Upgrade time again?

**Frost, colonel** · March 05, 2006, 12:51 PM

I spent £1100 to get a PC to play Rome easily on max settings when it first came out, but with twice the graphical detail in Med2 I am faced with some expensive upgrading because my Ati X800xt isn't going to cut it if I want to see the game at it's best.

How many of you are planning to upgrade? because it seems to me the total wars series really pushes PC's

**The True Roman** · March 05, 2006, 02:01 PM

Iam going to upgrade my comp befor M2TW comes out. But it wont be just for the game. I'am planing on spending up wards to 1000 dollors to buy almost all new everything. Monitor, Speakers, ectra. Its going to be a sexy ***** when I'am done.

**Trajan** · March 05, 2006, 04:49 PM

I'm also going to upgrade before MTW2 hits the shelves. I already have a good PC and all I need is a stronger graphics card and 1 or 2 GB more RAM. I have an ATI X800XL PCI and I know it's not going to be able to handle MTW2 on max settings. For a GC, I'm thinking of going with an NVIDA.

**Septimius Severus** · March 05, 2006, 05:21 PM

I'm not going to upgrade because the system requirements should be similar or a bit higher than RTW's, it may just be that the game requires more space. If I turn out to be wrong, well, minimum settings all around should be an interesting game.

Anyway, there's still a few months left if I want to change my mind.

**lightbringer418** · March 05, 2006, 11:55 PM

I have a new computer on the way. For MTW but also for RTW and everything else I do on my pc. Its about 4-5 years old, and ive spent too much upgrading it instead of just buying a new one.

**Boudicca** · March 06, 2006, 02:26 AM

I will upgrade. I shall get rid of my AGP Board, get a better graphics card and more Ram. I think I shall stay with my CPU though. 3400+ AMD 64 is still ok.

**Diomedes** · March 06, 2006, 03:02 AM

Hey, this may be a stupid question but I have not found any specs. on MTW:II, do you guys know were they are so I know how much to spend!

**Trajan** · March 06, 2006, 05:07 AM

Moved to The Basement.

**OTZ** · March 06, 2006, 06:04 AM

Originally Posted by Frost, colonel

I spent £1100 to get a PC to play Rome easily on max settings when it first came out, but with twice the graphical detail in Med2 I am faced with some expensive upgrading because my Ati X800xt isn't going to cut it if I want to see the game at it's best.

How many of you are planning to upgrade? because it seems to me the total wars series really pushes PC's

You're X800 should work fine. Upgrading will be a waste of money.

**DarkKnight** · March 06, 2006, 09:13 AM

Why are people upgrading for the sole purpose of playing a game right now? The game doesnt come out for another six months. In six months the prices will be dramatically lower for the same components, or you could use the same budget to buy a better component. If you are only upgrading to prepare for M2TW wait a couple months.

**Frost, colonel** · March 06, 2006, 12:44 PM

Originally Posted by DarkKnight

Why are people upgrading for the sole purpose of playing a game right now? The game doesnt come out for another six months. In six months the prices will be dramatically lower for the same components, or you could use the same budget to buy a better component. If you are only upgrading to prepare for M2TW wait a couple months.

I for one shall wait till as late as possible, but I could sure use some advice on slowdown problems after the 1.5 patch and SPQR and what I should upgrade to for Med 2.

Before the 1.5 port I could play battles with 9,000 troops max settings now 6,000 is fine but much more is a problem (even with no shadows and no grass) and as Med 2 has twice the graphical detail I think my system needs love badly.

My spec is Athlon 64 3500+
Ati X800xt 256ddr AGPx8
1 Gig Corsair PC3200 twin matched pair of xtra low lantency DDR memory
10,000 rpm raptor harddrive
Creative Audigy 2 ZS soundcard
What are my systems worse areas?

I was thinking about an Opteron 144 clocked to 2.8gig if possible or 2.6 should be easy, it also has 1mb cache(twice the 3500+)
A good PCI Express mainboard and a ATI X1900xt graphics card, hopefully the ram is enough as I think the graphics card is the most important part?
I will sell the old components.

Any constructive advice welcome!
Is my old processor going to be a bottle neck for the graphics card if I don't upgrade to an overclocked Oppy?

**smoke** · March 06, 2006, 01:10 PM

Upgrading is never a bad thing but the devs mentioned in the previews that if your comp ran RTW it should be able to run M2TW too. So i don't think it would be a prerequisite. If you think about upgrading, just wait untill they announce the definite specs, like DarkKnight said.

**The White Knight** · March 06, 2006, 01:13 PM

Originally Posted by smoke

Upgrading is never a bad thing but the devs mentioned in the previews that if your comp ran RTW it should be able to run M2TW too. So i don't think it would be a prerequisite. If you think about upgrading, just wait untill they announce the definite specs, like DarkKnight said.

I think they simply said that to attract more costumers.

**Incinerate_IV** · March 06, 2006, 02:58 PM

M2:TW performance shouldn't be too far off from RTW performance, I mean they are on the same engin. I think my X1600Pro will do fine

**Aristocrat** · March 06, 2006, 05:26 PM

I might just through in a second 6800GT, assuming I can make it fit, otherwise I'll get a new vid card and another gb of ram, and while I'm at it the cpu, as it would be the bottleneck then....damn it.

**themodman** · March 06, 2006, 06:58 PM

The game engine has a very large impact on performance, as an example...AOE3 has a VERY good engine, the performance on low systems is amazing for how good the graphics still are. As such the engine is being revamped right? Well if they optimize the engine more than they did in RTW then performance could actually be better. Using the new technologys like texture clamps and Z-buffering ect..

I have a 6800GT, a 3.2GHZ P4, and 1GB of 2T RAM.

But I will most likely build a new PC anyway :wink:

**Lee1026** · March 06, 2006, 07:00 PM

If you are going to upgrade, wait until the game is actually out. skt m2 is right around the corner as it is. Many things will be out in 6 month.
Also, X800 is a extremely good card. No point in upgrading.

**Trajan** · March 06, 2006, 09:12 PM

Originally Posted by Lee1026

X800 is a extremely good card. No point in upgrading.

That's what I have and I'm thinking of taking that advice. I think what's most important for me to do for upcoming games and MTW2 is buying one more GB of RAM so that I have a total of two GB.