Alpha & Benchmark Tool For Stardock's SupCom-like RTS Ashes Of The Singularity
DirectX 12-o
Ashes of The Singularity [official site] is the Stardock-published, Oxide-developed uber-RTS in which you control thousands of units. I can barely keep control of one toddler and one cat, so I'm already scared. Apparently the trick is to "build "meta-units" that act together as a single, coherent, massive unit" though, so I guess I'll try a cut'n'shut on my household's junior lifeforms and see if it works out. Anyway, this 'first 64-bit RTS' looks pretty spectacular, but the finished version is a long way off and specs look a little scary to anyone with a humbler PC. A paid alpha's been available for a couple of months, but it's now joined by a benchmarking tool with which you can a) splatter pretty scenes all over your screen and b) compare genital sizes.
We didn't cover the alpha release in June, so I'm doing that now too. You'll have to cough up a minimum of $45 to get into it, with all the usual 'pre-ordering can be a mug's game' caveats that entails, but you get access right away, and it'll be upgraded to the full release (via Steam) whenever that happens. Right now, the alpha includes "Skirmish mode against a basic scripted opponent (true AI opponent is yet to be implemented)l 1v1 Multiplayer; 3 small-medium size maps that can be played in either Single or Multiplayer."
Before you even think about giving it a go, you should probably look at these specs:
Absolute Minimum:
64-bit Windows 7 / 8 / 10 OS
Quad Core CPU
8 GB Memory
2 GB DirectX 11 Video Card
1920x1080 Display Resolution
High-speed Internet ConnectionWe Recommend:
64-bit Windows 7 / 8 / 10 OS
i7 (or equivalent) CPU
8 GB Memory
4 GB DirectX 11 Video Card
1920x1080 Display Resolution
High-speed Internet Connection
Yep, that's 1080p, quad core and 8GB RAM just to get through the door. Bloody hell, this thing isn't taking any prisoners, is it?
Let's take a look at the purported pay-off:
Crikey. That is a lot of things. In a perfect world this is spiritual Supreme Commander a whole bunch of people have been praying to their giant iron gods for, but time will tell.
As for the benchmarking tool, that's out as of today. You'll notice a lot of DX12 talk flying around, which necessitates Windows 10 right now. Hoever, "While the game is optimized for DirectX 12, users with DirectX 9, 10, and 11 will be able to run the benchmark."
There are also ultra-mega-everything upgrades for the so-called Founder's Program, if you're Richy McRich-Rich and can't live with the idea of not having absolutely everything.
Hopefully an RPSer will find their way onto the alpha soon, and we'll have more to tell you. Meantime, click to embiggen the screenshot at the top of this post and prepare your most heartfelt 'cor blimey!'