A small patch today and an explanation. We shipped last week in haste, and in our haste we neglected to explain the ramifications of the improvements that we’ve built into the game. We introduced a pretty far reaching change to the environment, both the sky and terrain and we were focussed too much on how new and shiny this was and not enough on how the changes would impact those of you with lower spec machines.
We understand that many of you are accustomed to running the game with graphics settings set to “Detail” and having a build land where those same settings cause the game to run very poorly is understandably annoying. We are working hard to ensure that as many people as possible can enjoy improvements to this beloved game, but modernising the engine does, unfortunately, need us to re-visit the minimum specs - modern capabilities, including a 60fps 4k terrain system and new GPU effects demand it unfortunately.
That being said, our goal is to find the balance between delivering graphical improvements while maintaining access to older, less capable hardware. We will continue to work on optimisations to ensure that min-spec machines can run the game albeit with graphics settings set to “Speed”, which should maintain framerate and stability. The worst case we see right now is older CPUs with 8Gb RAM, integrated graphics and spinning hard drives. This is a demanding setup but this patch introduces memory savings that should help that hardware do a better job of maintaining playability.
We’re going to review and update the minimum and recommended specifications for the game in the next couple of weeks to make sure we’re striking the right balance between supporting older hardware while being able to bring modern features to the engine.
Getting to the changes in the patch:
RAM usage reduced - 1.6Gb off the peak, 0.5Gb off the steady committed RAM. This is a sliding scale based on settings but it should help with the least powerful setups
Fixed Noseart - the main release broke noseart on new campaigns, which would fail to list any on the bomber configuration screens. Campaigns that were created with no noseart will be repaired but the bombers will be allocated noseart randomly (as in the bomber configuration screen).
Fixed a texture issue that would have affected min-spec machines, causing bad texture glitches and significant performance degradation.
Mission Data - Noseart specified in missions now honoured. Significantly more robust validation with error reporting in log.txt to help fix.
Here at MicroProse we consider working on Mighty 8th Redux to be a labour of love. It serves as a real and direct link to our company’s history. Thank you for helping us bring this game to a new generation! Brave the deadly (physically modelled!) skies! 