Unofficial Tex Murphy

So it occurred to me the other day that my computer is getting on in age. About 5 years ago it was fantastic and met my HD editing needs. 5 years might as well be the ancient times in computer terms. Anyway I had the horrific thought that I might not be able to play Tesla Effect when it's finally released! This is not cool!

I've had a long running thing with the Tex games where they are released and it's a crazy amount of time before I get to play them at their best. With Under a Killing Moon, I had a 486SX 33 and clearly recall waiting a long time for another 4mb of RAM (doubling it) so that I could play it well.

With Pandora Directive it was that same computer and it was just not enough to cut it. It's hard to state just how choppy that game's videos played. Imagine it play for a second and then freeze for a second for the entire clip. But, I stuck with it and played through the entire game like that until 3 years later when I got my first computer.

With Overseer I had to wait 2 damned years to play it until I was in college and had access to a computer that could handle it. I still haven't been able to get that damned DVD version to work.

Now I am beginning to panic that my once mighty editing machine will not be good enough to handle this new game. Sure it's kind of a theme I have going on with all these Tex games but C'MON! I have to wait at least a year until I can get a new editing machine. So, my question is this, has anyone encountered anything that states what the requirements are for Tesla Effect? Even speculative, just so I have an idea of what I'm in for so I can prepare to have my heart stomped on and dreams utterly crushed.

Had the same concern today as I played a new game. It was slow in some points and I didn't seem to be given the option to settle for lower graphic quality. Don't know what the requirements for this game will be.

I imagine that if your computer was considered good at anytime in the last five years, you're probably okay. I'm sure they're being careful not to make this game un-runnable to a large percentage of the backers.

I thought about this a long time ago but it's OK. I think they should go with the latest and greatest tech, I'd like the game to impress a whole new generation rather than just be a final hurrah for the old fans who pitched in.

I got my current computer in 2009 so it definitely needs an upgrade... It works for what I need it for right now and most the games I play on it are low-spec (e.g. Papers, Please etc.) but hard-drives don't last forever and graphics cards get quickly outdated. Plus I can only get a max of 4 GB of RAM on this motherboard and the kind of software I have to use for work is really pummeling it.

I can't afford it right now but I would like to upgrade sometime this year hopefully. I'd be interested to know what the specs will be too though, I guess that might not be confirmed until later.

I respectfully have a contrary opinion. I think the gaming generation has become more interested in competitive graphics than producing quality and think this trend needs to stop. Graphics, bells, and whistles don't make a game and since there's limited allocation I'm sure graphics have caused us to miss out.

My computer is more or less a 2007 rig, albeit with a newer video card. It plays every game I've ever thrown at it, including the Crysis series. Soon, those next-gen games will be rolling in and that might not be true anymore, but I don't think Tesla Effect will be the game to bring my system to its knees.

Probably not yours either.

Bjyman wrote:I respectfully have a contrary opinion. I think the gaming generation has become more interested in competitive graphics than producing quality and think this trend needs to stop. Graphics, bells, and whistles don't make a game and since there's limited allocation I'm sure graphics have caused us to miss out.

Oh I agree, it's not just about graphics. I more meant in a general sense that would impress a new generation without dumbing it down For example with more detailed graphics I guess they can flesh out environments more and give Tex more to talk about! Kinda like how the controls are getting an update so that a new generation isn't put off, but it's also something old fans can appreciate.

But Frogacuda is likely right, the game probably won't require maxing stuff out even with the improvements. I may at least need a new video card though... but so far its held out so who knows

Overall I kinda need to upgrade my computer anyway to work with newer art and design software... whenever I have the money to that is heh.

Well... Tesla Effect is supposed to be running on Unity Engine, and it seems, while being a really nice engine that produces some very nice graphics, it's rare for a game to run terribly on it.

Why not try the demo/beta for Among the Sleep? It's Unity and I can't imagine Tex maxing out a system more than it, unless it's very poorly optimized. I imagine that it won't run worse than that game on any given system.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kr ... -the-sleep

(I was going to link directly to the download but I realized that while you likely have a PC it's possible Mac or Linux fans might be curious how well a Unity game runs on their system so there's demos for those versions there too)

Get new parts from newegg.com if you need them. It's not super expensive or difficult. Well... sort of.