System Reqs - Come Bitch Here!

[TheVulture]

Originally posted by Becket:

Actually, overall performance will be limited by the worst performing of the critical parts: card, RAM, processor, etc. A cutting edge card in a PC with 512megs Ram and an ancient processor will have more trouble than a decent card in a beefier PC. Improving performance is about removing bottlenecks.

A small amount of RAM can be a huge bottleneck.

I remember the difference in play of some games when I upgraded from 256Mb to 1Gb ram - incredible.

My graphics card in undoubtedly the bottleneck in my laptop. So to what extent is the game playable with really low graphical settings is the question I guess.

BTW I lied - it's an FX Go 5300, not a 5200. Although I believe that is a modified version of one of their other chips used in laptops but not directly supported by nVidia.

[Ted]

I’ve been cruising with my machine for many years and have not been quite up on today’s Micros.

The game calls for:

Processor: Pentium IV 3.2 GHz or equivalent speed AMD processor or better

What would the equivalent Dual/Quad core be?

What processor right now would give the best "bang for the buck"?

[JaguarUSF]

I'm using an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200, and you can get one (according to Pricewatch) for around $140. I bought mine about a year ago and I like it.

[Pzman]

Originally posted by Ted:

I’ve been cruising with my machine for many years and have not been quite up on today’s Micros.

The game calls for:

Processor: Pentium IV 3.2 GHz or equivalent speed AMD processor or better

What would the equivalent Dual/Quad core be?

What processor right now would give the best "bang for the buck"?

Right now the Intel Core 2 Duo's are real screamers. Intel's Core 2 Duos are pricers than AMDs lineup but they are powerful chips and preform well. Keep in mind CMX2 games still only use 1 Core or CPU so a dual system is really no advantage unless you run a lot of background apps. If you want to save cash/have a limited budget go with a AMD system.

Speed wise, a 3.2Ghz P4 cannot be compared to the Core Duo systems. 1.83Ghz Core 2 Duo is most likely as fast as a 5.0+ Ghz overclocked P4.

[Hannibal]

Looking to buy new laptop Dell inspron 1720 .The Graphics card is the Go 8600M GT .How good is this card?

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Ted:

I’ve been cruising with my machine for many years and have not been quite up on today’s Micros.

The game calls for:

Processor: Pentium IV 3.2 GHz or equivalent speed AMD processor or better

What would the equivalent Dual/Quad core be?

What processor right now would give the best "bang for the buck"?

Since this game is not multithreaded, and neither is ToW, a dual-core is just as fast as individual cores.

The Celeron 440 is $66 at 2.0 GHz for a single core, and beats my previous P-4 2.8 GHz by 25% for most applications, range is 20-30%. That is at stock speeds, and mine overclocks by a factor of 1.7 without even trying hard.

Make no mistake, this is a Core2 based CPU, not some junk like the Netburst Celerons. It only has 512KB cache and hence breaks in for application like compilation, but it does very well for e.g. video encoding.

So that's a $66 CPU that easily does the above hardware requirements.

Problem of course is that mainboards for Core2 are more expensive, but Gigabyte DS3 variants can be had for $100.

Memory is as low at $60 for 2x1 GB now, but only for unregistered DDR2, which you can't use in AMDs before socket AM2. So you actually save some money on the memory front by getting rid of your DDR platform. AGP video cards are also a ripoff, PCIe is often much cheaper for the better cards, at same speed.