System Requirements - Help?

Zomg Okay

Hey guys. Not 100% sure if I'm in the right forum so apologies if I'm not. Need a bit of help with system requirements, I'm not much good at this stuff so it's confusing me. I'm trying to play Medieval 2: Total War on my PC. The problem is, the battles won't run properly because of my graphics card. That much I understand, the card isn't good enough.

What's confusing me is that I went to systemrequirementslab.com to check my PC's specs versus the games requirements. The results I got were:

Features: Recommended attributes of your video card.
Required You have
Video Ram 256MB 1.3GB
3D Yes Yes
Hardware T&L Yes Yes
Pixel shader version 2.0 4.0
Vertex shader version 2.0 4.0

That's a little messy but gets the point across. As you can see, it's telling me my video card's stats are equal to or better than the requirements. But I'm still being told "Unfortunately, your video card does not meet this requirement" and the battles in-game aren't running properly, even on lowest settings. Every other spec for my PC passes the recommended specs. Anybody able to explain this to me?

DipStick McSwindler

This post has been deleted.

Blazer

What is your video card?
Technically your card might pass the bare minimum specs but normally this means you get what you're seeing right now.
Even a bog end nvidia/ati card would meet all those specs but would be complete crap at playing games..

post your video card and we can advise further.

Zomg Okay

feeney92 wrote: »

Could very well be your sound settings(among a list of other things), but what happened me before and when I changed the sound frequency all was well

Start>>>Sound>>Right click the default one>>>Properties>>>Advanced and change the sound format

Tried every frequency and it didn't help. Thanks anyway.

Blazer wrote: »

What is your video card?
Technically your card might pass the bare minimum specs but normally this means you get what you're seeing right now.
Even a bog end nvidia/ati card would meet all those specs but would be complete crap at playing games..

post your video card and we can advise further.

It's a "Intel(R) G41 Express Chipset".

Gigabytes

http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri/intro.aspx

Zomg Okay

Gigabytes wrote: »

http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri/intro.aspx

Zomg Okay wrote:

What's confusing me is that I went to systemrequirementslab.com to check my PC's specs versus the games requirements...

:rolleyes:

runawaybishop

Update your card drivers and check for any patches for your game. Also check what your graphics are set for ingame. Some options can destroy cards and provide little effect.

ED E

Zomg Okay wrote: »

...my graphics card.

Zomg Okay wrote: »

It's a "Intel(R) G41 Express Chipset".

Yeah, you dont have a graphics card buddy, just an integrated chip thats aimed towards HD playback not gaming. Guessing its likely a laptop? Probably one that you spent ~450 on. If you want to game on a laptop you'd need to spend more.

If its a desktop on the other hand, €130 would buy you a decent card. Otherwise stick to plants vs zombies.

Zomg Okay

ED E wrote: »

Yeah, you dont have a graphics card buddy, just an integrated chip thats aimed towards HD playback not gaming. Guessing its likely a laptop? Probably one that you spent ~450 on. If you want to game on a laptop you'd need to spend more.

If its a desktop on the other hand, €130 would buy you a decent card. Otherwise stick to plants vs zombies.

Fantastic. :rolleyes:

It's a desktop, not a laptop. At the same time though, I don't have €130 to throw at my PC.

I don't understand though, how it can meet all the requirements according to SRL but at the same time not meet them?

flyswatter

Zomg Okay wrote: »

Fantastic. :rolleyes:

It's a desktop, not a laptop. At the same time though, I don't have €130 to throw at my PC.

I don't understand though, how it can meet all the requirements according to SRL but at the same time not meet them?

It probably just about meets the minimum requirements of the game. The battles in the game would place a good deal of stress on the GPU and the Intel chip isn't powerful enough to handle them.

aN.Droid

Zomg Okay wrote: »

Fantastic. :rolleyes:

It's a desktop, not a laptop. At the same time though, I don't have €130 to throw at my PC.

I don't understand though, how it can meet all the requirements according to SRL but at the same time not meet them?

Sadly just because you meet those minimum specifications such as having enough graphics ram and the right shader versions you may not have enough pixel pipes or other far more technical features of a graphics card.

Is your game fully patched?

Kirby

Zomg Okay wrote: »

I don't understand though, how it can meet all the requirements according to SRL but at the same time not meet them?

It's kind of hard to explain to a layman without getting technical. Graphics card have their own dedicated memory on them. So a graphics card that has 256mb of memory is the very minmum that you need to play.

Unfortunately, your "graphics card" doesn't have any memory. It utilises your system memory, your RAM.....and this really isn't the same thing. So your actual video memory is 0. It isn't 1.3 gigs

The G41 Chipset was poor when it was new, and its over three years out of date at this stage. The bottom line is, it was never designed to play the 3d intensive applications you want it to.....especially as the Total War series is very demanding.

You can upgrade your card for under 100 quid and it will do a decent job. If you don't want to upgrade but want to play a RTS game, Starcraft 2 is a newish game than can be played on really low graphics with an ancient PC so you might look into that. Or even go more oldschool and get one of the first total war games....shogun or medieval. They may not look good, but they will run.

Zomg Okay

Kirby wrote: »

It's kind of hard to explain to a layman without getting technical. Graphics card have their own dedicated memory on them. So a graphics card that has 256mb of memory is the very minmum that you need to play.

Unfortunately, your "graphics card" doesn't have any memory. It utilises your system memory, your RAM.....and this really isn't the same thing. So your actual video memory is 0. It isn't 1.3 gigs

The G41 Chipset was poor when it was new, and its over three years out of date at this stage. The bottom line is, it was never designed to play the 3d intensive applications you want it to.....especially as the Total War series is very demanding.

You can upgrade your card for under 100 quid and it will do a decent job. If you don't want to upgrade but want to play a RTS game, Starcraft 2 is a newish game than can be played on really low graphics with an ancient PC so you might look into that. Or even go more oldschool and get one of the first total war games....shogun or medieval. They may not look good, but they will run.

Cheers for the explanation, it makes more sense now. I'm able to play Rome: Total War no problem and that's what I've been playing mostly. I've beaten the grand campaign two or three times over the last few months though and before that, I've had Rome almost since it was released. Understandably I was hoping to move up a game or two. :P

Limericks wrote: »

Is your game fully patched?

I don't think so. I'll patch it now.

Kirby

Rome was brilliant. I was just playing the Alexander campaign this morning. Go figure!

Rome 2 is coming out next year. You should upgrade for it!:)

CastorTroy

I use the game-o-meter requirements tool on yougamers.com as well as system requirements lab. Just to double check.
I've played a game before that was struggling at the lowest settings but according to requirements lab I should've been grand. So I looked elsewhere and yougamers told me otherwise.
I personally think it would be a good idea for each game(well maybe not indie games) to include a system checker on their website. I know some check before installing, but sure by then it's already purchased.