Expensive Graphics Card .. !?

Monday, January 21, 2013 Labels: Rant

So, here is a rant I'm been holding on for quite a while now. When I look at games like Minecraft and a whole slew of similar retro-style, indie games they look like a lot of fun! And, most of them are! They are done really well too.

However, I just don't understand why the hardware requirements are so heavy and extreme in so many of these games. I know not everyone is a "Carmack" or "Abrash" but seriously! I wrote 3D game engines and prototypes nearly 20 years ago that looked better and would run on the hardware of the day, just fine! Those were what, 486's and early Pentium machines!? And, I am definitely not a game developer!

Minecraft gets about 3 fps on my kids' netbooks after disabling and/or lowering every possible feature. Most of these new indie games won't even start up on those netbooks! Basic platformer-style game won't even run!!

So, really.. the question is this: Are the gaming libraries used these days crap? Or are the programmers not so good, inefficient, lazy..?