computer hardware for smooth play

[Gebb]

So, now that live is up and running, what is the consensus of hardware needed for smooth gameplay (and at what settings)?

[Swift]

So, now that live is up and running, what is the consensus of hardware needed for smooth gameplay (and at what settings)?

Depends entirely on how good you want the game to look.

Crank detail to the minimum and itll run smooth on low end machines (for the most part).

Crank it all up and you need a beast.

Me? I run full detail, full shadows (medium detail) 1680x1050 and there are times even i start to get slowdown. My Machine is a Core2Duo E6600, 4 gig of RAM and a 640meg GeForce 8800GT

[indio]

It's pretty much all video related, and pretty much all how your card handles shadows.

My card is older and slower than Swifts (ATi 1950 Pro), but I run it one zero shadows at 1280x1024 and it's as smooth as silk.

With no shadows I suspect any 1-2 year old video card will be fine.

[Gebb]

thanks guys. I'm squeaking along on a 3 year old laptop, so I think I'll be looking for an upgrade. Any more advice is very welcome.

Thanks again.

[psycho_leo]

I'm running on a Core2Duo E6600 with 2GB RAM and a GeForce 8600GT (256MB DDR3) on Windows XP. I runs fine for the most part in medium detail, even with full shadows on.

[maxcell]

thanks guys. I'm squeaking along on a 3 year old laptop, so I think I'll be looking for an upgrade. Any more advice is very welcome.

Thanks again.

If that is true, imho you will need a dual core processor and an upgrade of video card to the highest you can afford.

[fluffmonster]

Give me a budget and I can give you good suggestions.

[Dragoness]

I've been playing on the lowest possible settings with my video card which cost me 300 bucks >_< way too expensive for me, so I don't intend on investing in another until I'm unable to run the game completely.

[oldgrayrogue]

I am playing on a fairly new decent rig. Core2Duo processor/ 4GB of Ram/ Windows XP/ Nvidia high 8000 series (I forget I think 8600) 512 MB Graphics card -- and I still experienced lag last night especially in town areas. However I have all the settings turned to max. I will lower them and report.

[fluffmonster]

8600 is perhaps better thought of as the low end of the mid-range, or perhaps high end of the low range. Don't expect much from it at anything but relatively low screen resolutions.

[Mikayla]

I have a dual-core 2.4 ghz machine, with 3 Gigs of RAM and an nVidia 8600GT, and while I can run max video settings, with textures and shadows and everything at pretty high screen resolution (like 1440 x 900 or something like that) and it looks totally beautiful, but it also stutters terribly when I am outdoors, and forget combat. So, to make things go as smoothly as possible, I went all the way down to the 800x600 resolution, put most settings on "Medium" and turned off a bunch of the effects, and now it runs pretty smoothly except in real thick combat (like when we had a party of 4 or 5 facing a similar number of orcs - there was a lot of stuttering and such).

[Avaz]

My quasi-beast of a machine handles things pretty well. I'm gonna add 2 gigs of RAM and a second identical videocard sometime later in the year

Core2Duo 2.4 ghz
2 gigs RAM
P5N-E SLI mobo
1x nVidia 8800 GS

I piecemealed this box specifically to play NWN2 because my old one didn't have a video card (onboard video blows) and was too old to support an upgrade to any capable vid card.

With low shadows and resolution set to the maximum available (2048x1070 I think?), most exteriors with few NPCs/PCs are rendered quickly with a framerate somewhere around 50~60. Throw in a handful of them and it dips to ~30ish.

With shadows on medium or higher, framerate drops considerably. AA for both scenarios are set to 4x, with all effects (refraction, bloom, etc) on.

Conclusion: Even with all or most settings on maximum, shadows are the single component that makes the biggest difference.

[Mikayla]

Avaz, Indio, thanks for indentifying shadows as the main culprit. There are so many settings and sliders and switches and knobs and whatever I had no idea which I should set where. Thanks.

[oldgrayrogue]

Bloom, shiny water and water refraction are also culprits. There are actually pop up "tips" on those buttons as you scroll over em Mikayla =) *spoken as someone who is truly clueless when it comes to technology*

[Mikayla]

Thanks OGR!


In-game my PC is illiterate, and out of game I am a tech-n00b. We all have our limitations.