AoC and Hardware specs

[Mrbloodworth]

What about the aureole slider?

If an aureole is sliding, i'm walking away.

[Sir T]

We must fight for the right of Aureoles to slide! This injustice must be stopped! Who is with me?

[size=5ptDear diary, today I made a predictable response on the internet[/size]

[tazelbain]

Just one slider for aureoles? Should be at least 6 and that's only if you are symmetry Nazi.

[Lantyssa]

Odd. My breasts are pretty much still stiff. Maybe because I didn't shove the slider to maximum boobage?

Mine are at the minimum and they have a bit of jiggle.

No idea when they started since I didn't think to look until someone in this thread put the idea in my head.

[veredus]

Do I have any chance at running it on my system? Or would I be better off waiting for the 360 version? I know my vidcard sucks and why I am afraid I won't be able to run this. It was a super cheap replacement for my old card that died. It unfortunatly has to last until I can build a whole new system in the far future, so no replacing it.

P.4 3.0
3 gigs RAM DDR1
AGP - ATI Radeon 2600 PRO 512MB version
7200 RPM hard drive
Running Vista

[Mrbloodworth]

Do I have any chance at running it on my system? Or would I be better off waiting for the 360 version? I know my vidcard sucks and why I am afraid I won't be able to run this. It was a super cheap replacement for my old card that died. It unfortunatly has to last until I can build a whole new system in the far future, so no replacing it.

P.4 3.0
3 gigs RAM DDR1
AGP - ATI Radeon 2600 PRO 512MB version
7200 RPM hard drive
Running Vista

The vid card and vista may be your major holdups. And i say Vista, just because its going to eat a lot of the little power you do have before the game even runs. Your not going to get anything crazy fantastic with that rig however.

[HaemishM]

You'll probably be able to play it on low settings. The 3GB of RAM will help a lot.

[Alkiera]

Do I have any chance at running it on my system? Or would I be better off waiting for the 360 version? I know my vidcard sucks and why I am afraid I won't be able to run this. It was a super cheap replacement for my old card that died. It unfortunatly has to last until I can build a whole new system in the far future, so no replacing it.

P.4 3.0
3 gigs RAM DDR1
AGP - ATI Radeon 2600 PRO 512MB version
7200 RPM hard drive
Running Vista

The vid card and vista may be your major holdups. And i say Vista, just because its going to eat a lot of the little power you do have before the game even runs. Your not going to get anything crazy fantastic with that rig however.

It may run, and with heavy optimization (no AA/AF, distances turned down, shadows off, low quality textures, the standard stuff) might be playable, as Haemish said, the big RAM and VRAM will help a lot; It's a gamble, though.  If you know someone who's got the game, might have them install it and log in, just to test, see if it's playable.  Having a good framerate is semi-important, moreso than other MMOs, due to combat pace being way faster.

Despite the box, it only consumes ~26 gigs on my HD, at least when not running.  Not sure why they said 32GB; maybe it uses a LOT of temp space, or maybe that's the size it will be once they patch in the 40+ content.

--
Alkiera

[veredus]

Thanks for the replies. I may try it and see if it works. Want to try this game but don't want to wait for the 360 version.

On the 360 note, anyone know how they are going to handle the game size? Is anyone that does not have an elite going to be screwed due to HD size? If I want to play this I may have to see if I can get it to run on my rig since only have the 20 gig HD.

[Lum]

I have an overclocked 8800GT video card, but I also have an older PC: Pentium 4 (single core) 3.4ghz, with 3gb of RAM, running Vista. I also have an LCD monitor with a high native resolution (1680x1050). Here's the settings I've found make the game tolerable for me (~ 20fps) using this lowspec machine:

Resolution: 1680x1050
Full screen
Anti-alias: None
View distance: 1000m

Shader model: 3.0 (Shader 2.0 looks horrible and with a good video card I want to offload as much onto shaders anyway)
Shadows: Disabled
3D ambient occlusion: Disabled (<--- THIS IS IMPORTANT, with just this active I dropped to less than 10 fps.)
High quality view distance: 100%
Low quality view distance: Maxed
Particle view distance: 12m
NPC view distance: 250m
NPC high quality view distance: Maxed
Grass view distance: 80m
Ground quality view distance: 80m
System memory texture cache size: 0
Texture filtering: Anisotropic
Texture resolution: Low (might try with high though given video card)
Anisotropic filtering quality: 1
Enable parallax mapping: yes
Remove foilage around character: yes
Ground render quality: normal
Enable grass: no
Water reflection quality: None

[Signe]

Lum's settings work great for me.  The only difference is I maxed system memory texture cache and set texture resolution to high and it didn't seem to make any difference and helped the quality.  I'm consistently getting 30 -50 fps, depending on where I am, sometimes more.  It only buggers up for a few minutes when I change settings while playing.  I have an 8800 GT (the xfx one with the wee cute fan), 2 GB RAM, and a slower processor - also single core, running XP Home, 1280 X 1024 resolution.  So far these settings have worked the best for me. 

[veredus]

Well so far have a level 5 hox. Runs well but get some flickering of the background. But very playable.

Edit: Lum's setting work great for me, also I cranked up the cache size like Signe.

[Falconeer]

3D ambient occlusion: Disabled (<--- THIS IS IMPORTANT, with just this active I dropped to less than 10 fps.)

What is 3D ambient occlusion?

[Alkiera]

3D ambient occlusion: Disabled (<--- THIS IS IMPORTANT, with just this active I dropped to less than 10 fps.)

What is 3D ambient occlusion?

Wikipedia says it's a technique for making 3d object look more real, by putting shadows in areas with lots of geometry, and not in relatively simple areas, simulating the lighting effects on an embossed piece of paper, for example.  The link has pretty pictures of bugs.

Neat technique, I have to admit.  Might be related to the 'flat' feeling people were describing in some other games.

--
Alkiera

[Rasix]

I'm running the game very well right now, but there's one very noticeable problem.  Whenever I go into Nadini's house or Bartolomo's house and move towards Nadini/Raboz, I get what amounts to a complete graphical seizure for around 1-2 seconds.  This isn't just a hitch or stuttering, it's a complete graphical freeze/unfreeze.  Only seems to ever happen in very close quarters.  Funny enough, this does not occur in the bazaar area in Khemi.  Anyone know if changing a setting might help with this?

Tempted to try Lum's settings, but the one schild helped me come up with has done OK so far and it has LQ player shadows and water reflections on.  I loves me some pretty water.

[Typhon]

I get the same problem in Nadini's shack.  I like to think it's her face and sweater that are causing the issues (so damn wrinkly!), but it may be that they are pre-loading the cut-scene everytime you enter the shack, whether it plays or not.

[cevik]

There are a lot of posts (and anecdotal evidence seems to verify) that if you click on "high" for your initial setting profile, then work down from there, you have much better results than if you click on "low" first, then work up.  It seems to do something behind the scenes that is not modifiable by the gui when you use the "low" "medium" and "high" profiles, and for some reason the "high" profile behinds the scenes settings just perform better.  YMMV.

[Lum]

The texture cache SHOULD be set to 0 on desktop machines, because it's designed for integrated video cards (like on laptops) with limited VRAM. Of course I imagine running AOC on such a laptop would be a theoretical exercise in any event. But I'd think it would actually be a performance slowdown on CPU-locked machines as it's moving more load from the video card to the PC.

[Morfiend]

Do you guys have any idea what can cause extremely long load time in AoC?

I was playing with a friend the other night, and typically a zone will take between 5 and 15 seconds to load for me, some times 20. My friend was having amazingly long load times even for tiny zones. On average around 45 seconds, and upward to a minute and a half.

Would this be RAM related, or maybe a HD issue?

Here is what I know, when you load a zone in conan, there are two loading bars, the top yellow bar, and the bottom red bar. For me, as soon as I start loading almost always the yellow bar is totally full instantly, and I just have to wait for the red bar. My friend said his top yellow bar starts going first, gets to about half way, and then the red bar starts moving, then the two slowly creep to full.

Any ideas?

[Signe]

I put water from ground on and it didn't affect performance at all with Lum's settings.  I also put the texture cache thingy back on and, with these settings, it didn't do anything to the performance, either.  That is confusing because last time it helped my fps.  Oh I don't know.  It works and it's not a slide show for now.  That's all I know.  I think I'll start just playing shooty games or something.  They seem angrier, like me today.

[Teleku]

So......I'm still working with an ATI 9800 Pro.  Does my computer have a chance?  I haven't payed attention to the Graphic Card market for the last few years, and most of the card numbers you guys are throwing around in this thread mean nothing to me.

[shiznitz]

The 9800 doesn't even show up on this chart so don't even bother since you cannot go halfway down it and be playable.

[ffc]

The 9800 doesn't even show up on this chart so don't even bother since you cannot go halfway down it and be playable.

Is the 9800 an SM 3.0 card?  At any rate, I like this chart for comparing video cards:  http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics,1786-8.html 

I see my Ti4200 on there.  Oh, there's my TNT...or was it a TNT2.  Good times, good times.

So......I'm still working with an ATI 9800 Pro.  Does my computer have a chance?  I haven't payed attention to the Graphic Card market for the last few years, and most of the card numbers you guys are throwing around in this thread mean nothing to me.

Here is an AoC forum post that listed the 9800 in the "bare minimum" category of video cards:  http://forums.ageofconan.com/showpost.php?p=239885&postcount=1 

For reference, I am playing on a PCIe x850xt 256MB video card, and it is listed in the "mid-range" category.  I also have 1GB DDR400 RAM running at 133MHz for some reason, and an AMD Athlon 64 3200+.  All around low specs, nothing overclocked.  I do pass the http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/referrer/srtest minimum requirements.

If I set things to "high" and randomly click some settings, I am around 17fps @ 1280x1024 in the Tortage areas.  If I go into earthquake-cam mode then I will get single digits.  PvP will likely force my computer to unplug itself and jump out the window.  If I set things to "low" and randomly click some settings, then I am around 30fps @ 1280x1024 in the Tortage areas.  The biggest fps boost I get is through drastically reducing viewing distance (I did not notice an fps difference in lowering 2800m to 1000m; I had to go looooow to get a significant fps jump).

If I had even 1/5th of the technical problems I read about on the AoC forums, I would have uninstalled this game immediately.  As it stands with my clunky computer, the only technical issue I have had is the sound in the opening movie stutters.  That's it.  If I decide to subscribe, I will make hardware upgrades.  I am still jolly over no auto-attack, and multi-mob melee sweeps. 

Do you guys have any idea what can cause extremely long load time in AoC?

No, but for reference my load times are generally around a minute, sometimes less and sometimes more.  I am running a 7200rpm SATA HD.  I also have on-board audio.

[Teleku]

Ah, thanks for the info.  Maybe I'll attempt it then, since I pretty much have the exact same processor and RAM setup as you do.

Also, I saw somewhere that a basic test for running AOC was that if you could run Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, then you can probably run the game.  I can run that as well (though shittily) so I guess theres a chance, heh.

[Cheddar]

I may have found the solution to my FPS issue- ended up with another game killing bug and am in the process of reloading the damn game.  Crazy as it sounds - Windows XP SP3 seems to have done the trick.  Only catch is I fucking cannot log a character in (can get up to character screen) due to it saying I am using the incorrect client now- no idea why it is doing that.  And yes, I did revalidate the game.


 





edit.  Twelve hours and counting getting it to work. 

[Venkman]

Yeesh, that's wierd.

I've heard separately that SP3 has some problems. Damned if I can't find that article. I'll be holding off on that, but am interested to see if your problem (including being able to, like, log in ) is solved.

[Cheddar]

My specs are:  3Ghz CPU, 2G RAM, x1600 Radeon, Windows XP.

Upgraded to SP3 along with latest Catalyst drivers (do not load the 8.6 Beta drivers!!!).  Hit the High graphic option, then went to advance and turned everything down/off.  Set Shadow to 2.0 - I am now running around 22FPS when lots is going on, around 40+ at best. 

[raydeen]

I took the chance and dived in today. Pleased to announce that so far, the game is quite playable on my puny system (2.0 Core Duo/256 meg ATI X1400/1 Gig and on an external drive no less). I 'll probably spring for the extra memory later but so far it's actually performed a bit better than WoW in that my fans don't sporadically come on to cool things down. I was expecting things to redline but running on the stock Low settings with a res of 1280x700 (or whatever the second highest widescreen res is) I only occasionally get the slideshow effect. Shrubbery and other foliage seem to be the biggest culprits. FPS is about on par with EQ:SoL when I had my old Celeron 500 and GeForce 2 card. It's slightly ugly but enjoyable.