Gamedev Lounge 0010

[Phaze]

Wanting it to run on "anything" isn't always the best idea, either. It may end up just being a waste of your precious time; and hurt end users with better setups. The average pc or laptop today has a dual core with some sort of video chip/card and at least 3-4gb of RAM. Keep that in mind. It also depends on your audience!

Details, details.

Well I certainly don't intend to let up when it comes to advanced features but I'd really want to make sure that you don't need a stupidly overpowered rig to run it, via the possibility to turn the fancier stuff off. Heck, I doubt it'd even be that hard to run with the effects since it's not really 3D. I've constantly been hearing from friends with pathetically underpowered systems that they're unable to run a ton of games, which is silly.

To be honest, I don't end up doing a whole lot valuable with my time, though I understand your concerns. To be spending a lot of time working on something productive in some fashion is better than my current state where I don't really do much.

-architectures-

However, what you said has some merit, in that you shouldn't just go for the top-end computer, since that will exclude your audience. Also, keep in mind that most machines WILL NOT HAVE more than 4GB of RAM.
-addressing-

In short, you'll want to try and make sure your game can run with less than 4GB of RAM at any one time. This shouldn't be a problem, but it's something to consider.

Well I should've been more specific, but I was referring to 'anything' in the x86 or x86-64 range. I'd like to try to make something that can run on lower-spec machines. I'm not sure if I'd go about with more exotic architectures because the benefit per effort may not be worth it.

Yeah I know how addressing systems work and I highly doubt my game would come close to exceeding even 1GB. The only things that even approach that level of memory consumption are the 'sandbox' type games like Minecraft/Terraria or the seriously heavy duty games like Team Fortress 2. My game would be top-down 2D with (hopefully) some fancy stuff like shadows, as mentioned above - though it could probably be a generic dark overlay if the system can't support shadows.