When I start up OpenRA on my windows XP computer it gives me an error. I read about the compatibility of video cards. I have a ATI Radeon 9200 128MB video card. I think i am 300 short of ATI Radeon . Anyway, is this realy the problem? And if it is so, will older video cards work in the future? Pretty lame if you can't play a game that has 15 year old graphics because your video card isn't brand new .
Would you be so kind to explain this to me. I really like to play OpenRA and i think it is a great initiative. If you need more information just say so and I’ll make sure you will get it.
Still some of my question remains, will older video cards work in the future.
If not it will block out a lot of users. Imagine a LAN party, people will still use the original ra or minira because there crappy ass computer couldn’t handle openra.
Another question comes to mind, why are those shaders so important?
Our ingame renderers are built as self contained modules which are largely separate from the gameplay code. If somebody wants to write a low-tech renderer module that supports old hardware, we will happily merge it into the project, but it is not something which any of the main developers have an interest in doing at this time.
Why do we use shaders? Because we can. OpenGL and its associated shader language allow us to efficiently render the paletted artwork used in ra/cnc, and the effects that rely on changing these palettes on the fly. Most graphics hardware released in the last 5 years should be able to run it without problems (with the exception of some intel cards, which are simply useless).
OpenRA is built as a fun project in our free time, designed to be insanely modifiable / extendable, using a high level garbage collected language. This means that it is never going to run as fast as the original games. We may be rebuilding a 15 year old game, but we are using modern technologies which are only feasible on modern hardware. Expecting it to run on a 15 year old machine is simply unreasonable.
Sleipnir wrote: OpenRA is built as a fun project in our free time, designed to be insanely modifiable / extendable, using a high level garbage collected language. This means that it is never going to run as fast as the original games. We may be rebuilding a 15 year old game, but we are using modern technologies which are only feasible on modern hardware. Expecting it to run on a 15 year old machine is simply unreasonable.
Just to expand on what Sleipnir has already said, we currently have 3 active developers working in their free time on OpenRA, maintaining what is effectively 2 full games when they should be out enjoying the New Zealand summer. According to the credits, Command and Conquer had 7 full time developers (RA had 10) working on it along with staff dedicated to areas that we have been having to do ourselves.
We know it's disappointing for you but we've had to take shortcuts to be able to get the engine anywhere near the state it is in now. The need for pixel shader 2.0 support is part of these shortcuts. To be completely honest with you, if one of us used a machine for development that didn't have PS2.0 support we'd probably already have this dependency worked around but our focus is on our ever growing bug list. Once we're at the stage that things are stable enough to call it a beta release, then we'll seek to increase our performance and hardware support.
Thank you for trying OpenRA in the first place though, it means a lot to us. Hopefully you'll be able to play the fruits of our hard work in the future.
Sleipnir wrote:
with the exception of some intel cards, which are simply useless.
yeah that's right today I try to launch Openra on second laptop with Intel N10 integrated VGA compatible controller(256mb video memory on the board ). on CG renderer it runs really slow(about 10-15 fps). GL renderer not works at all - it gives me that error(from graphics.log):
. Anyway, is this realy the problem? And if it is so, will older video cards work in the future? Pretty lame if you can't play a game that has 15 year old graphics because your video card isn't brand new 
.
today I try to launch Openra on second laptop with Intel N10 integrated VGA compatible controller(256mb video memory on the board 