System Requirements and Recommendations

[walrus]

The 8600 NVidia cards are crap. It's basically 7600 with Dx10 support. Since many games don't support it anyway, it's just not worth it. Just get a 7600GT, 7900 or an 8800GT. I, myself have a 7900GTX and 5.4GHz Dual-Core processor, so I know mine will be enough.

Walter's right, the 8600 series, while adequate for paradox games, isn't really that great in the grand scheme of things.

By the time HOI3 comes out, the 8800 series, and the Ati 3850/70s will probably have dropped enough in price for you poor people out there to afford them (actually, I got a 8800GT for £65 gotta love ebay)

 

[valen]

I'm probably going to have the chance to get a new laptop sometime next year and the model I'm looking at has a Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X4500HD. Is that any good? I don't really keep up on 3d anymore. I barely have time for HOI II...

 

[carmen510]

Hehe. Since I also play the more modern games, this is what I have.

nVidia 8800 GTS
Intel Quad-Core 2.4 Ghz (Equal to like ~10 Ghz)
3.5 GB RAM (Actually its supposed to be 4 GB but W/e)
750 GB Hard drive space. (One is 500 GB, the other is 250 GB)
HP w22-7h Widescreen monitor (22 inches baby!)

I just hope that HoI3 will not lag on my computer like everyone else's.

 

[unmerged(49083)]

Intel graphics cards or any integrated card sucks completely. I suggest getting a laptop that has a graphics card on-par with the NVidia 6xxx series. The 5xxx series is no good because it implemented Dx9 poorly and so slowed down and put stress on the card, and Geforce 4 is just no good.

 

[coreymas]

Intel graphics cards or any integrated card sucks completely. I suggest getting a laptop that has a graphics card on-par with the NVidia 6xxx series. The 5xxx series is no good because it implemented Dx9 poorly and so slowed down and put stress on the card, and Geforce 4 is just no good.

Ahhh the 6XXX series is even slow.... and most current lappies on the market are featureing the 7XXX series.

Plus a bit of advise... the lower the number of hundreds in an NVidia card the lower quality.

So if you have a choice between 8600 and 8800 -- go for the 8800.

 

[comagoosie]

I think everyone should upgrade to 512 MB of Ram, for around ~63 dollars, which isn't bad. At least that is how much it costs at my local store.

 

[unmerged(49083)]

coreymas, the 6xxx serie may be slow, but the 5xxx serie is much worse. I mean, just look at all the errors people got using it with EUIII when it came out.

 

[coreymas]

I think everyone should upgrade to 512 MB of Ram, for around ~63 dollars, which isn't bad. At least that is how much it costs at my local store.

Sorry but i dont think that you will get a terribly great experience on 512 MB RAM these days.

Plus RAM at my local tech store costs 30$ a GIG

Walter you are right about that the 5000 series cards were HORRIBLE.....

If anyone asks for a recommendation from me the 2 key factors are going to be

Video Card -- 7xxx series a minimum
RAM 1 GIG minimum -- 2 if you can manage it.

 

[unmerged(59700)]

Ahhh the 6XXX series is even slow.... and most current lappies on the market are featureing the 7XXX series.

Plus a bit of advise... the lower the number of hundreds in an NVidia card the lower quality.

So if you have a choice between 8600 and 8800 -- go for the 8800.

Not always true. An 8800GTX is much faster than a 9600.

A 6800 ULTRA is much faster than an 8400/8500 but identical to a 7600GT.

ETC.

Do some research if you are not sure before purchasing. Retailers everywhere WILL openly lie to maximize profit.

 

[unmerged(103753)]

is an phenom 8400 triple core proccessor (2 GHz each) and 3GB of RAM with a nvidia 9600 GT (for showing off) of the minimum stanards?

 

[unmerged(76730)]

Guys how can you play with only 512 MB? When I had still my old P3/850/512 MB it was horrid. It took like 5-10 mins to scroll map in HOI2. Even now with C2D/2 GB it is far from smooth when late in the game with lots of units.

And EU3 cheewing up ~1GB almost instantly after game starts. And it is only playable with max zoom out. Really slow engine.

RAM is so cheap right now. In particular if somebody still using SDRAM (P3 & similiar systems).

 

[jdrou]

Intel graphics cards or any integrated card sucks completely.

The newer Intel chips are OK for EU3; I have no problem with the GMA X3100 in my laptop. I assume the newest X4500 will be even better. If you're not very concerned with playing non-Paradox 3D games I wouldn't completely rule out Intel graphics, just the GMA 950 and older (EDIT: and the 'non-X' 3000 and 3100 which are basically the same as the 950).

 

[unmerged(51738)]

Regularly updated graphiccard ranking:
http://www.3dchip.de/Grafikchipliste/Leistung_Graka.htm
But seriously, any budget card suffices for Paradox Games on the EU3 engine.
More important is an halfway uptodate processor and lots of RAM.
Which is very cheap ATM by the way, so buy it now.

 

[podcat]

coreymas, the 6xxx serie may be slow, but the 5xxx serie is much worse. I mean, just look at all the errors people got using it with EUIII when it came out.

yes, stay away from the 5xxx series, they did support Pixel Shader 2.0, but that support was so horribly slow that it is almost useless compared to the very nice ATI cards of that era. I doubt you can even buy them anymore, and if you can someone is probably trying to scam you.

 

[unmerged(49695)]

hm what good cpu+motherboard+gfx card could u get with 350 euros?

ive got a ide hard drive of 200gb, a radeon 9200 SE, a p4 2.6ghz, motherboard asrock pe pro.

The requirements arent that hard on most of components, but my gfx card cant handle pixel shadder 2.0 (only 1.4 or so) so instead of buying a slightly new better card, id rather change it all already thinking on the upcoming wrath of the lich king aswell

 

[unmerged(51738)]

hm what good cpu+motherboard+gfx card could u get with 350 euros?

ive got a ide hard drive of 200gb, a radeon 9200 SE, a p4 2.6ghz, motherboard asrock pe pro.

The requirements arent that hard on most of components, but my gfx card cant handle pixel shadder 2.0 (only 1.4 or so) so instead of buying a slightly new better card, id rather change it all already thinking on the upcoming wrath of the lich king aswell

You can get a pretty decent and UPGRADABLE PC in the 350 -500 Euro range, just check Ebay.

 

[True Grit]

Any half decent PC bought in the last couple years should be sufficient to run HOI3 - if what they are stating is true and it will have generally the same requirements as EU3/Rome.

My PC is 5 years old - I've only upgraded the RAM and the video card and I run EU3 at my max visual settings with no trouble and no appreciable slow downs. HOI2 = the same.

I have:
- Barton 2500+ (oc'd to 3200+)
- 2GB ram
- 7600GT

 

[Will Lucky]

Building a new system either this month or in October when Intel i7 is released so I will be more than ready for this.

 

[The Swert]

...Don't laugh.
I have an Nvidia GeForce 4200.
64 Mb. I can't even play EUIII.

Don't fell too bad. Until last year I was using a Geforce 2 MX400.

 

[unmerged(85800)]

i'm going to be so pissed off if it doesnt work on my laptop, which i can/will not upgrade. i have a pretty new laptop which is nicely fast for games and stuff but i chose to pay less for a worse graphics card because i only play older strategy titles which dont need good ones. little did i know it was literally the worst graphics card available - some nerd will probably laugh but its an Intel mobile 945gm thingy, which dell kindly didnt tell me is dire. it runs rome total war on pretty good settings (ie can do 3d) but i cant get it to run EU3, and the rome demo when i tried it displayed fine but CTD'd all the time, which i wasnt sure if that was anything to do with the graphics. what i'm saying is, will a fairly good dual core system with a much worse graphics card work? i cant see it being very high graphics, and theres no need for it to be. my friends took one look at hoi2's graphics, laughed and went back to halo 3, but we all know it's all about the gameplay really.