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Age of Conan - System Requirements - Complete Breakdown
this is all taken from the age of conan site forums - a great guide to help you understand what kind of system will run AoC and how well said system could be expected to run
Will your computer run AoC?
What sort of video card should you buy?
Will Age of Conan run on a Pentium 75 with 8MB of RAM running Windows ME?
etc. etc.
Here, you can ask these questions, and more. Please direct your "Will my computer run this/what video card should I get"-type questions here.
As of yet there are no "official" minimum requirements. However, most of the information that you will find helpful is listed below and there are plenty of knowledgeable people on the forum that can help you make the best guess as to what will work, what won't, and what would be the better decisions to make until we get some more solid information in the months ahead.
These posts/quotes are pulled from multiple threads (which are now closed) in order to better consolidate the information so people can find the best information in one place, but feel free to read these threads in their entirety if you'd like.
The Grand and Glorious Computer Questions Thread
System Requirement and Noob Guide to AoC: No More "Can I Run It?"
A Noobs Guide to AoC and Graphics Cards
Update by Charon
There is also an un-official PC test online at the following link.
http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/referrer/srtest
Choose Age of Conan and only pay attention to the minimum requirements for now. The information is to my knowledge not supplied by Funcom as yet.
Thanks
-C
Just thought I'd drop a few quotes in here, so people answering/looking have some points of reference;
Quote:
Originally Posted by Athelan
I've played [Conan] on a myriad of decent systems. When I started at Funcom I had a p4 3ghz with 1 gig of ram and an ATI x850 card. It ran the game but when I ran tools as well I needed to go to 2gigs of ram. I used this for more than 2 years until I begged my way to a 512 meg graphics card. Jayde also used a 6600 or something for close to two years, he stole my card when I moved back to the US tho
Quote:
Originally Posted by Athelan
I play Conan on my Dell XPS laptop m1710 with core 2 duo 7400, 2 gig ram, 7950gtx 512meg card. Runs great. I run it at 1920by1200 with 4x anti aliasing so thats better than medium I would think.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Yahoo Inteview, 10th of January 2007
It will run well enough on our minimum specs which are roughly 3 ghz P4 (or equivalent), ATI 9800 / NVidia 5700 and around 1 gig memory. The hitch here is probably the memory consumption so we are working to bring that down.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Firderis, who was at RPC
Show-PC
Intel Core2Duo E6600 @ 2,40GHz
2GB Ram
nvidia 8800GTX
Windows Vista
DX9-Client
works very good @ 1600*1200 with High Settings.
Other than that, we know that your graphics card will require Shader Model 2, and that the minimum spec goal is somewhere around that of Oblivion.. basically, that means the following video card series: Quote:
* ATI X2900 series
* ATI X2600 series
* ATI X2400 series
* ATI X1900 series
* ATI X1800 series
* ATI X1600 series
* ATI X1300 series
* ATI X850 series
* ATI x800 series
* ATI x700 series
* ATI x600 series
* ATI Radeon 9800 series
* ATI Radeon 9700 series
* ATI Radeon 9600 series
* ATI Radeon 9500 series
* NVIDIA GeForce 8800 series
* NVIDIA GeForce 8600 series
* NVIDIA GeForce 8500 series
* NVIDIA GeForce 8400 series
* NVIDIA GeForce 7800 series
* NVIDIA GeForce 6800 series
* NVIDIA GeForce 6600 series
* NVIDIA GeForce 6200 series
* NVIDIA GeForce FX series
Series marked with red are defined by me as "in the gray zone"; these cars will likely offer bad performance, at the very least requireing you to turn the graphics all the way down to get it smooth, but this also depends on what end in the series your card is in. Series marked green will likely let you enjoy medium to high settings, depending on the rest of your hardware. Keep in mind, this is only an educated guess.
Quote:
Will Age of Conan run on a Pentium 75 with 8MB of RAM running Windows ME?
No!
THIS IS AIMED TO KEEP AT WHAT I CONSIDER PLAYABILITY.
OS-
YES! YOU CAN PLAY ON THIS ON XP TO ANSWER THE MOST COMMONLY ASKED QUESTION.
RAM-
I would recommend 768MB as the VERY VERY lowest for playing AoC on XP and 1GB as the lowest for Vista. However, to max it I would recommend 2GB on both. Could possibly get away with 1.5GB on XP.
CPUs-
Even though a C2D is above the AMD X2's. The X2 5x00 and 6000 beat the E4xx0 models.
Core 2 Quads
Intel Core 2 Extreme
Intel Core 2 Duo
AMD FX (62,72,74)
AMD X2's
Pentium D's
Pentium 4
Athlon 64
And the Longest the GPUs-
THIS IS ASSUMING THE GAME WILL RAN AS WE HEARD IT WERE THROUGH THE DEVELOPERS THEMSELVES.
Very good FPS= 45+
Good FPS= 35+
Acceptable= 30+
High-end DX10 cards-
8800Ultra - the best video card in the universe, with a high price tag. With this card you should expect to be able to max out Age of Conan at 1280*1024 4xAA (good FPS), up to a resolution of 1920*1200 no AA(good FPS)
8800GTX - probably the best high-end card up to date price wise, beaten only by the 8800 Ultra by a very little fraction in most cases. With this card you should expect to be able to ultra high-max out Age at 1280*1024 4xAA (good FPS), up to a maximum resolution of 1920*1200 (good yo very good FPS).
Mid-end cards-
8800GTS - a great card if, especially if you are on a budget. In Age of Conan the 8800GTS is most likely going to be limited by its processing power not its VRAM. You should expect these settings regardless of whether you have the 320 or 640MB. I think with this card you should expect very high-ultra high settings at 1280*1024 no AA (good FPS), probably up to a resolution of 1680*1050 (acceptable FPS).
8600GTS - a mediocre card which is slightly cheaper than an 8800GTS 320MB. With this card you should expect to be able to run Age of Conan with mostly medium settings at 1280*1024 no AA (acceptable to good FPS).
Low-end budget cards:-
8600GT - this card out performs a 7600GT but only by a little way. With this card you should be able to run the game mostly medium at 1024*768 no AA (good FPS).
8500GT - this card is a poor performer and is comparable to a 6800GT. With this card you should be able run Age of Conan on low settings at 1024*768 no AA (acceptable to good FPS).
ATi:
HD2900XT --> ATi's new flagship performs close to an X1950XTX in separate tests performed by a number of review sites.
I think with this card you could probably play Age of Conan on very high to maxed out settings at 1280*1024 no AA (good FPS).
WILL NOT COMMENT ON HD2600 AS IT PERFORMS WORSE THAN A 7600GT IN VARIOUS TEST. However, it could change once DX10 comes around.
These are the DX9 cards:
nVidia:
High-end-
7950GX2 - the best DX9 card, a great dual chip. In DX9 I'm almost positive that you would be able to play the game on very high settings at 1280*1024 (acceptable to good FPS). Still, doesn't reach the 8800GTS in some games.
7950GT - this card performs well for its price and can probably play Age of Conan on high settings at 1280*1024 no AA (acceptable FPS)
7900GTX - one of the best DX9 cards available and you should be able to play Age of Conan on high settings, one or two on max at 1280*1024 no AA (acceptable to good FPS)
7800GTX (1700Mhz Memory clock) - it is more than 2 years old, and still a powerful card, and with it you could probably play Age of Conan on high settings, one or two on max at 1280*1024 no AA (acceptable to good FPS).
Mid-end-
7900GT - a very good card which will more than likely run Age of Conan on high settings, some on medium at 1024*768 no AA (good FPS)
7900GS - a slower version of the 7900GT, with lower clock speeds. With this card you could probably play Age of Conan on medium settings, one or two on high at 1024*768 no AA (acceptable to good FPS).
NOTE: This one can be overclocked out the ass, and could probably reach the GT if pushed far enough.
7800GT - this has a weaker GPU and also lower clock speeds than Geforce 7900s. With it you could probably run Age of Conan on medium settings at 1024*768 no AA (good FPS).
7800GS - the clock speeds on this card are low and the GPU itself is not especially powerful so It will probably only reach medium settings with this card at 1024*768 no AA (good FPS).
Low-end-
7600GT - a good budget card, and performs very well for its price. You shouldn't have any issues playing Age of Conan on medium settings, some on low at 1024*768 (good FPS).
7600GS - a bad clock speed and weak GPU combine to make this a poor card for Age of Conan. With it you could probably run the game on low settings, lowest at 1024*768 no AA (acceptable to good FPS).
7300GT - this card is probably on the verge of what's possible and what's not. You could probably play Age of Conan on lowest settings, possibly low at 800*600 (acceptable FPS to good FPS).
6800Ultra - not a bad card, it performs almost equal with SLI 7300GT. You could probably play Age of Conan on low settings at 1024*768 (acceptable to good FPS).
6800GT - using this card would be pushing it, but I think you could probably play the game on low settings, lowest at 1024*768 (acceptable FPS).
6800 - this is the vanilla 6800. You could probably run Age of Conan on lowest settings, some on low at 800*600 (good FPS)
6600GT - this is probably the card which marks the boundary between playability. You could probably run the game on lowest settings, low at 800*600 (acceptable to good FPS).
ATi:
High-end:
X1950XTX - this is ATi's best DX9 card, beaten only by the 7950GX2. However, 8800 GPUs still perform a lot better. With this card you could probably play Age of Conan on high settings, maybe a few on max in DX9 at 1280*1024 no AA (good FPS).
X1950XT - this card has reduced clock speeds but is it pretty good. You should be able to run Age of Conan on high settings at 1280*1024 no AA (good FPS)
X1900XTX - A close performer to the X1950XTX so you should expect similar FPS at the same settings - With this card you could probably play Age of Conan on high settings, one or two on max in DX9 at 1280*1024 no AA (acceptable to good FPS).
X1900XT - a good performer for its price, If you want decent settings and don't want to spend a lot get this. You could probably play Age of Conan on high settings, one or two on medium at 1024*768 no AA (acceptable FPS) with this card.
Mid-end-
X1950GT - this was meant to bring X1950s to the general people but I would not recommend it. With this card you should expect medium settings at 1024*768 no AA (acceptable to good FPS).
X1950Pro - this card is decent for its price but spending an extra 30 or 40 dollars to get an x1900XTX is worth it. This card should allow you to run Age of Conan on medium settings, some on high at 1024*768 (good FPS).
X1900GT - this is an average card, but it performs close to an X1950GT. You should expect medium settings at 1024*768 no AA (acceptable to good FPS).
X1800XT - good card but for 10 or 15 dollars more you could get a 1900XTX. You could probably run Age of Conan on high settings at 1280*1024 no AA (acceptable FPS).
X1800XL - I do not recommend this card because of its low clocks. If you do have this card, you should expect medium settings at 1024*768 no AA (acceptable to good FPS).
X1800GTO - this runs pretty well for its price and is worth considering if you are in the $100 range or thereabouts. You should be able to run the game on medium setings, one or two on low at 1024*768 (acceptable FPS).
X850XT- although a little outdated, this card has decent clock speeds and a good GPU. You should expect similar settings to an X1800GTO - medium setings, one or two on low at 1024*768 (acceptable FPS).
X800XT - this will run Age of Conan on medium settings, some on low at 1024*768 (good FPS).
Low-end-
X1650XT - this was released not too long ago, but it still stinks. For it's price, its not too bad but you shouldn't expect more than low settings, some on medium at 1024*768 (acceptable FPS).
X1650Pro - this card is getting scary close minimum requirements. You would probably have to play Age of Conan on on low settings, one or two on lowest at 1024*768 (acceptable FPS).
X1600XT - not a very good video card. You should be able to play Age of Conan on low settings, lowest at 1024*768 (acceptable FPS).
X1600Pro - the card that could and probably will mark between playability. You could probably run the game on lowest settings, possible one or two on low at 800*600 (acceptable to good FPS).
X800XL - Not a bad card at all for how old it is and price but you shouldn't expect more than medium settings, some on low at 1024*768 (acceptable FPS).
X800GTO - performs close to an X1650Pro and expect similar settings. You should be able to run the game on low settings, one or two on lowest at 1024*768 (acceptable FPS).
Terminology-
Anti-aliasing (AA)- This is a way to make games (and also images) appear crisper and more distinctive without the need for using a higher resolution. The jagged lines that often appear in the game is due to an inadequate number of pixels which cannot display a straight line from a distance distinctively because of rendering methods. AA makes the edges of lines appear smoother and more realistic especially from a distance. Thus getting rid of "jaggies."
Anisotropic Filtering (AF) - A method of increasing texture clarity, really shows at longer distances. It is a form of texture filtering using a trapezoidal filtering pattern which eliminates blurry textures. This can give a quite a noticeable drop in performance, especially on older cards but with a relatively recent one, (e.g. Geforce 8 series) AF is very efficiently intergrated into the architecture to give you minimal FPS loss. I find that AF is very important for texture clarity in games, because textures start to get blurry very close to the viewpoint.
Bottleneck - sometimes you may get poor performance even with a very high end graphics card if you pair it with a weak CPU (or vice versa). This is because the CPU has to process the data as well as pinpointing vertexes in virtual space for rendering before your video card can actually do anything. If you have a weak CPU this means that your video card is literally having to wait for the CPU to give it frames to render, meaning it can only do as much as the CPU gives it. Even if the video card is capable of rendering 60+ frames a second on maxed out settings, the CPU may only be able to deliver enough data for 20FPS, which means that your FPS in the end would be 20FPS. This is what a bottleneck is. You should always try to build a balanced system in order to get the maximum performance for your money. There is no point in getting an 8800GTX and an AMD 4000+ for example, the raw power of the video card would never, ever be tapped.
What happens when a game is run-
When you start a game by clicking a shortcut, the operating system finds the corresponding target .exe file and then executes the instructions within the file these give the operating system additional files to load which is needed to start the game. All of these files are read from the hard drive and then loaded into the RAM, since this is many times faster than a hard drive. The processor needs data which can be accessed in a very short amount of time so it does not have to "wait" for new data to reach it. Not all of the game data is loaded into RAM and there is no way to force a whole game to load into RAM at any given time.
CPUs have caches which acts as a temporary store for data which is sent from RAM to ensure that the processor always has things to process. This data travels along pathways on the motherboard called "Buses". Different motherboards have a different bus speed (or FSBs). Before anything is sent to the video card, it is processed and allocated by the CPU.This processed data is then "translated" by the graphics driver installed in the most efficient way to maximize the FPS it can output. You should always install the newest drivers created by ATi or nVidia (depend on which one you have) because they are specifically optimized for their products.
After the driver translates the data, it is sent along a bus to either the AGP, PCI, or PCI-e port. These have different memory bandwidths, which determines how fast data can travel through these ports. PCI-e gives the most bandwidth. Different graphics cards use a different port, but the recent ones use PCI-e although some cards are made for the die hard AGP x8 users still left. Translated data which has been sent from the CPU is stored in the VRAM until it is needed. When it is required, the video card textures and shades the polygons, its positions (or "co-ordinates") indicated by the data, to form a complete screen of the game (or frame). This happens at a phenomenal rate because each of these rendered frames is only a screen from the game. In games these screens are played by the monitor in very fast succession so fast that the human eye begins to see it as a moving sequence instead of individual pictures. Typically this is about 20FPS but it varies from person to person. The video card therefore has to be able to render 20 frames a second at least for the game to be smooth and this is why sometimes you will need a better video card that can render more frames a second to make it smooth on the same level of detail in order for you to be able to play a game.
A graphics card is probably the most important component for gaming; basically this is the object which "renders" and shades the simple polygons in a 3D game. This is incredibly GPU intensive because the new games now have millions of polygons on the screen at any given time. These must all be textured and shaded, different layers of maps have to be applied to give the textured polygon realism and depth. A card has to be able to do this in real time at least 30 times a second. This data travels down a number of Pixel Pipelines depending on which card you have. Powerful cards tend to have more pipelines.
The data from the CPU contains "co-ordinates" for points in an image which, when joined together, forms a 3D unshaded shape called a polygon. This is placed in the right position for a 2D screen like a monitor. At the moment the frame looks blank apart from lots and lots of dots. Depending on the sources of lights within the game, different parts of the image are assigned a different shade (these different parts are the objects, walls, weapons, enemies, etc) based on the lighting conditions. Then a further adjustment is made to create the illusion of 3D on a 2D screen like a monitor, by making objects further away appear smaller, etc.
While this may not be entirely accurate, going by what the developers have said about the game and that it sill be similar to oblivion I have compiled this list for the noobs of the forum. I am an A+ certified PC technician and consiter this list accurate.
Side Note: I have made some serious updates to the compatability list based on some recent discoveries I have made. 12/5/07
CPU: 3ghz or higher recommended, 2.5 is probably minimum
RAM: Although they might gear the game down to run on 512 I recommend no less than 1 gig
HARD DRIVE SPACE: Have 20gb freed up just to be on the safe side
OPERATING SYSTEM: Windows XP or Windows Vista, of course you won't need either with the 360 version.
Official websites:
ATI: www.amd.com
Nvidia: http://www.nvidia.com/page/home.html
S3 Graphics: http://chromezone.s3graphics.com/ or
http://www.s3graphics.com/
I would add Intel, but as of now (Dec 2007) they have no cards capable of running the game.
------------------------------------------
Class 1 Cards
With these your will probably be able to run the game on max, or at least very high sittings.
Geforce 8800 Series (All Versions) DX10
Radeon HD 2900 Series (All versions) DX10
Radeon HD 3800 Series (All version) DX10
Radeon X1950 Series (All versions) DX9
Geforce 7800/7900 Series (All versions) DX9
------------------
Class 2 Cards
With these you will probably be able to run the game in upper medium range sittings.
S3 Chrome 460 - (only one version) DX10 (expected to release this december)
Radeon X1900 Series (All Versions) DX9
Geforce 8600 Series (All Versions) DX10
Radeon HD 2600 Series (All Versions) DX10
Geforce 7600 Series (All versions) DX9
Radeon X1600 - 1650 Series (All versions) DX9
Radeon X800 Series (All versions) DX9
------------------
Class 3 Cards
Expect playable, yet lower range sittings on these cards. You may have to do some tweaking and turning down to get good preformance.
S3 Chrome 430 DX10 (expected to release this december) (only one version)
Geforce 8500 Series (All versions) DX10
Geforce 8400 Series (All versions) DX10
Radeon HD 2400 Series (All versions) DX10
Geforce FX 5900 Series (All versions) DX9
Radeon X1550 Series (All versions) DX9
Geforce 6800 Series (All versions) DX9
Radeon X700 Series (All versions) DX9
S3 Chrome S27 (only one version) DX9
Geforce 6600 Series (All versions) DX9
------------------
Class 4 Cards
These cards MAY run the game on minimum settings, but are NOT AT ALL recommended.
Regardless do-not-buy-them its a big 'IF"
Geforce 7300 Series (All versions) DX9
Geforce 7200 Series (All versions) DX9
S3 Deltachrome S8 (All versions) DX9
Radeon X1300 Series (All versions) DX9
Radeon X600 - X550 Series (All versions) DX9
Geforce 6400 Series (All versions) DX9
Geforce FX 5700 Series (All versions) DX9
Raedon 9800 Series (All versions) DX9
--------------------------
Class 5 cards
These cards have no chance of running the game on playable sittings, do not buy them.
Intel GMA 800-950 (Integrated graphics) (DX9)
Nvidia Geforce 6100 (Integrated Graphics) (DX9)
Geforce 6200 Series (All versions) DX9
Radeon 9500/9600 (All versions) (DX9)
Radeon X1050 Series (All versions) DX9
Nvidia Geforce FX5200/ FX5500 Series (All versions) (DX9)
Radeon X300 Series (All versions) (DX9)
Radeon 9200 Series (All versions) (DX9)
Geforce 2,3 and 4 Series (All versions) DX7/DX8
ATI Rage Series
Voodoo Graphics
-----------------------
If anyone feels that ive left anything out leave feedback and ill make updates. Also I would not recommend AA with anything but class 1 cards.
Remember a PC is only as strong as it's weakest link.
What is the difference between dual and single core processors?
Dual cores are 2x standard power. So if you have a 2ghz dual core processor, just pretend its a 4ghz single core processor because speed and power is more or less doubled.
What is a video card?
A video card, (also referred to as a graphics accelerator card, display adapter, graphics card, and numerous other terms), is an item of personal computer hardware whose function is to generate and output images to a display.
The term is usually used to refer to a separate, dedicated expansion card that is plugged into a slot on the computer's motherboard, as opposed to a graphics controller integrated into the motherboard chipset.
What is Video memory?
If the video card is integrated in the motherboard, it will use the computer RAM memory (lower throughput). If it is not integrated, the video card will have its own video memory which is called Video RAM or VRAM. The VRAM capacity of most modern video cards range from 128 to 1024 MB (workstation graphics cards). In 2006, the VRAM was based on DDR technology, standing out DDR2, GDDR3 and GDDR4. The memory clock rate is between 400 MHz and 1.6 GHz. A very important element of the video memory is the Z-buffer, which manages the depth coordinates in 3D graphics.
What kind of card do I need to run Age of Conan?
Technology is constantly evolving. A graphics card you bought new just a year or two ago may or may not run Age of Conan. Be sure that your card at least falls into the "class 3" catigory if you want to run the game without worry.
What is PCI-E?
PCI Express, officially abbreviated as PCI-E or PCIe is a computer expansion card interface format. It was designed as a much faster interface to replace PCI, PCI-X (abbreviated from PCI eXtended) for interface cards as well as AGP interfaces for graphics cards. In recent years it has become the standard slowly phasing out AGP.
What is AGP?
The Accelerated Graphics Port (also called Advanced Graphics Port, often shortened to AGP) is a high-speed point-to-point channel for attaching a graphics card to a computer's motherboard, primarily to assist in the acceleration of 3D computer graphics. AGP is becoming an extinct format, but do not fear! Both Nvidia and ATI have confirmed Direct X 10 cards are on there way for this format. They will probably be the last however. Age of Conan will run perfectly fine on a newer AGP series card despite what some tech heads may be preaching to you.
Can I run a PCI-E card in an AGP slot or vice versa?
No
Will your computer run AoC?
What sort of video card should you buy?
Will Age of Conan run on a Pentium 75 with 8MB of RAM running Windows ME?
etc. etc.
Here, you can ask these questions, and more. Please direct your "Will my computer run this/what video card should I get"-type questions here.
As of yet there are no "official" minimum requirements. However, most of the information that you will find helpful is listed below and there are plenty of knowledgeable people on the forum that can help you make the best guess as to what will work, what won't, and what would be the better decisions to make until we get some more solid information in the months ahead.
These posts/quotes are pulled from multiple threads (which are now closed) in order to better consolidate the information so people can find the best information in one place, but feel free to read these threads in their entirety if you'd like.
The Grand and Glorious Computer Questions Thread
System Requirement and Noob Guide to AoC: No More "Can I Run It?"
A Noobs Guide to AoC and Graphics Cards
Update by Charon
There is also an un-official PC test online at the following link.
http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/referrer/srtest
Choose Age of Conan and only pay attention to the minimum requirements for now. The information is to my knowledge not supplied by Funcom as yet.
Thanks
-C
Just thought I'd drop a few quotes in here, so people answering/looking have some points of reference;
Quote:
Originally Posted by Athelan
I've played [Conan] on a myriad of decent systems. When I started at Funcom I had a p4 3ghz with 1 gig of ram and an ATI x850 card. It ran the game but when I ran tools as well I needed to go to 2gigs of ram. I used this for more than 2 years until I begged my way to a 512 meg graphics card. Jayde also used a 6600 or something for close to two years, he stole my card when I moved back to the US tho
Quote:
Originally Posted by Athelan
I play Conan on my Dell XPS laptop m1710 with core 2 duo 7400, 2 gig ram, 7950gtx 512meg card. Runs great. I run it at 1920by1200 with 4x anti aliasing so thats better than medium I would think.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Yahoo Inteview, 10th of January 2007
It will run well enough on our minimum specs which are roughly 3 ghz P4 (or equivalent), ATI 9800 / NVidia 5700 and around 1 gig memory. The hitch here is probably the memory consumption so we are working to bring that down.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Firderis, who was at RPC
Show-PC
Intel Core2Duo E6600 @ 2,40GHz
2GB Ram
nvidia 8800GTX
Windows Vista
DX9-Client
works very good @ 1600*1200 with High Settings.
Other than that, we know that your graphics card will require Shader Model 2, and that the minimum spec goal is somewhere around that of Oblivion.. basically, that means the following video card series: Quote:
* ATI X2900 series
* ATI X2600 series
* ATI X2400 series
* ATI X1900 series
* ATI X1800 series
* ATI X1600 series
* ATI X1300 series
* ATI X850 series
* ATI x800 series
* ATI x700 series
* ATI x600 series
* ATI Radeon 9800 series
* ATI Radeon 9700 series
* ATI Radeon 9600 series
* ATI Radeon 9500 series
* NVIDIA GeForce 8800 series
* NVIDIA GeForce 8600 series
* NVIDIA GeForce 8500 series
* NVIDIA GeForce 8400 series
* NVIDIA GeForce 7800 series
* NVIDIA GeForce 6800 series
* NVIDIA GeForce 6600 series
* NVIDIA GeForce 6200 series
* NVIDIA GeForce FX series
Series marked with red are defined by me as "in the gray zone"; these cars will likely offer bad performance, at the very least requireing you to turn the graphics all the way down to get it smooth, but this also depends on what end in the series your card is in. Series marked green will likely let you enjoy medium to high settings, depending on the rest of your hardware. Keep in mind, this is only an educated guess.
Quote:
Will Age of Conan run on a Pentium 75 with 8MB of RAM running Windows ME?
No!
THIS IS AIMED TO KEEP AT WHAT I CONSIDER PLAYABILITY.
OS-
YES! YOU CAN PLAY ON THIS ON XP TO ANSWER THE MOST COMMONLY ASKED QUESTION.
RAM-
I would recommend 768MB as the VERY VERY lowest for playing AoC on XP and 1GB as the lowest for Vista. However, to max it I would recommend 2GB on both. Could possibly get away with 1.5GB on XP.
CPUs-
Even though a C2D is above the AMD X2's. The X2 5x00 and 6000 beat the E4xx0 models.
Core 2 Quads
Intel Core 2 Extreme
Intel Core 2 Duo
AMD FX (62,72,74)
AMD X2's
Pentium D's
Pentium 4
Athlon 64
And the Longest the GPUs-
THIS IS ASSUMING THE GAME WILL RAN AS WE HEARD IT WERE THROUGH THE DEVELOPERS THEMSELVES.
Very good FPS= 45+
Good FPS= 35+
Acceptable= 30+
High-end DX10 cards-
8800Ultra - the best video card in the universe, with a high price tag. With this card you should expect to be able to max out Age of Conan at 1280*1024 4xAA (good FPS), up to a resolution of 1920*1200 no AA(good FPS)
8800GTX - probably the best high-end card up to date price wise, beaten only by the 8800 Ultra by a very little fraction in most cases. With this card you should expect to be able to ultra high-max out Age at 1280*1024 4xAA (good FPS), up to a maximum resolution of 1920*1200 (good yo very good FPS).
Mid-end cards-
8800GTS - a great card if, especially if you are on a budget. In Age of Conan the 8800GTS is most likely going to be limited by its processing power not its VRAM. You should expect these settings regardless of whether you have the 320 or 640MB. I think with this card you should expect very high-ultra high settings at 1280*1024 no AA (good FPS), probably up to a resolution of 1680*1050 (acceptable FPS).
8600GTS - a mediocre card which is slightly cheaper than an 8800GTS 320MB. With this card you should expect to be able to run Age of Conan with mostly medium settings at 1280*1024 no AA (acceptable to good FPS).
Low-end budget cards:-
8600GT - this card out performs a 7600GT but only by a little way. With this card you should be able to run the game mostly medium at 1024*768 no AA (good FPS).
8500GT - this card is a poor performer and is comparable to a 6800GT. With this card you should be able run Age of Conan on low settings at 1024*768 no AA (acceptable to good FPS).
ATi:
HD2900XT --> ATi's new flagship performs close to an X1950XTX in separate tests performed by a number of review sites.
I think with this card you could probably play Age of Conan on very high to maxed out settings at 1280*1024 no AA (good FPS).
WILL NOT COMMENT ON HD2600 AS IT PERFORMS WORSE THAN A 7600GT IN VARIOUS TEST. However, it could change once DX10 comes around.
These are the DX9 cards:
nVidia:
High-end-
7950GX2 - the best DX9 card, a great dual chip. In DX9 I'm almost positive that you would be able to play the game on very high settings at 1280*1024 (acceptable to good FPS). Still, doesn't reach the 8800GTS in some games.
7950GT - this card performs well for its price and can probably play Age of Conan on high settings at 1280*1024 no AA (acceptable FPS)
7900GTX - one of the best DX9 cards available and you should be able to play Age of Conan on high settings, one or two on max at 1280*1024 no AA (acceptable to good FPS)
7800GTX (1700Mhz Memory clock) - it is more than 2 years old, and still a powerful card, and with it you could probably play Age of Conan on high settings, one or two on max at 1280*1024 no AA (acceptable to good FPS).
Mid-end-
7900GT - a very good card which will more than likely run Age of Conan on high settings, some on medium at 1024*768 no AA (good FPS)
7900GS - a slower version of the 7900GT, with lower clock speeds. With this card you could probably play Age of Conan on medium settings, one or two on high at 1024*768 no AA (acceptable to good FPS).
NOTE: This one can be overclocked out the ass, and could probably reach the GT if pushed far enough.
7800GT - this has a weaker GPU and also lower clock speeds than Geforce 7900s. With it you could probably run Age of Conan on medium settings at 1024*768 no AA (good FPS).
7800GS - the clock speeds on this card are low and the GPU itself is not especially powerful so It will probably only reach medium settings with this card at 1024*768 no AA (good FPS).
Low-end-
7600GT - a good budget card, and performs very well for its price. You shouldn't have any issues playing Age of Conan on medium settings, some on low at 1024*768 (good FPS).
7600GS - a bad clock speed and weak GPU combine to make this a poor card for Age of Conan. With it you could probably run the game on low settings, lowest at 1024*768 no AA (acceptable to good FPS).
7300GT - this card is probably on the verge of what's possible and what's not. You could probably play Age of Conan on lowest settings, possibly low at 800*600 (acceptable FPS to good FPS).
6800Ultra - not a bad card, it performs almost equal with SLI 7300GT. You could probably play Age of Conan on low settings at 1024*768 (acceptable to good FPS).
6800GT - using this card would be pushing it, but I think you could probably play the game on low settings, lowest at 1024*768 (acceptable FPS).
6800 - this is the vanilla 6800. You could probably run Age of Conan on lowest settings, some on low at 800*600 (good FPS)
6600GT - this is probably the card which marks the boundary between playability. You could probably run the game on lowest settings, low at 800*600 (acceptable to good FPS).
ATi:
High-end:
X1950XTX - this is ATi's best DX9 card, beaten only by the 7950GX2. However, 8800 GPUs still perform a lot better. With this card you could probably play Age of Conan on high settings, maybe a few on max in DX9 at 1280*1024 no AA (good FPS).
X1950XT - this card has reduced clock speeds but is it pretty good. You should be able to run Age of Conan on high settings at 1280*1024 no AA (good FPS)
X1900XTX - A close performer to the X1950XTX so you should expect similar FPS at the same settings - With this card you could probably play Age of Conan on high settings, one or two on max in DX9 at 1280*1024 no AA (acceptable to good FPS).
X1900XT - a good performer for its price, If you want decent settings and don't want to spend a lot get this. You could probably play Age of Conan on high settings, one or two on medium at 1024*768 no AA (acceptable FPS) with this card.
Mid-end-
X1950GT - this was meant to bring X1950s to the general people but I would not recommend it. With this card you should expect medium settings at 1024*768 no AA (acceptable to good FPS).
X1950Pro - this card is decent for its price but spending an extra 30 or 40 dollars to get an x1900XTX is worth it. This card should allow you to run Age of Conan on medium settings, some on high at 1024*768 (good FPS).
X1900GT - this is an average card, but it performs close to an X1950GT. You should expect medium settings at 1024*768 no AA (acceptable to good FPS).
X1800XT - good card but for 10 or 15 dollars more you could get a 1900XTX. You could probably run Age of Conan on high settings at 1280*1024 no AA (acceptable FPS).
X1800XL - I do not recommend this card because of its low clocks. If you do have this card, you should expect medium settings at 1024*768 no AA (acceptable to good FPS).
X1800GTO - this runs pretty well for its price and is worth considering if you are in the $100 range or thereabouts. You should be able to run the game on medium setings, one or two on low at 1024*768 (acceptable FPS).
X850XT- although a little outdated, this card has decent clock speeds and a good GPU. You should expect similar settings to an X1800GTO - medium setings, one or two on low at 1024*768 (acceptable FPS).
X800XT - this will run Age of Conan on medium settings, some on low at 1024*768 (good FPS).
Low-end-
X1650XT - this was released not too long ago, but it still stinks. For it's price, its not too bad but you shouldn't expect more than low settings, some on medium at 1024*768 (acceptable FPS).
X1650Pro - this card is getting scary close minimum requirements. You would probably have to play Age of Conan on on low settings, one or two on lowest at 1024*768 (acceptable FPS).
X1600XT - not a very good video card. You should be able to play Age of Conan on low settings, lowest at 1024*768 (acceptable FPS).
X1600Pro - the card that could and probably will mark between playability. You could probably run the game on lowest settings, possible one or two on low at 800*600 (acceptable to good FPS).
X800XL - Not a bad card at all for how old it is and price but you shouldn't expect more than medium settings, some on low at 1024*768 (acceptable FPS).
X800GTO - performs close to an X1650Pro and expect similar settings. You should be able to run the game on low settings, one or two on lowest at 1024*768 (acceptable FPS).
Terminology-
Anti-aliasing (AA)- This is a way to make games (and also images) appear crisper and more distinctive without the need for using a higher resolution. The jagged lines that often appear in the game is due to an inadequate number of pixels which cannot display a straight line from a distance distinctively because of rendering methods. AA makes the edges of lines appear smoother and more realistic especially from a distance. Thus getting rid of "jaggies."
Anisotropic Filtering (AF) - A method of increasing texture clarity, really shows at longer distances. It is a form of texture filtering using a trapezoidal filtering pattern which eliminates blurry textures. This can give a quite a noticeable drop in performance, especially on older cards but with a relatively recent one, (e.g. Geforce 8 series) AF is very efficiently intergrated into the architecture to give you minimal FPS loss. I find that AF is very important for texture clarity in games, because textures start to get blurry very close to the viewpoint.
Bottleneck - sometimes you may get poor performance even with a very high end graphics card if you pair it with a weak CPU (or vice versa). This is because the CPU has to process the data as well as pinpointing vertexes in virtual space for rendering before your video card can actually do anything. If you have a weak CPU this means that your video card is literally having to wait for the CPU to give it frames to render, meaning it can only do as much as the CPU gives it. Even if the video card is capable of rendering 60+ frames a second on maxed out settings, the CPU may only be able to deliver enough data for 20FPS, which means that your FPS in the end would be 20FPS. This is what a bottleneck is. You should always try to build a balanced system in order to get the maximum performance for your money. There is no point in getting an 8800GTX and an AMD 4000+ for example, the raw power of the video card would never, ever be tapped.
What happens when a game is run-
When you start a game by clicking a shortcut, the operating system finds the corresponding target .exe file and then executes the instructions within the file these give the operating system additional files to load which is needed to start the game. All of these files are read from the hard drive and then loaded into the RAM, since this is many times faster than a hard drive. The processor needs data which can be accessed in a very short amount of time so it does not have to "wait" for new data to reach it. Not all of the game data is loaded into RAM and there is no way to force a whole game to load into RAM at any given time.
CPUs have caches which acts as a temporary store for data which is sent from RAM to ensure that the processor always has things to process. This data travels along pathways on the motherboard called "Buses". Different motherboards have a different bus speed (or FSBs). Before anything is sent to the video card, it is processed and allocated by the CPU.This processed data is then "translated" by the graphics driver installed in the most efficient way to maximize the FPS it can output. You should always install the newest drivers created by ATi or nVidia (depend on which one you have) because they are specifically optimized for their products.
After the driver translates the data, it is sent along a bus to either the AGP, PCI, or PCI-e port. These have different memory bandwidths, which determines how fast data can travel through these ports. PCI-e gives the most bandwidth. Different graphics cards use a different port, but the recent ones use PCI-e although some cards are made for the die hard AGP x8 users still left. Translated data which has been sent from the CPU is stored in the VRAM until it is needed. When it is required, the video card textures and shades the polygons, its positions (or "co-ordinates") indicated by the data, to form a complete screen of the game (or frame). This happens at a phenomenal rate because each of these rendered frames is only a screen from the game. In games these screens are played by the monitor in very fast succession so fast that the human eye begins to see it as a moving sequence instead of individual pictures. Typically this is about 20FPS but it varies from person to person. The video card therefore has to be able to render 20 frames a second at least for the game to be smooth and this is why sometimes you will need a better video card that can render more frames a second to make it smooth on the same level of detail in order for you to be able to play a game.
A graphics card is probably the most important component for gaming; basically this is the object which "renders" and shades the simple polygons in a 3D game. This is incredibly GPU intensive because the new games now have millions of polygons on the screen at any given time. These must all be textured and shaded, different layers of maps have to be applied to give the textured polygon realism and depth. A card has to be able to do this in real time at least 30 times a second. This data travels down a number of Pixel Pipelines depending on which card you have. Powerful cards tend to have more pipelines.
The data from the CPU contains "co-ordinates" for points in an image which, when joined together, forms a 3D unshaded shape called a polygon. This is placed in the right position for a 2D screen like a monitor. At the moment the frame looks blank apart from lots and lots of dots. Depending on the sources of lights within the game, different parts of the image are assigned a different shade (these different parts are the objects, walls, weapons, enemies, etc) based on the lighting conditions. Then a further adjustment is made to create the illusion of 3D on a 2D screen like a monitor, by making objects further away appear smaller, etc.
While this may not be entirely accurate, going by what the developers have said about the game and that it sill be similar to oblivion I have compiled this list for the noobs of the forum. I am an A+ certified PC technician and consiter this list accurate.
Side Note: I have made some serious updates to the compatability list based on some recent discoveries I have made. 12/5/07
CPU: 3ghz or higher recommended, 2.5 is probably minimum
RAM: Although they might gear the game down to run on 512 I recommend no less than 1 gig
HARD DRIVE SPACE: Have 20gb freed up just to be on the safe side
OPERATING SYSTEM: Windows XP or Windows Vista, of course you won't need either with the 360 version.
Official websites:
ATI: www.amd.com
Nvidia: http://www.nvidia.com/page/home.html
S3 Graphics: http://chromezone.s3graphics.com/ or
http://www.s3graphics.com/
I would add Intel, but as of now (Dec 2007) they have no cards capable of running the game.
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Class 1 Cards
With these your will probably be able to run the game on max, or at least very high sittings.
Geforce 8800 Series (All Versions) DX10
Radeon HD 2900 Series (All versions) DX10
Radeon HD 3800 Series (All version) DX10
Radeon X1950 Series (All versions) DX9
Geforce 7800/7900 Series (All versions) DX9
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Class 2 Cards
With these you will probably be able to run the game in upper medium range sittings.
S3 Chrome 460 - (only one version) DX10 (expected to release this december)
Radeon X1900 Series (All Versions) DX9
Geforce 8600 Series (All Versions) DX10
Radeon HD 2600 Series (All Versions) DX10
Geforce 7600 Series (All versions) DX9
Radeon X1600 - 1650 Series (All versions) DX9
Radeon X800 Series (All versions) DX9
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Class 3 Cards
Expect playable, yet lower range sittings on these cards. You may have to do some tweaking and turning down to get good preformance.
S3 Chrome 430 DX10 (expected to release this december) (only one version)
Geforce 8500 Series (All versions) DX10
Geforce 8400 Series (All versions) DX10
Radeon HD 2400 Series (All versions) DX10
Geforce FX 5900 Series (All versions) DX9
Radeon X1550 Series (All versions) DX9
Geforce 6800 Series (All versions) DX9
Radeon X700 Series (All versions) DX9
S3 Chrome S27 (only one version) DX9
Geforce 6600 Series (All versions) DX9
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Class 4 Cards
These cards MAY run the game on minimum settings, but are NOT AT ALL recommended.
Regardless do-not-buy-them its a big 'IF"
Geforce 7300 Series (All versions) DX9
Geforce 7200 Series (All versions) DX9
S3 Deltachrome S8 (All versions) DX9
Radeon X1300 Series (All versions) DX9
Radeon X600 - X550 Series (All versions) DX9
Geforce 6400 Series (All versions) DX9
Geforce FX 5700 Series (All versions) DX9
Raedon 9800 Series (All versions) DX9
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Class 5 cards
These cards have no chance of running the game on playable sittings, do not buy them.
Intel GMA 800-950 (Integrated graphics) (DX9)
Nvidia Geforce 6100 (Integrated Graphics) (DX9)
Geforce 6200 Series (All versions) DX9
Radeon 9500/9600 (All versions) (DX9)
Radeon X1050 Series (All versions) DX9
Nvidia Geforce FX5200/ FX5500 Series (All versions) (DX9)
Radeon X300 Series (All versions) (DX9)
Radeon 9200 Series (All versions) (DX9)
Geforce 2,3 and 4 Series (All versions) DX7/DX8
ATI Rage Series
Voodoo Graphics
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If anyone feels that ive left anything out leave feedback and ill make updates. Also I would not recommend AA with anything but class 1 cards.
Remember a PC is only as strong as it's weakest link.
What is the difference between dual and single core processors?
Dual cores are 2x standard power. So if you have a 2ghz dual core processor, just pretend its a 4ghz single core processor because speed and power is more or less doubled.
What is a video card?
A video card, (also referred to as a graphics accelerator card, display adapter, graphics card, and numerous other terms), is an item of personal computer hardware whose function is to generate and output images to a display.
The term is usually used to refer to a separate, dedicated expansion card that is plugged into a slot on the computer's motherboard, as opposed to a graphics controller integrated into the motherboard chipset.
What is Video memory?
If the video card is integrated in the motherboard, it will use the computer RAM memory (lower throughput). If it is not integrated, the video card will have its own video memory which is called Video RAM or VRAM. The VRAM capacity of most modern video cards range from 128 to 1024 MB (workstation graphics cards). In 2006, the VRAM was based on DDR technology, standing out DDR2, GDDR3 and GDDR4. The memory clock rate is between 400 MHz and 1.6 GHz. A very important element of the video memory is the Z-buffer, which manages the depth coordinates in 3D graphics.
What kind of card do I need to run Age of Conan?
Technology is constantly evolving. A graphics card you bought new just a year or two ago may or may not run Age of Conan. Be sure that your card at least falls into the "class 3" catigory if you want to run the game without worry.
What is PCI-E?
PCI Express, officially abbreviated as PCI-E or PCIe is a computer expansion card interface format. It was designed as a much faster interface to replace PCI, PCI-X (abbreviated from PCI eXtended) for interface cards as well as AGP interfaces for graphics cards. In recent years it has become the standard slowly phasing out AGP.
What is AGP?
The Accelerated Graphics Port (also called Advanced Graphics Port, often shortened to AGP) is a high-speed point-to-point channel for attaching a graphics card to a computer's motherboard, primarily to assist in the acceleration of 3D computer graphics. AGP is becoming an extinct format, but do not fear! Both Nvidia and ATI have confirmed Direct X 10 cards are on there way for this format. They will probably be the last however. Age of Conan will run perfectly fine on a newer AGP series card despite what some tech heads may be preaching to you.
Can I run a PCI-E card in an AGP slot or vice versa?
No