*Sigh* That's the problem with the internet, a sentence that I would say in real life calmly and respectfully sounds like I'm talking down sarcastically to you on the net. That wasn't my intention at all, please don't take offence. :(

Regarding you other points, yes I can fully understand why it can suck upgrading your vid card for a few games, but I find selling the previous one (if in good condition) can offset the costs of that. Plus the higher frame rate, added AA and AF and higher detail and resolution can make a console port outpace the console version quite well.

I find 60FPS probably the biggest advantage a PC game can have over it's console version since I'm quite sensitive to Frame rates and slowdown. Of course it depends all on your preferences. I cannot recommend paying hundreds for prettying up what is essentially a higher res version of a game, but upgrading from, let's say a 5650 to a 6850 is worth it, IMHO.


8x PCI slot? How about a 4670 1GB AGP version? That could most likely handle TW2 good enough on low settings.

Well, I meet the minimum specs but not the recommended specs. I'll have to see how it ends up running in practice, but if there are any issues then it might just be the kick in the ass I need to get around to re-building my machine.

damn 512mb :( oh well at least witcher 1 still runs on my laptop

Internet nothing. When you say something like "due to your lack of experience", how do you expect it to be interpreted? There's no way of saying that without it being condescending. >_>

Also, the game is a great deal more intensive than The Witcher. I meet the minimum specs with a 512MB card and double the ram needed for XP, but I don't think a 3.2GHz Pentium 4 is going to cut it. :/

Sadly my ancient gaming laptop will be unable to run it. Well, one of these days I will get myself a brand new gaming laptop (except that I actually say that regularly every morning for the last several years already... *sigh* ).

I have to ask... Why?
Is the game optimized to use all four cores?
That would be unusual.

I built my latest machine a bit over 6 months ago, so my rig can throw those specs to the ground and kick them repeatedly in the ribcage... and hopefully, it will stay that way. The spec race seems to be slowing down, and that is good news to me. I don't want to upgrade again for at least 18 months (or more) (or many more)

Excellent, I won't have to upgrade it yet!
Definitely getting it from here as soon as possible (hopefully release day!)

I think gaming laptops are overrated. It's much more expensive than a desktop, for starters. My laptop has a whopping 16MB of video memory, though it's got half the ram of my desktop and more than half the processor speed, though it's a Pentium 4 M. I've been wanting to replace my laptop for the longest time, since the thing gets uncomfortably (painfully) hot and turns off from overheating in minutes, the battery doesn't hold a charge, and usb 1.1 is very slow.

I think I'd want to get some kind of netbook. I've had my eye on the Edubook for a few years, since it uses very little electricity and the batteries are expendable and far more future-proof ordinary AA NiMH, but sadly it's $215 (that's $150 + the outrageous shipping of Thailand). I don't use laptops for gaming much anymore, but I imagine it's at least sufficient for most pre-1995 games and emulators, and I'm not sure it's worth that price since I could probably pay $100 more and get something much more capable. $215 is still an attractive price, I think I'd get one today if they had a distributor who shipped to the US without a ridiculous $65 fee.

I've also had my eye on the Pandora, but that's far outside of my price range, though I'm getting a Samsung Epic in a few days and that should quell at least some of my interest in a laptop for a while. My current phone is about seven years old, so I'm getting a pretty nice deal for $150. Hopefully, it'll have been worth the wait. ;)


Anyway, my desktop has gone a long way since what it was when I got it as a hand-me-down back in 2004, it being manufactured by Compaq in 2001, but it's just about reached the limit of what it can do. I'd need a much better motherboard than I have right now, and after changing the motherboard once before, I'm not doing that again, I definitely want a better case.

My friend just got a new rig he's still paying off last month for $700. I don't keep up with this stuff anymore, it's too complicated for me, but I remember that it's got a hexcore which he says is supposed to be good. I can tell you, it runs Mass Effect 2 beautifully, and I'll probably be playing The Witcher 2 on that. His sister got a laptop last year for $1600, it does stuff my desktop couldn't do, but it's not worth that kind of money just to play on the go.


So yeah, I'd have to say go with a good desktop and just get a cheaper laptop. You could get an older laptop that's more powerful than a netbook for less money. Of course, the major caveat is that the batteries die, and it'd cost $60 to repair the battery of my Thinkpad, which simply isn't worth the bother. Hopefully I can get a desktop around $400 sometime that can play stuff like The Witcher 2, but I really don't understand any of this stuff anymore, I've tried shopping around and looking at Newegg but it's confusing. :P

It's the internet, I'll take your word for it.

It's technically speaking a 16x slot, but it's got half the bandwidth of a typical 16x slot, so I'm guessing that it's probably a 1.0 slot, rather than the more recent ones. The big problem there is that MSI wasn't terribly clear about what it actually supports.

The card I have, is good enough for at least minimum settings, it was just a bit shocking to all of a sudden be in a case where I'd need to.

EDIT: Also, I'm a poor student, so it's really either game or video card, and even the video card option is pushing it.

I just barely scrape the minimum requirements, and I had some performance issues with the first Witcher, though I have upgraded slightly since then. Arrrrg.

I'm still going to get it though. If I can't get it to run well enough this may be the game which persuades me to build/buy a new machine, if it's anywhere near as awesome as the first.

could work on my computer... I will give it a try when it is released :)

Well, that's it, I'm out. What a pitty, I really liked the original Witcher and it looked pretty good on my computer, but there is no chance of running this.