Psychonauts PC Specs

[baconian]

Just got this from Majesco.

Looks pretty easy to run.

PC System Minimum Requirements:

Supported OS: Windows 98 SE/2000/ME/XP (only)

Processor: 1.0 GHz Pentium® III and AMD Athlon

RAM: 256 MB of RAM

Video Card: 64 MB GeForce 3 or higher or ATI® Radeon 8500 or higher

(except GeForce 4 MX)

Sound Card: DirectX® 9.0 or higher compatible sound card

DirectX® version: 9.0 or higher (included on game disc)

Hard Drive Space: 4.0 GB minimum hard drive space

CD-ROM: 16X or better

Controls: Windows-compatible keyboard and mouse

PC System Recommended Requirements:

Supported OS: Windows 2000/XP

Processor: 2.0 GHz Pentium® IV and AMD Athlon

RAM: 512 MB of RAM

Video Card: 128 MB GeForce FX 5600 or higher or ATI® Radeon 9600 or higher

Sound Card: DirectX® 9.0 or higher and EAX® 2.0 or higher compatible sound

card

DirectX® version: 9.0 or higher (included on game disc)

Hard Drive Space: 6.0 GB minimum hard drive space for full installation

Controls: Game Pad (optional)

[manny_c44]

All looks good on the spec side, but how well will the controls translate into PC? I wonder if doublefine is handling the PC conversion...I've already preordered it either way, but it would be nice if I didn't have to buy a controller.

....6 gig installation is pretty damn huge

[nsps]

I already pre-ordered as well. The $20 discount and the whole thing with Microsoft screwing the game helped the decision not to buy an Xbox.

I'd assumed that the controls could be pretty well approximated either with my USB controller or with an Xbox controller and a USB adapter, which will presumably be better than keyboard and mouse. I'd be interested to hear from someone who knows for sure.

[Duncan]

Well, my computer hits the recommended requirements almost exactly, so that's good I guess.

[SoccerDude28]

I actually have an answer for you guys from the master himself

Here is what TS replied to me when I asked him about the controls:

"First thing, there is only one f in Schafer!

Second thing, the PC version of Psychonauts will support both a

controller, and a fully-configurable keyboard + mouse interface. So you

can't loose!

Glad you're excited about it!

-Info Cow"

So guys, let's just freak out till April mmmmkay ?

[Duncan]

There's only one 'o' in lose, also.

[SoccerDude28]

There's only one 'o' in lose, also.

It's okay, Tim S can have spelling errors, as long as he keeps making games

[Simon]

Awesome. I suppose I wasn't expecting it to be a bitch to run at all, but it's nice to have closure. I pretty much hit the 'recommended' specs that you've quoted.

I bought my Thrustmaster Firestorm Dual Power gamepad in a large part because I thought it'd be good with PC Psychonauts, so it's good to know there's actually gamepad support there. Great to hear it fresh from the Info Cow's mouth too. I wonder if there's force feedback.

"CD-ROM: 16X or better" suggests it will be on CD-ROMs rather than a DVD-ROM, and with 4 to 6 gigabytes to install, I'm imagining lots of discs. Hopefully the game won't need to read off the discs if you do the 6 gig install.

So excited now, just waiting for the UK online shops to set up pre-orderable Psychonauts and then I'll be clicking my way to fun city.

[SoccerDude28]

I'm just wondering do you think the PC version will be different than the XBOX/PS2 game? I remember Spiderman 2 which was for 29.99 on the PC and it was a stinker compared to the 49.99 superior XBOX/PS2 version. I dunno 29.99 just sounds very cheap for a PC game.

[Lechimp]

I really doubt it's going to be a different game than the x-box and ps2 versions, I don't think Doublefine has the time to make a crappy version just for the pc. At the very worst, the pc version will have bugs or crappier controls, but I doubt it.

[manny_c44]

No the game won't be different, but I thought that 29.99 was like a tentative pre-order price just thrown up by gamestop.

But if the Pc version really is just 30 clams, I don't know why anyone would buy the XBox version.

[Chris]

No the game won't be different, but I thought that 29.99 was like a tentative pre-order price just thrown up by gamestop.

But if the Pc version really is just 30 clams, I don't know why anyone would buy the XBox version.

I'm definitely getting the Xbox version. These days I'm so fed up by what can go wrong with gaming on PCs these days that I'm just going to play the game on as stable a system as I possibly can. My two month old professionally built computer just crapped out on my last week while I was doing absolutely nothing demanding or out of the ordinary, and after literally seven hours on tech support I had to ship it back. Who knows if I'll even have the damn thing back by the time Psychonauts comes out. From now on, I'll play PC games if that's the only system they're available on, or if it doesn't make any sense to play the game with a controller, but for games that look like they'll be the same experience or better on a console, fuck the PC. I should just get a Mac. I'll play Blizzard games and be happy. I'm sick of dealing with all this stupid shit that breaks all the time; it's unbelievable. I'm a born and bred PC gamer, and if it weren't for the PC I never would have gotten into gaming, but I've never had a single problem with any console I've ever owned, and I've had at least one major or fatal problem with every PC I've ever owned. I paid $1400 for this piece of crap. I want it to work.

EDIT: Sorry, that was more bitter than I intended. I'm just really pissed that I won't have access to my brand new computer for at least a month while they figure out why the hell it doesn't work.

[Jake]

I suspect the port on the PC will be identical to the XBox port (unless they have time to include some higher res textures)... though if your video card isn't awesome it will probably not have the full range of crazy partical and distortion effects. That's my guess anyway...

The $30 price tag is probably that way just because at $50 nobody would buy it, since PC games are such a tiny market now, relative to all other things.

[baconian]

Soccerdude,

doublefine are doing the PC version too, but getting other guys to do the PS2 port.

Spiderman 2 PC version was a completely different game, different developers and all, from the excellent PS2 version.

[manny_c44]

I'm definitely getting the Xbox version. These days I'm so fed up by what can go wrong with gaming on PCs these days that I'm just going to play the game on as stable a system as I possibly can.

Yeah, I kind of forgot about this whole aspect of PC gaming because mine has been behaving normally for quite a while now. But either way its so nice to play a game in a high resolution and close up as opposed to on a large, fuzzy TV screen. Its not even the PC I like so much, just the monitor.

Even though this a slightly off-topic addendum: one thting that really bothers me about the PC is how many apps start in the background...dozens and dozens. I'm having hundreds of MB of my RAM used up by all sorts of shit, does anyone know of a program to manage this, r if Windows has anything built in?

[SoccerDude28]

I'm definitely getting the Xbox version. These days I'm so fed up by what can go wrong with gaming on PCs these days that I'm just going to play the game on as stable a system as I possibly can. My two month old professionally built computer just crapped out on my last week while I was doing absolutely nothing demanding or out of the ordinary, and after literally seven hours on tech support I had to ship it back. Who knows if I'll even have the damn thing back by the time Psychonauts comes out. From now on, I'll play PC games if that's the only system they're available on, or if it doesn't make any sense to play the game with a controller, but for games that look like they'll be the same experience or better on a console, fuck the PC. I should just get a Mac. I'll play Blizzard games and be happy. I'm sick of dealing with all this stupid shit that breaks all the time; it's unbelievable. I'm a born and bred PC gamer, and if it weren't for the PC I never would have gotten into gaming, but I've never had a single problem with any console I've ever owned, and I've had at least one major or fatal problem with every PC I've ever owned. I paid $1400 for this piece of crap. I want it to work.

EDIT: Sorry, that was more bitter than I intended. I'm just really pissed that I won't have access to my brand new computer for at least a month while they figure out why the hell it doesn't work.

There There It's not PC's fault if you get a crappy one, it's the fault of the idiotic company that sold it to you. Where did you buy your PC from? I have never had a single problem with the gazillion PC's that I owned be4.

[SoccerDude28]

Soccerdude,

doublefine are doing the PC version too, but getting other guys to do the PS2 port.

Spiderman 2 PC version was a completely different game, different developers and all, from the excellent PS2 version.

Thanks baconian, good to hear that DF is working on the PC version too. I have full confidence that they will do a great job, coz remember, a lot of these folks come from a PC background

[Chris]

There There It's not PC's fault if you get a crappy one, it's the fault of the idiotic company that sold it to you. Where did you buy your PC from? I have never had a single problem with the gazillion PC's that I owned be4.

What do you mean, "it's not PC's fault"? PC isn't a company, it's a format and in many ways it is archaic and dumb. There are a lot of thing about the system that need to change. Hardware needs to work better together all the time, there need to be more standards. I understand the need for competition but it would be in everyone's interests if they got together and just made sure all their damn products worked together.

And for the record, I bought it from friggin Alienware. I mean I'm sure people have had problems with them in the past, but I have never read a review of their machines that was less then glowing. Clearly I will never buy from them again. I mean, I never expected to again anyway because I never expected to be in another financial situation that would allow it, but now I REALLY won't.

[manny_c44]

I suspect Alienware's sales are almost entirely powered by their shiny cases.

[Erkki]

Some people were saying the PC should change more than 10 years ago. And the basics are still the same. It's all for backward compatibility. I wish someone took that bold step and let it go, but then we'd have to have at least 2 PC's : one for old stuff, and one for new.

[SoccerDude28]

Yeah, I kind of forgot about this whole aspect of PC gaming because mine has been behaving normally for quite a while now. But either way its so nice to play a game in a high resolution and close up as opposed to on a large, fuzzy TV screen. Its not even the PC I like so much, just the monitor.

Even though this a slightly off-topic addendum: one thting that really bothers me about the PC is how many apps start in the background...dozens and dozens. I'm having hundreds of MB of my RAM used up by all sorts of shit, does anyone know of a program to manage this, r if Windows has anything built in?

Hmmm do you have Mcaffee shield? that thing hogs a lot of memory so I suggest you disable it on your gaming PC when you play games. Also you can edit a lot of these apps not to run at startup, if they don't need to. I can show you how if you're interested. Another thing, spyware could be a big problem as to why you have a lot of memory wasted. Use something like pestpatrol to scan your system and eliminate spyware. Also if you use the computer to hook up to the internet, MAKE SURE you have a firewall. Also always browse the internet as a limited user. There is no reason anyone should connect to the internet as an administrator.

[SoccerDude28]

What do you mean, "it's not PC's fault"? PC isn't a company, it's a format and in many ways it is archaic and dumb. There are a lot of thing about the system that need to change. Hardware needs to work better together all the time, there need to be more standards. I understand the need for competition but it would be in everyone's interests if they got together and just made sure all their damn products worked together.

And for the record, I bought it from friggin Alienware. I mean I'm sure people have had problems with them in the past, but I have never read a review of their machines that was less then glowing. Clearly I will never buy from them again. I mean, I never expected to again anyway because I never expected to be in another financial situation that would allow it, but now I REALLY won't.

All I meant is that companies should test the shit out of the system be4 selling it to the poor consumer. PC's are pretty reliable and I have put together some PC's with really different parts be4. As far as standards go I agree, but we are still 1000 times better now than back in the 90's. God it was a nightmare playing a game back then on DOS. At least windows xp is plug and play with most hardware manufacturers adhering to that.

As far as your problem, I have actually only heard good things about alienware. I'm really surprised that you had that problem with them. Funny thing, even Psychonauts website recommends the game running on Alienware

From Psychonauts website:

[manny_c44]

No I have no problem with spyware (unless my scanning isn't detecting it) or one huge resource hog, its just that I have 40 processes running, ranging from the understandable "explorer.exe" to shit like "LogWatNT", "wdfmgr", etc. And I have no idea what they do and I'm pretty sure only about 10 of things on the list are needed.

[SoccerDude28]

No I have no problem with spyware (unless my scanning isn't detecting it) or one huge resource hog, its just that I have 40 processes running, ranging from the understandable "explorer.exe" to shit like "LogWatNT", "wdfmgr", etc. And I have no idea what they do and I'm pretty sure only about 10 of things on the list are needed.

Well we are diverting a lot off the main topic but here is what you can do to find out what's running.

Go to start-->Run and type regedit in the dialog box

That opens the windows registry editor.

Now go to the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

Under this key are all the programs that launch at startup. Some might be programs that you can live without so you can uninstall them. Also some might be spyware. Uninstall any you don't like, and remove the keys of anything that you don't really care for running all the time (like mp3 player for example). Since you are f***ng up with the registry, I suggest you ask a friend in the computer business to help out Take a backup of any registry key be4 you delete it.

[Chris]

All I meant is that companies should test the shit out of the system be4 selling it to the poor consumer. PC's are pretty reliable and I have put together some PC's with really different parts be4. As far as standards go I agree, but we are still 1000 times better now than back in the 90's. God it was a nightmare playing a game back then on DOS. At least windows xp is plug and play with most hardware manufacturers adhering to that.

As far as your problem, I have actually only heard good things about alienware. I'm really surprised that you had that problem with them. Funny thing, even Psychonauts website recommends the game running on Alienware

From Psychonauts website:

Yeah, apparently they do test them for hojillions of hours before selling them. I ran into a weird infinite loop error that apparently could be caused by any number of ridiculous things not due to user or manufacturer error. That's how fragile PCs are.

And I guess it's sort of better than 10 years ago, but 10 years ago there were so few permutations of hardware that games could actually just give you a list of soundcards or whatever and you could just select it, because developers pretty much knew every card you could possibly have. Video accelerators weren't even an issue. The PCs were more of a pain to get up and running and set up in the first place but once you did they were pretty damn durable. I actually have had WAY more problems in the last 5 years with PCs than I did in the years between 1989 and 1995, which was when I was really into PC games (probably because my PCs tended to work).