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cecirdr
Head Merchant
Joined: 14 May 2002
Posts: 66
Location: Newport, OR USA |
| DS: a graphically rich game with low system requirements |
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I just started Dungeon Siege and so far I'm impressed. I've heard there's very little plot to speak of  but graphically it's awesome. 
What I'm wondering is.....if DS runs so well on my laptop with a 1.2 ghz PIII and a 16mb mobility radeon, why does Morrowind have such steep system requirments? DS has no load times, rapid response to my commands, an intuative interface (I didn't even have to read directions), and lush graphics. Are Morrowind's that much better? Is Morrowind's video card requirement of 32mb and T&L due to the water effects?
I know I probably shouldn't post asking for a comparison kind of answer between these two games graphically, but I'm really curious. I can't upgrade my laptop, so games like MW are a no go for me. So I want to know just what do you get for such steep system requirements. |
Thu May 16, 2002 1:49 am |
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vaticide
Put food in here
Joined: 21 Feb 2002
Posts: 1122
Location: One step behind a toddler bent on destruction. |
I imagine it has to do with both visible distance and water effects. Other than that one could only guess their graphics engine is less efficient or does not scale as well. As for quality I haven't seen MW yet, so I cannot compare them. I don't use a laptop, but I am unable to play it until I upgrade. I'm prohibited by money though. Dern that money stuff...
-vaticide |
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Thu May 16, 2002 2:55 am |
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SuperCowMan24
Blademaster of the Moo
Joined: 20 Apr 2002
Posts: 1194
Location: Texas, USA |
Im not sure about the system requirements, but i find morrowind amazing. The world is HUGE, very huge, and there are storms, lightning, rain, water effects, everything. People in cities walk around, blink, even say random comments when you pass by. Its an amazing world, too bad you can do multiplayer, speaking of multiplayer... maybe we should get 8 rpgdot guys to come and play dungeon siege multiplayer.... yaaa....
_________________
Moo. Just do it, purse your lips and let out a MIGHTY MOO!
Don't you feel better now? |
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Thu May 16, 2002 9:17 pm |
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cecirdr
Head Merchant
Joined: 14 May 2002
Posts: 66
Location: Newport, OR USA |
quote:
Originally posted by SuperCowMan24
Im not sure about the system requirements, but i find morrowind amazing. The world is HUGE, very huge, and there are storms, lightning, rain, water effects, everything. People in cities walk around, blink, even say random comments when you pass by. Its an amazing world, too bad you can do multiplayer, speaking of multiplayer... maybe we should get 8 rpgdot guys to come and play dungeon siege multiplayer.... yaaa....
So....the requirement for a 32mb vid card is probably due to special effects, amount of stuff shown on screen at one time, and things like that? I'm asking because I'm stuck with a 16mb vid card in my laptop. DS runs like a champ on it though. So I was wondering why such a difference between the two programs when DS has been lauded as being very high end graphically also.
There's no chance I'll get a desktop PC....BUT and it's a *big* but...with the drop in xbox prices, I might be able to convince the spousal overunit  to let me have an xbox. I just wanted to make sure that it's worth it. As an outsider to the Morrowind saga, it looks like they theoretically could have made it able to run on a lesser video card since IMHO Dungeon Siege runs fast on my laptop.
I wanted to post the question to the Morrowind boards, but I must admit was was a bit afraid of getting flamed if I even suggested that Morrowind might not be as efficient a program as it could be. Then again....I might be all wrong. Screenshots might not be doing it justice. It might be graphically head and shoulders above Dungeon Siege. |
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Thu May 16, 2002 10:33 pm |
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SuperCowMan24
Blademaster of the Moo
Joined: 20 Apr 2002
Posts: 1194
Location: Texas, USA |
dunno... but xbox is cool, you got morrowind soon, halo, gauntlet, mechassault soon, armada 2.... ya..... gotta love it
_________________
Moo. Just do it, purse your lips and let out a MIGHTY MOO!
Don't you feel better now? |
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Fri May 17, 2002 12:32 am |
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Darkside51
Guest
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I would recommend purchasing the game anyway (Morrowind) and see how well it runs.
I would expect the excess power of the CPU to compensate for the low RAM on the graphics card.
I have tried similar things with standard PC's and been able to get games running. |
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Mon May 20, 2002 12:41 am |
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FlipMoeJack
Captain of the Guard
Joined: 23 Jun 2002
Posts: 176
Location: New York |
I own both Morrowind and Dungeon Siege, and both games rock. I have spent more time on Morrowind (about 200 hours more) and I have to say, Morrowind is one awesome game.
Graphically, nothing compares to Morrowinds graphics and special effects. The whole atmorsphere of the game makes you feel so involved and in the game that you forget about everything around in real life. When it starts raining, I actually begin to believe it is a raining day outside even when its a sunny August afternoon. The sound of thunder in the game actually scares me when I'm not aware of a sudden T-Storm.
The huge problem of the game is the performance. No matter how well Quake 3, Dungeon Siege, Diablo or Half Life performs on your system, Morrowind won't perform equally.
Even with the best graphics card (GeForce 4 Ti 4600) Morrowind may not perform well. You need an extremely fast processor (2ghz +) and a lot of RAM (perferably 512 DDR RAM) to run Morrowind smoothly. Even then don't expect the game to perform nicely. Almost 90% of Morrowind games play with Shadows turned off, because there are too many things in the world to cast shadows and so drops performance.
You can run the game at 15-20 FPS if you turn off Shadows and put View distance as low as possible and decrrease the Ai Distance all the way if you are running on a 1ghz machine with a 32 MB video card.
I am running on:
Athlon XP 1900+
Geforce 3 Ti500
512 DDR RAM
I get 20-30 FPS in game and 15-20 in town. No shadows, full distance and full Ai. I also use the Morrowind optimizer program created by a Morrowind Gamer that helps the game perform better but flucuating the view distance for FPS.
Also make sure you have a fast BUS speed on your motherboard. I'm not to sure about that...
This is my input, I hope you use it well.
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(-[ApoK Forever]-) |
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Mon Aug 12, 2002 7:01 pm |
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