Technical requirements for NWN2

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That is what I was thinking. I am hardly a cutting edge early adopter. I don't want to pay the huge premium that is usually associated with having the newest fastest system. I'll take the lowest spec system that can easily play NWN2.

 

Someone just bought me an Acer computer and it was only $1000 (AusD) and it runs the latest games pretty well, even with not a lot of modifications added to it. Although I suspect I'm going to need to shell out some more to play NWN2 arent I?

I was thinking of buying a new computer anyway. Can anyone recommend the top of the line?

 

Geeze Harby, I didn't think that you were going to be willing to drop $2500 to $3000 on a new computer. Are you sure you're the same Harbourboy that everyone knows?

With $2500 you can get a mainstream (Dell, Gateway, etc) computer that will be perfectly able to run NWN2, along with dozens of other new games. Just watch out for the Windows Media Center Edition operating system that Dell *loves* to ship with their new computers…stick with Windows XP Professional. Also, IIRC, Dell now charges $10 for the actual Windows XP disk, which is essential in reformatting...should anything bad happen.

I got bored so I went on to Dell’s website and configured a Dimension 9150 similar to what you listed, just with the best video card available (an nVidia 7900GS), 2GB of RAM, and 2x160GB hard drives in a RAID 0 array (faster transfer rates and a useable size of 320 like you already had selected), and two optical drives…and the price was still under $1600.

I don’t know why the system you priced was so much more…maybe it’s that crazy NZ tax.

But I agree with BTA 100%. Wait until the new Core 2 Duo chips from Intel come out.

 

Apparently this new Core 2 Duo processor is the cat's meow. Everybody is recommending it. They even seem to be saying that you get much better performance for the same price compared to the older Pentium D.

However, when I looked on the Dell's site, they offer Core 2 Duo only in their higher end computers (with a 20 inch LCD display, 2 GB of Ram, etc.) This drives the price of the system up. I guess they are using the Core 2 as a lead to sell the more expensive stuff.

Also, the computers I looked at came only with the Windows Media Center Edition. They did not offer other options. What's wrong with this Media Center, anyhow? Seems to have all the features of the Home edition, at least if you believe what they say on the web site.

 

Yeah, remember that I am working in NZ dollars which convert the way dmc suggests. And, I didn't say I was willing to pay $3,000 - I'm trying to work out what I would have to pay in order to play this damned game. The more it's going to cost, the longer it will take me to save and therefore the longer it will be before I can play it.

 

Nice, I just bought a new PC and still that game seems to be working only with good luck
*goes to get some 1Gb more memory*

 

I don't know what Dell's deal is with their current love affair with Win Media Center. WMC is geared towards multimedia...like watching TV, burning CDs/DVDs, and viewing pictures. Not the best when you want to have a gamming rig.

Oh yeah...I forgot about the currency difference.

 

I would wait. Core 2 is at a premium right now because the resellers (Dell etc) are starving the retail market for processors which is driving up prices. That will resolve in a few months. Ignore the "D" processors. Their numbers are deceptive, they are slower than Conroe/Core 2.

Don't waste a nickel on a PhysX processor. Total waste of money.

Don't skimp on the vid card - shoot for a 79XX Nvidia card or a 18XX ATI Card.

You have 2 choices on memory - and it depends on how much video card memory you get. For a 256 MB video card you will need 2 GIG system memory. If you get a 512MG card you can get away with 1 GIG. Here is why:

I'll use Oblivion as an example since we will be seeing more resource hogging games like it (including NWN2). Oblivion uses 950 MB of system memory normally (including virtual memory). Your OS uses ~350 stripped of junk like virus protection and taskbar dingleberries. Oblivion's high res texture package normally uses 250MB from your video card.

Sometimes, it manages to load over 300MB of textures. When that happens, the difference will have to swap to System memory. With 1 GIG of system memory you are definately swapping to disk. For a video card, that is really bad for performance. Significant stuttering because it is memory starved.

So, get a 512MB card or 2 Gig of memory. Consider this: The 512MB video card is actually better since you guarrantee no texture swaps - and you simply cannot control XP's virtual memory management.

 

Thanks for the detailed explanation, ToddMcF2002. That helps, a bit - although I'm still not 100% clear on what the graphics card actually does.

 

Basically the graphics card renders the polygon structure, textures the polygons and applies shaders.

Hi res textures and shaders have been "the rage" lately requiring huge jumps in memory requirements (for the textures) and throughput via pipelines for the polys and shaders.

Other burdens for the graphics card include HDR lighting (a bloom like effect), AntiAliasing (a deinterlacing multi pass sampling to remove the "jaggies") and Anisotropic Filtering which makes distant textures crisper looking.

Yeah its all very confusing unless you keep up with it.

 

You were doing so well with me before you starting talking about polygons (how hard is it to draw a square?), shaders, and blooms. I think I'll just accept that graphics card does stuff to do with pictures that the normal microchip can't do for some reason.

Although it is frustrating that I need some superduper graphics engine just to play a game. It's not like I'm trying to make a Peter Jackson movie or something. I'm a home user, not Weta Worksop.

 

Its extremely frustrating. I've got a machine that I built myself for ~$2500 a few years back and I've since replaced the video card for an x850 XT and I can barely play Oblivion and I'm sure it will have a few issues with NWN2 unless I drop some settings.

What is even more frustrating is that 2D isometrics like ToEE, Divine Divinity and the aging Baldurs Gate 2 look totally amazing with their pre-rendered static backgrounds. Of course you can't pre-render a 3D world effectively, so you need gobs of horsepower just to approach the level of detail you get from an old 2D game.

I'm playing Divine Divinity right now on my laptop. The game was $9 and its simply beautiful to look at. My avatar's cloak sways when he walks though amazingly detailed enviroments with fantastic lighting effects etc. Runs like a dream too.

How depressing.

 

Are the Nvidia 7900s significantly better than the 7300s? because I think they are significantly more expensive.

 

My advice don't buy a Nvidia

 

I'm going to have to buy a new computer to play this game, aren't I? *reads the whole thread*

Hmmm....I have 2.66 Ghz, 1.5G RAM, Radeon 9800, and a pixel shader...I should be good, right? I really don't want to buy another computer...As I did for NWN the first time!!