i would rather go for the future and not look back. Soon Geforce GTX 300, radeon 5xxx or Larabee will be out with more power you can imagine.
i would rather check the video card when launching the game and popup a message ‘you 3D card does not meet minimal requirements to run this game, please upgrade’. Who cares if the guy with a notebook and a geforce 6200LE cannot run your game ?

In the end, no one release perfect software, but it’s still very important to release. Learn what you can from this project, and apply those learning in your next endeavor.

@Scurvy Lobster:
“If you change from 3D to 2D you might piss of most of the established fan base. That could waste a lot of hard work for done for your community.”
Yeh, indeed – I know. This is a major thing (and I’ve gently asked about the current fan base about this).

@Anonymous:
Yeh, I’m testing a quite new version… which has so far required quite many changes to my existing code & assets :)

@d.evil:
It’s Leadwerks engine problem (or “ATI cards problem” as they say id ;). I’ve told people to “try out their evaluation kit” and the scren close black.
It doesn’t use DirectX, it uses OpenGL. Shaders Model 3.0.

@Jake:
I cannot release with current (old) tech, since the game won’t work with ATI cards. Good points on other things though.

@Anonymous Alex:
Yeh, the dynamic shadows are indeed kind of like “required” for this type of game (well, almost at least :).

I do agree that Leadwerks has good points, and that updating drivers can sort issues… but I wonder how many people are willing to do that.

“This is your hobby project and your life doesn’t depend on it.”
Well, this project actually has the biggest budget I’ve had for a game so far. :)

In earlier games I’ve used mainly time, but this time I’ve spent quite a bit of time & money and I do this stuff for commercial purposes… as in to build & grow my company :)

—

Thanks for the help everybody

I’m also thinking that using vertex and pixel shaders should not be a problem these days. Of course it depends on the game. If you do a 2D Hidden Object game, I don’t see a point to risk it . But this is not your case.

Having your game in 3D is a good thing. Mainly for the dynamic shadows that are a “must have” in any horror game.

—-

Now if you want to avoid Leadwerks because it’s special requirements (multiple render targets for deferred rendering ) there you may have a point. It will lower the hardware requirements and it will probably work for more people with old drivers.

Render targets are a real issue for old/bad video drivers. I’ve seen commercial games that showed me the “black screen” or whatever color it was, without any warning message (probably the game engine receives no error codes). To mention a few I remember now: Myst IV, So Blonde (badly broken shadows), Azada2. A drivers update and it all worked fine.

The best thing to do is to talk to the people who experienced problems and see if they or you (or Leadwerks) can fix them.

Dropping Leadwerks would make you miss the deferred rendering advantages and you’ll need a complex lighting system to limit the lights per object, etc.

———

So my advice is not to give up on 3D because of compatibility issues. You can drop Leadwerks if you decide it doesn’t cover enough of your audience, but you don’t have to give up 3D and not even shaders.

If you’re still thinking about 2D, it might be because you don’t think your game looks good enough in 3D to worth the effort and the requirements compromise (I’m sure Diablo 3 developers have no such thoughts). If so, make an analysis (by checking similar games) to see if you can have it better looking in 2D or if you can improve it as it is.

Keep the good work, and don’t worry about releasing a new game each year. This is your hobby project and your life doesn’t depend on it. Nor your credibility, as someone suggested it.

Alex

As for 2D zombie game, forget it (unless isometric like Zombie Shooter). The audience for zombie games expects 3D and a 2D game would feel to much like a free game. Get it out soon and ride the popular zombie wave before it dies down (forgive pun).

And as Scurvy Lobster suggested – check thing with different DX releases – It can be the problem.

Other case is that he said about community – I also think that people waiting for DW that already seen 3D version would be pissed of if you suddenly switch to 2D…

Other than that: read the book ‘Masters of Doom’ by David Kushner. It gives a great perspective on changing tech in mid development.