pbz06

I doubt it, after reading this thread. Seems that most people, even with super high end computers are struggling.

Resolution makes a pretty big difference in my system my native resolution is 1680x1050, but I turned down the game to 1600x900 and it gave it a nice boost The rest of the video settings don't make that big of differences from "normal" to "high", other than turning off shadows completely, but then the game is just ugly. Anti-aliasing still seems to be a performance hog too, even after the patch. Safe to say though, that the game is just poorly optimized. Most people seem to be in the 20-35fps range, even guys with top of the line high end systems.

About the same. For the people asking about video cards, I really don't think you need to shell out big bucks. The problem with the game is the CPU I think. When I'm playing a scenario where there's no enemy or friendly around, the game runs beautifull and pretty smooth (40ish frames per second) with everything on "high" and at 1680x1050, and I "only" have an nvidia 8800 GTS (512mb), 4 gigs of gaming RAM, and a dual core e6750 overclocked to 3.2ghz. As soon as I load up a scenario where there's enemies or several friendly units, the frames come crawling to the 15-25 range =/ So that's just my personal observation, from every test I have run messing with the graphics options, the optimization issues and strain on my rig seem to be CPU oriented.

I wish I could give you a solid answer, but it seems like even some guys with hardcore gaming rigs are having problems getting more than 30-40fps, while guys with average rigs are in the same range of fps. Then there's guys in the 15-20 range, heh.

I have basically the same setup but the 8800 GTS and 4 gigs of RAM, and actually on Vista instead of XP. I also get fps in the 30-40 range, depending on settings. The big killers for me are Anti-Aliasing, Shadows, and Post Processing. I noticed not much difference in all the other settings between "High" and "Normal", we're talking about 5 frames per second differences. I don't even think it's a video card issue. Lots of people with much better systems are also struggling to run the game with more than 35fps, so I think it's an optimization issue. By the way, I run it on 1680x1050.

I'd rather wait for the official US release ;) I've had bad luck with international orders before.

It just depends on the game. MOST games, yea, they're more GPU and RAM dependant. But a couple games (usually when it's AI or physics driven or large scale where there's a lot of units or things going on) will need a really strong CPU. Of course, having everything is the best way to go :D

Yea it's out basically everywhere but the US... I don't know exactly when it's coming out. Originally places had it listed at 6/26....then I saw 7/2, now I'm seeing 7/7. I don't know what the deal is. It might be out on Steam for US people, but I prefer having the disc.

Are you sure it wasn't your Performance Index score used by Vista? Mine is at 5.7 too.

Vista 32-bit I don't know how much it has helped, but I have done several tweaks to my OS. For example, I turn OFF many services or features I don't use. My startup and background services are very minimal, and I use a couple windows cleaning and registry cleaning programs etc.

What View Distances are you guys using? Obviously it depends on each PC setup, but is there some general sweet spot where you see a big increase in distance with a minimal drop in performance? I've been messing around with all the other graphics options and repeatedly running the benchmark from the demo, but haven't messed with the view distance because I was under the impression that servers lock that so everybody is on the same level. As for the other graphics options, everything seems to have very minimal impact (between "low" and "very high") except for Anti-Aliasing, Shadows, and Post Processing. I ran the benchmark first with everything set to "low" (and my resolution was 1680x1050 along with the 3d rendering). I increased each setting individually one at a time to "very high" and ran the benchmark after each single change. So with my system, I had to ditch any sort of Anti-Aliasing. It was an easy 5-10 frames per second. That doesn't sound like much in normal circumstances, but when you're in the 30-40 range, it's huge. I also turned off Post Processing, which makes me dizzy anyway so that was an easy choice. I settled for Shadows to "normal" (which is the lowest it goes before turning off completely). I notice a big bump with no shadows, but the game just becomes too plain with no shadows. The difference between shadows "normal" and "very high" seems to be another 7 frames per second. So right now I'm running everything at "high" except for the 3 I talked about above. I'm at a steady 30-35 frames per second. It's not great, but at least it's in the minimum range for me where it's at least playable. Seems like a good middle ground for me. When I crank up everything to the max, i'm at about 15-20fps. When I'm at the minimum settings, the game runs in the 35-40fps which isn't even that good to begin with. My system is getting old, but I've been able to run everything maxed out until Crysis and Arma II came around, heh. overclocked C2D e6750 4 gigs high speed gaming RAM nvidia 8800 gts (512mb)

I noticed the big performance killers are Anti-Aliasing and Shadows. It sucks to see a lot of jaggies, but the performance is worth it I think. I have: Intel Core 2 Duo e6750 4 gigs of gaming RAM and nvidia 8800 GTS (512mb) I disabled vsync in my nvidia control panel. I also have Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering set to "application controlled" in my nvidia control panel so I can change them within the game's video options. Once I start the actual game, and go into the video options: I left the view distance at default, which was at 1600. I run my resolution and 3d resolution at 1680x1050 because that's what my monitor's native resolution is. I disabled anti-aliasing, and put shadows to "normal". I also turned off "post processing" completely because the motion blur and the blurry light effect (similar to bloom) makes me dizzy, I also turned way down the head bob in the gameplay options. I put the "video memory" to "very high" because that equates to my graphics card setting (512mb) according to the game manual. I have evrything else set to "high" and have been happy with the performance. Seems to be running very smooth for me, while still looking good. Like I said, it has some jaggies, but I can live with it. I haven't tried the latest patch to see if it helps, but turning on any sort of Anti-Aliasing has been a total performance killer for me.