What Kind of Specs Will I Get With My New PC?

[Siris]

Tonight I am ordering my new PC (at last!), so I was wondering if anyone here has spec's like I will, and if you do, what it is like with those specs?

AMD Athlon 64-bit 4000+
ASUS A8N SLI nForce4 Deluxe Motherboard
1GB Corsair XMS High Performance RAM
Nvidia 7800 GT 256MB PCI Express

I know that I will have maximum settings, but what about how many troops will I be getting on the field?

[gardibolt]

I'd get another gig of RAM if I were you, if you're wanting to have huge battles.

[Siris]

Oh if you didnt noice my motherboard, I at the moment cannot get the PC with the specs that it will have in the near future.

I have kept my upgrading options very open. I intend to upgrade in the near future to 2GB of Corsair XMS High Perfromance RAM, and a second 7800 GT on SLI.

Having said that, does anyone know for "sure" the amount of troops that I will be able to hold on the field with max settings?

[SirGrotius]

It'd be hard to say, I'd imagine that type of information would have to come from experience, and your system sounds very cutting edge.

What kind of monitor (and resolution) do you plan on having?

Unfortunately, the battles go by so fast you may not be able to enjoy to the fullest extent the beauty of the troops.

[SirGrotius]

Oops, repost.

[orangat]

Does huge army sizes take up alot memory? It doesn't seem to go outside of ~250Mb

And unless you are running memory at higher than pc3200 speeds save your money and get cheaper modules. Cosair value select might be a better buy.
The A64 doesn't get a relatively big boost from higher memory speeds anyway.

[tai4ji2x]

does increasing to 2GB RAM from 1GB really help that much?

[Siris]

Yes it does, however I am not sure how for this game, however in BattleField 2 for example, people who have upgraded from 1GB of RAM to 2GB of RAM have experienced a 30% increase in loading time of maps and a much smoother game play experience.

As for the RAM, I will be upgrading it to 2GB, of course I will, do you take me for an idiot! I first have to get a new job, and I'm sure as heck not waiting until I get a new one to get my PC! (ordered it earlier today)

As for getting "value" RAM, are you out of your mind? I need the performance, not cheap crap!

Yes I did go with a 7800 GT, but that is still one heck of a card!

I'm just curious as to what my max troop limit will be on the ground with the card.

On the family PC, I get around 6,500+ with max settings before the video starts to lag out, on these specs:

AMD Athlon 64-bit 3400+
Some ATI eMachines motherboard with a unused integrated X200
ATI Radeon X700 Pro 256MB PCI Express
1GB of "Value Cheap Mediocre RAM"

[x-dANGEr]

Their are many factors other than the number of troops. Like, if you pick 20 peasents unit, all un the hugest size available, put them all in one spot in the battlefield and game will start lagging. While if you spread them, you might not experience any lag.

[orangat]

..........
As for getting "value" RAM, are you out of your mind? I need the performance, not cheap crap!
.............

Well then pick out low latency sticks and/or overclock to jack up the htt to get some value out of your purchase.

[Siris]

I dont know how to overclock... yet.

But I am about to learn!

Any recommended websites? I do not plan to overclock them horrendously, just enough to get a nice increase in performance without having to worry about any sort of damage, trouble, or issues with them.

[orangat]

Getting expensive high bandwidth sticks would be wasteful if you are just running them at stock speeds hence my recommendation to stick with cheaper memory (cheaper does not mean crap!!!). If you don't want to overclock get low latency 2-2-2 modules instead.

[sik1977]

As for getting "value" RAM, are you out of your mind? I need the performance, not cheap crap!

Yes I did go with a 7800 GT, but that is still one heck of a card!

I'm just curious as to what my max troop limit will be on the ground with the card.

On the family PC, I get around 6,500+ with max settings before the video starts to lag out, on these specs:

AMD Athlon 64-bit 3400+
Some ATI eMachines motherboard with a unused integrated X200
ATI Radeon X700 Pro 256MB PCI Express
1GB of "Value Cheap Mediocre RAM"

Take oragat advice with respect to RAM. Corsair Value Ram at 2.5-3-3-8 isnt all that much slower then an extremely expensive 2-2-2-5 module. The difference can mean a 7800GTX as compared to the 7800GT. And I can bet my own rig that the 7800GTX with the Corsair Value Ram will be faster. Also the new Athlon64's (Sandiego or Venice cores) have very efficient memory controllers and thus you will not find much difference in performance when using Value Ram with Athlon64 as you may if you used it with a mediocre Motherboard with Intel Processor (which still uses legacy front side bus architecture).

Anyhow, as to your original question. I have the following setup:

Athlon64 3700+ (Sandiego core) (Stock)
MSI K8N NEO4 Platinum Motherboard (Nforce 4 Ultra chipset)
Asus EN7800GTX TOP (486/1350 Factory OC)
1GB Corsair Value DDR400 Ram (2.5-3-3-8)

For reference sake, I get a 3dMark05 score of 8550 with my system with everything at Stock. The 7800GTX is factory OC from 430/1200 to 486/1350.

You'll be surprised that on Large Unit settings, with everything on MAX, High AA I also only manage between 6500-7000 in Custom Battles. I have a DELL Laptop with a P4 3Ghz, 512MB Ram, Mobility Radeon 9700 and it also manages 6500 or so units on max settings, low AA, large unit size.

But otherwise the game runs so much nicer with my new system as compared to the DELL Laptop i used to play RTW on. The Frames per second are much better, but nothing to brag about (I use FRAPS to check RTW frame rates).

Anyhow, My final suggestion is to up the 7800GT to a GTX, even if you have to get cheaper RAM, not just for RTW, but for any other games you may be playing or play in the future.