Developing a Renpy game on an old laptop... is it possible?

[stacciatello]

Hi, first post!

I just installed the latest version of Renpy (yes, only now), because I really want to make a game and have it done in a few months before my classes start up again if possible. It's gonna be really short and free to play, but the problem is that my laptop is quite outdated and slow.

I can run old games just fine, but newer ones tend to lag a lot, especially if they have a lot of animations and a fancy UI. I can't even use the mouse in fullscreen mode because the proportions go out of whack and I need to rely on the keyboard. And I always get the "update DirectX" warning, even when I have the latest one installed.

I'll make my game regardless, but I'm guessing I'll have to find someone with better hardware to help me test it.

So the question is... Is it even worth trying? I'm unable to get a better computer at the moment, so this is all I have. Is it possible to make a fully functioning game with outdated hardware? I'm sure the answer will be "yes, but it's gonna be a little harder"; but I'd like to hear everyone's opinion, and maybe suggestions to get around these problems.

Thanks for your time!

[Remix]

It *should* be ok for most things as long as the laptop isn't insanely old.
If you can run The Tutorial from the launcher you shouldn't have many problems in a game you write.

If you do hit any snags:
Press Shift while clicking the icon to open the launcher, it will open a configuration panel allowing you to force certain settings like the Renderer, Frame Rate and others.

[Imperf3kt]

For what its worth, check your video card drivers. I have similar issues on a 10 year old desktop PC because the drivers for my graphics card are unavailable.

You _may_ run into difficulties with some Ren'Py functions. I know of at least one feature that doesn't work on my desktop but works on my laptop. Drove me insane for a few days until I figured out what was happening.

[stacciatello]

If you do hit any snags:
Press Shift while clicking the icon to open the launcher, it will open a configuration panel allowing you to force certain settings like the Renderer, Frame Rate and others.

Thanks! I'll definitely try this.

For what its worth, check your video card drivers. I have similar issues on a 10 year old desktop PC because the drivers for my graphics card are unavailable.

You _may_ run into difficulties with some Ren'Py functions. I know of at least one feature that doesn't work on my desktop but works on my laptop. Drove me insane for a few days until I figured out what was happening.

My laptop isn't really that old, I got it in 2015 and it's an Intel Core i3 if that's any useful info. I don't think that my game will need too many fancy features, but at least I'll know that if it runs fine in my laptop it'll certainly run properly on any computer.

Update, I ran the 6.99.14 tutorial and it's laggy as I expected. Especially during the animated sequences which ran just fine in 6.17.7. Obviously this is a problem with my laptop and not the program itself though.

[Ana]

I used to work with a laptop that was approximately 7 or 8 years old and it worked alright, even now. Then again, it had some pretty ok specs for its time. Regardless, the only time I would see it being a problem is if you're using multiple particle effects (or animations in general) in your game at the same time (i.e. if you have animated some lighting on some lamp posts AND some particles like snow or something at the same time). Even in this case, my new laptop sometimes lags when I load and reload those kinds of scenes. The bottom line is, if you're using the basic features, then there should be no problems.

The only problem I had when I was using that old laptop I mentioned was that Atom didn't work on it, but that was probably because I had Atom installed on my old computer from another way and I couldn't figure out how to work it.