system requirements lab seems interesting, but I have questions, as usual

[lord of the mark]

thinking about what would run on my 18 month old budget desktop, which has ATI Radeon 200 IG. I was trying to figure out if BfME2 would run, couldnt tell from the vid card specs, looked at DLing a demo, but the demo is humongous and would take hours even on our FIOS connection.

I found this, and its kinda cool.

OTOH Im not sure its accurate, cause it says the original KOTOR wont run on this machine, even the VC specs dont look to ME like theyd stretch it. I could try the demo of that I guess.

I ran a bunch of requirements. Some good news, some bad, some predictable.

Strats and Sims - good. Will run GalCiv2, Sims2, Simcity4, SMPirates. Needs a tad more RAM for Civ4, but the VCard is fine.
Wont run MTW2, Silent Hunter,HOMM5 - all as I expected. New VC needed for EU3, which was a BIT of a disappointment.


RTS - main news, it will run BfME, but not BfME2. Will run AOE3, but not CoH or Sins of a Solar Empire.

RPG's - bad news - no Oblivion (no surprise), but also no NWN2 or KOTOR2 (and allegedly no KOTOR either) No Bioshock of course.


Needs a tad more RAM for WoW - not that it matters.


Shooters - not much that will work, but not surprising.

Call of Duty, the original, will run.

HL2 and Halo the original will run, but not recommended.

All the others listed (IE all recent or semirecent) fail.

Interestingly enough, the ONLY game in any of the genres where the CPU failed was Assasins Creed.

For all others (except Civ4) it was Vid Card only, or RAM and Vid Card. Usually the RAM not by much - often the game wants 512 MB, and we fail cause we have 512MB, and thats not enough after deducting for XP (Halo2 is the only game that requires Vista) getting up to 1 gig or more should be good for most. And getting more RAM would probably make non-game apps work smoother.

So really the only upgrade needed will be a vid card. And we can probably get a lot of those games without getting a super costly vid card.

Note, I cannot run Crysis.

[LotC]

Do you have an AGP slot? Why don't you just buy a crappy 6600 or something like that? You can get them for dirt cheap and you won't have to worry so much about graphics card specs. I have one and it suits me just fine.

[CrONoS]

System Req Lab is not accurate. Don't use it if you want to know if a game will work.

You'll better ask people on a gaming forum. Or downloading the demo.

[Wiglaf]

That program is inaccurate and blows. And why would you want to play all those games anyway, most of them are total ****. I thought you valued going outdoors and living life, rather than hunching down and playing horrific titles like Battle for Middle Earth 2 and Half life 2.

[Andemagne]

LOTM: how do you have so much time for games?

[CerberusIV]

Crap program - those results look very dodgy.

I'm playing KotOR 2 now and all the video card needs is T&L capability. If yours will run Civ4 then it will run both KotOR games.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Andemagne
LOTM: how do you have so much time for games?

He plays very few properly.

[Nikolai]

LOTM, I can't find this card on ATi's site, but I do find a Radeon Xpress 200M. Is that your card? That one seem to be barely good enough to play EU3.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
That program is inaccurate and blows. And why would you want to play all those games anyway, most of them are total ****. I thought you valued going outdoors and living life, rather than hunching down and playing horrific titles like Battle for Middle Earth 2 and Half life 2.

I doubt I will play all of them, I was mainly curious to see what I COULD play.

Also I dont particularly tend to go out in the evenings when my daughter is stuck inside doing homework.


BTW, what exactly is so horrific about the BfME series?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Andemagne
LOTM: how do you have so much time for games?

well for one I almost never watch TV.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Nikolai
LOTM, I can't find this card on ATi's site, but I do find a Radeon Xpress 200M. Is that your card? That one seem to be barely good enough to play EU3.

thats the Laptop version I think. Theres also a desktop version of the chip set.

[Nikolai]

Does it have Pixelshader 2.0?

[Wiglaf]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


I doubt I will play all of them, I was mainly curious to see what I COULD play.

Also I dont particularly tend to go out in the evenings when my daughter is stuck inside doing homework.


BTW, what exactly is so horrific about the BfME series?

The game completely bastardizes the novels, which is something no white person should tolerate, and its mechanics and graphics are just so horrific and trite and lame that every moment you spend hunched over playing it is a moment you get closer to a lonely death with pale, freckled skin.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Wiglaf


The game completely bastardizes the novels, which is something no white person should tolerate, and its mechanics and graphics are just so horrific and trite and lame that every moment you spend hunched over playing it is a moment you get closer to a lonely death with pale, freckled skin.

what specifically about the mechanics do you dislike.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by LotC
Do you have an AGP slot? Why don't you just buy a crappy 6600 or something like that? You can get them for dirt cheap and you won't have to worry so much about graphics card specs. I have one and it suits me just fine.

yeah, well thats probably what I will do at some point.

Meanwhile, Im still knee deep in Crusader Kings, and have RCT3 and Age of Sail2 to mess with. And a bunch of older games Im curious about (like the Fallouts, HOMM3, AOW:SM, Warcraft3, that either werent mentioned on the Sys req lab site, or that I didnt bother mentioning). Plus the games that DID work, SimCity4 esp, and Civ4, which should be huge timesinks.

Oh, and Im told here that I play too much, so getting through all that should take awhile.