Will GRAW Run On My Machine

[Colin]

BELOW IS A COMPLET ARTICLE ON GRAW SYSTEM SPECS BY: capteenix

READ! Important I will tell you right now and right here how YOU can check YOURSELF, if your computer will run GRAW, Well, Step by Step

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28.02.06- VIDEOCARD PRICES ADDED

18.04.04- NEW VIDEOCARDS 7900-SERIES ADDED

UPCOMING FEATURES

Cheapest video cards (Full list coming soon)

AGEIA PPU Information (Not necessary needed)

More video cards (Laptop's and others)

Step ONE: Check PC System Requirements

Computer: Pentium IV of 2 GHz or the equivalent (2.8Ghz recommended)

Memory: 512MB RAM (1024Mb recommended)

Operating System: Windows 2000/XP

DirectX: DirectX9.0c

Video Card: Shader 2.0 card with 128 MB of VRAM (256MB recommended)

Sound card: DirectX9 compatible sound card

Internet: Broadband / LAN connection

Step TWO: Check YOUR Specs

it's generally a VERY GOOD IDEA to find out as much information as you can about your system. A good way to do this would be to install and run a free analysis program like one of the below:

Lavasys Everest Very comprehensive, will give you exact information. Must wait while it runs after downloading and installing. Find CPU/motherboard information by checking Summary->Motherboard, find RAM information under Motherboard->SPD (only need to note the modules listed, not their various information pieces) and for the graphics card, check GPU.

Crusial System Scanner If you've got an Internet connection availible from the PC in question, this is very quick & straightforward; download it, (it's only 77KB) run it, and it will scan and upload all the necessary information to Crucial's website, and automatically open up a page with the results in a matter of seconds. Ignore the graphics card tab, but take a look at the information listed on the left-hand sidebar; it will have virtually all the information you need if you want to ask a question about your system, and exactly that. You don't have to purchase anything through them, and it's cheaper elsewhere anyway, but it's a very useful tool.

*High-Dynamic Range (HDR)

HDR will apparently work with all SM2.0 and later cards, but it also appears that a SM 2.0 card may even be REQUIRED to play the game. as noted in December live chat the game uses a shadow-mapping method instead of stencil(?) shadows like Doom3, or FEAR(?). This performs far better, allows for easy, true soft shadowing, and if you have a SM 2.0 extended or SM 3.0 card, can be handled very, very fast.

Step THREE: Video cards

For those Who are really curious as how good their video card is, I have checked out a about of how good any video card in use today stacks up against each other. It's VERY hard to make a list,so it's not gaurunteed to be accurate. Keep in mind that the amount of videocard RAM memory on the board has NO real impact on performances in and of itself; it just makes into play in determining how well the card will do on specific detail levels. As a general rule, the lower on the list the card comes, the more powerful it is; all cards in one lower list section ARE more/most powerful than those of the section above it, and generally, (this list was done after looking at hundreds of benchmarks, and aren't nearly perfect) Well here's the list:

ATTENTION: GRAW is using Diesel Engine 6.0, that was made with NVIDIA Support,so expect ALL Geforce cards to run GRAW better than ATI's cards. It os possible that Geforce 7800 can outperform Ati X1900, because of that reason (Remember that, it is yet a expection)

OUTDATED these cards DO NOT/DO SUPPORT 1.x Pixel Shaders and won't run GRAW

* Radeon 7000

* GeForce 4 MX 4000

* GeForce 256

* GeForce 2 MX

* Radeon 7200

* GeForce 2 GTS

* GeForce 2 Pro

* GeForce 2 Ti

* GeForce 2 Ultra

* GeForce 4 MX 420

* Radeon 7500

* GeForce 4 MX 440

* Radeon 9100 IGP (integrated graphics)

* Volari V3

* Radeon 9250

* GeForce 3

* Radeon 9000

* Radeon 9200

* Matrox Parahelia 128

* GeForce 3 Ti 200

* Radeon 8500 &

* Radeon 9000pro

* Radeon 9100

* Radoen 9100pro

* GeForce 3 Ti 500

* GeForce 4 Ti

WEAK-END These cards are what i expect to be necessary for GRAW, but expect huge Performance drop. Still very weak

* Intel GMA 900 Integrated graphics (chipset 915) (incredibly weak , does support PS 2.0)

* GeForce FX 5200 & GeForce FX 5200 Ultra (different models have wildly varying performance)

* GeForce PCX 5300

* GeForce FX 5700LE

* GeForce FX 5500

* GeForce FX 5600

* S3 S8 256

* GeForce 6100 IGP (integrated graphics)

* Radeon Xpress 200 (integrated graphics)

* GeForce FX 5700

* GeForce PCX 5750

* Radeon X300 (HyperMemory)

* GeForce 6200 (TurboCache)

* Radeon X550 (HyperMemory)

* Radeon X600 (HyperMemory)

* Radeon 9600SE

* Radeon 9550

* Radeon X550SE

* Radeon X300

* Radeon 9600

LOW-END these cards, are told to be weak, but for most people these can provide suitable gameplay

* Radeon X1300 (HyperMemory)

* Radeon 9500

* GeForce 6500

* Volari V5 Ultra

* Radeon 9600pro & Radeon X600pro

* GeForce FX 5700ultra

* Radeon 9600XT & Radeon X600XT

* Radeon 9500pro

MID-RANGE These cards are Enough powerfull to provide you fairly good experience

* Radeon X1300 (All-in-Wonder 2006)

* GeForce FX 5800

* Radeon 9700

* GeForce PCX 5900

* Radeon 9800

* S3 Chrome 27

* GeForce 6600

* Radeon X1300pro

* Radeon 9700pro

* GeForce 5800

* GeForce FX 5900ultra

* Radeon 9800pro

* Radeon X700

* GeForce FX 5950ultra

* Radeon X700pro

* GeForce 6800LE

* GeForce 6800XT

* GeForce 6800 (PCI-express version)

* GeForce 6600GT

* Radeon X800SE

* Radeon 9800XT

* Radeon X800GT

HIGH-END These cards a more than enough, and definitely should play GRAW with medium/good settings

* Radeon X1600pro

* Radeon X800

* GeForce 6800 (AGP version)

* Radeon X800GTO (256MB version)

* Radeon X1600XT

* GeForce 6800GS

* Radeon X800pro

* GeForce 6800GS (PCI-express version)

* GeForce 6800GT

* Radeon X800XL

* GeForce 6800ultra

* Radeon X800XT

* Radeon X800XT

* Radeon X850XT

* GeForce 7800GS

MEGA-RANGE These cards are Impressive! They are very expencive, But very powerfull! Expect them run GRAW With High settings

ATTENTION! i can't guarantee you a perfect listing with these cards, but they all are outrageous!

* GeForce 7800GS (PCI-express version)

* Radeon X1800XL

* GeForce 7800GT

* Radeon X1800XT

* Geforce 7800GTX

* Radeon X1800XT Platinum Edition

* Radeon X1900 All-in-Wonder

* GeForce 7900GT Asus (PCI-express version) NEW!!!

* GeForce 7800GTX 512

* Radeon X1900XT

* GeForce 7900GTX NEW!!!

* Radeon X1900XTX

* Geforce 7900GTX Asus NEW!!!

Videocard Pricing list

I have Dealt woth two lists of video cards, first AGP then PCI-express (as asked), of cards that I've discovered are the top deals for what you get. Note that these are all RETAIL, and ONLINE, for the UNITED STATES; The reason i decided to pull out UNITED-STATES, are more closer for you. Click the card name to go to the page with the card for sale.

Click the card name to go to the page with the card for sale.

AGP

112$ GeForce 6600, AGP with 256MB video RAM

139$ GeForce 6600GT, AGP with 128MB video RAM

149$ Radeon X1600pro, AGP with 256MB video RAM

159.99$ GeForce 6800, AGP with 128MB video RAM

229$ GeForce 6800GS, AGP with 256MB video RAM

319$ GeForce 7800GS, AGP with 256MB video RAM

MORE AGP cards and PCI list coming tommorow

Step FOUR: Comparison and last words

Now your job is follow Steps ONE and TWO and comparize them between each others. use Step THREE to check, if you videocard is able to run this game.

I seriously hope this will help most of you and will give you an answer for your question! I made this in 5 hours, including checking Benchmarks. Im going to rest for a awhile, hope you good Comparison time!"

Link Area.

Windows System Check

Can You Run it

These 2 links will also help and diagnose your system.

Edited April 21, 2006 by Colin

[-XE-BadBoy561]

I just purchased the Geforce 7800GS for 299.99 in hopes I could play GRAW with some good eye candy. I don’t know where you got your prices but if you want to save 20 bucks check www.zipzoomfly.com. They also have free shipping. By the way the 7800GS is the best card for those of you still using AGP like myself.

[Iggy.]

just bought the x1900xt din't know there was a x1900xtX

[REC0N]

Damn, now i need to invest my money in a new computer then.

ATI Radeon 9200.

I'm not gonna bother changing hundreds of diffrent parts, I'm no computer geek.

[insane snyper]

Colin, I'm not positive, just something to check:

7800GS was released for AGP only. I would have swore that some company had gone and made a PCI-e version of it by building in some kind of an adapter, but now I cant think why they would have done that.... And I dont see how AGP with a PCIe adapter could be faster than plain old AGP.

Anyway, just something to check, not a big issue.

[agentkay]

Colin, I'm not positive, just something to check:

7800GS was released for AGP only. I would have swore that some company had gone and made a PCI-e version of it by building in some kind of an adapter, but now I cant think why they would have done that.... And I dont see how AGP with a PCIe adapter could be faster than plain old AGP.

Anyway, just something to check, not a big issue.

←

Albatron made an AGP - PCIe adapter card that only worked with their Nvidia 6 series cards. Asrock made a motherboard which had both an AGP slot and a PCIe slot.

Both ATI and Nvidia have so called "bridge" chips, which they could use to port each native PCIe GPU back to AGP. This is does not happen very often because AGP is basically dead and outdated, especially when it comes to the high-end cards. The bridge chip also increases the prices of the AGP versions.

Almost all 7800GS are AGP cards, and I tried to look for a PCIe version, but only a found a 6800GS, 7300GS, 7600GS on PCIe. Of course this doesn´t mean that one manufacturer actually made a 7800GS on PCIe, just that I didn´t find one.

Edited April 19, 2006 by agentkay

[insane snyper]

Yeah, I am beginning to doubt my memory on a lot of things, this included. I moved to a new house about a month and a half ago, and since then I have been having wierd dreams every night, and im beginning to confuse them with reality.

Last night I had a dream that I was John Marshall, and I had sent Marbury down to Mexico city to rescue the president.... Conclusion=Supreme Court History and GRAW dont mix.

[daztrek]

My card comes in the High end line of cards the X800XT are they stating med settings based on frame rates above 60fps as I can play at a steady 30-40fps with no mouse lag at all.

[capteenix]

I just purchased the Geforce 7800GS for 299.99 in hopes I could play GRAW with some good eye candy. I don’t know where you got your prices but if you want to save 20 bucks check www.zipzoomfly.com. They also have free shipping. By the way the 7800GS is the best card for those of you still using AGP like myself.

←

[/quoteI got my prices months ago, and they change to fast for me

[Logos]

just bought the x1900xt din't know there was a x1900xtX

←

Iggy, the 1900XT and 1900XTX are literally the same card with the sole exception that the XTX is clocked a little faster. The 19000XT can be overclocked to XTX speeds and beyond quite easily. You bought a great card.

[Colin]

Logos, while you here your HDR question is in here I think, or ask CT for it, he must have it around.

[Spike]

Some of the screenshots show the game running with AA. Apart from that you'll have to wait for the demo or someone from GRIN to answer.

Edited April 19, 2006 by Spike

[unwritt3n]

i have a 7800GTX, and i was thinking the same thing...

but then again, when i used to play css ands stuff, i could have HDR and 8x AA with my old 6800GT...

doesnt matter anyway... can just have HDR with no AA, but at like 1280x1024 reso...

coz if u have AA enabled, u only need to have a reso of 1024x768...

well thats wat i reckon... too me both options look the same with most games ie:

BF2 max settings with either:

4x AA @ 1024x768

or

no AA @ 1280x1024

look the same.

[Logos]

Logos, while you here your HDR question is in here I think, or ask CT for it, he must have it around.

←

Yeah, there are two pieces in that article by CT that make me hopeful that I will be able to go with NVidia for my upgrade.

*High-Dynamic Range (HDR)

HDR will apparently work with all SM2.0 and later cards, but it also appears that a SM 2.0 card may even be REQUIRED to play the game. as noted in December live chat the game uses a shadow-mapping method instead of stencil(?) shadows like Doom3, or FEAR(?). This performs far better, allows for easy, true soft shadowing, and if you have a SM 2.0 extended or SM 3.0 card, can be handled very, very fast.

ATTENTION: GRAW is using Diesel Engine 6.0, that was made with NVIDIA Support,so expect ALL Geforce cards to run GRAW better than ATI's cards. It os possible that Geforce 7800 can outperform Ati X1900, because of that reason (Remember that, it is yet a expection)

←

The problem with that first piece is that it doesn't actually indicate that it will work in conjunction with AA.

The second piece makes me very hopeful that I will be able to go with NVidia for the fact that GR:AW was developed with NVidia support, but, again, if they weren't factoring in simulatneous use of AA and HDR, then it only means that the game will run quite efficiently on NVidia cards. I was just hoping for confirmation before I drop $450 - $550 dollars on a new card. The fact that they were using ATI cards at I27 makes me wonder.

Anyway, Capteenix, can you answer the question from my HDR thread?

There are some uses of HDR that don't work with anti-aliasing on any existing cards -- neither ATI nor NVidia, some uses of HDR that will work with anti-aliasing on both ATI and NVidia cards, and some uses of HDR that will work with anti-aliasing on ATI cards, but not NVidia cards.

Here's the question: does GR:AW use HDR in such a way that we can have HDR and anti-aliasing simultaneously on ATI cards, on ATI and NVidia cards, or on neither?

I've had the question for a while, but it was mentioned that at I-27, the high-end systems were using ATI cards, and I was wondering if that was the reason -- ATI's greater ability to use HDR and anti-aliasing simultaneously.

TIA

[Logos]

4x AA @ 1024x768

         or

no AA @ 1280x1024

look the same.

←

That's an interesting thought, and it brings up the question:

Will a game run at higher framerates with HDR, AA, and AF enabled at 1024x768 OR with HDR and AF (no AA) at 1280x960?

I've seen benchmarks where framerates took approximately the same hit for AA and HDR, so HDR and AA simulatneously might hog enough resources that 1280x960 with HDR but no AA might be faster than both at 1024x768, and if that's the case, simultaneous use is kind of non-issue. Here's to hoping.

[capteenix]

Logos, while you here your HDR question is in here I think, or ask CT for it, he must have it around.

←

Yeah, there are two pieces in that article by CT that make me hopeful that I will be able to go with NVidia for my upgrade.

*High-Dynamic Range (HDR)

HDR will apparently work with all SM2.0 and later cards, but it also appears that a SM 2.0 card may even be REQUIRED to play the game. as noted in December live chat the game uses a shadow-mapping method instead of stencil(?) shadows like Doom3, or FEAR(?). This performs far better, allows for easy, true soft shadowing, and if you have a SM 2.0 extended or SM 3.0 card, can be handled very, very fast.

ATTENTION: GRAW is using Diesel Engine 6.0, that was made with NVIDIA Support,so expect ALL Geforce cards to run GRAW better than ATI's cards. It os possible that Geforce 7800 can outperform Ati X1900, because of that reason (Remember that, it is yet a expection)

←

The problem with that first piece is that it doesn't actually indicate that it will work in conjunction with AA.

The second piece makes me very hopeful that I will be able to go with NVidia for the fact that GR:AW was developed with NVidia support, but, again, if they weren't factoring in simulatneous use of AA and HDR, then it only means that the game will run quite efficiently on NVidia cards. I was just hoping for confirmation before I drop $450 - $550 dollars on a new card. The fact that they were using ATI cards at I27 makes me wonder.

Anyway, Capteenix, can you answer the question from my HDR thread?

More specifically, there are some uses of HDR that don't work with anti-aliasing on any existing cards -- neither ATI nor NVidia, some uses of HDR that will work with anti-aliasing on both ATI and NVidia cards, and some uses of HDR that will work with anti-aliasing on ATI cards, but not NVidia cards.

Here's the question: does GR:AW use HDR in such a way that we can have HDR and anti-aliasing simultaneously on ATI cards, on ATI and NVidia cards, or on neither?

TIA

←

i dont know much about that, but i think Ati's all X1000-series have/will have HDR and AA support, And Nvidia maybe too, but they Suck with it, because they just do

Fast answer: Ati's all X1000-series Yes, Nvidia, maybe or Not, but if yesm then pretty choppy.

PS. I remember Elder Scrolls oblivion didnt have it, or something like that, but Ati made special "patch" just to enable HDR and AA. It is very possible with graw.

[Colin]

cheers mate.

[unwritt3n]

yeh from personal expierences and my own benchmarking, i reckon going the higher reso with no AA works better... maybe not looks as good (very very minor) but runs at a higher frame rate (very minimal)

[Cookie]

I have a 6800LE that is OC'd to 340/840 and fully unlocked. Anyone think I'll be able to play on medium with a good framerate? Since I can't do AA/HDR I'd want to run on 1280x960 or 1280x1024. The only reason I'm asking is because my card, being a faster than a 6800 standard but slower (except on some things) then a 6800GT, falls between the cracks. BTW, I scored 1612 in 3dMark06.

EDIT: I should post my other system specs too, eh?

Processor AMD Athlon 64 2009MHz

Display Card NVIDIA GeForce 6800 LE

Memory 1536MB (DDR 3200) (I had 512MB when I did the 3dMark test)

Operating System Microsoft Windows XP

Free Disk Space 12.82GB (Will be cleaning that up soon...)

Display Card Memory 128MB

Display Driver Version 8.4.2.1

DirectX Version 9.0c

Optical Drive CD/DVD

Sound Card Realtek AC97 Audio

ANOTHER EDIT: I was under the impression that it is physically impossible for a 6*00 series card to do any kind of HDR and AA at the same time. That's what I've read. Although, the only experience I have in HDR is SC:CT, R6:LD (demo) and that rthdribl thing (COOL!). So, is it possible for a 6*00 card to do AA and HDR at the same time? When I tried doing both in R6, it seemed the HDR was not working anymore. Although, I was not sure, it just looked like it wasn't on.

Edited April 19, 2006 by Cookie

[Spike]

I thought Nvidia could run AA+HDR if it was SM 2.0 HDR (even though that's not true HDR) but only ATI can do AA with the full f16 precision SM 3.0 HDR?

I don't really see HDR + AA to be all that necessary anyhow. You only really notice alised edges in high contrast situations, in which case HDR will likely bleed the brighter colour into the darker areas which should aid in hiding any stair steped edges.

Edit: quit moving stuff around. I'm getting all confused.

Edited April 19, 2006 by Spike

[Cookie]

RATS! When I got my 6800LE, I thought I was getting better a better shader model than ATI (the x1*00 series had not yet been released). So now you're saying that the 6*00 series has a dumbed down versoin of SM 3.0? Argh!

I played SC:CT, and even at 1600x1200 (where I only get about 15-20 fps) there are still a lot of nasty jagged edges. Looking at some of the (IGN's especially) screenies, no AA seems to not look very good at all. http://media.pc.ign.com/media/736/736230/img_3523359.html being a pretty good example. That's at 1280x960 (I'm assuming they did not try to interpolate the image up).

[Minister]

I have a 6600GT which is 'mid-range' on the list, but i assume this is for 'normal' lcd's. I have a 20" widescreen, would that still make the card mid-range or degrade is to low?

Also, a few time already i've read on this forum you would need sli to get proper widescreen. Is this true?

What would be the best choice of card, or cards with sli, for a 20" widescreen, if money wasn't the mean issue, but common sense was? 'High-end' would be good enough for me, so no 'mega-range'.

[capteenix]

I have a 6600GT which is 'mid-range' on the list, but i assume this is for 'normal' lcd's. I have a 20" widescreen, would that still make the card mid-range or degrade is to low?

Also, a few time already i've read on this forum you would need sli to get proper widescreen. Is this true?

What would be the best choice of card, or cards with sli, for a 20" widescreen, if money wasn't the mean issue, but common sense was? 'High-end' would be good enough for me, so no 'mega-range'.

←

with new minimum settings, i guess 6600gt is minimum requirement for this game. i have it and so hope it will pull as far so it will be playable

[Joseph_Q]

What do You Guys think about GeForce 7600 GT 256mb ? Mid-Rande or High-End class ?

[capteenix]

What do You Guys think about GeForce 7600 GT 256mb ? Mid-Rande or High-End class ?

←

High-end.