Game Requirements?

Should Disney increase the minimum requirement for the game such as increasing 700 MB to 800 or 1 GB

  • Yes, it could give them freedom to add more new stuff to the game and fix bugs

    Votes: 11 61.1%
  • No, it's high enough

    Votes: 1 5.6%
  • I don't care as long as game gets better

    Votes: 6 33.3%

  • Total voters
    18
Status
Not open for further replies.

LEO

Site Founder
I been playing this game for just over a year now. I seen a lot of other high rated games and most of them have way higher requirements compared to POTCO especially in the disk space requirements. I'm no computer genius but but if this was increased it would make sense that they could add more new stuff to POTCO without removing anything else. Correct me if i'm wrong and please share your opinion.
 
Well, Disney likes to keep games light so they can reach more potential customers. Kids often get hand-me-down computers, which aren't as capable as newer ones of course. Since the target audience is children/families, it makes sense to keep requirements low.

Though, most performance bottlenecks lie within RAM (memory), and the CPU (processor). While milage may vary with those, disk space is pretty static and could be bumped if needed without causing much harm.

If it was, the game could probably look a bit more aesthetically pleasing.. but unfortunately I doubt that will happen.
 
Well, Disney likes to keep games light so they can reach more potential customers. Kids often get hand-me-down computers, which aren't as capable as newer ones of course. Since the target audience is children/families, it makes sense to keep requirements low.

Though, most performance bottlenecks lie within RAM (memory), and the CPU (processor). While milage may vary with those, disk space is pretty static and could be bumped if needed without causing much harm.

If it was, the game could probably look a bit more aesthetically pleasing.. but unfortunately I doubt that will happen.
Well by looking at statistics of other MMO games, most of them have way higher requirements compared to POTCO. Take WoW for example. They have 16 GB or something like that and other higher requrements and is one of the most played online games. For POTCO, i'm not saying make it that high that others cant play it, just a little higher than it is right now so it's possible to make game more enjoyable . It could make the game have better graphics and add new stuff in my opinion.
 
Davy.....you know an aweful lot about computers, as do some of you others, what would a pc need to have to run better in this game? I have a gaming laptop and the one at home is 3 years old and showing sluggish and freezing up while playing. So another words, if someone was to go out and purchase a new pc, what requirements would you look for in a new computer for gaming?
 
that is true
iagree.gif
my laptop is already 4 years old and let me tell u it lags like crazy sometimes even on this site
 
Igor too wishes for more... Igor say even if need new PC. Igor just wonder how it would be done Leo?
 
I'm gonna quote something from someone else who i think seemed to know a lot about this type of stuff. Read it you might learn something from it!
Captain Nightwolf said:
WARNING: Long post...read it if you're into technical stuff as well as had just perked a pot of coffee and are ready to read a novel...


I voted yes because I believe it's time they updated the Panda 3D engine...Disney's VR Studio developed the open source engine back in 2002...the engine was first used for Toontown Online...and then they used it for POTCO, keeping in line with the easy requirements, family atmosphere MMORPG...the requirements for this game are:

CPU: 800Mhz
RAM: 512Mb (recommended 1gig)
700Mb Disk Space
Graphics: 32Mb (recommended 64Mb)
Direct X9 or better

Now, tell me if I'm wrong, but I'm sure most people by now have at least a dual-core cpu, be it AMD or Intel...even if someone had a single core I'm sure it's at least a 1.5Ghz or better...and with the way prices have dropped on systems you can buy in a store, many have a quad-core system...

The RAM looks as if it was DDR...we're up to DDR3...at minimum most systems run 2gigs of RAM, those into gaming running at least 4gigs RAM thanks to Vista...I myself run 8gigs DDR3 1600Mhz on a Win 7 Ult 64bit OS...

Disk Space...you can buy a 1Tb drive for $80-$100 nowadays...

As for graphics, the last time I ran a 32Mb card was my ATI Rage Fury...there are graphics cards with 512Mb or even 1gig DDR3 or DDR5 memory that you can buy for under a $100...and those desktop systems I talked about, most come with 1Gb intergrated graphics, but many also have stand alone cards...


Now to look at the other side of the coin in terms of MMORPG's...let's look at one of the most popular...World of Warcraft (WoW)...their min requirements are...

Windows® System XP/XP64/Vista/Vista64/7** OS (with the latest Service Packs or updates):
- Intel Pentium 4 1.3 GHz or AMD Athlon XP 1500+
- 1 GB or more of RAM
- NVIDIA® GeForce® FX or ATI Radeon™ 9500 video card or better
- 25.0 GB available HD space

Their recommended specs are...

Windows® System Vista64/Windows 7 OS:
- Dual-core processor, such as the Intel Pentium D or AMD Athlon 64 X2
- 2 GB RAM
- 256 MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600 or ATI Radeon™ HD 2600 or better


First let's look at their recommended specs...while great in the day they've been surpassed already...as I said before, most parts for a PC are better and faster while still very cheap...heck when I added another 4gigs of DDR3 to make my system 8gigs, that 4gigs only cost me $50...

But what's even more important to look at is their Minimum requirements...they're a bit more modern, if you could call it that by today standards...but they're still at pretty much the low end of the desktop spectrum...while POTCO is almost a decade behind the times...

What Disney should really do is take a hint from Valve, the developers of the infamous Half-Life series, as well as Portal, Left 4 Dead, Counter-Strike, Team Fortress, etc...what Valve did when they made the original Half-Life was to make a game that could be played on ANY system...be it low end, mid-range, or high end...obviously you got to see more details and bells & whistles if you had a high end machine, yet it still played equally well on a low end system...

Now here's the kicker...especially for those that played the original HL...the requirements back then were this:

Minimum

Pentium 133 MHz
24 MB RAM
Windows 95/98/NT4
SVGA video card
Windows-compatible sound card
2x CD-ROM drive
400 MB hard-disk space.

Recommended

Pentium 166 MHz
32 MB RAM
OpenGL- or DirectX-compatible 3D accelerator.

It still had better graphics then POTCO...now if you jump to Half-Life 2...

Official Half-Life 2 Box minimum specs:
Processor: 1.2 GHz Processor
OS: Windows, 2000/XP/Me/98
Graphic card: DirectX 7 level graphics card
Hard Drive: 4.5 GB
Memory: 256 MB RAM
Other: Internet Connection, DVD-ROM Drive

BUT...because Valve uses a "SCALING SYSTEM", this is as low as you could go:

700mhz Processor
128 mb of RAM
64 mb Video Card


See what I'm talking about now? These are both Game of the Year award winners with over 80 or more awards each...now look at how low their specs were, yet notice the total difference in graphics...even with other MMO's like say Guild Wars:

Minimum system specification
Windows Vista/XP/2000/ME/98
Intel Pentium III 1.0 GHz or equivalent
512 MB RAM
DVD-ROM drive1
3 GB available HDD space
ATI Radeon 8500 or NVIDIA GeForce 3 series video card with 64 MB of VRAM
16-bit sound card

Recommended:
Windows Vista/XP/2000
Intel Pentium 4 2.0 GHz or equivalent
1 GB RAM
DVD-ROM drive1
4 GB available HDD space
ATI Radeon 9600 or NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 series video card or above
16-bit sound card


What does all of this tell us?

It tells us that the engine used for POTCO is far outdated...I don't know of too many people these days that still run a Pentium III system other then myself (I have one as well as a Pentium 4 that I kept to play my OLD games)...

I highly think it's time for them to update their open source engine...they can still have the family atmosphere which they're famous for, just with far better graphics...not saying that they need graphics like in F.E.A.R. or CoD, Crysis, Fallout, etc...but they really do need to step up into modern times...

And for all of you that made it to the bottom of this post...Cheers!


What i got from this is that the game developers are using old technology meaning outdated stuff which is bad for the new technology most of us have now.
 
To correct a few mistakes in that, Pirates of the Caribbean Online and its sister game, Toontown Online run on an open source game engine called "Panda3D." Panda3D was initially created by Disney's VR Studio, not for Toontown, but for 3D rides/attractions in Disney parks.

Panda3D is now maintained largely by Carnegie Mellon University (though in being open-source, anybody capable of doing so is able to contribute to its development). It is certainly not outdated when it comes to modern technology. The game engine is capable of much more (graphics wise) than what you see in PotCO or TT. Disney creates the meshes (3D models) to perform well on low-end machines (for reasons I've talked about above), resulting in the graphics not looking as smooth (containing fewer vertices/subsurfs). Panda3D just renders the models, it has little to do with how good or bad they are.

While low-end computers are becoming more capable, it is unlikely Disney will go back to create smoother graphics at this time.. and it's very doubtful they will switch engines because that would likely require a large rewrite of the code (and as I said, there isn't really a problem with the current engine).
 
Davy.....you know an aweful lot about computers, as do some of you others, what would a pc need to have to run better in this game? I have a gaming laptop and the one at home is 3 years old and showing sluggish and freezing up while playing. So another words, if someone was to go out and purchase a new pc, what requirements would you look for in a new computer for gaming?
Sorry to skip over this. For gaming, ~4GB memory and probably something from Intel's Core i5 line for a processor should perform well.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top