Okay, I kinda knew I was pushin' it.I read the minimum and suggested system requirements. It's no secret, they're posted to every gaming site. The gaming community should be well aware by now that the publishers (Bethesda Softworks) are admitting, quite unashamedly, that this game will push the limits of most home PCs. No doubt, at the highest graphics settings, resolutions and refresh rates, even "gamer" systems may actually have to take benefit from their water-cooled high-powered, very expensive guts.
What are the PC system requirements?
Minimum System Requirements:
- Windows XP/Vista
- 1GB System RAM (XP)/ 2GB System RAM (Vista)
- 2.4 Ghz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent processor
- Direct X 9.0c compliant video card with 256MB RAM (NVIDIA 6800 or better/ATI X850 or better)
Recommended System Requirements:
- Intel Core 2 Duo processor
- 2 GB System RAM
- Direct X 9.0c compliant video card with 512MB RAM (NVIDIA 8800 series, ATI 3800 series)
Mildred is an XP Media Center Edition machine with 1GB RAM and a 2.0 Ghz AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800 +. Graphics are handled by NVIDIA GeForce 7300 LE w 256MB RAM.
So, I thought, I might, just might, be able to get it to work.
I went to Gamestop yesterday and bought it. Despite it's hype on the online game sites and even the Midnight Madness release day opening of Best Buy stores for this game, here at the Gamestop in Lake Mary, it was inconspicuously tucked amongst the slim pickins of the sad 3 or 4 shelves positioned in the far end of the store for PC games. Remember when console games were the tiny hidden shelves in the back? (I even remember the days when Commodore 64 games commanded the lion's share of shelf space at the Electronic Boutiques and Babbages of the "Olden Days" known as the 1980's!)
After what seemed like a 3-hour install (at least, again, back in the day, you had multiple disk swaps (be they floppy disks or later CD-ROMs) to keep you busy...now it's just one DVD-ROM but it seems to take sooo long to install) the installer tested my system for optimal performance settings.
Gulp...here, I thought, is where it might come up with an error message telling me that Mildred just didn't make the cut. But it passed. With what amounted to a D- though...graphics options were all set to the lowest possible selection. No anti-aliasing, shadowing, fog effects, etc., all that eye-candy that is so pretty, but ultimately non-essential to game play. So, I thought, no big, the Fallout games were never about the graphics anyway. Hell, I remember the spiritual ancestor to the series "Wasteland". And that had minimal 16 color graphics in a small window. It was all about the game play.
When the game got started, you begin, well, at your beginning...or your character's anyway...your birth. And I saw everything was hazy and silhouetted and started to worry that the graphics would be too horrible to play the game. But then I realized, I was a newborn baby and that's why it looked that way. I soon, grew older (in the game) and saw that even with the lowest graphics settings, this was still the most visually stunning game I have. It looked great. And it ran pretty much without issue, until I left the Vault.
Once "outside", the system lagged and my movement was slowed and choppy. Not as bad as the stupid "LOST:Via Domus" aka "LOST: Me A Dumbass" which I wasted $20 bucks on since it's totally unplayable. (Thus is why it was only $20 I now see...poorly-coded games dive straight for the bargain heap!)
It wasn't long before the thing froze up and crashed. Tried it again. Again it crashed. I read up on a "How To" site about streamlining the multiple hidden processes that are running all the time on one's machine. Man I had a lot of useless ones running. Disabled them and now the game runs much better, I made it to Megaton and was able to scout around there and interact with a whole bunch of NPCs, even had me a gunfight or two. (Blowin' a dude's head off in this game rocks!)
But if I venture out of Megaton, I don't get far before Mildred poops out.
I don't blame it on the game. It seems tight. It's Mildred. She needs to be Fallout-ified.
Well, I just got done ordering another Gig of memory from Crucial, so that might help. But I think it might be the CPU...darn thats another $60 for a 2.5, well the memory only came to $27 with S&H and taxes, soooo....
But aren't I gonna be unemployed soon?
Look on the bright side, I'll have plenty of time to play Fallout without a pesky job in the way!
Of course, you can have a sweet, kick-ass upgraded computer but it's freakin' usless if you can't pay the electric bill! (Well, my electric's included but you get the idea.)