Do I need a new computer to play BG3?

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Mystra, Do I need to buy a new computer to play BG3? Mystra-All signs point to yes!

 

That's exactly what made me think to drop by.

Not going to get the pre-release, but I'm hearing good things. And I actually play some tabletop now (well desktop-tabletop as it were), so getting a faithful conversion is exciting.

 

Supposedly the benefit of the pre-release is that you get an extra potential companion; which from what I've been seeing is a warlock. I like companions so I want him; but my old computer can't play the game so bummerz.

 

My nesting partner has the game, I got him a new PC for his birthday so it's looking great. The ragdoll effects messed up with a gnoll last night though, so it was dancing on the stairs getting its limbs all mixed up and jangling about like a broken puppet. Reminded me of the old IE bug where an exploded corpse would sometimes still attack you or cast spells but was untargetable itself.

I keep throwing out BG1 and 2 trivia at him whilst he's playing, pretty sure it's driving him nuts but he's also got chronic restarter syndrome and about to make his third character

 

I do that last a lot. I'll create a character because I find the concept interesting and then discover that the concept isn't much fun to play so I start over with a different concept. For instance I created a Ranger/Cleric way way back when I first started playing 1st ed AD&D but the character got killed on a night I had to work because of stupid party decisions "lets send him into a room we are fairly certain is a trap alone and leave him for half-an-hour before we go in to check on how dead he is." I never did create a character like that again so after all these years I was curious how the combo would play. The answer was: not very well in 2nd Ed. In 1st Ed you could use the best weapons of any class you followed but it was chaotic about what armor you could wear. BG is chaotic about armor and limits you to the worst weapons out of your two classes. I found that frustrating so I restarted with a straight Ranger.

I've never finished either BG game. The first one bogs me down once you reach the city; you end up chasing too many quests at once and I get lost trying to complete them. I get bored and frustrated with trying to run in every direction at once so I quit playing over and over.

I keep finding youtube videos of people who were given free copies of the game by Larian so they could post their "walk-thru's" of the game to promote it on youtube. But these people admit they've never played D&D so they don't know what they are doing even at character creation; and they keep doing really dumb things during play. The last one had a gimmick he would use when he messed up - he'd pretend to sneeze and then hit F8 to restart at his last save. Every time he messed something up which was often. It was ALMOST funny the first time; after the fifth time in only his second play session I couldn't take it any more and quite watching.

So instead I'm playing runs through both of the Divinity: Original Sin games along with BG1 alternating back and forth between them.

 

Planning to get a new computer for black friday. If you spend $800+ you get 12 months no interest. Do you guys know the requirements? What other games are there than BG3?

 

The system requirements are on the Steam site and maybe elsewhere: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1086940/Baldurs_Gate_3/ - I'm flustered because my best computer doesn't match the CPU speed for even the minimum settings.

 

Shouldn't developers be shooting for middle of the line hardware requirements for new games so you don't need to buy a new computer just to play it, but can play it on a 2-3 year old gaming rig and only have to buy a new computer on a 3 year schedule?


I'm not sure my NVIDIA GeForce GT1030 meets the recommended requirements, and it was fairly high end at the end of 2018. Certainly one of the two best available in the pre-built PCs.
150gb of hard drive space is quite a bit of space as well. My computer only came with a 1.5TB drive, that's 10% of the drive. I'm planning on eventually adding a D drive, but being furloughed has put a stopper in that. I'm looking for a new phone first (if only I could find a new condition Samsung Galaxy S9 for $400 that would work with Consumer Cellular), but until I get a steady paycheck again I'm not doing that.

Although doesn't this belong in The Playground instead of the Random Babbling Thread?

I haven't even looked at other new games, last time I really checked was for Bard's Tale IV, Battletech, and Dragon Age: Inquisition.
Those were hefty (especially Inquisition for a 2014 game), but BT3 has them beat. You can play any of them with a machine that meets the recommended requirements for BT3.

 

If you compare the requirements for BG3 to Cyberpunk2077; the latter has much more robust requirements. BG3 only requires an I5 based system while CP77 requires an I9 based system. At least I remember reading that at Steam. I'm not sure what top of the line is currently but I'm guessing CP77 hits much closer to that mark.

And yes; I don't have that much HD space. My better computer is mostly used for my 3D art software and subsidiary products like clothing models for the characters to wear. I'd have to delete all of that to make room for the game - which of course is NOT HAPPENING. 150gb seems pretty absurd.

 

The software or the data? If the latter, that's what buying 8tb external drives are for.
An alternate arrangement is a SSD for the C drive, and an internal conventional SATA D Drive for data.
In any case, my planned upgrades got put on hold by being furloughed. I didn't buy everything I wanted for the computer in one go. Being poor sucks.

 

In terms of getting a new system (which I have no plans on, maybe a new graphics card because the current one seems to be causing some crashes every now and then), I'd wait on Cyberpunk 2077, which is much more likely to have steep system requirements than Divinity Original Sin 3 (sorry, BG3). And anyway, if you're willing to accept less than maximum settings, I'm sure both games will run on my current system as well, which is decidely medium performance for about 2-3 years back.

150 GB for a single game is pretty steep. I have enough space on the SSD I use for games, even without needing to uninstall anything, but it's quite a lot of space for a game. For storage, there are 8 TB hard drives, yes. Bigger, too, although I'd definitely want to invest in a backup drive, because that's potentially a lot of lost data in case of a failed HDD.

 

If the extra companion only comes with Early Release then they probably aren't that great.

 

He seems to be a sort of sword-mage warlock with a pact with a succubus. I find that kind of interesting. But you can only have 3 companions + your MC so you have to decide which other companion you won't use if you take him. I find warlocks to be an interesting replacement for the wizard/sorcerer arcanist.

 

Just spent my stimulus check on a new Alienware PC
10th Gen Intel Core i7 16MB
32 GB memory
1TB SSD + 2TB SATA
NVIDIA Geforce 2070 Super 8 GB 6DDR6
What do you think?

 

Sounds awesome compared to mine.

How much did it cost you?

 

$2000

 

I only spent $800 for my system two years ago. Suddenly it doesn't sound so bad.

 

Mine was like 10 years old