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My system should be able to run this game... Right?
Jonsus
Member UncommonPosts: 175
So I have a new-ish computer. Its not the greatest machine in the world, but its got enough processing power and RAM to run pretty much everything thats on the market gamewise today... except Age of Conan apparently.
System Specs:
Acer tower
AMD Athlon 64X2 Dual Core Processor 5000+
3 gigs of DDR2 ram
Nvidia 8400GS 512meg videocard
Windows Vista Premium 32bit
Good monitor, plenty of harddrive space...
The game chugs along on the lowest possible settings, barely, usually ranging from 2-15FPS (though anytime it climbs over 10FPS is super rare). Is there something im doing wrong? Ive even gone in and disabled alot of the crappy vista programs that run automatically in the background.
Anyone with constructive comments/thoughts/help... please help 
I would really like to play this game, and I hear tell of people with systems that are MUCH less powerful, running it with ease on low settings.
EDIT: Forgot to put in the processor speed heh
Comments
Video card is pretty bad man, AoC has every surface covered in normal mapped textures which push shader chips to their knees, something a minor card like the 8400gs wouldn't be particularly well versed at.
If you can't replace the card.. you should consider changing drivers in the hopes you can gain a magical 5 fps somewhere. Also make sure the background running programs are cut to a minimum.
So a better videcard is the answer to my problems? What would you recommend?
Don't feel too bad. I have a Nvidia Geforce 9600 GT SLi and sometimes the graphics still become a bit choppy... not as bad as 2-15 fps but a wee bit choppy. Oh ditch the Vista and downgrade to Windows XP SP2 (you get that option till June 2008). Vista = currently very bad for gaming.
Depends how much you're willing to spend..
8800GT 512+ would probably set you up with high
8600GT 128/256 might set you up on med if you're lucky
Not sure at ATi these days.
You can still play the game with that card, just don't expect it to be very fast. at all.
mbe an 8600gt?
Theres a place where I can downgrade to XP for free? >_>
I wouldn't bother downgrading, vista isn't far behind XPs performance with service pack 1. So long as you have the extra ram, and you do- it shouldn't pose as any FPS problems.
_nothing_ will save you from having to upgrade that card to get a good framerate / med detail.
I have Vista 32 bit with with SP 1 and have played a wide spectrum of games off line and on line with and without SP 1 with no problems. Its not that bad and not imo worth spending money to downgrade it.
EDIT : I have 2 gigs of ram and have run : SWG, LotRO (which looks about equal to AoC graphics), EVE, CoD4, C&C3, and everything on the Orange Box pretty flawlessly. And I hear 2 gigs will be fine for AoC if not I shall upgrade.
"What is it that the gamers want from these games and why is it not given to them? We were playing these games ourselves, that's why we know it was not being done. So we moved in the opposite direction. We thought about what the users wanted, what we wanted, and why it wasn't happening and how it could happen." - Tasos Flambouras
Avoid the 8600 if you can spend $30 more. Grab a 8800gs and play it maxed out for around $100.
edit - the 8800gs is being re-branded as the 9600gso. Its the same card so either one will do.
Does anyone else have the feeling that this game might end up like Crysis? I'm talking from just computer you need to run this game anywhere near decent.
Not at all like crysis.. It's requirements are still higher than AoC and it's much older.
AoC's engine is lacking alot of polish in terms of performance however.
I recommend a Geforce 9600 GT SLi ..but that depends on your budget... in my opinion its the best bang for your buck card on the market right now... it's NOT the best card but it's the best performance for its price range.
http://www.pricewatch.com/video_cards/
If you got oodles of ram then yeah you can run Vista fine (but I don't like Vista due to its compatibility problems with some older games) but if you don't have oodles of ram then i recommend downgrading to XP... ask your pc seller if they can give you that option for free.
That's just weird you get around the same fps as me when my specs are about half of yours. I would think it's more windows/AoC optimization rather then hardware related but I can't help ya with Vista - I'm still on XP. As far as AoC goes, running on lowest resolution helped a lot more then lowering the advanced settings.
EDIT: I was running at 1440x900 for my widescreen display, but that really hurt my fps. Lowering it to 1024x768 and windowed mode gave me about 10 fps.
You must have had vsync on in fullscreen? (random guess)
althought 2d and 3d subsystems are quite different, fullscreen should still be superior
If you do not have SP1 for Vista installed then that will help your performance when you download it and upgrade your video card to a 8800GT or a 9600GT and you should be good to go.
I have the same CPU as you with 4gigs of ram and a 8800GT and at high settings I get around 30FPS.
You must have had vsync on in fullscreen? (random guess)
althought 2d and 3d subsystems are quite different, fullscreen should still be superior
I'll have to check when I get home - don't remember what vsync was set to actually, but that's what I thought about fullscreen too until I switched it at someone else's recommendation.