No LOD files in 1st release = more usage of system RAM or video card RAM?

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

Hi Tux and other EB2 devs,

Question about having no LOD (level of detail) files in 1st release of EB2.

Which compensates more for the lack of LOD files:

1. More system RAM
or:
2: More video card RAM?

I'm trying to decide what to spend my money on for my new 'EB2' PC. Should I get 8 GB system RAM instead of 4 GB, or should I get a video card with 2GB RAM instead of 1GB? (Looking at the Geforce GTX 750 or GTX 750 Ti here.)

[Tux]

None, geometry occupies little space in VRAM, textures on the other hand do.
However since there's more geometry to render more operations will have to be done in the graphic pipeline, because of that it'll have an impact on performance.

To get an idea I have an HD 6850 1GB and get 20-30fps on the highest settings w/ the graphics mod.
So I would go for a better video card if you wish to do an upgrade.

[I_damian]

RAM is awfully cheap these days... couldn't you get a 2GB graphics card and 8GB of RAM? It's only about £20 per 2GB RAM.

[gstephenopolous]

Video card all the way. You have to remember Kingdoms is still a 32-bit application and extra RAM isn't going to help you much unless you're running 50 Chrome tabs in the background while you're playing the game. No LOD (sprites) means lots of extra processing for your CPU and your GPU. VRAM isn't going to help as much as better clock speed and more cores, thus more processing power, on the GPU, so keep that in mind. 750 Ti is a very good card for the money in this case.

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

Thanks - so a faster video card is better than one with more memory, then?

[Tux]

Thanks - so a faster video card is better than one with more memory, then?

Yes, better, faster, stronger.

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

Yes, better, faster, stronger.

Thanks. I could maybe stretch to a GTX 760, but it means giving up on an SSD drive and also the 760 is apparently very noisy in a mini-ITX case... which isn't good.

[Skald]

While im not an expert, honestly the biggest overall performance increase I saw in my last build besides the cpu was an ssd. Everything is sooo much more responsive and load times are minimal. If its only for gaming though and you don't mind load times go for the 760.