A few questions... all of which are most fun, I assure you.

[KatzMotel]

... I lied. Har. They're not fun at all! D:

At any rate, I do have a few questions I'd like to address to ye Total War folk.

I recently picked up Medieval 2: Total War. Admittedly, my computer is... old, but it handled RTW fine, so I thought that a game running on the same engine would at least be similar in performance.

Well... I was wrong, but hey. I can make it playable so long as I keep the camera panned out and the graphic settings low/med. Not ideal, but still.

Is there any way of forcing the game to run in 800x600? I know that with other games- TES4 for example, you can get it as low as 320x240... so is it possible to run M2:TW at 800x600?

Secondly, I was considering upgrading my graphics card and RAM. How much will replacing my old 128MB NVidia GeForce FX5200 for a 256 card and upping my 512MB of RAM to 1GB help improve performance? Enough for me to have, say... grass?

And hey, I'm using shader v1, before anybody suggests that. Sure, I can pull a decent framerate with the camera panned all the way out, but what's the fun in watching a medieval battle from a helicopter? (Not to mention the fact that it uses 2D sprites at a distance- so I might as well just be playing the original MTW. )

[verena xeventus]

lol @ "... I lied. Har. They're not fun at all! D:"

CA informed users of the game that they must be able to run the game at a minimum of 1024/768 (I think its 768) so unfortunately I dont think you will be able to change or edit the game resolution lower than 1024 settings.

Secondly... If you are going to upgrade your PC I would recommend waiting for the new range of DX10 cards to be released, and go for another Nvidia model I've heard they run better than ATI for the total war games. I'm assuming that your motherboard supports PCI-express GPU sockets right?

Finally... sprites at a distance... there is a way to get rid of the sprites but it will kill your machine for a certainty... in the preference file under unit detail change it to "highest" save/apply and run the game... no more sprites... very good view distance on units.... but your computer will not be a happy bunny. I tried this on my system and it ran at 10 FPS. OUCH.

Hope this helps.

[KatzMotel]

Sucks I can't change the resolution. But hey, I guess I'll have to make due, eh?

In relation to the graphics card... I only have a budget of £100, so I think the best I'll be able to manage is one of the better cards of the NVidia GeForce 6 series (6600GT, perhaps). I'll be needing an AGP model of the card, since I'm not sure if my mobo supports PCI-e. It's all terribly confusing, isn't it?

[Sammyboi]

If I'm not mistaken the new DX10 cards in the new year are likely to require Windows Vista as well in order to run at their top potential.

If you're stuck on AGP then you should be able to get a 7600GS 512MB for under £100 just now. If you're lucky a 7600GT 256MB might be had for not much more, and would likely be a better investment.

[dearmad]

If I'm not mistaken the new DX10 cards in the new year are likely to require Windows Vista as well in order to run at their top potential.

If you're stuck on AGP then you should be able to get a 7600GS 512MB for under £100 just now. If you're lucky a 7600GT 256MB might be had for not much more, and would likely be a better investment.

You're absolutely right and not mistaken as far as I can tell- haunted over at Sharky's and other tech boards. NO point in waiting for a DX10 card if you can snag a good dx9 one like a 7900 or something.

If you're stuck on AGP the 7800gs rocks. I have one and run games maxxed out without problems.