The "Would my PC be able to run M2TW?" thread (all such queries here pls)

[AlJabberwock]

King,

If I recollect, the x1300 256 is a recent, but not most recent gen ATI product. I will have a look at the supported API and pixel pipelines. If its Shader 2 or better and decent pipelines, its probably ok... I can't edit my posts here so I will respond below.

Also in my post above, I inadvertently referred to the "NVidia 7950gtx" - a card that does not at this time exist. Although later in my post I got it right, it is called the 7950gx2 (a two-chip vid card that allows up to 4 GPUs to be used when in SLI mode with dual cards... wacky!)

AlJabberwock

[hoom]

x1300 is 4 pipes at 450mhz so somewhat less than the power of a radeon 9700pro (8 pipes at ~300mhz).
If its the Pro, its 600mhz so up there with a 9700pro

[AlJabberwock]

King,

The X1300 comes in a few different flavors so I cannot be certain exactly what is supported in the version you have, but the ones I scoped had Shader 3.0 and Open GL 2.0 which is GOOD (mostly -although I saw a few that only had shader 2.0 and Open GL 1.5).

It only has 4 pixel pipelines in all the versions I saw which is similar to 6200's and FX or 5000 series NVidia cards, but not quite as good as, say the NVidia 6600 which has 8, but had the same GL and Shader model support as the better 6600s. Pixel pipelines can impact speed when large quantities of data need to be transmitted so having only 4 is not good, but makes it at least tenable that the card could function well enough not to look for the sledgehammer...right away at least The clock and corespeeds I saw were reasonable, and the card should allow you to at least look at the demo unless it is some very budget version of the x1300.

The rest of your machine, uh, well 512 Ram will "technically" work, again, its borderline.

A 2.8 ghz CPU is ok, but we need to know what kind. A kind poster earlier listed CPU types that support SSe2, which appears to be needed to run the demo, if not the game, and the SSE2 thingy notwithstanding, 2.8 on an AMD is one thing whereas on an Intel it is something entirely different. If an Intel, it is also probably "ok" but you will simply have to try it out or wait for more definitive info from CA which appears not to be forthcoming before Monday next, the 16th.

Wait as long as you can, as both seriously superior CPUs and Vid Cards have and/or should experience sharp falls in price. CPUs because of the price wars between Intel and AMD over dual-core chips and the vid cards because of the new version of DirectX about to relegate current cards to the has-been category.

Cheers!

AlJabberwock

[hoom]

I'll play ATI advocate.
0 intent to initiate flames/debate (which should probably be done either here or here (not too sure of the latter, I haven't ventured in there personally)), and with maximum intent to provide useful info as per Jabberwocks' excellent & informative post I'll follow his format.

First & foremost, this is very true:

Buy an upper-end product from either maker and you will probably be quite satiesfied if it represents a significant step up from where you are.

Now a general note on generation and high/low end:
There is a really really wide range of cards out there on sale, differing in both generation and top-bottom end and there is huge overlap between them.
At the top (expensive) end which I will be mainly dealing with, each new generation brings roughly twice the power of the previous generation.
This is not the case at the cheap end where even the 7th generation is not very much more powerful than a (similarly priced) mid-low 4th generation.
In the mid-price range there is a significant increase in performance resulting in new generation mid-upper range being often not far short of or better than the previous generation top end.
At the mid-upper end, you should be mostly concerned about what (high) resolution & the level af AA/AF you will be using.
At the bottom end, the pure mathematical power is generally more important than features since this end is maths/resolution limited.
For those looking to compare their current graphics card with the current state of the art in terms of raw performance, see this (some would call this site ATI biased but I believe this chart is about as comprehensive & unbiased as they come in terms of pure technical details)
For a fairly comprehensive suite of practical benchmarks (but not taking into account AA/AF qualitative differences), see here, here and here (though unfortunately, its seperated between PCI express & AGP for reasons only known to tomshardware...)

Card "generation"
ATI generation 4 is 8500pro, its roughly equivalent to a 4xxx series NV card (xbox has a GPU somewhere between the 3 & 4 generation), some would say more advanced but slightly inferior in total performance
The 9000, 9100 and 9200 fit within this generation rather than the generation 5 proper, they are basically just 8500s with a different name.

Generation 5 is the legendary Radeon 9700/9800 series.
These cards are probably the best GPUs ever, they span the period from basic fixed function 3D acceleration to the current era of programmable effects like a colossus
At the time, they were twice the power of a Geforce 4 and completely outclassed the Nvidia generation 5 at shaders while being more than a match in pure horsepower for older stuff.
So outclassed were the FX cards that Nvidia was reduced to blatant and at times very visible benchmark cheating to try to seem competitive.
My 9800 lasted me from Unreal Tournament 2003 at 1024*768 with 6*AA and 8*AF clear through RTR at 1920*1200 with most settings maxed, huge armies & 2*AA/8*AF (albeit it choked somewhat in the bigger battles) up to playing Battlefield2 at 13something*1024 with 2*AA & 8*AF.

ATIs 6th generation was a bit of a letdown, while Nvidia did a complete rebuild of their architecture, providing real shader power and introducing shader 3.0, ATI did little more than simply double the functional units on the 9800.
This gave the x800 series technically better overall power but a bit outdated tech wise.

For the 7th generation, Nvidia refined their successful 6th generation (slightly modified chip will also be used for PS3) while ATI bought out the x1800/x1900 series which are a big improvement on the x800 series with shader 3.0 support and some fairly advanced internal architecture (but while more powerful in pure maths terms, technologically inferior to the chip they did for xbox 360).
The x1900s are arguably excessively light on texture ability compared to maths but make more efficient use of this, while the 6/7 series of Nvidia cards has some maths units that do double function for textures which means that while maximum maths abilities are similar, in practice, maths is roughly halved because those units will mostly be doing texture.

The 8th generation is due to debut next month for Nvidia and early next year for ATI, they will be absolute computing monsters! (and very power hungry )
The particularly good thing about this for those looking to upgrade soon is that the current generation of cards should shortly be becoming much cheaper
The bad thing being that you'll then need to weigh up whether you want the lower grade new generation at equivalent price-point with new features or the current generation with more power.

Card Interface type
If you are looking to upgrade GPU for an AGP motherboard, you'll be quite restricted in what you can buy in terms of graphics card updates on AGP.
Also, there are at least 3 different versions of AGP, before purchasing make sure that the graphics card you are looking to buy is compatible with your motherboard.

Card Memory
The only thing I have to add here is that 512MB is of no particular value if you are running anything less than say 1600*1200 & that with heavy AA/AF.

Non Vid Card hardware
Important! Before going out to get that 1GB stick of RAM, make sure that your motherboard can handle it!
Older mobos may be only able to handle 512MB sticks (or even 256MB for the really oldies).
From personal experience, its helluva PITA to get home, plonk in that RAM & find that your PC won't boot now
Also, its my understanding that Pentium 4s are happier with 4*256MB than 2*512MB.

Another thing, if getting a fairly high end graphics card, its important to have a good powersupply.
With a weak powersupply, you may find that your PC will freeze/semi-randomly reboot and you face the (fairly unlikely) possibility of frying your PC altogether.

AA & AF
(note, some people don't see the difference between AA/AF enabled and no AA/AF, others go 'ugh' instantly they see no AA/AF.
Also, depending on DPI & other hardware factors, some people will prefer a higher resolution with lower/no AA/AF over a similarly performing lower resolution with higer AA/AF)

Anti Aliasing is blending of the edges of objects to reduce the 'stepping' eg with a not quite vertical phalanx spear.
ATI has generally had better AA than Nvidia from generation 4 onwards. ATI haven't really changed anything since the 9700, while Nvidia have been progressively improving performance & quality to the extent that in the current generation, at 2*, ATI is a bit better, 4* is roughly a draw (& generally the best quality/performance for both).
ATI still maxes at 6* while Nvidia has several exotic levels above 4* but with significant performance expense.
This latter is primarily where the SLI/GX2 setup comes in to play, particularly at high resolution (more on this further on).

Anisotropic Filtering is taking extra samples of the textures to remove the blurring of textures in the distance eg the horizon in Grassy Flatland custom battle map of RTW.
Leadership here has flip-flopped over the generations.
With the 9700, ATI cut some corners but had sufficient raw power to have a net better quality than Nvidias ostensibly more correct method (this being one of the bits where Nvidia did blatant cheating to try to catch up).
In the 6th generation, ATI still used the same level of corner cutting as the 9700 while Nvidia followed suit but more agressively.
In the 7th generation, ATI has reintroduced more mathematically correct filtering (with some smart algorithms that cut corners in places where it should never be noticed) but Nvidia still uses heavy hardware corner cutting that can often be seen.

Resolution
This is an often missed aspect.
There is no point having a 7950GX2 if you only have a 19" monitor that runs only 1280*1024 (unless you intend to upgrade the monitor some time soonish).
The GX2 is a fillrate beast that can crank out 4*AA & 16*AF at crazy high resolutions like 2560x1600 with all settings maxed in much more computationally demanding games than M2TW will be.

My mid-high range x1900GT can handle new games like Prey and the upgraded Half-Life2 engine with HDR etc at 1900*1200 with 4*AA/8*AF without problems, while my 9800 was still generally good for 1280*1024 with 2*AA & 8*AF in most games.

Scaling factor is very important regarding resolution.
The number of pixels increases exponentially when you increase resolution!
ie: 1024*768 is 786,432 pixels that need to be calculated per frame.
1280*1024 is 1,310,720
1920*1200 is 2,304,000
and 2560*1600 is 4,096,000!!!
So if you run a medium resolution, you can get away with a much less powerful GPU than if you try to run a higher resolution.
Or, if you don't care too much for the 'pretty effects', you should be able to handle a higher resolution with various effects disabled.

Summary and Shameless Opinion
Because I am one of those that go 'ugh yuck' at no or poor AA/AF I went for an ATI X1900GT for my recently procured major upgrade because while the equivalent Nvidia card (7900gt) is a bit 'faster' on benchmarks, the ATI card does it with (depending on whether you see it or not) better quality at hardly any practical performance decrease.

The following is some more general info about effects that may answer queries earlier in the thread regarding M2TW optimisation (bearing in mind that I'm looking at this from a high resolution, powerful machine):
HDR/Bloom
Bloom is roughly speaking, poormans/Fools Gold HDR.
Proper HDR is where you render the scene with a higher maximum brightness/darkness than the monitor can actually display at once, enabling a good emulation of your eyes adjusting to sudden brightness changes eg dark->bright or bright->dark.
The classic live rendering example of true HDR can be found here

Bloom is the colour blurring seen in the M2TW demo, its a lot easier to do in terms of maths power & gives one of the main visible effects that a proper HDR implementation provides in that the colour blends somewhat but its not really anything like real HDR.
Its also a(n all too) common method used by game developers to cover art/detail weaknesses with an "Oh wow" feature...
Turning it off will deliver some level of performance improvements but probably not too much.
Some people just find it Blooming ugly.

Shadows
Shadows have been & will continue to be one of the major performance bottlenecks of 3D games.
If you are lagging, probably the first thing to decrease/disable should be shadows.

Grass/Unit Detail
Lower these a bit & you should get some performance increase for minimal visible difference.
In RTW, on max setting, this forces your PC to render every soldier/tree as a 3d object, on lower settings, the max polygon 3d object is replaced at increasingly close distances with first lower polygon, then (STW/MTW style) 2D sprites.
With my x1900gt & 2.4ghz Core2 Duo at 1900*1200 with 2*AA/8*AF, I'm running medium vegetation/high unit detail on the demo & even in RTW I keep them on one step down from max.

I think I'm done with editing now.
... a bunch of edits later... ok maybe now.

[fruitfly]

I'd just like to say thanks to Jabberwock and hoom for those informative GPU guides. That's definitely the area where my hardware knowledge is sketchiest.

Also, that's a major relief reading that CA have sorted out SSE compatability for the finished game. Since I'm only an SP player, I'm hoping to be very happy now.

[JR-]

Thanks a lot for the response, Peregrine.

Alright, on the GPU then, the other thing I was looking at was a 1GB NVIDIA GeForce 7950 GX2 Dual-GPU Graphics Card for about $550 on tigerdirect.com. Have you heard anything negative about it, or is that a pretty good deal? I tried to check it out, but all I understood was that 1GB is a big number for a graphics card. Also, if I get the 7950, I'd still have the ATI that I could sell or something.

my 7950GT is enough to run the game maxed out at 1920x1200, so you won't need any more power than that for M2:TW.
better still, a 7950GT/X1900GT? can be had for as little as £170 ($275?)

if you want to spend $550 i would wait for November and get a nVidia 8800GTS.

[JR-]

I would suggest the 7900GTO which is a 7900GTX underclocked card which you can overclock if you so wish, it costs almost half the price of the GTX so its a good deal and a great card. Depending where you are from prices may vary but i reckon it will be cheap:er then the SLi card atleast heh..would fit teh rest of your set up good.

Btw you could always wait until mid november and go for the new nvidia DX10 cards :D heh

agreed, the GTO is very good value right now.

[Monarch]

Would My Radeon X1300 256MB Card be ok? it can Run BF2, which is 1.5 GHz,512 RAM (comp is 2.8 GHz,512 RAM) with no ploblems. I have about 10-15 seconds of lag at start of a MP game,then it goes fine. SP game on BF2, no ploblems at all..

Whats your internet connection? Lag can be caused by that, so ye, whats your internet?

[Jagger]

I have an AMD Sempron(tm) Processor 3200+, MMX, 3DNOW, 1.8ghz.

Will my rig run SSE2? Will it run the game?

I bought a very good video card last weekend. But I have a month to return it if my computer won't run MTW2. If it won't, I will return the card as I don't need it for any other games.

So will my AMD Sempron run the game?

[Belgolas]

If you are going to upgrade the whole system I would wait. DirectX 10 and next gen GPU's are coming out soon(When ever Vista is realesed). Also if you are going to get a dual core CPU then wait till the end of the year when Quad Core CPU's come out and half the price of dual cores. Just a warning because if you spend a lot of money now on a GPU you will not get DX 10 . Wait!!!

[Eaglefirst]

IF you turn off shadows even an old machine can run m2tw fast. I have a 2.8 ghz pentium, 1 Gig O' Ram and an overclocked 9700pro and can run high texture, high unit detait, PS2.0 with Bloom and Reflectionls and everything else on medium except TURN SHADOWS OFF. The shadows bog the computer down badly. Also I would make an effort to set tectures too high at all costs as the units are ugly with low/medium textures. Overall I'm surprised my old machine can run the game on high/medium with 1280x1024 and I'm sure the real game will run much better after they optimize the code. Just remember High Textures and No Shadows.

[Chad]

Whats the diff in all the high's in unit details??

[Belgolas]

Well I did some more test and with my
2.8 ghz pentium D
533 mhz front side bus
3gig ram DDR2 533 mhz
Saphire X700

Unit detail High, no shadows and everthing esle max settings with no lag. I am Very Happy. For some reason M2TW runs better than RTW can someone explain that?

[Wardo]

Whats the diff in all the high's in unit details??

Distance in which 2D sprites become low polygon 3D models and finally high polygon models.

Going over high just increases this range, the detail at the closest unit is already as high as it gets.

[Grimmy]

Just downloaded and ran the demo on the Pavia battle as the Holies.

System: Winxp sp2, AMD Athlon 64x2 Dual Core processor 4200+, 1.0Gig ram, GeForce 7800GT.

All settings to highest.

I noticed nothing I'd complain about as far as lag goes but was playing with few units. For larger battles, I can see maybe needing to turn down to medium on some things.

I also had everything set to best quality on my vid card. Monitor is 19" flat screen and res was set to highest pick in the game setting which I belive was 1280 x 1024.

[Belgolas]

For people looking to upgrade wait until the end of november. Nov 8th the first Dx10 GPU with Shader model 4 is going to be out from NVidia 8800. Also Quad Cores are comming soon so that will drop the price of the dual cores.

For the info on the new GPU

http://megagames.com/news/html/hardw...gtsspecs.shtml

[Kourutsu]

ALright, I plan to upgrade my Radeon X600, to an X1600.

The only problem is that there are two. An AGP, and an Express.

Which one should I get?

[AlJabberwock]

K,
If you are buying it for your current mobo (motherboard) its probably an AGP you want since your present board is probably with an AGP slot. Open your case and look in to where your vid card is. If it is off to one side and is stuck in a brown colored slot, its AGP. Now you have to figure out if its AGP8x , 4x, or youch!, a 2x... Look up your mobo maker on the web for your specific mobo if you dont have the manual anymore... Look in the specs and it will tell you what the agp slot speed is. Get the AGP card that is appropriate based on that spec (probably 8X if you had a 600 but ya never know). On the other hand most cards can operate in the slower modes, its just a shame to pay for it and not get the maximum performance...


If you want to upgrade your whole sys, get the PCI-E card, and a mobo with PCI-E. All your future cards WILL be PCI-E ...RESISTANCE IS FUTILE!

Cheers!

Al Jabberwock

[AlJabberwock]

Thanks Fruitfly and thanks to Hoom for picking up where I missed some important details!

Special vid card plugs
I would like to underline his emphasis on power supplies... If you get a bigger vid card, especially the last two generations, they need more power and in fact, 6's and 7's and generally their ATI equivalents, all need THEIR OWN POWER CONNECTION TO YOUR POWER SOURCE! Yep, they have plugs and you have to get the appropriate plug from your power source to fit into them. While the older ones can use the generic 4-prong plugs that come with most power sources, newer NVidias in the 7000 series require specialized 6-prong plugs from the power source. Trust me, if you have anything more than a year or so old for a power source, it doesn't have those plugs and you are going to have to buy a new power source if you buy a 7th gen vid card... (On the other hand you will probably have to buy a new mobo too since 7s don't come in AGP either, so you might as well do the whole sys...).

Another power source item to consider if you are upgrading or rebuilding your system with new components...

Power Source Rating
New vid cards are energy hogs in a very specific range... You can get a monster power source with 6 or 700 watts and still be power starving your system because it isn't getting enough _+12v_ power. New and newer cards can require anywhere from 6 to 12 amps (or more!) each of power in the +12v range, and the trick is, your mobo needs around 11 amps in the SAME range - yep, +12v!! This means you are looking not only at the number of watts the power source is putting out, but depending on the power needs of your card (or cards if you run dual cards in Crossfire or SLI) and mobo, you need to get a power source with a +12v rating that in total is MORE than sufficient for what you are going to be having on that system.

For example, if you are planning to run a dual card set up with two current gen 7900GTXs, or X1900XTs, you will probably need about 24 amps just for the vid cards and another 10 or 11 for the mobo... This for me, means a total of at least 36 amps in the +12 volt, and I would go for more... Without getting into the whole active/passive PVC thing , just keep in mind that power sources (no matter how good they are) experience fluctuations in the power they draw on and in the power they supply, so the wattage and the amps _fluctuate_ around the max they can theoretically provide... So if you need 500 watts, have a 700 watt minimum, and if you need 34 amps in the 12 volt, get 36 or more if you can...

Being Cheap with the Power Source
In case you are feeling cheap when you get down to that pesky power source question as you finish up your buy for your upgrade or new system... Keep in mind insufficient power will - in its most benign form - merely cause your video output to be poor, dark, full of artifacts (weirdness that doesn't belong there), stutter, be incoherent, or go black... This is the benign form. In its malignant form it can either in conjunction with these effects or without showing these effects either quickly or slowly destroy your mobo, vidcards, and any other components in the system... Power systems for non SLI and Crossfire can be had online for reasonable sums, usually less than the cost of a night at the club. Anybody you meet at the club will just yell at you to come to bed when you would rather be playing M2TW anyway, so quit your complainin' and save the beer money for a night!

Al Jabberwock

[Jagger]

I have an AMD Sempron(tm) Processor 3200+, MMX, 3DNOW, 1.8ghz.

Will my rig run SSE2? Will it run the game?

I bought a very good video card last weekend. But I have a month to return it if my computer won't run MTW2. If it won't, I will return the card as I don't need it for any other games.

So will my AMD Sempron run the game?

So does anyone know if my rig will run MT2?

[ToranagaSama]

Hello all,

I believe that this thread would be more useful to everyone and particularly the developers if we all adopt some useful disciplines when posting.

First, everyone should run Fraps when playing the demo, Fraps is software that will show your Frames Per Second when playing.

http://www.fraps.com/

Just saying the game runs fine or smooth really doesn't provide much info. We all need to know what average FPS you're getting on your system to do a good comparative.

Second, everyone needs to post their system specs: Operating System (and version) and of course, CPU, GPU, RAM, etc.

Third, we need to know your game Option settings. Without this everything is meaningless. If you go into the Demo folder and open the file, "medieval2.preference.cfg" with your text editor---Notepad will do---scroll down to the heading: [video]. These are your game option settings. Please copy and post this info.

One thing in particular that is important to know is your "battle resolution". Your resolution will have a significant effect on your FPS. This is one reason why some people are running the game fine and others are not---not everyone is using the same resolution.

It's also quite important whether your monitor is an LCD or CRT. Most LCDs will inhibit the resolution you can play at and your FPS as well. Some of the newer *quality* monitors do a much better job for games that require a high FPS.

Here are my settings:

[video]
anisotropic_level = 0
anti_alias_mode = off
antialiasing = 0
assassination_movies = 1
autodetect = 0
battle_resolution = 1024 768
bloom = 0
building_detail = low
campaign_resolution = 1024 768
depth_shadows = 0
depth_shadows_resolution = 0
effect_quality = normal
event_movies = 1
gamma = 99
infiltration_movies = 1
no_background_fmv = 0
reflection = 0
sabotage_movies = 1
shader = 2
show_banners = 1
show_package_litter = 0
skip_mip_levels = 0
splashes = 1
subtitles = 0
terrain_quality = custom
texture_filtering = 1
unit_detail = higher
vegetation = 1
vegetation_quality = low
vsync = 0
widescreen = 0

Here is my system:

Abit IC7-G
Pentium 2.4c (12x250 1:1)
Thermalright XP-94 (Vantec Tornardo 92mm ~3000rpm)
ATI Radeon 9700 pro (357/343.5)
2x512 MB Corsair XMS 3200XL (2.5-3-3-5)
Addtronics 7890A (modified by www.coolcases.com)
Cornerstone p1700 (21")
Win2000pro SP4

For playing games, I usually overclock (though I didn't have to for RTW). With my first go round with the demo I did not overclock. Above are my normal overlcock settings (for Far Cry, I may pump up the settings for the GPU and RAM a wee tad). For those of you not familiar with overclocking, running my CPU at 12x250 1:1 equates to 3.0 Ghz. I can push it to about 3.3; with better cooling (and a bit of RAM tweaking) it can go to about 3.8.

As I said for the Demo, I did not overclock, running my CPU and GPU at their normal speeds. Normal speed for my RAM is 2-2-2-5. Also, I believe, Windoze is controlling my Swap File.

To get the Demo to run fairly smooth, I had to drop the resolution from 1600x1200 to 1280x1024 and finally to 1024x728 and put most things to low.

texture_filtering = 1
unit_detail = higher

I did not run Fraps, so I can't give a FPS average. The game was very playable and fairly smooth. Though, I had a bit of an issue scrolling the screen with the mouse. Using the keypad wasn't a problem. Might be a code issue, not sure.

Later tonight I'll run overclocked as above, and I'll use Fraps and report back.

My goal will be to get an average FPS between 30 and 60 (and hopefully with FEW drops below 30). I want to do this with the game options, generally at Medium settings, except Unit Detail which *must* be at highest; and Textures at high, along with Trilinear filtering. I'm fairly confident I can do it. I used to run Far Cry at virtually the highest settings with similar frame rates.

I'll also run with a 1 gig Swap File, defragged and on a separate drive from the game drive. Earlier nothing was defragged and my drives are horribly fragmented. If I have time I'll defrag my game drive and Windows drive (both separate), but that might have to wait. Oh, yeah, I also ran the demo with a ridiculous number of Processes in the background. Tonight I'll run with a minimum number.

With quality parts and a ***cool*** running system, along with the right tweaks, you'll be surprised how far performance can be stretched.

It's also a good idea to check your CPU and GPU temperatures while actually playing the game (post these as well). If these temps are too high you will suffer slows downs (and even crashes). You can have the faster CPU and GPU, but if your system is running hot, its all for naught!

Many of you with newer systems than mine will have temperature monitoring software from your motherboard maker and GPU maker. If you can, set it to monitor and record your temps over at least a 20 minute period, recording the High, Low and Average temperatures for a 20 minute period.

If you're software can't do this and/or if you have an older system w/o such software, then you can try Motherboard Monitor. It is excellent and what I use:

http://mbm.livewiredev.com/

Luck!

~TS

[Zimfan40]

Thanks for the link to the fraps site, ToranagaSama. I downloaded it and, sadly, even the lowest of the low settings my measly Nvidia 6150 LE never made it to 20fps, and most frequently stayed in the low 10s.

Good thing I'll be getting a new card this year. Preferably after the next gen of cards has come out, so the current gen will be cheaper.

[econ21]

My goal will be to get an average FPS between 30 and 60 (and hopefully with FEW drops below 30). I want to do this with the game options, generally at Medium settings, except Unit Detail which *must* be at highest; ...

I agree 30 FPS is a sweet spot. But people are say unit detail at high gives you as good close-ups as you are going to get, so I may go down to that. Highest just changes the distance at which the game switches to sprites and zoomed out, I don't bother too much about unit graphics.

[AlJabberwock]

Jagger !

Sorry no one got back to you dude! Here's the deal with Semprons and SSE2.
Typically if you have a non 64-bit AMD like Sempron or Atholn XP, you will have to determine whether its an A-Socket or anything else like a 754 (in some cases even an AM2 or 939/940). If you have a socket-"A", you're out of luck my friend, but only for the Demo because it requires SSE2 which is not on the socket-"A" versions of these chips. Word is the full game will not require SSE2, so if you're a socket-A type (like three of the machines in my house!) hang tough till November 14 when the full game is out, and there will be joy (at least in SP mode... MP may or may not function satisfactorily since CA appears to be saying they will not at this time probably support these in MP). If you have a Sempron tht is non-"A" type, raise the flag! You can probably play the demo too! I have two Athlon XPs and a Sempron all in the A socket version. Fortunately we also have a 754 and an AM2 for the Dual 64.

Econ21 is right, it makes little sense to use "highest" detail settings for the units unless you are just testing out your card or plan on publishing some screenies... or your system just doesn't notice the difference between highest and lowest!

Thanks ToranagaSama for the fraps link. I use this myself, but I don't have it on all the machines we use so its nice to have it somewehere convenient.

Just an opinion, but probably the link and the comment regarding standards for reporting should be added in the thread about thoughts on the demo rather than this one ('will my rig run M2TW...')

Cheers!

Al Jabberwock

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

King,

The X1300 comes in a few different flavors so I cannot be certain exactly what is supported in the version you have, but the ones I scoped had Shader 3.0 and Open GL 2.0 which is GOOD (mostly -although I saw a few that only had shader 2.0 and Open GL 1.5).

It only has 4 pixel pipelines in all the versions I saw which is similar to 6200's and FX or 5000 series NVidia cards, but not quite as good as, say the NVidia 6600 which has 8, but had the same GL and Shader model support as the better 6600s. Pixel pipelines can impact speed when large quantities of data need to be transmitted so having only 4 is not good, but makes it at least tenable that the card could function well enough not to look for the sledgehammer...right away at least The clock and corespeeds I saw were reasonable, and the card should allow you to at least look at the demo unless it is some very budget version of the x1300.

The rest of your machine, uh, well 512 Ram will "technically" work, again, its borderline.

A 2.8 ghz CPU is ok, but we need to know what kind. A kind poster earlier listed CPU types that support SSe2, which appears to be needed to run the demo, if not the game, and the SSE2 thingy notwithstanding, 2.8 on an AMD is one thing whereas on an Intel it is something entirely different. If an Intel, it is also probably "ok" but you will simply have to try it out or wait for more definitive info from CA which appears not to be forthcoming before Monday next, the 16th.

Wait as long as you can, as both seriously superior CPUs and Vid Cards have and/or should experience sharp falls in price. CPUs because of the price wars between Intel and AMD over dual-core chips and the vid cards because of the new version of DirectX about to relegate current cards to the has-been category.

Cheers!

AlJabberwock

Hey,

It's a Intel,does that help you at all??

[Wartz]

Well from reading this thread its obvious that I wont be able to run this game very well at all.
Current pc.
athlonXP3200+
1gb pc3200 ram
ati 9800se

I have about $400-$450 to spend and I was looking at a new setup of an ASUS socket AM2 mobo, a athlon64 3500+, 1gb of DDR2 memory and a x1800xt/gto.

but if anyone has any better suggestions for better deals to stretch my money go ahead and make them. :)

[JR-]

Demo -
Agincourt
-----------------------------------------
Fraps -
variation = 10-22 FPS
average = 15 FPS
-----------------------------------------
Video Options -
[video]
anisotropic_level = 4
anti_alias_mode = off
antialiasing = 0
assassination_movies = 1
autodetect = 0
battle_resolution = 1920 1200
bloom = 1
building_detail = high
campaign_resolution = 1920 1200
depth_shadows = 2
depth_shadows_resolution = 3
effect_quality = normal
event_movies = 1
gamma = 99
infiltration_movies = 1
no_background_fmv = 0
reflection = 1
sabotage_movies = 1
shader = 2
show_banners = 1
show_package_litter = 1
skip_mip_levels = 0
splashes = 1
subtitles = 0
terrain_quality = custom
texture_filtering = 2
unit_detail = higher
vegetation = 1
vegetation_quality = high
vsync = 0
widescreen = 1
---------------------------------------------
System -
CPU = C2D 6600
Motherboard = Gigabyte 965P DS4
Memory = 1GB DDR800 (single channel)
Video = XFX 7950GT
Screen = Dell 2405
HD 1 = 250GB Samsung
HD 2 = 320GB Seagate
---------------------------------------------

15 FPS seems quite low, but it is actually very playable.

[maestro]

Demo - Pavia

Fraps - 10-20 fps

Video Options -

[video]
anisotropic_level = 16
anti_alias_mode = off
antialiasing = 4
assassination_movies = 1
autodetect = 0
battle_resolution = 1600 1200
bloom = 0
building_detail = high
campaign_resolution = 1600 1200
depth_shadows = 2
depth_shadows_resolution = 3
effect_quality = normal
event_movies = 1
gamma = 116
infiltration_movies = 1
no_background_fmv = 0
reflection = 1
sabotage_movies = 1
shader = 2
show_banners = 1
show_package_litter = 1
skip_mip_levels = 0
splashes = 1
subtitles = 0
terrain_quality = custom
texture_filtering = 2
unit_detail = higher
vegetation = 1
vegetation_quality = high
vsync = 0
widescreen = 0

System -

AMD Athlon 64 FX-55 @2750MHz
2Gb PC4000 @250MHz
512Mg XFX X1900XT
Iiyama VM 454 Pro 19"
2*80Gb RAID 0 OS
5*80Gb RAID 3 Apps
2*250Gb RAID 1 Storage


Oh, and Peregrine_Tergiversate, I agree totally that 15fps is perfectly playable and btw... you're killing that rig with only 1Gb RAM dude

[JR-]

i know, i will have another gig of DDR2 800 in there within a fortnight. :)

how do you get 1600x1200 on a 19" screen? surely it would be 1280x1024............

[maestro]

it's a CRT. the finest CRT ever made, to be honest and I won't swap it for an LCD unless it breaks. best picture quality i've ever seen and it's getting on 5 years old now It'll do 2048x1536 @ 85Hz if needs be