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TOR intel duo core 2.5 Ghz & Radeon 4670 (512mg) ?
intel duo core E3300 2.5 Ghz processer
Asus P5G41-M cpu
2gb DDR-II 800 RAM
512MB ATI Radeon videocard (Radeon 4670)
Windows 7 installed
Will my system run SW:TOR reasonably well?
I live abroad (Taiwan) and want to order the game (+shipping= ~ US $100 dollars). I want to make sure this system can handle it first, though. (I will buy it on Friday for ~ US $170 dollars (good deal?)) Any adive would be greatly, greatly appreciated, as I am having trouble placing the ability of the machine based on the numbers alone.
As we say in Taiwan, "gam shia"
Comments
The processor is fine enough, but 2 gigs ram more and a better GFX card is really recommended unless you plan to play on low settings.
2 more gigs is really cheap and a medium ranged GFX card is 140-150 bucks (at least in the Us, not sure about Taiwanese prices). A 260 GTX or a 5870 should do the trick.
You should still be able to run the game with what you have though. It is rather well coded.
Loke666 -- Thank you for the advise! I will buy more ram and look into new card.
If I made those changes, do you think I would be able to play at the highest graphics setting?
Which card is better: MSI N560GTX-Ti Hawk Graphics card - 1GB - GDDR5 SDRAM or BFG GeForce GTX 280 Graphics card - 1 GB - GDDR3 SDRAM ? Thanks!
The 560GTX is better by a long way, the first number refers to the series, the current series is 5 so the 280GTX is 3 series behind.
Thanks for the information!
Are you saying that you already have that computer, or that you will buy that computer? If the latter, then don't.
If you already have it, then what power supply and case do you have? That may limit your upgrade options.
I don't have the computer, but might buy it -- for about $170 US used. Is that a bad deal? Any ideas how much it would cost to put one together myself? I'm guessing it would cost around $500.
I guess it's a question of your budget. If that's all you can afford, then so be it. SWTOR should be playable at low to moderate graphical settings on that system without any upgrades. But don't plan on buying an older system and then upgrading it.
If you spend $170 to get the computer, $200 on a new video card, and $50 on a new power supply (as would probably be necessary to handle the video card), then you've ended up spending over $400 to get an aging system that isn't going to have that much life left before it needs to be replaced outright.
If that's what you're going to do, then it's better spend $700 to do it right and get something that will last you a long time. A sensible budget gaming system today will likely last you about three years longer than buying today something that would have been a sensible budget gaming system three years ago--and thus has already used up about three years of its useful lifetime.
Thanks Quizzical -- That makes sense: the difference between $400 and $700 isn't large when considering the differences between the systems....but, I'm not sure if SWTOR is worth buying a new PC, though --I don't play any other games -- as I think I have a skewed preception of TOR - a game I can do some sandbox-ish crafting and exploring in (I'm not interested in designed stories -- that's why I ilke MMORPGs.) that's not in a fantasy world... Most of the reports I'm reading counter this idea, however. But this is a topic for a different thread. I'd be happy to hear any opinions, anyways, either through sending me a PM or posting on this other thread I started:
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/4661104/thread/337059#4661104
Thanks again everyone!
MuratReis
It sounds like what you really want is Star Wars Galaxies as it was before the New Game Experience. If that's what you're looking for, then you're going to be sorely disappointed by SWTOR. I'd hesitate to call any game a 100% pure theme, but SWTOR is about as close as games come to that. It's not sandbox at all. Scripted stories seem to be the raison d'etre for SWTOR, so if that doesn't interest you, the game won't either.
Now, if you want a non-fantasy sandbox where you can do crafting and exploring without having to spend most of your time in combat, there are some other options. A Tale in the Desert is a mostly crafting game set in Ancient Egypt, with a very complex and widely varied crafting system that is actually quite good. You can spend a lot of time messing with various game mechanics and figure out how it works. If you're good, you might be able to be the best in the game at producing some particular item, such that if people want the highest quality they can get, they have to buy it from you. ATITD has no combat at all. But one could argue that
If you want a game with a significant emphasis on going out and exploring the world, then the only one I'm aware of is Uncharted Waters Online. UWO is set on Earth at an unspecified date roughly in the 1520s. It has something like 3000 things that are set up for you to go out and discover, and even if you're a pure explorer, a year might not be enough time to go find everything. The crafting processes in UWO are of the dull click a button and get an item variety, but it's an enormously tangled web of which items you need to craft in order to make which other items. UWO is the only game I've played where many useful items are widely known to exist, but no one seems to know how to acquire one for yourself. It does have combat as a relatively minor portion of the game, which you can mostly ignore if you like (i.e., run away when attacked) without being crippled. If you're interested in UWO, then check this thread:
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/555/view/forums/thread/332238/Well-this-is-different-a-review.html
Neither ATITD nor UWO have high system requirements, so you could probably run them just fine on what you've got right now. They'd certainly run very well on a modern nettop, at least if it's one based on AMD hardware. The computer you're looking at for $170 would very easily run both games very well.
For the system, $170 isn't a ripoff for that computer, but it isn't worth buying it for gaming, since you'd have to put a lot of upgrades into it before it would really play. It would need at least double that cost in upgrades to play with the graphics settings on High - SWTOR is pretty forgiving, but 2G of RAM won't cut it for any gaming machine, and the 4670 is a pretty dated card, and was fairly slow even when it was new.
$170 wouldn't be bad if you were planning on using it to browse the web, email, and other light PC work (provided it's in good working order) - as the Windows license alone on the machine is about $100. For gaming, it's not an appropriate machine.
It would play the game on low-medium settings though, but probably with long load times and a good deal of stuttering throughout the voice overs (as it slams virtual memory).
If you have an existing machine, I would not buy a new machine or upgrade for any game until you've
a) tried it on your existing machine
b) sure you really like it
That being said, SWTOR is very scripted and very much for story lines.
Have you checked out EVE Online? That's about as sandbox as it gets, has probably the largest virtual online world to explore (most of which is fairly empty and/or hostile, but there are some really neat gems out there to find) and has a lot of extensive crafting (although it's somewhat different from "traditional" MMO crafting).
Yeah, it sounds like you're not really going in the right direction.
If you're not a gamer in general but looking for a sandbox MMO, then shooting for TOR is bad both because it's anything but, and because it's intensive enough (for an MMO at least) that you need at least a decent system to play it well.
I'd say consider taking a look at Guild Wars 2, as it'll at least be better than TOR, by all indications, in terms of having some more sandbox-like features, but... that just creates a bigger system requirements problem.
Quizzical's suggestion is probably best: just pick up a non-intensive MMO that suits your needs. There are plenty of sandbox MMOs, from simple titles with a bit of crafting all the way to EVE Online, if you're looking for a torurously complex game
Guild Wars 2 will probably be a good game, but it is fantasy and isn't sandbox, so it likely isn't what the original poster is after.
It doesn't get any more sandbox than A Tale in the Desert. Not only is it a sandbox, but it also has lots of sand. And white sand and red sand, too, for good measure. Because it's a desert.
I haven't played EVE Online, but I'd be surprised if it's more complex than Uncharted Waters Online. Koei does complexity for the sake of complexity, sometimes seemingly without stopping to consider whether it makes for good gameplay. EVE also has significantly higher (albeit not high) system requirements. The computer I bought way back in 2002 ran ATITD just fine, and might run UWO pretty well, too.
The original SWG game (before mounts!) was the best. I had so much fun playing that game, but alas, I don't think there will ever be another like it...
I take what you (and everyone else) are saying about TOR seriously, even though it's hard not to believe what I think the game is isn't so.
Thanks for the MMO recommendations. I'll check them out.
In that case, I've got another recommendation for you. Wait until SWTOR has a free trial. And then try it. Then you'll know for yourself that it isn't Star Wars Galaxies 2. By then, you might have a better computer that can run the game well, too.
I'll download it when the trial comes out . (If I can: EA seems to not want to make the game internationally downloadable; hence why I would need to have it sent here.)
I skimmed through your review and the game looks interesting; I like massive worlds and long travel times. Perhaps I'll be able to play it on my current computer...
SWTOR will eventually be released in Taiwan. EA is staggering release dates for now, though. There will also eventually be a free trial, but not until after they're satisfied that they can handle however many players they have. They also want to collect the early adopter tax by making people pay more to play it first.