The M2TW hardware thread: please post all hardware queries here

[vindalonda]

Hi,
Dont know wether this is the right place or not but here goes! After reloading mtw2 after a long absence i was surprised to encounter a message saying "mtw2 has experienced an unspecified error and will now exit", i have never had any problems before and since the game has installed flawlessly and gets to the start up screen i am baffled ? Is this a graphic card problem? i have also had a message with another game "city life" which tells me it "cannot find a direct 3d device". I have a radeon gcube x700 (256mb) with updated drivers etc. and have had many a happy hour on mtw2 till now???
Any help greatly appreciated,

Cheers.

[Tillan]

Hi everybody, new here, and dont even currently have M2TW installed, but since i know my way around the inside of a computer (I am a computer network admin by trade), i thought i would offer any advice i can, but sorry if im answering things that I dont need to.

Having removed the RAM that was originally in Slot 1 completely, and having put the RAM originally from Slot 2 into Slot 1, the game has run now for a few days with no crashes. So bizarelly this seems to have fixed the problem. All that trouble over a dodgy RAM stick.

RAM is a right pain to diagnose, many many times Ive been stumped by RAM issues, glad you got it fixed!

Ok.. my turn..
I just bought a VAIO, mainly as a work machine BUT !!!! ofc ...

-3 GiG DDR2 (gonna make it 4).
-8400 GT 128 Dedicated 387 shared.
-Core 2 Duo 1.8 (forgot the rest of the specs)

What do you guys think ? Medium or would I be able to do high settings ?

As Pchoi said, the rig should be fine, I also think the Geforce 8400 should be fine for the more advanced settings. The 8000 series is the newest Nvidea range, with the 8800 being the ultimate. The 8400 should be roughly equivilent to the best cards of the 7000 (7800 and later the 7900) series if history is anything to go by, which if memory serves me correctly would have been the ultimate cards when M2TW came out.
Incedently I wouldnt bother with that extra gig of RAM, I *think* that normal versions of windows can usually use roughly 3.5GB - its a limitation of "32 bit" operating systems, even Vista wont help you that much, but hopefully moving on to the future we will have 64bit operating systems become the norm. Even if im wrong and the limit is 4GB I dont think the extra GB will help you that much, unless you are running alot of memory hungry apps at the same time (Like maybe playing 2/3 game simultanously =p)

Anyway... i'm buying a new computer and I really can't make the decision over whether to go Quad Core with a Q6600 or just stick with a E6850
From what i've read, the E6850 will give me better performance now, but the quad core will be more of an investment for future games.
So, basically i'm stumped. Especially considering that they cost exactly the same, although i'm leaning more towards the Q6600. Any suggestions?

How does M2TW run on a Q6600?

Koval, go with the dual core all the way. They will give you better performence, and by the time quad cores match it AND game developers are making games for multi-core machines youll be wanting a upgrade anyways =p most apps cant use more then one core of a CPU, so having four is a bit of a waste unless your using some of the programs that can use them.

My old 6800gt agp card has just died and I'm thinking of replacing it with an ATI x1950 pro or if I can get one an Nvidia 7950gt, I'm guessing that either card will be a marked improvement on the 6800gt.
If any one has either of these two cards I would be interested to know how well they perform with M2TW especially if you have a similar CPU and RAM. The rest of my system spec's are an AMD64 3.2 with 2GB of RAM

You're right Lord, it will bring a marked improvement, but I cant help you with the comparrison (beyond what reviews have said) as ive never had an ATI card.

Hi,
Dont know wether this is the right place or not but here goes! After reloading mtw2 after a long absence i was surprised to encounter a message saying "mtw2 has experienced an unspecified error and will now exit", i have never had any problems before and since the game has installed flawlessly and gets to the start up screen i am baffled ? Is this a graphic card problem? i have also had a message with another game "city life" which tells me it "cannot find a direct 3d device". I have a radeon gcube x700 (256mb) with updated drivers etc. and have had many a happy hour on mtw2 till now???
Any help greatly appreciated,

Cheers.

Hi vindalonda, thats a very generlised error, and could mean almost anything. I wouldnt think its nessercarilly a problem with your hardware, and if youve played M2TW on it before then its deffinetly capable. If I were you I would get a tech savvie freind to help you out, or even run a repair of windows (if you know how to do that yourself)

[Worldbeing]

Hey
Just got M2TW after becoming totally hooked on Rome. But it's really slow (frame a second or less) even on the lowest settings.
Processor and memory are OK: Core 2 Duo, 2x 1.86GHz and 2GB RAM
I now suspect it's my excuse for a graphics card, the Intel GMA X3100.
Is it worth persevering with trying to run M2 on this machine?

[Barbarian]

It really is the graphics card, the rest is fine. GMA is not very suitable for games. If you can get a better one, from GForce or ATI, I suggest to do it.