Tomcat These are not requirements for running the demo. Those specifications come after “Programs used”. It's just a matter of good manners that we have adopted here, and that I was taught — it is recommended to specify what hardware the game is developed on.

it would be a good idea to get the actual requirements for the game.
you can check roughly how much memory and video memory is used by the game. testing CPU and GPU performance would be more difficult though.
Godot recommends 4 gb of RAM for developing games, but since it supports mobile, I imagine that the final game's memory usage can much lower and depends on the number of assets.
the lower end of requirements is much more important than the "recommended setting".

Tomcat I was also taught that a game should be developed on hardware classed higher than the target platform.

yes, but how much higher?
this sounds like something that would be said of unity and its ridiculously heavy editor, or unreal and its stupidly heavy editor. godot is kinda special, it even has a phone version.
If I'm making pacman, I shouldn't need a NASA supercomputer to develop it. of course this isn't pacman, it is a high quality project, but must also have its limits. otherwise we fall into the trap of telling people "just get a better pc", and most can't or wont do that.

Tomcat Optimization is the very last stage of development.

if you are a good programmer, you can tell before hand when something is going to cause problems. this isn't so much optimization as it is software engineering. designing the systems and how they interact with each other.
optimizations can be made on algorithms and individual parts of a program, but if the whole thing is done wrong, you have to realize early or will end up having to rewrite a lot of code. and sometimes having to remake assets.
Maybe I'm just old school, back in the day we had to calculate how much memory we were going to use before writing the code, while we don't have to worry about arrays overflowing anymore, this is still a concern with texture sizes.

Tomcat My goal is a large number of characters and open space and I don't want development to be slowed down by technical limitations.

My limitations are yet to come.

fair enough.

Tomcat I have an old comp (15 years old, by the way, it has 12 GB RAM) to test performance and it is the “target platform”.

that's good to hear.

Tomcat Nope, your computer will not burn up from this demo — it was run on a laptop with integrated graphics and nothing terrible happened.

I might give it a try.

Tomcat removed specification and added requirements.

lol

                  Jesusemora it would be a good idea to get the actual requirements for the game.

                  The target platform is Core-i7-950/12Gb/GTX780 ( yeah, I want the game to be able to run on Win 7).

                  you can check roughly how much memory and video memory is used by the game. testing CPU and GPU performance would be more difficult though.

                  Sims style games have their own specifics — it's very hard to determine what exactly the requirements they will have (especially in memory — this is also the reason for buying such a volume). The thing is that the requirements for such games change during the game. This behavior does not occur with other games. For example, The Sims 3. The beginning of the game — always easy. But over time, the game starts to slow down, depending on the coolness — some earlier, others later — but all of them. The reason is this. This game is a living world. That is, the city lives, the inhabitants acquire acquaintances and memories, develop skills. A player can visit any corner of the world and life will go on there. He can take control of any character and he will have his own work and friends.

                  Special “save cleaners” (modders) were released, after their application my saves reached more than 700 Mb (each!). What other game can have a single save up to 1Gb?

                  EA could not solve this problem (developers have not solved a lot of problems so far). And in Sims 4 just limited the available area, which oblechgili load, but lost a lot in the effect.

                  I do not make not a single game, and the project — within which I intend to release games that will realize only part of the future features.

                  you either make a very detailed small game, or a medium sized stylized game.

                  One of the ideas is to release two branches: one with simple graphics and more characters, the other with improved graphics and a smaller world.

                  yes, but how much higher?

                  The wording was “a class above.” If the game is for weak machines, it should be developed on a medium configuration. If it is for medium machines, it should be developed on a high configuration. But the power of the machine is the speed of development.

                  Does it make sense to limit yourself?

                  kuligs2 thats a dick move. dont conform to what bullies are bullying you into.

                  I try to listen to the arguments.

                  But idk, im kinda curious how to determine the min req. for the game you develop in godot.

                  I guess the profiler can tell you what approximate level of performance might be comfortable. But I will run it on an old machine and see how it looks there.

                      All them gigs of vram yet you're using monotonously repeating textures without any visual variation like it's freaking 1996.

                        Jesusemora I have 8 gb and 3 are used by the integrated gpu. This sounds insane to me.

                        @Tomcat is just listing their own workstation stats for clarity so you know what system the scene was composed on.

                        Tomcat Apparently, game development is more of a hobby that requires investment than it is an income that brings it in.

                        It certainly can be. Especially if you go solo/indie.

                            xyz All them gigs of vram yet you're using monotonously repeating textures without any visual variation like it's freaking 1996.

                            It is indeed a bit 'boring' but even if they made it more variable it would involve more shader throughput than gpu memory, realistically. But certainly be more demanding of both.

                              xyz All them gigs of vram yet you're using monotonously repeating textures without any visual variation like it's freaking 1996.

                              it does look like a 2003 VR game that they play in doctor house or the x-files. it's the flat high quality assets.

                              but this is an early version and he could add some PBR textures later, or better models.

                              I haven't tried the demo, but here are some hints:
                              if your target platform can handle it, add SSS (subsurface scattering) to the model (for organic materials), it look so much better with it.
                              the makehuman hair is low quality, try to replace it with one of your own. one with different strands and a normal map.
                              makehuman assets waste a lot of geometry and have very tiny parts, removing them in blender is a good idea, or baking the textures into a lower poly model. this however will add more work.

                              combining dithering with upscaling is an alternative to alpha transparency.

                              use bigger, higher quality textures. textures that cover a bigger area instead of a single tiny repeating texture. you can find free CC0 PBR materials in ambientCG. polyhaven also has some good ones but are smaller.

                              add an HDR sky, or any sky at all. it will improve the ambient lighting.

                              reduce sky contribution and add some form of GI, like voxelGI or enabling hdfgi.

                              add volumetric fog, even if faint. it will add atmosphere to the scene.

                              set a physical camera, this will give you a dynamic form of DOF.

                              use linear or ACES color.

                              look for the physical values of the materials and set the roughness to something other than 1, or use PBR materials.

                              enable SSAO.

                                  Updated version.

                                  Added:

                                  1. Trees with wind effect. — Create trees with wind effect. 🌴
                                  2. Full screen on/off: Tab F11
                                  3. Camera acceleration: Shift

                                  Godot 4.3 RC 1

                                  tai-chi_0002.exe 296 МБ

                                  CRC32: A1DCE175
MD5: B09DC5DD8808761917880563BCDFF087
SHA-1: 99A8F9FB54029968E4A9446F543AD84D9155ABA5

                                  tai-chi_0002.x86_64 279 МБ

                                  CRC32: 740133CB
MD5: 36E62E2345391527DEDA244ACDA51662
SHA-1: AFB7F4A42EBA7D3A744714D9AF41233EC4E08FD2

                                  Jesusemora I haven't tried the demo, but here are some hints:

                                  Some of these things I'm going to do, some I've put off for later, but some of it sounds interesting. I'll consider the suggestions. Thanks for the advice! 🍻

                                    While people like to flaunt all sorts of advanced rendering features, it's often forgotten how much in terms of look and mood you can do with the basics, only by applying some fundamental visual design principles. It's certainly great to have all your PBRs, GIs, SSSs, volumetrics, etc, but imho for a good looking outdoor scene it's sufficient to control only the following 5 essentials, regardless of geometry fidelity. Those are also relatively inexpensive to render on modern hardware:

                                    • classic lambertian illumination with directional+ambient light.
                                    • cast shadows
                                    • ambient occlusion
                                    • depth fog
                                    • post process color remap

                                    Here's a quick demo of an ad hoc scene patched directly in Godot from built in primitives, tuning the things mentioned above vs default scene settings:

                                      Tomcat It has the cost of the depth pass, which is rendered regardless, so practically speaking almost free. Some compositing overhead I suppose. A drawcall.

                                        9 days later

                                        v.3

                                        Added:

                                        1. water shader
                                        2. skin shader (based on gd-character-creation, reworked)

                                        Replaced:

                                        • wind effect flowers
                                        • Full screen: F11

                                        Godot 4.3 RC 2

                                        tai-chi_0003.exe 303 МБ

                                        CRC32: B90E8AF8
MD5: 4DEC3B15EBAB5956FBA424E567BCC8E5
SHA-1: 459F42C46584F9447E9D05E3D4097AEB622B9F4A

                                        tai-chi_0003.x86_64 286 МБ

                                        CRC32: 653F9574
MD5: A8407383B5E095416D49F1B6B2C3D652
SHA-1: F2508A1B5CE32FC19ED8190467ADC20601143BCC
                                        a month later

                                        Oh, I like this little demo.
                                        Very relaxing, especially the movement of the trees and dancing little flowers.
                                        As smooth as these wind-like movements Tai-Chi-Girl should move. But she has a bit to learn, she's micro trembling.
                                        (Do you think you could smooth these animation keys, perhaps there are too many of them!?)

                                          musikai Thank you for the response!

                                          musikai (Do you think you could smooth these animation keys, perhaps there are too many of them!?)

                                          I'm still just learning and exploring, but I suppose there is a possibility to make smoother movements.

                                              13 days later

                                              I really dislike abandoned projects, about the reasons for which nothing is known. Better bad news than no news. With that concept in mind, here's how this project ended.

                                              The disk died. It is especially cynical that it died during the creation of the archive. The piquancy is added by the fact that all diagnostic utilities (from proprietary to third-party) reported that the disk was perfectly healthy until the last moment.

                                              Since the old archives were preserved, in principle, it is possible to restore the previous stage of work. But I don't see much sense in it. Since the main tasks have been accomplished. Namely the workflow of the possibility of creating a game (demo scene) with the joint use of free programs and assets (including recycled shaders) was checked.

                                              What is not done:

                                              1. Change of clothes (although it was laid out from the beginning).
                                              2. Camera change.
                                              3. Fixing (smoother) animation.
                                              4. Environment (fog).

                                              Conclusions

                                              • Disks are consumable.
                                              • When they say “do a backup”, they usually don't specify that this process heavily loads disks and reduces their uptime. Disk failure during this time is not a surprising phenomenon.
                                              • Math is a pseudoscience. Any probability has a fifty-fifty chance of occurring.

                                              — What's the probability of meeting a dinosaur on the subway?
                                              — Fifty-fifty chance of meeting one or not meeting one.

                                              • You should always prepare for the worst case scenario, so that the less worst case is a pleasant surprise.

                                              I'm not even going to talk about the “it works, don't touch it” nonsense right now.

                                                This looks like a fantastic project, and I’m really impressed with the variety of tools and assets you’re using! Godot 4.3 beta 3 combined with Blender and MakeHuman should make for a powerful setup. The attention to detail, from the camera controls to the planned features like wind effects and water shaders, shows a lot of thought and effort.

                                                I’m curious to see how the water shader and clothing changes turn out. Have you considered any specific shaders or techniques for the water? Also, integrating a wind effect on the trees could add a lot of realism to the environment.

                                                Regarding donations, if you’re open to suggestions, platforms like Ko-fi or Buy Me a Coffee are popular among developers for small business scale contributions. They’re straightforward to set up and can be a good way to gather support from your community.

                                                Looking forward to seeing the progress and the final release on GitHub and other platforms!

                                                Tomcat that is horrible

                                                Tomcat When they say “do a backup”, they usually don't specify that this process heavily loads disks and reduces their uptime. Disk failure during this time is not a surprising phenomenon.

                                                when they say "do a backup" it means on the internet, or in some media like CD-Roms, DVD... I'm sounding old aren't I? pen-drives?

                                                Tomcat Math is a pseudoscience. Any probability has a fifty-fifty chance of occurring.

                                                no, math is obscure arcane magic from hell, that's why they use those eldritch symbols instead of code.
                                                also, I think that's how they calculate PI these days.

                                                Tomcat You should always prepare for the worst case scenario, so that the less worst case is a pleasant surprise.

                                                Everything that could go wrong WILL go wrong.
                                                -Murphy's law

                                                          Jesusemora that is horrible

                                                          It's a tragedy yeah, but it's not a catastrophe.

                                                          when they say "do a backup" it means on the internet, or in some media like CD-Roms, DVD... I'm sounding old aren't I? pen-drives?

                                                          I meant that there is active reading from the disk, when the controller is working in a heavily loaded mode and can fail. Which is what happened in my case. And the backup, also — yes, is done to another medium anyway. It doesn't matter if it's via the Internet or like me — usually to a nearby disk, but in this case I tried to upload to GitLab.

                                                          The old archives are still there because they are on another disk. It looks like I need to buy an HDD — it's more reliable, and in case of its death it's easier to get the information out.

                                                          Everything that could go wrong WILL go wrong.
                                                          -Murphy's law

                                                          Unfortunately, as practice shows, what can't go wrong, also goes wrong.

                                                            9 months later

                                                            MikeCL The page has a bunch or warnings still though.

                                                            ??!! I checked now through Tor Browser, that is without login and I didn't get any warning… what kind of warnings are you getting?

                                                            I'll give it a go, is it on Windows?

                                                            The main platform is Windows. I'm making a Linux version, but can't test it to see if it works. In fact, at the current moment I consider it already obsolete (not technically, but mostly morally — I've outgrown it). And am doing the next work, but actually a continuation. I want to make some “action” — maybe it will attract attention.

                                                            The theory that was voiced to me, says that my work is ignored (probably) because they believe that they are made by a Russian (although in military documents my nationality is indicated as “Ukrainian”, but in fact I have a different nationality) and that the demo version of Chinese gymnastics — and now authoritarian regimes are not very in vogue. And that's the only theory I've heard. (Yeah, politics can't get away from it.)