system-requirements posts

EA Mythic has released the minimum system requirements for Warhammer Online, and the bar to entry, while not egregiously high, is certainly going to give folks due for an upgrade ample excuse to do so. To get your WAR on, you're going to need some decent hardware, especially to cope with that rather, shall we say, robust hard drive space they're looking to take up.

Mass Effect deploys for the PC with a bit less hoopla than last week's medieval juggernaut. Fortunately for the folks who have been awaiting the non-console version, it looks to be a lot less onerous in terms of the hardware you'll need to climb aboard the SS Normandy.

Jay Watamaniuk, their Community Manager, laid out the salient info last month:

Minimum System Requirements

• Processor: 2.4+GHz Intel or 2.0+GHz AMD
• Memory: 1 GB (XP) / 2 GB (Vista)
• Video: nVidia 6800GT or better / ATI 1300XT or better (X1550, X1600 Pro and HD2400 are below minimum system requirements)
• Hard Drive Space: 12 GB

Recommended System Requirements

• Processor: 2.6+GHz Intel or 2.4+GHz AMD
• Memory: 2 GB
• Video: nVidia GeForce 7900 GTX or better / ATI X1800 XL series or better

It's nice to see such modest (relatively speaking) specifications -- a wider user base can jump right into playing without having to visit their parts store of choice to get on the upgrade bandwagon.

It's really too bad that some muscular purple elf is already using this as his catchphrase, because, looking at the hardware recommendations for Age of Conan, a whole lot of folks are not prepared, at least when it comes to being able to turn up the bells and whistles when they visit Hyborea, whether it's just for 250 hours or a whole lot longer.

From the pre-release notes' FAQ (question 1.10):

Required

• 3GHz Pentium IV
• 1GB RAM
• NVIDIA GeForce 5800 or ATI 9800
  

Recommended

• Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz (E6600) or better
• 2GB+ RAM
• NVIDIA GeForce 7950GX2 or better
  

Sorry, Mom, that vintage eMachine I gave you so you could check your email just ain't gonna cut it. I don't think that iMac you got to replace it is going to work, either.

So how much hard drive space do you think an entire galaxy would take? If your guess was five or six gigabytes, then you probably want to double that. We're sure that when the system requirements for Mass Effect were released today, millions of little mechanical arms cried out in terror before suddenly being silenced. Sitting at 12gigs minimum, this game is like the big fat guy who sits on people at prisons.