders could tweak the UI for Surface Pro 2 screen.

But I doubt Obsidian will modify PE for touch screens, since it's outside the kickstarter scope, they promised a mouse-and-keyboard RPG after all.

 

While it's true that we're not designing the game with touch screens in mind, we have had the game running on a Fujitsu Windows 8 tablet and it worked fine.  We are trying to make the game one-button friendly, so while there is functionality on right-click, it's usually ease-of-use functionality rather than core.

 

E: Also our min res is 1280x720.

 

This is a terrible decision. I want to voice my opposition to this sort of mentality.

 

One-button functionality as a design choice limits you and is a slippery slope. As soon as you begin to consider limiting yourself from the availability that is provided with a compter, there is no real reason why you wouldn't continue to limit yourself to "fit" your game to tablets or other consoles. If you allow one-button functionality then soon you will limit your game to the resources found on a tablet to allow for the one-button functionality to continue to make sense.

 

Please do not do this. If you are limiting yourself you one-mouse button, you are putting in a bunch of handicap UI elements and engine modifications that are unnecessary for computers. This is a waste of time/resources in order to appease a market-crowd larger than what you originally intended and sort of goes against what Chris Avellone discussed when he spoke about the benefits of the PC vs the console. One of his gripes was the limitation that lay in joypads.

 

Do not do this. Do not limit yourself to one-button. Make a game for PC/MAC/LINUX and only them.

 

 

I think you misunderstand. One-button-friendly does not mean one-button-exclusive. Even the IE games were One-Button-Friendly with ease-of-use right-clicking and some shortcuts (which have already be confirmed to be in the game).

[SunBroSolaire]

You're misunderstanding the complaint. Obviously the game will not be one button exclusive; no one is saying that.

 

I would definitely not say the IE games were one-button-friendly. Planescape: Torment at least was impossible to play with one button. Unless you played without pausing, all of the IE games would have been incredibly inconvenient to play that way. Even things like saving, the inventory, journal and map weren't especially 'friendly' to using only one button, just technically possible. They were not meant to be played that way.

 

I tend to think it's a good idea to make all features accessible without shortcuts, but there's a difference between ensuring that it's possible to do everything with LMB, and designing the game to be played that way.

[J.E. Sawyer]

 

 

I predict yes. Even better, some modders could tweak the UI for Surface Pro 2 screen.

But I doubt Obsidian will modify PE for touch screens, since it's outside the kickstarter scope, they promised a mouse-and-keyboard RPG after all.

 

While it's true that we're not designing the game with touch screens in mind, we have had the game running on a Fujitsu Windows 8 tablet and it worked fine.  We are trying to make the game one-button friendly, so while there is functionality on right-click, it's usually ease-of-use functionality rather than core.

 

E: Also our min res is 1280x720.

 

This is a terrible decision. I want to voice my opposition to this sort of mentality.

 

One-button functionality as a design choice limits you and is a slippery slope. As soon as you begin to consider limiting yourself from the availability that is provided with a compter, there is no real reason why you wouldn't continue to limit yourself to "fit" your game to tablets or other consoles. If you allow one-button functionality then soon you will limit your game to the resources found on a tablet to allow for the one-button functionality to continue to make sense.

 

Please do not do this. If you are limiting yourself you one-mouse button, you are putting in a bunch of handicap UI elements and engine modifications that are unnecessary for computers. This is a waste of time/resources in order to appease a market-crowd larger than what you originally intended and sort of goes against what Chris Avellone discussed when he spoke about the benefits of the PC vs the console. One of his gripes was the limitation that lay in joypads.

 

Do not do this. Do not limit yourself to one-button. Make a game for PC/MAC/LINUX and only them.

 

 

We are not limiting ourselves to one-button functionality.

 

The BG and IWD games made very little use of the right-click and most of it was redundant with other elements of the GUI.  You could open inventories on characters with right-click (as you can in ours), but you could also do that by clicking on the inventory icon itself.  You could cancel actions with right-click (as you can in PE), but you could also do that with the Escape key.

 

As long as there's a GUI element or other shortcut that allows redundancy, I have no problems with putting functionality on right-click; I just don't want to make it the only means of accessing that functionality.

 

And I've said this before, but I'll say it again: most Macs still come with a Mighty Mouse, which technically supports right-click functionality but may as well not because a) you need to enable it and b) it is terrible.  It is, in fact, because we are making a game for the Mac that I think it is important that we do not rely heavily on right-click functionality without offering a GUI or keyboard shortcut.

[Gorgon]

Those Mac mice are so ass backwards. Anyway any gamer worth his salt has a macro enabled mouse. Granted mine is a little ludicrous with 15 buttons. You need that for clunky console ports, of which there are many. 

 

I have Alt, Space, Ctrl,  shift and WASD at my disposal without moving my palm. That's about all the keyboard I want to use.

[AwesomeOcelot]

I thought most Macs were notebooks and ultrabooks that don't come with any mouse. There's not many Mac gamers, I doubt there's many Mac gamers who backed Project Eternity, and out of the Mac gamers there's got to be quite a few that have bought two button mice because the Mighty Mouse is bad. I guess Obsidian have good access to demographics and hardware surveys though, I'd be interested if I'm wrong.

[CptKangaroo]

 

 

 

I predict yes. Even better, some modders could tweak the UI for Surface Pro 2 screen.

But I doubt Obsidian will modify PE for touch screens, since it's outside the kickstarter scope, they promised a mouse-and-keyboard RPG after all.

 

While it's true that we're not designing the game with touch screens in mind, we have had the game running on a Fujitsu Windows 8 tablet and it worked fine.  We are trying to make the game one-button friendly, so while there is functionality on right-click, it's usually ease-of-use functionality rather than core.

 

E: Also our min res is 1280x720.

 

This is a terrible decision. I want to voice my opposition to this sort of mentality.

 

One-button functionality as a design choice limits you and is a slippery slope. As soon as you begin to consider limiting yourself from the availability that is provided with a compter, there is no real reason why you wouldn't continue to limit yourself to "fit" your game to tablets or other consoles. If you allow one-button functionality then soon you will limit your game to the resources found on a tablet to allow for the one-button functionality to continue to make sense.

 

Please do not do this. If you are limiting yourself you one-mouse button, you are putting in a bunch of handicap UI elements and engine modifications that are unnecessary for computers. This is a waste of time/resources in order to appease a market-crowd larger than what you originally intended and sort of goes against what Chris Avellone discussed when he spoke about the benefits of the PC vs the console. One of his gripes was the limitation that lay in joypads.

 

Do not do this. Do not limit yourself to one-button. Make a game for PC/MAC/LINUX and only them.

 

 

We are not limiting ourselves to one-button functionality.

 

The BG and IWD games made very little use of the right-click and most of it was redundant with other elements of the GUI.  You could open inventories on characters with right-click (as you can in ours), but you could also do that by clicking on the inventory icon itself.  You could cancel actions with right-click (as you can in PE), but you could also do that with the Escape key.

 

As long as there's a GUI element or other shortcut that allows redundancy, I have no problems with putting functionality on right-click; I just don't want to make it the only means of accessing that functionality.

 

And I've said this before, but I'll say it again: most Macs still come with a Mighty Mouse, which technically supports right-click functionality but may as well not because a) you need to enable it and b) it is terrible.  It is, in fact, because we are making a game for the Mac that I think it is important that we do not rely heavily on right-click functionality without offering a GUI or keyboard shortcut.

 

 

I am currently playing BG on a tablet and the controls feel much more natural than I had expected. I am really happy about this design choice and imho all IE games were kinda "one-button friendly", to begin with. I'm really looking forward to being able to play the game while I commute to work, aswell. )

[Bryy]

 

Any chance the new Surface Pro 2 will be able to run Project Eternity well?

 

Here are the specs:

 

Operating system Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit

CPU Dual-core 1.6 GHz (Turbo Boost to 2.7 GHz) Intel Core i5-4200U

Storage capacity 64 GB, 128 GB, 256 GB, 512 GB and microSDXC card reader

Memory 4/8 GB dual-channel DDR3-1600 (25.6 GB/sec)

Display 10.6 inches (27 cm) 1920 x 1080 px(208 ppi) ClearType HD screen with 16:9 aspect ratio

Graphics Intel HD Graphics 4400

Sound Stereo speakers

 

.... you know. I'll actually run it on my Surface.

 

Probably this weekend.

[Ieo]

Good luck. Josh listed the min resolution earlier, but the Surface screen size (anything before Pro 3) is only 10.6 inches, so even that lower res may be difficult to manage. There's always the external monitor, at least.

 

I remember playing BG1/BG2 on a Japanese 10.4-inch subnotebook back in the day, which was doable, but that was a pretty low resolution game...

[Bryy]

Gah. Was planning on streaming it. Streaming software is only on my desktop.

[thesagecounsel]

Thinking of picking up a Surface Pro 3

Either I5 or I7 with 8gb ram

 

HD 4000 or HD 5000 integrated graphics

 

Pillars is only Kickstarter I've ever supported and I've rpg computer gamed since 1981 or so...

 

Really want to know if this will fly on those systems.

Josh can you chime in?

 

Thanks much

[DeathMoJo]

Bumping an old thread to help any of these members still around.

 

Running this on my Surface Pro 2 with i5 4300, 8gb ram and 256gb ssd.

 

I run it at 1600x900 with no issues. Native 1900x1200 is just a little too much for the game. 3 hours invested with no crashes or graphics lag.