Aren't System Requirements Just A *****.

[NotAPie]

All I want is a computer that can run Fallout 3.
Thats all I ask for.
Or atleast be able to run Half Life 2! D: I can't even play Garrys Mod without lagging!

 

[Acaroid]

A couple days ago the craving sprang upon me to play some sort of military shooter. Being bored with the ones I currently have, and needing to have it immediately, I ran to Direct2Drive to check out what they might have that would quell said craving. In the top sellers list, Arma2 came to my attention. I was a huge fan of Operation Flashpoint and knew these chaps were part of the development team who made it, so, after a quick glance over of the system requirements, I payed and began my download.

"My computer hasn't been unable to run a game since I upgraded it a couple years ago, why should I need to worry now?" I thought, reassuring myself that I would at least be able to play it, though possibly without fancy post-processing and whatnot.

At around midnight my download had finished and my game was successfully installed. My excitement was unmeasurable, especially considering some of the very exciting YouTube videos of the game showing rather large and intense firefights. I booted up the game and immediately turned off antilasing and changed the resolution down to 1024x768. Oddly enough, I was experiencing a delay between mouse movement and crosshair movement.

After three hours of tinkering, I declared the game unplayable and swiftly crawled up into my bed to have a nice cry. My system was officially outdated again.

If you're curious, my system specs are: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHZ, 2 Gigs of RAM, and an Nvidia 8800GT. On maximum settings, I ran the game at twelve frames per second.

So, the discussion is, has a similar situation happened to you? Do you think that games are increasing technology too quickly for the average consumer to keep up?

Arma 2 will only run on high settings if you have a beast of a computer, 2 gigs of ram is not even close to enough for this game, as you noticed it is HUGE. You really will have to turn everything down, (I recommend turning post porcesses off straight away. turning your view distance down and turning your terran down to low)

the game is buggy as hell though, BUT what is really freaky, this game on mine and a few other people I knows computers, run smoother, better frame rates, can turn up the graphics more etc running in windows 7, rather than XP or Vista.

When I first bought Age of Empires 3, it said it required Windows XP (which still wasn't widely adopted yet). I was pretty pissed off, because it could run on Windows 2000, it just wouldn't install on it. People were able to install on an XP machine and move them over to a Windows 2000 machine, but I lacked XP.

Windows XP was first released on 25 October 2001
Age of Empires III (AOE III) was Released on October 18, 2005

(Wikipedia so might be wrong)

So you were upset that they required XP on a game released 4 years after XP? At what point does it become ok?

A lot of people still used 2000 at the time (I ran across a number of forums complaining about it). Not only that, but the installer required XP to run. It wasn't like Storm Rise that can only run DirectX 10. The game ran fine on a Windows 2000 machine, but the installer would not let you install the game if you weren't running XP. Sort of like Halo 2 requiring Vista.

Yeah I was one of them, I still used 2k for ages, I only took the leap and changed when SP2 came out (well it was awhile after, i think I changed a bit after AoE 3 came out)

 

[Worgen]

the last time I had a computer that couldnt run a game was back when serious sam second encounter came out, from that day on I vowed I would never let my computer become a pos and that I would keep it in good gaming condition

 

[barryween]

They suck (I COULDN'T EVEN PLAY CITY OF HEROS)
but its better than every game looking like Pong I guess.

 

[Kiereek]

If you're curious, my system specs are: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHZ, 2 Gigs of RAM, and an Nvidia 8800GT. On maximum settings, I ran the game at twelve frames per second.

well...that kind of processor will do many good games, but for quite a while now it's not enough to run the more demanding games. also, you didn't mention your operating system. i know for me, games usually ask for a higher processor speed because i'm running vista. it is annoying i know, cause your current specs wouldn't allow games like Kane's Wrath, Red Alert 3, Spore ( i think) and many others. but for a laptop at least, the higher level processors are so damn expensive. there are still plenty of other good games to enjoy though. the world is filled with classics. plus, C&C Generals and Empire at War still work with it...so that's cool

edit: i forgot to mention the reason this annoys me is because my laptop has the same processor as you, but 4 GB of ram, and a ati mobility radeon hd 2600 video card, which isn't amazing, but does the job for most of what i want to play. still, it's the processor that holds me back.

 

[Slayer_2]

Yeah exactly, I got a 2.4ghz C2D and a 8800GTX and it runs just fine.

On topic yeah im moving towards consoles myself. Im just getting sick of all the crap PC ports we get, ie. Mass Effect and Bioshock. Im just getting sick of paying for a videocard that will last a while and it costs a lot more than a console would. If they allowed mouse and keyboard support for more games on console (maybe just for single player) im sure a heap of people will flock over.

DO NOT get a console. I had a 360 for 3 months, to give consoles a chance, big mistake. I ended up selling for half the price I got it because the only game I cared about on it was Gears of War 2, which my best friend owns anyhow.

 

[SomeGuyNamedKy]

The only bad thing I've experienced is running UT3 on max, but I just turned off a few unnecessary settings and it worked perfectly. Everything else runs on max.

Also, GRiD looks very pretty on full settings.

 

[redsoxfantom]

Arma2 does this very odd thing where it clouds up the screen, almost like you have water in your eyes, in an attempt to make it less graphic intensive on lower settings.

I remember having that problem as well... But I got rid of it.. (referring to demo, but I find it hard to imagine that the system specs would have changed from demo to retail), there was some option in the graphics that got rid of the water-blurry effect... It's just that I can't remember which one it was... o,O

I've had this problem as well. I found that if you make the 3d resolution the same as the interface resolution, it clears that right up.

 

[Troublesome Lagomorph]

It's the reason I use a console.

 

[Skwee]

Fallout 3 + Laptop... enough said... *sigh* what a waste of $60, *got the collector's edition, with the lunchbox, the mascot(the name escapes me at the moment) bobble-head, and a concept art book*

 

[SquirrelPants]

I run most Source games at a good 30-40 FPS. The default settings are all on high, except for antilasing. So I usually turn down shadow and water effects, and put that on 2x or sometimes 4x...I don't know what the FPS would be like running on default settings, though.

But I haven't had a huge problem with system specs since I got my new computer, pre-built at some store. I still open it up and remove some of the guts every now and again, just to upgrade and make sure that I WILL be able to run the latest and greatest games...

 

[Dys]

A system with a core2duo and an 8800GT not being able to play things?
Christ, that's comparable to my system (upgraded ram today, but that's for solidworks not games) which has been able to run any game I've thrown at it at 1920x1200 with settings medium-high.

 

[tomtom94]

It turns out that my computer has 512mb of RAM, but 128 of those are on the video card.
Therefore every time I connect to a server in TF2 I get a blue screen. Since that needs 512mb of STANDALONE RAM. ¬_¬

Also a weird one: if I update Championship Manager 03-04 to the full version on Windows 98 then it no longer needs the CD.
On XP it still demands it.
Strange.

 

[Jirlond]

It turns out that my computer has 512mb of RAM, but 128 of those are on the video card.
Therefore every time I connect to a server in TF2 I get a blue screen. Since that needs 512mb of STANDALONE RAM. ¬_¬

Also a weird one: if I update Championship Manager 03-04 to the full version on Windows 98 then it no longer needs the CD.
On XP it still demands it.
Strange.

I managed to find tips on modifying the config file and running tf2 on 800X600 with many of the gloss effects turned off, it ran on a 1GB system - still got crap framerates. Glad it died and I had to buy a new pc.

 

[Asehujiko]

Maybe the problem is that ArmA2 runs about as good as an amputee walrus regardless of your pc?

3.2ghz quadcore, a gtx280 and 2gb ram(2gb on xp runs better then 8bg on vista) and it still has a hard time reaching 20 fps on max even when staring at the ground.

 

[AlphaOmega]

That what you get with people whoring over grafics tbh.

 

[Rusty Bucket]

I know the feeling. I tried to play TF2 on my laptop (yeah, i know, bad move. To be fair, it does meet the minimum requirements). It was like playing a powerpoint presentation. I have, however, managed to get Supreme Commander to run on it, fairly smoothly. Admittedly the graphics have basically been turned off, and units now fire little grey balls at each other that make them suddenly turn black, but still.

 

[karmapolizei]

After three hours of tinkering, I declared the game unplayable and swiftly crawled up into my bed to have a nice cry. My system was officially outdated again.

If you're curious, my system specs are: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHZ, 2 Gigs of RAM, and an Nvidia 8800GT. On maximum settings, I ran the game at twelve frames per second.

So, the discussion is, has a similar situation happened to you? Do you think that games are increasing technology too quickly for the average consumer to keep up?

Okay, here's the good news: Your computer isn't outdated, it's just that Arma 2 is a bug-ridden, poorly developed and over-ambitioned project that came out at least a year before it should have. That's the long and short of it, really.

 

[Asehujiko]

Or, you can have caught a bad case of FADE, which is arma's drm that instead of coughing up error messages, makes the game run shitty. Every single no-cd crack out there bypasses it but people who buy it from legal sources that don't come with dvd's often aren't that lucky. Try pirating the game instead, see if that works any better.

 

[The Bandit]

This is why I prefer console gaming to PC. PCs are just too damn complicated to fiddle with.