I just bought AoW3 in the summer sale and although it technically *plays* in my rig, the framerate is painfully slow. So, I might have found the perfect excuse to update my good ol' gaming pc. Here's what I have:

Intel Core2 6600@2.40 Ghz
2 Gb RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT

I have more or less made up my mind about getting an Intel i5 with 4 Gb RAM (I intend to do some eclipse development at home, so I guess the CPU will be handy), but I am still undecided on the graphic card; the store guys where I'll be purchasing it recommend me a GTX750 OC (Overclocked?) for about 100€. Now, money isn't a primary concern but I don't like to pay for something I won't be using, and I won't certainly need a beast of a card capable of running the latest FPS fad at 100000000x10000000 resolution.

So, long story short, if I want to run AoW3 at a smooth framerate with a medium quality setting, will it be enough? or I am better off with a better card?

Thanks in advance.

I'm running it 1920 x 1080 with a GTX760 without any issues generally - there still seem to be a few performance bugs in the game but the devs are working on them.

I'd be surprised if the GTX750 wasn't equally capable as a modern mid priced graphics card. I bought the 760 for future proofing rather than because similar or slightly lower spec cards weren't adequate.

I don't understand why your RAM is that low, I got an 8 gigabyte laptop for something 475~. Admittedly the graphics card is only 768 MB, but it runs the game just fine on low graphics. I don't care to try to run it on higher graphics anyway because I don't care to try to melt my fucking laptop. In my opinion, RAM is definitely a bigger problem for this game than graphics. This is not an old game, and we shouldn't expect to be able to play newer games with 32 bit amounts of RAM. Fortuanately, RAM is inexpensive, and depending on your experience and computer model you may even be able to install it yourself. But probably not, laptop manufacturers are jerks who make the insides inaccessible.

Unless you're getting a secondhand (older) system, upgrade the memory first. 4 GB isn't going to cut it for a gaming system with a modern OS. 8 is probably the bare minimum and 16 is preferable as long as you don't end up bleeding money for it (which might be an issue with a laptop).

So the general advice would be get the 750 but install 8 Gb RAM instead of 4, right?

Big thanks to you all, guys.

Yeah, but I got mine refurbished. You have to find some sort of deal to get a computer with 6+ RAM for under 700$.

While more Ram is always preferable it is a case of diminishing returns after a while. This means you'll get more benefit going from 1GB to 2Gb than from 8GB to 16GB. There's always a couple of exceptions - photo and video editing spring to mind but if your budget is stretched then 4GB will be enough for the moment. Its probably the minimum for a modern system but if gaming performance is a priority then you'd probably better off buying a SSD (still a bit of a premium for lower budget machines) or a slightly faster processor or overclocked.

Games don't particularly benefit from more than 4GB. I've seen some articles about using memory for the Windows page file but they didn't seem to see particularly big gains.

Memory is probably one of the easiest upgrades you can do yourself. Certainly a lot easier than a new CPU if you're not comfortable opening up your PC.

The 750 has its own memory so you're not losing system memory for the gfx card. If for some reason you have a 32 bit operating system then more than 4GB is a waste.

Of course having said all that 8GB will always be better than 4GB - just depends on your budget and priorities.

Gaming will be a main use for the new PC, but as I said, AoW3 will probably be the most demanding game I'll play, I am not particularly fond of Battlefields, Calls of Duty or whatever the FPS rave is these days.

I think I'll settle with an Intel i5 w/ 8Gb RAM and the GFX750, will this suffice to run the game smoothly with medium/high settings?

I have a similar setup to that with an OC 3570K and 760 graphics card and run everything at max with no problems.

This isn't a graphically demanding game.

Hi again, just a quick update in case someone finds this thread helpful. I finally opted for a 17' laptop with a GTX850M (Asus N750JK). I prefer to have the best possible framerate so I set the game at 1600x900 at medium settings, and still looks beautiful and most important, it runs flawlessly, not the slightest lag and the camera spins and moves like a charm.

Thanks everyone for your help.