Nex Machina blasts in support for older CPUs
Blammo!
The many explosions of twin-stick shooter Nex Machina [official site] are a wonderful sight (in a wonderful game), and a treat all should be able to enjoy. Good news, gang: now more people can. Developers Housemarque have opened Nex Machina up to more older computers by removing the requirement that processors support SSE 4.1. If you're riding a hog that's more digestive-dunking framenudger than silicon-snorting framecrusher, you too may now be able to enjoy the ace action (and 'splosions).
As Housemarque said in the notes for Monday's patch:
"This patch will remove the SSE 4.1 requirement for CPUs. This means that older CPUs like Phenom II will start to work.
"We hope this fixes a lot of reported start up issues as according to Steam hardware survey there was about 10% of Steam users who couldn't run Nex Machina before this update."
They note that they are still investigating problems with startup and crashes. Fingers crossed they get things ship-shape, as the game is a corker.
Nex Machina is a collaboration between Housemarque and Eugene Jarvis, the co-creator of Robotron and Smash TV. It is good video games. As Fraser Brown told us in his Wot I Think:
"There will be more twin-stick shooters, probably excellent ones, but if time stopped and all we were left with was Nex Machina, then that wouldn’t be such a terrible thing. Housemarque and Eugene Jarvis have created something very special, and I suspect, enduring."
Blammo!