Hello

I'm really looking forward to purchasing this game but before I do I just wanted to run a few questions by the members here.

My system worries me a little as it is now a little dated, particularly the RAM. I have a P4 1.5GHz processor with 128MB RD RAM and 64MB G-force 2 graphics card (+ Windows Me). I know my RAM doesn't meet the minimum amount specified, so I was wondering if I could tone down the graphics fx and resolution to get a decent frame rate. I won't be updating my RAM until after Xmas so is it worth me getting the game before then?

Also what is the recommended system spec for playing so the game can be played with no problem on the maximum settings?

Anyway, thanks in advance. Maybe I'll see some of you soon in an internet battle.

Regards
JD

during concept testing the game ran smoothely with my 1.7ghz p4 and 512 mb rdram and gf2 mx 32mb.

i did upgrade during the testing to an 1800 AMD XP and 512mb DDR 200
with an 8500le. i noticed the AI responded faster and teh game loaded faster but i had no problems playing earlier.

If you set texture resolution to low you'll be able to play it at ~9-10 fps at heavy battle scenes (and at 20-30 fps when the only thing you see is terrain). However I don't recommend you to rotate the camera to see the horizon cause it will cause lots of swaping. You'll also have to wait longer for it to load.

the other bottleneck of your system is Gfx card. It's good that it has 32MB (enough for low and mid texture quality settings) but it lacks geometry processing power.

The system that is enough for highest settings(almost) - 1280x1024 resolution, all turned on:
P3 - 750Mhz, 384 RAM, Ati 9000 64MB
The avarege frame rate is at 18-20 and never drops below 10 even when i move the camera upwards to see the whole map on one screen.
Ati 9000 has processing power of low-mid Gforce4, but it also supports pixel shaders for those nice water effects.
Processor power matters little if you play multiplayer, but it speeds up AI thinking.

But this is not an issue because we have improved the AI thinking speed and this will be available in a patch (it takes less than 30sec(P3-750) for AI to make it's turn when there are more than 100 units on each side)

wow that's a big improvement there.

This AI thinking speed improvement will be available in the coming patch. We're intensivley testing it last month.

Many thanks for your responses - they helped a lot. I believe the game is out on the 31st of this month in the UK so I'm going to take a chance and run it with my low amount of RAM.