How do I go about selecting minimum GPU requirements for a video game a couple years out from release?

Question

How does one go about determining a good minimum GPU requirement for a game that development is starting on, that will be published in approximately 2 years?

On one hand, you want as many people as possible to be able to play it, but on the other hand, you want the capabilities to be as high as possible for a better experience. The higher the DX/GL API you can use also means some things will be much better optimized.

My current idea is basically to identify what GPUs of the past have done, over a two year period, and identify the best one at the moment that will more than likely be hitting the bargain bin at the expected release date.

Answer 1

Usually from my experiences, the minimum target hardware at release should be around the mid-range hardware from the point you start developing your game.

NOTE: Dont use that as an excuse for not optimizing. If your code is shitty but you say "yeah but it runs on a Titan which i set as my minimum Hardware" thats not how it works.

Try to optimize for current mid-range hardware, while testing and developing you will be able to get a feeling on if it works on lower end hardware or if the user will need something better in order to flawlessly play the game.

You can not 100% aim for your target hardware because you might really want to have one specific visual feel and you cant quite optimize it to run good on the hardware you had in mind, so this will have to be tested out at the point of release again.