Running Medieval 2 with low specs

**Eclipse88** · September 28, 2007, 02:09 PM

Im looking to buy this game for Christmas, and I dout I will have enough money saved up to buy a top of the line computer or build one. (Im talking Quad Core, 8800Gtx). The best price Ive found instead of building a computer which would cost a bit more is 1500$ Canadian at Ibuypower.com.

Intel Core 2 Quad Processor Q6600 (4x 2.4GHz/8MB L2 Cache/1066FSB
2048MB [1024MB X2] DDR2-800 PC6400 Memory Module
8800Gtx
250gb Hard drive

Since I might not have enough saved up, Im looking to upgrade my ram and buy a ps3 instead. Ill get to the point my computer specs are now is....

P4 3.2ghz HT Hyper threading
1gb DDR2 ram (2x 512)
ATI X600 256meg PCI

Ive downloaded the Medieval Total War 2 demo and I was able to run it somewhat smoothley but the resolution was on 1280*720, the game looked so bad it looked even worse than Rome:Total War and it ran a bit choppy (Not saying that Rome looks bad, just in terms of comparing Medieval 2 to it). Though if I lowered the anti-analyzation I know I can run it better and more smoothley. I was able to play all 3 historical battles without many problems with lag issues. Then I noticed that the unit sizes where only on Large and you can't set it to full. Im wondering if another sick of 1gb of ram would help with this issue? Im really not gonna buy this game if it doesn't look much better than Rome:Total War running on my computer. Don't total war games need a lot of ram and ram is more important than your graphics card since so many units are on screen at once? Please tell me if adding 1gb of ram would really help with this. Is it worth buying after that upgrade? Or should I just download that medieval mod for Rome:Total War.

**DaLeGiOnArY** · September 28, 2007, 03:36 PM

your good to go m8!

**Eclipse88** · September 28, 2007, 05:47 PM

Are you sure about that? I wanna play it with some graphical improvement over Rome:Total War, will adding another 1gb stick of ram really get the results im looking for? I run Rome Total War on practically high settings on everything, I run this game currently with only my 1gb ram on low settings, even though the character models and enviourments look better than Rome, the graphical level it's at really doesn't make much of a difference.

Will 1gb of ram really give me that much of a difference? Does anyone have a computer with a similar gfx card as mine as well as specs and also plays Medieval 2 Total War?

**DaLeGiOnArY** · September 29, 2007, 05:14 AM

i run RTW on high everything,but at lowest m2 is far higher than it. and lagwise too...
And you can increase the textures.

And i have 800gig ram and works fine. just make sure you don't zoom out on huge cities in battles,those things are laggy.

**Dick** · September 29, 2007, 01:39 PM

I disagree on lack of RAM being the main problem, it's probably your graphics card.

**Eclipse88** · September 29, 2007, 05:59 PM

You mean you have 800mb of ram? What kind of gfx card do you have? I agree to, the gfx card is a major problem but don't Total War games require a lot of ram since there are so many units on screen at once? Ive played strategy games with the same graphical quality as Medieval 2 Total War on my computer, such as Command and Conquer 3 and Company of Heroes but Im still tweaking with graphics on that game. The only reason they never lagged to much was because there unit cap is usually under 200.

**Dick** · September 30, 2007, 02:53 AM

All RTS games require a lot of RAM, and total war are no exception. What's more important, however, is the CPU as there are a lot of calculations to be made.

If there are lots of units on screen at the same time it is more likely to be your graphics card which struggles (it has to generate the pixels for each unit etc), rather than your 1GB of RAM. In my opinion upgrading to 2GB of RAM would be pointless as the rest of your system would be a bottleneck.

**DaLeGiOnArY** · September 30, 2007, 03:48 AM

i have an ATI Radeon Xpress 800
wooo finaly i finished typing that...

**Eclipse88** · September 30, 2007, 04:22 AM

What do you mean the rest of my system would be a bottleneck? Won't another 1gb of ram improve my games performence? It is doubling the ram there has to be some performence improvement of some kind.

**Quink.NL** · September 30, 2007, 04:59 AM

Originally Posted by Eclipse88

What do you mean the rest of my system would be a bottleneck? Won't another 1gb of ram improve my games performence? It is doubling the ram there has to be some performence improvement of some kind.

Why would it? It's the CPU and the GPU who will have to do the job for the most part.

**Dick** · September 30, 2007, 06:16 AM

You'd see some sort of improvement, but it would probably be minimal. Your 2GB of RAM would be able to get the info to the the processor and graphics card quickly, but if they won't be able to perform the calculations to keep up with the RAM, then they will be a bottleneck. The info will have to sit in the RAM waiting for the info in front of it to be completed. Do you understand?

Not to mention your graphics card is a pci model, meaning it's very outdated bandwidth wise.

**Eclipse88** · September 30, 2007, 03:00 PM

Yes I understand, Im probably going to need a new computer, Im in my last symester of highschool and Im currently looking for a job. If Im not able to get one by november I won't be able to buy a new computer by Christmas.

What settings do you use with your computer Dick? Your gfx card isn't drastically better than mine, but what is your ram and Cpu?