Hi everyone. I had a conversation with Rui this afternoon and he gave me some system specs for the end machines and some other info. I thought you guys might be interested in seeing it so here it is: (edited (somewhat) for readability)
Rui says:
The games will run on Athlon 1.1 MHz machines with 128Mb RAM
VRAM is either 8 or 16Mb
depending on how much VRAM your game needs
we will pick th corresponding video card
Resolution will be 800 x 600 or 1024 x 768 --- your choice
color should be 16 bit per pixel
if your game runs well with 32, then it´s ok
but keep the hardware platform in mind...
We use 16 bits because somewhere in the B+ and B3D documentation, it says something like "try to use 16 bits".
That´s why we never used 32 bits, for instance
I am not sure how performance would be affected by 32 bits, though
the company has tried to go with old machines, but these are hard to maintain, so now we always use the cheapest CURRENTLY available configuration
this means that maybe tomorrow our platform will increase, because we no longer will be able to buy 1.1GHz machines... we may need to raise it up to 1.8GHz, for instance
We will provide you with all the graphics you need
the graphics will be created as required
for instance, let´s say you need a table, with 500 x 300 x 16 bits, for a blackjack game
all you´d have to do is ask Riccardo, the lead designer, and he will assign that task to someone in the art department
but I encourage you to use placeholders for now.
but you are free to choose the item sizes as you need
you are the boss... you tell us what sizes and positions... we will just have to make sure the images will look good for the brazilian audience
just keep one thing in mind: every time you need to display a message inside of a box, for instance, that message probably is going to use more screen real-state than you originally thought.
that´s because all messages will have to be translated into portuguese. And portuguese sometimes uses long expressions...
actually, it sometimes DOES NOT use short expressions
so, "Hit" would become "Pede Carta"
And "Split" would become "Dobra a Aposta"
don´t worry about translating messages. You won´t have to deal with portuguese at all...
just keep in mind that message boxes should always be sized in such a way that we can translate the messages down here, and the translated message must fit the originally assigned box
A quick rule of thumb would be: make space svailable so you can write a message twice as long as the original one
Ron says:
Can I modify a graphic that you sent to me (such as the 500x300 suggested earlier) if I feel it will fit the game better?
Rui says:
feel free to use anything you want
Ron says:
Sounds are the same as graphics? I ask you for a sound, you provide?
Rui says:
yes
if it is a voice message (should you want to use any), be aware that it is going to be in portuguese
file naming will be determined by yourself.
Rui says:
The games will run on Athlon 1.1 MHz machines with 128Mb RAM
VRAM is either 8 or 16Mb
depending on how much VRAM your game needs
we will pick th corresponding video card
Resolution will be 800 x 600 or 1024 x 768 --- your choice
color should be 16 bit per pixel
if your game runs well with 32, then it´s ok
but keep the hardware platform in mind...
We use 16 bits because somewhere in the B+ and B3D documentation, it says something like "try to use 16 bits".
That´s why we never used 32 bits, for instance
I am not sure how performance would be affected by 32 bits, though
the company has tried to go with old machines, but these are hard to maintain, so now we always use the cheapest CURRENTLY available configuration
this means that maybe tomorrow our platform will increase, because we no longer will be able to buy 1.1GHz machines... we may need to raise it up to 1.8GHz, for instance
We will provide you with all the graphics you need
the graphics will be created as required
for instance, let´s say you need a table, with 500 x 300 x 16 bits, for a blackjack game
all you´d have to do is ask Riccardo, the lead designer, and he will assign that task to someone in the art department
but I encourage you to use placeholders for now.
but you are free to choose the item sizes as you need
you are the boss... you tell us what sizes and positions... we will just have to make sure the images will look good for the brazilian audience
just keep one thing in mind: every time you need to display a message inside of a box, for instance, that message probably is going to use more screen real-state than you originally thought.
that´s because all messages will have to be translated into portuguese. And portuguese sometimes uses long expressions...
actually, it sometimes DOES NOT use short expressions
so, "Hit" would become "Pede Carta"
And "Split" would become "Dobra a Aposta"
don´t worry about translating messages. You won´t have to deal with portuguese at all...
just keep in mind that message boxes should always be sized in such a way that we can translate the messages down here, and the translated message must fit the originally assigned box
A quick rule of thumb would be: make space svailable so you can write a message twice as long as the original one
Ron says:
Can I modify a graphic that you sent to me (such as the 500x300 suggested earlier) if I feel it will fit the game better?
Rui says:
feel free to use anything you want
Ron says:
Sounds are the same as graphics? I ask you for a sound, you provide?
Rui says:
yes
if it is a voice message (should you want to use any), be aware that it is going to be in portuguese
file naming will be determined by yourself.