The Final End of Optimism . . .

[The Shadow One]

Okay, that crying sound you hear outside your window is the final death of optimisim.

You see, I first downloaded the demo to RTW. Holy St. Christopher, I thought, this is the game I've been waiting for all my life. Finally a real wargame set in Roman times with graphics to die for and on and on and on.

But the demo didn't run well on my laptop. After all, the game specs specifically say 64 mg graphics card. I had 16 mg. But, hey, I've always been an optimist.

Somehow, in my quest for eternal guidance (the kind you can only find on internet forums), I came across a post by a soothsayer who predicted the game would run a lot better than the demo on low tech machines like mine. Something about less frames per second or some nonsense. Like a lonely widow watching a late night evangelist, I wanted to believe. I needed to belive.

So, this morning, I did it. I went to CompUSA and laid down my 50 dollars for a game called Rome: Total War. I could barely take my eyes off the bright red package long enough to drive home. (I do seem to recall a couple of mysterious thuds . . . hmmmm?)

Shortly after I arrived, optimisim died her ugly, screaming death. To her credit, she lingered for about an hour and a half as drivers were installed and reinstalled and prayers were offered to a plethora of diety.

What did we, as game fans, learn from this situation?

If demo won't run on your computer, I truly doubt the game will, either. There are actually quite a few people who are saying otherwise but let's not be misguided. You will simply make Activision rich while adding yet another frustration (and a huge one) to your life. Then you'll make Raedon or some other graphics card company rich. Or, if your like me, you'll find yourself crawling the floor, looking for pennies within and beneath your furniture. When you finally scrounge together the total value of your life (a little less than a $125.00, you'll put in a call to tech support who will cheerfully tell you that your graphics card is integrated right into the damn motherboard. "It's simple really," the voice on the end of the phone will say. "Just buy one of our systems." For the first time, you'll realize while Dell sounds so much like Hell.

Optomism finally destroyed, you'll slowly walk to the gun cabinet to get the only thing your father left you -- a 9mm automatic -- so that you can rid the world of one more bleeding optimist.

Then, as you feel the weight of the gun in your hand, you'll remember that there's a 7-11 just down the street from where you live . . .

Hope does, indeed, spring eternal.

The Shadow One

[Colovion]

Sorry to hear that man. :(

Note to all those reading this thread:

get a system that can be upgraded - it may seem nice and cheap to get a quick computer that says "3Ghz!!" for 500 bucks but you're losing out in the end. I wish more people would see the pitfalls to buying packaged crap but the fact is that not all computers are purchased with gaming in mind.

Good luck, I hope you scrounge up the money.

[maestro]

Anyone who buys a none-custom PC without thought for the actual components with the intention of playing games wants their head seeing to.

[MikeC]

I'm sorry dude but the company posts min specs for a reason. And most of the time those min specs are just enough to run the game with every graphic option turned off.

[Degtyarev14.5]

Ahh wellll... You live and you learn.

First, you learn that any cheap PC is a piece of crap. (Not that an expensive one necessarily isn't.)

Then, ironically, you learn how to build quite a quite decent rig for the same price (or perhaps just a little more).

Heh, you've just reminded me of my first PC. It wasn't a pre-packaged PoS Dell, Compaq or anything quite that bad, but it was pretty bad!

And yes, it had integrated graphics. Because integrated graphics is a wonderful thing.

Read through some threads in the Apothecary, and you'll learn a lot about building a half-decent machine on a modest budget. It won't be state-of-the-art, but really, who needs state-of-the-art? My dream machine currently runs at 2.1GHz (CPU: Athlon 2800) with an ATI Radeon 9600XT video card. It is decidedly mid-range... But it does the job perfectly, and at an affordable price.

Ultimately, it all comes down to research and knowing the right people.

A.

[KukriKhan]

Well-written tear-jerker, The Shadow One...I for one, can empathize. Trying to sqeeze out 1 more productive year from my 2001 laptop (1G Athlon, 256 SDRAM, 8MB VidRAM, WinME) had me fiddling with all and any available settings, drivers, etc to get ready for R:TW.

I got the demo to 'work' (i.e. it does display, with every in-game setting turned off/down), but not well, so I don't hold much hope for the full game's functionality on this machine. But I know I'm going to upgrade as soon as it's financially practicable, so I'll get the game in anticipation of that future happy day.

Meanwhile, as a shot-in-the-dark, try some of these Microsoft suggestions for improved gameplay:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=263039
as you say: "Hope springs eternal". Good luck m8. And if you have success, please report back what worked.

[The Shadow One]

To all:

Thanks.

I'll take a look at the suggestions for improved gameplay, but I don't hold out much hope.

As far as the laptop goes, I didn't actually buy it. My employer bought it for me and then gifted it to me when they upgraded my work computer. At the time (3 years ago) it wasn't exactly cheap. It was about $1,500 new from Dell.

Granted, it was a different era. Full color flat screens and CD writers were all the rage. 256 RAM was recommended (I upgraded myself by adding the 512 strip). A 16 mg graphics card seemed more than enough to run my work applications AND my games. And, to be honest, it has worked for every game I've ever bought (understanding that it was NOT purchased to be game computer -- my employer likes me but not that much). This includes a variety of 3D games (e.g. Morrowind, etc.).

I probably will buy a desk-top machine sometime within the next 6 months. Something with a Pentium 4 3.0, 1 gig of RAM and 128 gig graphics card. But that's about $1,500 that I just don't have today (remember: my entire value was only about $125.00).

It's still a good computer. This is the first program that I've had any difficulty running.

BTW, while I probably do need to have my head examined (for a lot of reasons I won't go into), try finding a laptop without integrated parts. And my work requires a laptop.

But thanks for the comments and, if all else fails, there's still that 7-Eleven on the corner . . .

The Shadow One