System Requirements VERY misleading (three cheers for overkill)

**Lugotorix** · October 10, 2006, 01:51 PM

First, let me say, I've played the Standard Edition of the demo. The good news? Bar none, it's the most impressive game I've ever seen. The better news? You don't need a killer rig to run the game.
The 128 mb memory requirement is an overstatement and pessimism on the part of the developers. Three cheers for overkill. Now, I'm not sure whether the full game's requirements will surpass the demo and whether the demo was geared towards performance (some are), but here is my rig;

Pentium 4 2.4 gig Geforce 4 Ti 4200 64 mb. Direct X 10.
64 mb memory.

At first, I was surprised that it would run at all, but there I was in high res Hastings, zoomed in on Harold. No joke or ruse, I'm running the game (Battle of Hastings tutorial so far) on medium settings (that is a mixture of "high" and "highest") and 1280x resolution with no noticable lag. Arrows can be tracked and blood effects are clearly seen. Shader 1 is the only selectable package, but grass is in. Being used to Rome (and lord M2:TW surpasses anything you can imagine, if Rome is the model) the bloom effects werent missed. The only aspect of performance that suffered (seemingly) was the battle animations. In my opinion there are too many soldiers fighting at once, and too quickly, for the finishing moves to be noticable. I did catch a few seargeants punching with their halfts rather than stabbing though.
I am urging many people to seriously reconsider upgrading their card, especially if the choice is for this game only. Will I upgrade? Of course. It's a very pretty game already, and is capable of looking even prettier. With an upgrade I'll be able to max everything out without worrying about framerates. But based on my video card, my initial feeling was that I wouldnt be able to play the game at all. Many others with lower end gpus should give it a shot.
Will post shortly about Pavia and Agincourt. Also, someone should post a link to the new video that was included in the demo

**hallidaycc** · October 10, 2006, 01:58 PM

:O wow thats amazing

**Pre** · October 10, 2006, 02:02 PM

Thats interesting. Possibly an anomally, lol. But seriously, the Ti's were nice cards. I could see it happening.

**Beiss** · October 10, 2006, 02:11 PM

Heh, I remember playing "Mafia" on my 300MHz PII. It worked just fine. The req's were way higher than that though. So you never know.

**Lugotorix** · October 10, 2006, 02:20 PM

I just re-enacted Agincourt. Ran like a fat lady through a meat grinder. It's a wonder that I won the battle.

Dismiss everything I just said twice and add vinegar.

In all seriousness, the game should be tolerable with those settings and that rig with "normal" unit size for most battles. Agincourt is locked on "large.", or "huge." even, 80 per medium sized unit, rather than 40. It's also fairly epic in scale. I'd change my statement and definetely recommend an upgrade if you're planning on battles approaching realistic scale.

**Storm_Kronos** · October 10, 2006, 02:18 PM

"Direct X 10."

LIER

**CIaagent11** · October 10, 2006, 02:19 PM

That's odd, because Rome wouldn't run that good.
You see my specs in the signature.
I had major lacks as soon as more than 2000 men were on screen.

**CIaagent11** · October 10, 2006, 02:24 PM

So, what about that DX 10 thing?

**Lugotorix** · October 10, 2006, 02:28 PM

It's Vista only

I was referring to the Direct3D 10 beta I had downloaded for Stronghold 2. So far that and Oblivion are the only games that aren't runnable/tolerable on my rig. My mistake.

**Iaius Statius Laurentius** · October 13, 2006, 01:40 AM

Originally Posted by Lugotorix

It's Vista only

I was referring to the Direct3D 10 beta I had downloaded for Stronghold 2. So far that and Oblivion are the only games that aren't runnable/tolerable on my rig. My mistake.

If you're running Windows Vista build 5600 and higher, Oblivion is fully compatible with DX10 and Vista on the x86 edition. If you're running the 64-bit edition, though, then you're out of luck.

**SnArF|D** · October 10, 2006, 02:29 PM

Ya Creative Assembly said M2TW would be very system friendly and it is.
I'm running Medium-High w/ 6x AA 1024x768..no lag

**king-nord** · October 10, 2006, 02:38 PM

i run so so gd on mtw 2 bad luck for all you's who cant

**hallidaycc** · October 10, 2006, 02:44 PM

Originally Posted by king-nord

i run so so gd on mtw 2 bad luck for all you's who cant

whats ur system specs

**sombralux** · October 10, 2006, 02:48 PM

Yep same here, got everything on Med/High except for shaders, 2xAA res: 1280*960 and no lag at all. AMD 64 3200+, HIS 9800pro 128mb, 1 gb pc3200. Still i find it hard to believe that you run higher specs with a Ti, isnt even fully directx9 compatible...

**Shaun** · October 10, 2006, 02:43 PM

Good, although this means that my £800+ upgrade with E6600, 2GB DDR2800 5-5-5-12 PC8000, ATi Sapphire X1900XTX, MSI Platinum 975x Power uP edition was really unnecessary. At least I will be able to play with the settigns maxed and 10000+ units on screen.