Although the minimum specs reported are rather vague for the video card, some sources indicate a video card with 1 GB should be sufficient to run Star Control: Origins (although not optimal).

I think buyers should beware: some older video cards are definitely unsupported, even if they do meet this 1 GB mark... my (admittedly 10-year-old, but formerly high-end) Radeon 4800-series, for instance; likewise the GeForce GTS 250. It looks like the solution is to buy a newer card, which I won't be doing any time soon.

No big deal, SC will just molder on my shelf, but I do wish the specs said something more substantial than the current "Intel Integrated 520 or equivalent". Equivalent in what way? No card not using the same chipset is going to be truly "equivalent" across the board. What are the actual requirements, what capabilities are needed to run this game?

I had the same problem. And I have the HD 520. Fully updated drivers, net, DX, running as an administrator and all the other 'do this first instructions'.


The weird part is, it was working last night. I played for about 4 minutes, turned it off so I didn't get sucked in and not sleep. Tried again this morning, nothing. Uninstalled, nothing, clean boot, nothing.

Disappointment,.

Post number one has a GPU that is as powerful as modern integrated graphics and post number two has a few years old integrated... The sad thing is, that you can expect most modern games not to work or demand lots of tweaking. Both of you, please consider getting a (newer) discrete graphics card. Of course, if you are on laptops or all-in-ones, you are left in the cold. Such systems have to be replaced more often than desktops because of their locked down nature.

Newer cards add new features that the new games then use. Operating systems add support for said features for a while but even that stops and you have to move to a more modern OS.

It is possible, that by turning off the correct feature(s) you can get the game to work. Not always can that be done in the normal settings but you may need to tweak some files.

. The game demands DX11. Your GPU only supports DX10.1. The world has since moved to DX12 and Vulkan.

. You, do you have enough RAM allocated to your integrated graphics?

.
-------
I used to own an HD 4870 with 512 MB VRAM once but felt it was too weak in 2012 already.

Thanks Themken,

DirectX makes sense,

Of course, I'll eventually upgrade - for now I'm just playing older games, there's still plenty in my library that runs well. I tend to upgrade when I have no choice, and for me, ST: Origins is not enough of a "must have" to drive that decision.

I would never have thought, back when I was playing SC2, that someday there'd be a Star Control that I wouldn't immediately upgrade my hardware for!

I have also had (not so right now) games waiting for when I have newer hardware. You know you can change just the graphics card if you are on a desktop, right?

Happy gaming! There are plenty of older games that are fun.

Oh yes, but I have no PCIe slots, only AGP - my next upgrade will be a major one.

Thanks, enjoy yourself.

AGP in 2020 :-O



________________
Maybe I should say here for others coming later that support for newer DirectX/Vulkan/OpenGL demand support from both hardware (your graphics card) and software (DX/Vk/oGL software). Sometimes there is partial support in hardware for one step later than the GPU (graphical processing unit = graphics card) so some games may work with lowering some settings.

For the record, I had 12GB RAM and Intel HD 520 a year or so ago and could run it perfectly on Win10. Haven't run it lately, in fact reinstalled my machine. Maybe a newer Win10 upgrade killed it, or you don't have as much RAM as I do? Running in some compatibility mode might help.

I'm not sure if I did something special to run it, maybe. I have a vague recollection of doing something "basic", not necessarily found in the forums but related to Windows itself and maybe some error message the game printed.

If Stardock ever releases the DLCs they promised for last year I will try again and update.