EVE Online drops old CPU support

By Robert Purchese Published 17 January, 2011

There's no space for it.

Tomorrow, around 1040 people will discover that space game EVE Online no longer works for them.

They represent 0.3 per cent of the game's population (1040 number calculated using creative director Torfi Frans Olafsson's revelation that there are 340,000 people subscribing to EVE). And it's they who are using computers with soon to be unsupported CPUs - processors.

"CPUs that don't support the SSE2 instruction set will not be able to run EVE Online after the Incursion 1.1.0 deployment on Tuesday, January 18, 2011," announced EVE developer CCP on its website. "This will cause players still using Intel Pentium 3 or AMD Athlon XP or older CPUs not to be able to run the EVE Online client. Athlon 64 CPUs are not affected."

CCP explained that during Incursion testing, a rare, random issue kept recurring, but couldn't be replicated in-house and therefore fixed. In an "epiphany", CCP realised a feature had been turned on to use the SSE2 (Streaming SIMD Extensions 2) mechanic - something first introduced to CPU chips inside the Pentium 4."

CCP concluded: "We've looked at hardware trend reports and the general status of the market and this obsolete generation of CPUs in desktop computers and gaming rigs is nearly extinct. We estimate that around 0.3 per cent of the playerbase will be affected.

"We have, therefore, decided to not let this block the deployment of Incursion 1.1.0.

"An info message that pops up when you start the client on a non-SSE2 capable machine has been added for clarification. We urge everyone who encounters this specific error to submit a petition to our customer support department."

Incursion paves the way for the huge Incarna (Walking In Stations) update, which is due this summer. The most eye-catching addition is the new character creation system, which knocks our space-socks off.

Full Incursion patch notes can be found on the EVE website.

EVE Online - Incursion.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (16) Latest comment 1 year ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • J0rdan_KZ #1 1 year ago

    They've kept support for Pentium 3's even up until now? That's some serious developer support. I'm surprised PC's this old are still working :D

  • Scopeh #2 1 year ago

    nooooooooooooo

  • telboy007 #3 1 year ago

    I'm really glad I put in that order for a new PC now, my dual boxing days are over until it arrives though! :(

    Farewell my Socket A / AGP gaming PC, you've done me proud over the years...
    Edited by telboy007 at 17/01/11 @ 16:26

  • Leolian #4 1 year ago

    Unlucky joe if you're reading this.

  • Felwyn #5 1 year ago

    It's not our fault if developers don't really give us anything worth having a xeon 8-core machine for.

    a solution would be to stop coding so well and start making redundant process saturate the cpu usage so that we think we need a new one.

  • GamesProgrammer Verified Games Team Programmer, Eutechnyx Ltd. #6 1 year ago

    Hope they all get refunds for any outstanding play time and there accounts paused until they are able to upgrade and play again.

  • drxym #7 1 year ago

    I doubt this applies here but I once worked for an investment firm where a number of customers complained that they couldn't run the new next gen replacement for an ancient trading app software on their PCs. The firm bought them new PCs just to be rid of the problem. At the end of the day it was cheaper to buy PCs for a handful of holdout customers than support two apps.

  • Sharzam #8 1 year ago

    Thats really impressive the fact people have stuff like the P3 and yet still play Eve. Its just such a lovley looking game if you spend any amount of time with it you really want to have a proper gaming PC to benefit from it.

    I think the best part about this is that CCP still keep upgrading regardless, whenever some new feature comes along like say direct x upgrade they find a way to use it yet you have some MMOs which are newer that never get the love same goes to blizzard to a lesser extent. Personally i think CCP could teach SOE a bit , everquest 2 i am looking at you and your bloated unrefined engine despite being 6 years old.

  • mashk #9 1 year ago

    I've got an old AMD 3000XP based machine knocking about at home : (

    I've never played Eve : )

  • 43n1m4 #10 1 year ago

    I had one of those affected CPUs... back in 2004. I'll live :)

    Btw. EVE is probably one of the best optimized games on PC, I can think of.

  • Lusterpurge #11 1 year ago

    Lol, so much for the PC master race huh? Consoles never have this problem. I bough a Sega Master System 25 years ago and I still can play Xbox 360 games on it.

  • trooperdx3117 #12 1 year ago

    Huh seriously why would people even have P3 processors, we had one back in 2000 and even then it was a bit crap really

  • cjs #13 1 year ago

    drxym: It applies perfectly well. In this case, CCP has to balance the revenue loss and cost of bad publicity and customer annoyance from dropping P3 support against the cost of maintaining it.

    I'm personally impressed that it's still actually playable on a P3. That's not exactly a new processor, and such systems are not likely to have a terribly fast graphics card, either.

  • levitate #14 1 year ago

    I succumbed to EVE Online just before Christmas and I recently resubscribed for another 30 days. It's a brilliant game, albeit tricky to get into it, the fleet battle against npc pirates I participated in last night was nothing short of epic. I'm a newbie though so everything that shines and/or shoots laser beams is epic for me at the moment. :)

    However, I'm sure my PC will still run the game when I come home from work. if it doesn't, I'll be the first one to buy a new computer.

  • edhe #15 1 year ago

    Good on them.

  • levitate #16 1 year ago

    @smuggo:

    +1

    I'm gonna join the EG channel as soon as I get home. Always forget eurogamer have their own homies in New Eden.