How low can you go? Running Pinball Arcade on low-end PCs.

[Alex Atkin UK]

I thought some people might be curious how this game runs on my insanely low specification laptop.

Yes its running on the lowest settings at 640x480 with no AA, but its playable (at least on NGG). It slows down a bit on multiball but doesn't completely lag out. I suspect if they had settings to use lower quality playfield textures it might surpass the Vita version (already the physics are better).

Why is this an interesting test? Well it would seem the game should run absolutely fine on Intel graphics from modern CPUs as they are many times more powerful than this old ultra low voltage chip.

No doubt some of the more complex tables will bog down worse, but its interesting to see it run on such low specifications.

 

[netizen]

I run mine at 1366x768 in fullscreen window, with no reflection, or post processing and 2x AA. I have no lag, and no slow down in multi ball. I have a bit of problem with some scripted tables, oddly enough Genie is the worst.

peep these massive specs, yo!!

 

[Alex Atkin UK]

Apparently this is the difference between our GPUs, its obviously bigger than it looks on paper.

 

[overzealot]

I just checked this on Windows 8.1 with my m11x (original, 1.3 ghz Core 2 Duo, Nvidia GT335m) on T2. Unplayable on integrated graphics (GMA4500), even at 320x200 (yes, the menu looks terrible at this res). Its smooth but the simulation speed is not correct, somewhere between 50 and 70 percent normal. This could be graphics driver issues as these old hybrid systems are stuck with ancient ones, but I'm not going through the hell of installing graphics again to check.

Switching to nVidia graphics, ran fine at native res. Barely touching the CPU.
So, I pegged the game to a single CPU, only allow the lowest speed bin (800mhz). Game occasionally hits 50% CPU on that core, usually hovers around 40%.
This thing should run on any CPU, I'd say minimum req would be single core 600mhz, maybe 1ghz single core for something like Atom.
Good to know for setting up a dedicated machine for pinball, or perhaps some room to move if Farsight try to improve the physics.

 

[Captain B. Zarre]

I can dig it!

 

[Deltaechoe]

I just checked this on Windows 8.1 with my m11x (original, 1.3 ghz Core 2 Duo, Nvidia GT335m) on T2. Unplayable on integrated graphics (GMA4500), even at 320x200 (yes, the menu looks terrible at this res). Its smooth but the simulation speed is not correct, somewhere between 50 and 70 percent normal. This could be graphics driver issues as these old hybrid systems are stuck with ancient ones, but I'm not going through the hell of installing graphics again to check.

Switching to nVidia graphics, ran fine at native res. Barely touching the CPU.
So, I pegged the game to a single CPU, only allow the lowest speed bin (800mhz). Game occasionally hits 50% CPU on that core, usually hovers around 40%.
This thing should run on any CPU, I'd say minimum req would be single core 600mhz, maybe 1ghz single core for something like Atom.
Good to know for setting up a dedicated machine for pinball, or perhaps some room to move if Farsight try to improve the physics.

CPU speed isn't the only thing that gives it power, you also have to take into account its architecture. Modern CPUs run faster than older ones at the same clock speed (IE a 3ghz pentium single core will run slower than a single core on a haswell running at the same clock speed). I would say your CPU would probably be the minimal cutoff before experiencing problems that can't be avoided.

 

[Lostboy]

I thought for sure TPA wouldn't work on my Intel965 laptop. When I bought the laptop in 2008, it was considered a low-end basic machine then! It struggles to even run simple 3D screensavers. But it actually runs TPA! Sure it's 640x400 windowed; but it actually runs! Good job Farsight!