Lowest spec pc/gfx card that can run TDS

bikerdude on 8/2/2009 at 16:53

Afternoon

Whats the lowest spec pc that anyone has thats capable of running TDS, as Im re-building a pc for Doug(ttlg taffer) and his pc: Celeron 2.6ghz/Radeon 9600 is just not up to the job, even at 640*480..

biker

EvaUnit02 on 8/2/2009 at 17:11

Obviously his mobo just does AGP, or are you going to installer a newer one that supports PCI-E x16?

mrsmr2 on 8/2/2009 at 19:00

I run it on a P4 2.4 with a 5900 Ultra. With low settings it's reasonably playabe e.g. > 30fps.

bikerdude on 8/2/2009 at 20:17

Quote Posted by EvaUnit02

Obviously his mobo just does AGP, or are you going to installer a newer one that supports PCI-E x16?

I am replacing parts in his pc. But the question was, what's the lowest spec that other taffers have run TDS with..

Ok so a 2.4ghz P4 with a 5900Ultra is faster than Dougs setup..MrsMr, what resolution are you running it at to get 30fps...

mrsmr2 on 8/2/2009 at 21:37

I think I was running at 1024*768 with no bloom, multisampling (I think) was pretty high but all other settings were are the lowest.

I've taken the 5900 out and replaced it with a less noisy card (which won't run T:DS) so I can't confirm exactly.

bikerdude on 8/2/2009 at 22:02

Quote Posted by mrsmr2

I think I was running at 1024*768 with no bloom, multisampling (I think) was pretty high but all other settings were are the lowest..

Hmmm so the radeon thats in doug pc should be atleast capable of 640*480... maybe its an LE card or similar, not a full blown Radeon 9600 :weird:

Henri The Hammer on 9/2/2009 at 04:59

The first time I played through TDS, I was using Athlon 1.0 GHz with 256 mb ram and Radeon 9600 (had to upgrade from Voodoo 4), running Windows 98. The framerate was pretty poor but I managed to complete it. :p

baeuchlein on 9/2/2009 at 14:34

Quote Posted by Bikerdude

Im re-building a pc for Doug

So you want to be a master builder, eh?:cheeky:

I was able to play through Thief 3 even with a Duron "running" at 850 MHz (and with 256 MB RAM) and a Radeon 9550 card (AFAIK, a somewhat slower version of the 9600). The OS was Windows 98 SE, but some tests made with Windows XP and the Thief 3 demo on the same computer suggest that Thief 3 should not run slower with XP than with Win98SE.

Measuring fps with fraps gave me about 9 to 13 fps usually, while occasionally dropping down to 7 fps or rising to 15 or 20 fps (very rare, though). This is obviously not acceptable for many people, but apparently I'm not too sensitive about this. Moving around did not feel very jerky, usually. Whether I used a 640x480 or 800x600 resolution did not matter much, but there was a notable slowdown when going to 1024x768. That was too much even for me.

If you measure the same fps ratings when using fraps on the PC you described, it is likely the graphics card which slows down things there. Could it be a 9600 SE, by the way? My 9550 is a "non-SE" version, meaning the GPU can access the graphics RAM with greater speed. (I'm fairly certain that "SE" means "Shit Edition" in case of ATI cards...:ebil:)

Anyway, the Rutherford castle mission in the Thief 3 demo is a good way to test a PC's performance with Thief 3 even without buying the game. A program displaying fps in-game comes in handy.

gunsmoke on 9/2/2009 at 14:52

I had a Sempron 2500+ (same class as Celeron) 512 MB DDR 333, and a 9600 w/256MB VRAM. I was playing @ 1024x768 and getting 20+ frames per second and averaging ~25. Very playable. All the effects were on/maxed, and VSync was off. Bloom on, no AA(multisampling).

bikerdude on 9/2/2009 at 16:57

Quote Posted by baeuchlein

So you want to be a master builder, eh?:cheeky:

* I was able to play through Thief 3 even with a Duron "running" at 850 MHz (and with 256 MB RAM) and a Radeon 9550 card (AFAIK, a somewhat slower version of the 9600).
* Measuring fps with fraps gave me about 9 to 13 fps usually, while occasionally dropping down to 7 fps. Moving around did not feel very jerky, usually. Whether I used a 640x480 or 800x600 resolution did not matter much.
* Could it be a 9600 SE, by the way? My 9550 is a "non-SE" version, meaning the GPU can access the graphics RAM with greater speed. (I'm fairly certain that "SE" means "Shit Edition" in case of ATI cards...:ebil:)

Hmm, well the 9600 in Doug's pc must be the crap cut down version then, or there is somethign else wrong - as it was very laggy, not playable at all..!!

And waddya mean, I am a master builder - of computers that is :cheeky: