System requirements



'At this moment, no official System requirements have been made public. The information on this page is based on a few facts and a lot of assumptions.'

Facts
One of the few facts about Spore's system requirements is Will Wright's prediction that "If you can run Sims 2, you'll probably be abl to run Spore". [Citation needed]

When the game is first released, it will be available for Windows, Mac, Nintendo DS and mobile phones. While the DS and mobile versions are quite different from the "real" game, the Windows and Mac versions are nearly identical. The Windows version will be run on Mac using a wrapper that was developed by TransGaming Technologies, as reveal in an article by CNet.

Assumptions
Even though the minimum requirements will probably be pretty low, recent video's of the game in action show a lush environment and smooth graphics. This would indicate that Spore's graphics engine is remarkably scalable (in other words: it adapts to the system it is being run on). This would be consistent with the extensive algorithmic programming that is being used to create Spore.

It has been suggested that, because of the procedural nature of the game, the load on the CPU will be slightly higher that in similar games, while taking some (minor) load off the graphics card.

The CNet article that was mentioned above hints that Spore will use the DirectX graphics library. Since Spore will be available for Windows XP, it is reasonable to assume the game will use DirectX 9. The option of using DirectX 10 might be available. However, since the game is not bent towards realism, this is quite unlikely.

Known system requirements
The only things we know absolutely sure are:
 * Maxis will do everything it can to make Spore as scalable and 'light' as possible, so they can reach the largest public.
 * You will need an internet connection when installing the game, and 10 days after (because of the SecuROM copy protection).

Estimated system requirements
Based on the facts and some common sense, a reasonable set of minimal and recommended specifications can be compiled.

Minimal hardware specifications
Intel or AMD i586-compatible processor, 1,5Ghz or faster 512MB RAM or more nVidia Geforce4 or Ati Radeon 9800/X300 or better

Recommended hardware specifications
Recent Intel or AMD dual core processor 1GB RAM or more nVidia Geforce 7900 or Ati Radeon X1800 or better

The minimal specifications  would probably allow you to run the game, although it wouldn't look as smooth as the demo video's. Some of the more powerful on-board video cards (the ones with "shared memory"), like the Intel GMA series, might also be able to run the game.

Since in most demo's, the game seems to display in a resolution of 1920x1200, the recommended specifications  are a bit higher.

Disk space
An estimation as to the amount of disk space the game will take up is harder to make. As most of the game's content is procedurally generated from "description" files of 8KB each, "expanding" the game with extra content from the web won't take up much space. The game itself could take up anywhere between 1GB and 8GB. We'll just have to wait and see, but with the low prices of hard drives these days, this won't be a problem for many people.

Operating System
On the desktop/laptop computer side of things, Spore has been confirmed for Windows XP/Vista and for Mac OS. Because Spore will most likely use DirectX, you probably won't be able to run Spore on Linux at first. Cedega will certainly try to add support for Spore, but, as always, this will take time.