System Requirements - Just one question

My comp far exceeds recommended system requirements except for one thing, my video card is only a 64mb Radeon 7500 LE, will this be a problem?

i think the le line has the nerfed 64 bit pipeline which is a real choker

have you tied looking at the login page to see how it looks?

fine (with current login page) and seemed fine in beta (in game) as well, although that was the first one heh

If you actually played in the beta, then you already know far better than any of us how well it worked.

OTOH, if you have a friend playing the game with a better graphics card, it might not be a bad idea to take a look at the game on his machine. You may decide to upgrade your video card anyway, even if it's perfectly playable with your current one. I picked up a 128MB GeForce FX 5200 for like $45 a few months ago -- it doesn't cost much to get a video card much better than the one you're currently using.

I don't use a Radeon videocard, but I expect it'll work fine for you. Why? Because I've been able to play GW on my laptop (see specs below), with now real problems at all. In fact, I was amazed when it connected just fine, over an extremely weak wireless connection I snagged while at work!...

2.2 ghz Pentium 4 proc,
768 MB PC-2700 DDR,
30 GB hard-drive,
and most importantly...
SiS 650 on-board videocard, using 64MB of ram, shared from the system's total memory!

The SiS 650 is very similar in graphical abilities to the Geforce2 line of videocards, BTW, and works fine... even though it is listed as "Not Supported" by GW. Now, I won't say it renders GW as well as my desktop system (which features a GeForce FX 5700 LE), but it certainly does the job well enough.

If I can play GW on my laptop, it should work on damn near any superior system, I'd wager!

There are 3 things that really make a discernable difference in your game playing ability:
(1) Video Card
(2) Processor
(3) Amount of RAM

If any of those 3 are lacking, you're going to have a problem. A 64 bit card is not what you want to be playing games on. Spend 100 bucks and get yourself a geForce 6600. If you want more sack on the card, pick up a 6600GT (about 200 bucks or so). You can also do well getting a Radeon 9550 (make sure it's a 128-bit!) for like 70 bucks.

Another factor is memory speed, too, although even PC2100 DDR should run it fine. Don't grab the 5200: it's slower than the fastest GeForce 4. Check www.pricewatch.com if you're comfortable with web shopping, but make sure it's the correct card you're purchasing and that the store has been given a good number of positive ratings.

the only store i can recommend without reservation is newegg.com for best prices with top service

http://www2.newegg.com/index.asp

I can say www.geeks.com has been flawless for me.

I previously had a radeon 7000 and though it is half the card of the 7500, i can say you will likely lag considerably. If it were me....

Myself I was looking for a nividia 5950 and then when I saw it was 300+ i realized this isn't what I was looking for

Currently I have the 5200 fx and have found the 5700 can do 24 time the fill rate and around 4 times the band width of my 5200. The 5700 LE is 3 times the bandwidth, so i am planning to get one ASAP as they are reasonably priced (under $150 US).

Understand I run a slower system (1.3 ghz Celeron Talatin core) and play the game at 1024 x 768 without any lag issues, UNLESS I turn on anti aliasing. Loviatar helped me realize the engine on the 5200 just doesn't have the horsepower for Direct X 9.

The 5700, though not the latest and greatest should give me the ability to have better resolution and anti-aliasing of at least 2 if it works reasonably according to spec.

Hope this was helpful.

note that if you are spending that much a 6600GT which will blow that 5950 away is only about 40-50 more depending on brand and sale going on

the 5700 is a relatively small increase compared to the 6600GT

according to the benchmark figures the 6600GT is about 7 x the 5750 and about 4 x the 5900

just thought i would mention it

Loviatar my system got 856 on 3D mark amazingly

If I had an AGP slot....

If I had PCI express...

The 5700 is a considerable performance leap to the 5200 and in light of the small game client and overhead I hope I'll be fine. The 6600GT would be nice and I have thought about making another box, likely an amd for the sake of some other kinda fun. I just want to get another SOHO H2 ATX case if I do it. They go through models at the retailers very quickly. It's been a great flawless case for me so far, I mean, for $50 it is a very very good deal. But the processor I am using is low power and was designed for laptops. Believe me I was shocked I had no lag with this old socket 370 Celeron.

It's really not so bad considering it has a 256k instruction cache, that's why i got the talatin core. Clock for clock it is faster than the P4s that came out right after but it can't support the clock speeds. Intel basically stopped funding the design, it was supposed to be the design to give celeron an actual core of its own. Instead out of the old cheapness they just slap the celeron label on the defective P4s, which they obviously produce in quantity.

i did not know about the lack of AGPslot

oops

I did some pretty extensive reasearch on this a few months back. The fastest PCI based video cards you can get (unless something has changed) are the geforce fx5600 and the 256mb version of the fx5700le (only the 256mb version has a 128-bit memory interface and its rather hard to come by). Inno3d makes a version of both of these cards which are available here:

fx5600:
http://www.amamax.com/ge56pciwddrd1.html

fx5700le:
http://www.amamax.com/gefx5712ddr1.html

Note that very few retailers carry PCI Inno3d cards (I only know of 2) and, as I said, they aren't terribly cheap. Performance-wise I'm not really sure which would be better. I would probably lean towards the 5700le -- it has slightly lower clock speeds but a newer core with better shader support. Hope that was useful.

Yes Sir:

I sport the following:
128 mb NVidia GeForce FX 5600
2 gig AMD Athlod XP
1 gig of RAM

ZennZero, Loviatar, everyone thanks for the help and links, especially the poster who created the thread. We all upgrading to enjoy the graphics of this game as much as possible. It's pretty cool.

Loviatar it's a P6 VEM III motherboard. I got mine for 40, processor for 25 so that was my initial dive into making a newer PC. I used to build the old ones in the 40 megabyte seagate ST-251 days. hahahah This is a real step up for me.

Man do I feel lucky being able to spend $600 on a new mobo/cpu/ram combo in the last few months. I guess that's because I don't have to support myself quite yet . It was an amusing performance jump from my old Athlon 1700+ and PC2100 RAM to S939 AMD Athlon64 3200+ and dual channel PC3200. Damn the CPU costs a lot, though. Cost me $230 (I bought it at a local retailer).