Empire Total War system requirements

[Haudegen]

You definitely need a better graphics card. I tested the demo on a 8600 GT on medium/high settings and had <10 FPS. My CPU is roughly equivalent to yours.

Right now I have a 9600 GT and it runs way better.

You might as well go for a 9800 GT(X) or a Radeon 48XX, but these need much more power. I´d recommend them only if your power supply has 600 W or more. For example, my 500 W PSU couldn´t handle a RADEON 4850.

And doubling your RAM surely will help.

[a-e]

HI, i know nothing about computers for gaming but my specs are:

4gb 677mhz ram
2.4ghz dual core
8800m gtx
7200rpm hardrive
Vista

Will I be able to run this reasonably high? Thanks for your help

[Darklife]

You haven't said what OS you use, but should it happen to be a 64 bit one buy 2 more gigs of RAM. I'd recommend that you buy a new graphics card. I think the above comment about power usage for the 9800 GT( its actually just a rebranded 8800 GT) or the 4850 power requirements is overblown. I currently have a 600 W PSU and a GTX 280 and the power usage rarely jumps to 400.

[quadalpha]

Actually I realized the video card I mentioned is not AGP, and I think I need AGP, in which case for 512 MB I'm probably lmited to something in the GeForce 7300-7600 range. And ... having taken a quick look on google, it seems like most of the cards that are at least 512 MB and use an AGP slot are discontinued/out of stock. This probably means I can't upgrade my video card in my current machine.

In light of that, do you think it's worth it just to upgrade the memory? Would that alone be likely to make E:TW playable at low/medium? I'm hesitant to open up the machine myself, so I'd probably have to pay the Geek Squad at Best Buy to do it, so I'm probably looking at around $200 altogether for the new memory and the installation.

Thanks!

Lots of AGP cards on eBay.

Darklife: is there some software that lets you monitor your power usage?

[Darklife]

Sadly no, what I did is simply look at a card review, such as this one

GTX 280
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3334&p=9

4870 and 50
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3341&p=22

They're using a QX 9770 in there which is very power hungry. So unless you're using 4 hard drives and 4 optical ones there is no real risk of running out of power, provided you have something above 400 W.

[knoddy]

sooo upgrading my pc a little, wondering if i can run on high/ultra :D

amd 4800 dual 64 (cant remember the exact name lol)
ATI 4670 512MB
4gig ram
brand new 19 inch flat screen no more CRT! WOOOT


thoughts?

[Haudegen]

Sadly no, what I did is simply look at a card review, such as this one

GTX 280
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3334&p=9

4870 and 50
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3341&p=22

They're using a QX 9770 in there which is very power hungry. So unless you're using 4 hard drives and 4 optical ones there is no real risk of running out of power, provided you have something above 400 W.

Darklife,

I´m no technician, but I think you can´t take the numbers from these charts and simply compare them to the number on your PSU.

One week ago, I ordered a Radeon 4850 (1GB) from an online shop. On the box it read: over 500 W recommended.

I installed the card and it worked absolutely fine in 2D, but I couldn´t get any game with 3D graphics running. So I returned the card to the shop and got the 9600 GT, which works very well in my system.

Because of this, I started googling for the possible cause of the problem and I found that,

- PSUs only work with a certain degree of efficiency. That depends on the quality (price) of the PSU. The better ones deliver 80 % or more (of, say 500W) to the PC components. Other ones even less.

- it somehow depends on the electric current that the PSU can deliver on the 12 V line. There are usually charts on the PSU. Mine, for example has 19 Ampere. I´v read in a forum, that in order get a high end Radeon 48XX running, you´d better have 30 Ampere there.


So, what i`m trying to say is: Don´t expect too much from your old 500 W PSUs, like I did. If you have the chance to test a high end graphics card in your 2-year old system, then do it, but don´t be surprised if it doesn´t work properly.

[Vlad Tzepes]

You definitely need a better graphics card. I tested the demo on a 8600 GT on medium/high settings and had <10 FPS. My CPU is roughly equivalent to yours.

Right now I have a 9600 GT and it runs way better.

You might as well go for a 9800 GT(X) or a Radeon 48XX, but these need much more power. I´d recommend them only if your power supply has 600 W or more. For example, my 500 W PSU couldn´t handle a RADEON 4850.

And doubling your RAM surely will help.

Thank you, Haudegen. I'm with a 700 W power source, so that gives me some options. I'll go for an upgrade.

Later edit - hi, guys, just wanted to let you know that after a graphic card upgrade from GeForce 7600 to 9800 GTX the demo looks awesome on ultra (highest possible) settings, with all extra effects boxes checked.

[Barkhorn1x]

Just came into some $$ and can afford to spend approx. $200 to upgrade the old rig. Here are my specs.:

AMD Athlon 64 3500+ CPU
4GB DDR2 PC4200 Non-ECC Memory (4GB x 1)
MSI K9N Neo-F V.3 AM2 NVIDIA nForce 560 MCP ATX AMD Motherboard
Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
16X DVD+/-R/RW Dual Layer Drive w/Cyberlink
GeForce 8600GTS 512MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express (2 DVI)
Thermaltake Purepower W0100RU ATX 12V 2.0 500W Power Supp

Found an AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000 Dual-Core Processor on NewEgg for $88.00 - will that work with the mobo? And do you think I can upgrade my GPU (Nvidia only) for - say $120?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103272

Thoughts?

[knoddy]

ok i have a couple of tech questions for the computer savvy. i know wot im talkin bout most the time but ive had a few issues.

I upgraded my pc with a second 2 GiG stick of ram, a MSI 4670 512MB GPU. i also updated my power supply. and yet my performance has gone down. my pc is loading slower, and its performance is just alot worse than b4.

so my question is why? the only reason i can think of, is that my mate who is spose to be computer savvy said that the new stick of ram was faster than the older one, would this ruin the computers speed and performance?

also the only other thing is that i had alot of drama's updating the drivers but now they are up to date and its still chugging.

this is not just in game, windows takes ages to load, any game i try and play takes way longer than b4. let me know :)

Cheers knoddy

[ULC]

ok i have a couple of tech questions for the computer savvy. i know wot im talkin bout most the time but ive had a few issues.

I upgraded my pc with a second 2 GiG stick of ram, a MSI 4670 512MB GPU. i also updated my power supply. and yet my performance has gone down. my pc is loading slower, and its performance is just alot worse than b4.

so my question is why? the only reason i can think of, is that my mate who is spose to be computer savvy said that the new stick of ram was faster than the older one, would this ruin the computers speed and performance?

also the only other thing is that i had alot of drama's updating the drivers but now they are up to date and its still chugging.

this is not just in game, windows takes ages to load, any game i try and play takes way longer than b4. let me know :)

Cheers knoddy

Yes, at that point, it does sound like a RAM issue. It could be in my experience one of four things

1) The RAM is a different brand - different brands of ram can cause speed issues, since each company has their own tweaks.
2) Your Using RAM that is faster then the other RAM. Again, this can cause issues as the faster RAM scales down to sync with the other RAM.
3) Motherboard incompatibility - Some motherboards just do not like certain RAM, no matter what you do.
4) Not getting enough power - This is actually an issue on the motherboard, and it can be a short or one of the transistors has gone bad (have you experienced any crashes?)

Someone else may have another suggestion as well.

[quadalpha]

Try taking out your old stick of RAM and only use your new one.

[knoddy]

Yes, at that point, it does sound like a RAM issue. It could be in my experience one of four things

1) The RAM is a different brand - different brands of ram can cause speed issues, since each company has their own tweaks.
2) Your Using RAM that is faster then the other RAM. Again, this can cause issues as the faster RAM scales down to sync with the other RAM.
3) Motherboard incompatibility - Some motherboards just do not like certain RAM, no matter what you do.
4) Not getting enough power - This is actually an issue on the motherboard, and it can be a short or one of the transistors has gone bad (have you experienced any crashes?)

Someone else may have another suggestion as well.

hmm nope havnt been crashing, the ram is the same brand, the same size, just diff speeds.

my house mate says that it mite be a driver issue. cos i had several crashes installing the new drivers

ima try reinstallin the drivers after work, if that doesnt work, ill try taking a stick of ram out, finally ill formatt the pc heh.

[ULC]

hmm nope havnt been crashing, the ram is the same brand, the same size, just diff speeds.

my house mate says that it mite be a driver issue. cos i had several crashes installing the new drivers

ima try reinstallin the drivers after work, if that doesnt work, ill try taking a stick of ram out, finally ill formatt the pc heh.

Hmmmm...only when installing new drivers?

[knoddy]

Hmmmm...only when installing new drivers?

yes i had 3-4 hard locks while installing the new graphics drivers and also ive had a lot of sound driver issues. after i sucessfully installed my graphics ones. im thinking sometime this evenin, ima restart in vga mode, unistall my sound and video drivers and then reinstall them


any other suggestions

Cheers Knoddy

[Lord Godfrey]

Dell Studio Laptop
Intel Core 2 Duo T6400 @ 2.0GHz
4 GB Ram
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3650
Vista 32 bit

My only concern is the graphics card and what I can put into a laptop vs. desktop.

[knoddy]

just a quick update on my issues - pulled the older ram stick, made no diff, pc still takes n age to load, WoW which normally takes 10-15 secs to load the log in screen takes 1-2 mins im thinking its a driver issue so ima uninstall/reinstall my graphics drivers tonite.

Cheers Knoddy

[JeromeBaker]

Here are my system specs:

Processor: 1 x AMD Opteron 1218 Dual Core 2.6GHz
· Processor Technology: AMD PowerNow! Technology
· Bus Speed: 1000MHz
· Chipset: AMD 690G
· Standard Memory: 2GB
· Maximum Memory: 4GB
· Memory Technology: DDR2 SDRAM
· Memory Standard: DDR2-667/PC2-5300
· Hard Drive: 1 x 160GB Serial ATA/300 7200 rpm
· Optical Drive: DVD-Writer (Double-layer) - DVD-RAM/±R/±RW (Serial ATA)
· Controller: Quad-channel Serial ATA/300 PCI Integrated RAID Controller supporting 0, 1 RAID Level
· Graphics Controller: nVIDIA Quadro NVS 290 256MB DDR2 SDRAM PCI Express x16
· Network: Broadcom Netxtreme 10/100/1000Mbps Gigabit Ethernet IEEE 802.3ab PCI Express x1 Integrated
· Ports: 1 x 59-pin DMS-59 Display
· Operating System: Windows Vista Business

I got good advice to upscale the graphics card and was going to get a GeForce 9600 512 MB card DDR3. Can you guys tell from what I typed if the GeForce card will work with my setup/mb/and power supply. I know very little about computers and want to run the game on medium at least. Any suggestions are welcome.

[JeromeBaker]

also, should this set up be good enough to run the game on medium.... and maybe even high?

[Belgolas]

also, should this set up be good enough to run the game on medium.... and maybe even high?

Probably not high but medium it should do depending on the resolution. The GPU will work with you current system.

[Belgolas]

just a quick update on my issues - pulled the older ram stick, made no diff, pc still takes n age to load, WoW which normally takes 10-15 secs to load the log in screen takes 1-2 mins im thinking its a driver issue so ima uninstall/reinstall my graphics drivers tonite.

Cheers Knoddy

Your problem screams of bad drivers. But it can also be a lot of other things. If you went from an Nvidia GPU to an ATI GPU then there might be some part of the old GPU's drivers left. Easiest why to make sure you get everything right is to do a fresh install of the O.S. seeing as it could be a bunch of problems like spyware, bad drivers, etc. But if you don't want to do that then make sure you uninstall the drivers the correct way. First unistall them the normal way. Then when it asks you to restart do so. When loading windows back up go into safe mode and use a program called CCleaner to completely remove all the files. There is another step and that is to go into the registry and manually delete any part of the old driver, but if you delete something that you shouldn't have then you will be forced to reinstall windows.

If this doesn't help then I would do a fresh install of windows. And if that doesn't work then you might have bigger issues.

[Belgolas]

Just came into some $$ and can afford to spend approx. $200 to upgrade the old rig. Here are my specs.:

AMD Athlon 64 3500+ CPU
4GB DDR2 PC4200 Non-ECC Memory (4GB x 1)
MSI K9N Neo-F V.3 AM2 NVIDIA nForce 560 MCP ATX AMD Motherboard
Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
16X DVD+/-R/RW Dual Layer Drive w/Cyberlink
GeForce 8600GTS 512MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express (2 DVI)
Thermaltake Purepower W0100RU ATX 12V 2.0 500W Power Supp

Found an AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000 Dual-Core Processor on NewEgg for $88.00 - will that work with the mobo? And do you think I can upgrade my GPU (Nvidia only) for - say $120?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103272

Thoughts?

I am not to knowledgeable on AMD systems but it should work. Here it isn't on the compatibility list. http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p...odel=K9N_Neo-F

This is though....
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103210



You can get some nice GPU upgrades for that mobo for 120.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814187030

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814127406


and if you can afford a tiny bit more (less then half the cost of the game) you could get this..
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814187052

[knoddy]

Your problem screams of bad drivers. But it can also be a lot of other things. If you went from an Nvidia GPU to an ATI GPU then there might be some part of the old GPU's drivers left. Easiest why to make sure you get everything right is to do a fresh install of the O.S. seeing as it could be a bunch of problems like spyware, bad drivers, etc. But if you don't want to do that then make sure you uninstall the drivers the correct way. First unistall them the normal way. Then when it asks you to restart do so. When loading windows back up go into safe mode and use a program called CCleaner to completely remove all the files. There is another step and that is to go into the registry and manually delete any part of the old driver, but if you delete something that you shouldn't have then you will be forced to reinstall windows.

If this doesn't help then I would do a fresh install of windows. And if that doesn't work then you might have bigger issues.

nope didnt go from nvidia to ati, why would i buy that nvidia crap ;)


thanks for the help but ye this was basically my next steep. ima download CCleaner now, and uninstall them and reinstall hopefully it works!

Cheers Knoddy

[knoddy]

ok so ive reinstalled my drivers and it doesnt seem to have helped much at all but im not quite sure lol, it mite have helped a bit but still a bit off.

i have another theory tho, when i install the drivers i get a windows logo testing warning, saying my card isnt tested for XP, is it possible that my issues are stemming from the fact that im running XP for a DX10 card?

Cheers Knoddy

[Polemists]

For those of you considering a new pc, just a few pointers. I found these out when I looked couple nights ago, and it's been a while.

One: Don't buy alienware...not worth it

Two: The I7 is coming, and while not perfect it is supposed to provide more multithreading for games.

Three: If possible, go nvidia (i have nothing against Radeon, but most game companies seem to favor Nvidia)


The bottom line is, if you are planning a brand new pc, to last you 2-3 years, you are better off waiting another 3 months and spending 2k then spending 2k now and finding out in one year it's obselete.

The tech geniuses here could tell you what models work but if your like me and are getting store bought and not custom, your best bet is a desktop. The XPS's are good models and I have not heard many complaints.

Plus main benefit with a desktop is you can switch out the graphics card (it's not hard even I can do it) where as a laptop you can't.

[Barkhorn1x]

I am not to knowledgeable on AMD systems but it should work. Here it isn't on the compatibility list. http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p...odel=K9N_Neo-F

This is though....
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103210



You can get some nice GPU upgrades for that mobo for 120.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814187030

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814127406


and if you can afford a tiny bit more (less then half the cost of the game) you could get this..
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814187052

Thanks - great info.

[quadalpha]

Tried cleaning up with Driver Sweeper (http://www.phyxion.net/) before reinstalling?

[Lemur]

If possible, go nvidia (i have nothing against Radeon, but most game companies seem to favor Nvidia)

Really? Hard to favor Nvidia when ATI/AMD is putting out such compelling cards right now. I just upgraded to this, and it's cutting through my games like a hot knife through butter.

I think ATI owns the sweet spot on the price/performance curve right now.

[Eusebius86]

I have XP, 2GB RAM (1066 MHz), an EVGA 9800GT 512 MB, and a e7200 wolfdale dual-core (2.53 Ghz). I'm playing at high settings, 16x antistropic, low shadows, and 1440x900 resolution, and have no problems with fps. I haven't tried increasing graphics yet, because the game takes so long to load as it is, and I just want to play...

[Polemists]

Really? Hard to favor Nvidia when ATI/AMD is putting out such compelling cards right now. I just upgraded to this, and it's cutting through my games like a hot knife through butter.

I think ATI owns the sweet spot on the price/performance curve right now.

I'm certainly not going to argue that ATI has the price/performance advantage, espically since they arn't sold by most major main stream sellers.

However, it has sadly been my experience, back when I owened a ATI, that Nvidia graphically issues get addressed first, before ATI. As nvidia is a game sponsor many times.

If you look at Empire, nvidia is a sponsor.