Trizzeo.com: Your WAR Resource

What’s needed to run WAR? How good are the graphics? Look within…

 

The game works well by all accounts on systems as low as the following with some AF (Anisotropic Filtering) applied at resolutions such as 1280×1024 with medium in-game settings (which still look good):

 

Dual-core CPU or better (Core 2 Duo, or AMD Phenom)

8800/9800GT, Radeon 4770, or similar

2GB-4GB of RAM

 

The official minimum requirements are as follows:

 

“PC SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

 

For Windows XP

 

• 2.5 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
• 1 Gigabyte RAM
• A 128 MB Video Card, with support for Pixel Shader 2.0
• At least 15 GB of hard drive space

 

For Windows VISTA

 

• 2.5 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
• 2 Gigabyte RAM
• A 128 MB Video Card, with support for Pixel Shader 2.0
• At least 15 GB of hard drive space

 

Supported Video Cards

 

ATI Radeon(TM) series

 

• 9500, 9600, 9800
• X300, X600, X700, X800, X850
• X1300, X1600, X1800, X1900, X1950
• 2400, 2600, 2900,
• 3650, 3850, 3870
• 4850, 4870

 

NVIDIA GeForce series

 

• FX 5900, FX 5950
• 6600, 6800,
• 7600, 7800, 7900, 7950
• 8400, 8500, 8600, 8800
• 9400, 9500, 9600, 9800
• GTX 260, GTX 280

 

Intel(R) Extreme Graphics

 

• GMA X4500

 

Laptop versions of these chipsets may work, but may run comparatively slowly. Standalone cards that are installed in vanilla PCI slots (not PCIe or PCIx or AGP), such as some GeForce FX variants, will perform poorly. Integrated chipsets such as the ATI Xpress and the NVIDIA TurboCache variants will have low settings selected, but should run satisfactorily.

 

Please note that attempting to play the game using video hardware that isn’t listed above may result in reduced performance, graphical issues or cause the game to not run at all.

 

The NVIDIA GeForce FX series is unsupported under Vista.”

 

SLI and Crossfire do both work and are supported by Warhammer Online. Additionally, while there is not yet an in-game option to span across multiple monitors (it’s a suggestion that was brought up during beta but has not been decided upon yet), you can use a Matrox Triple Head To Go (TH2G) to span across up to three monitors while maintaining full game compatibility.

If you want to crank things up at a high resolution such as 1680×1050, 1920×1200, or 2560×1600, you’re going to need something beefier for max settings and/or antialiasing. I personally have tested four current video cards across a pair of systems at 1680×1050. The two  systems I used are detailed below along with my impressions of each configuration. Note that the game does not currently use DX10 features, though they are planned over time for future expansion packs to keep the game looking good later in its life.

 

System 1: This system had a Core 2 Quad Q6600 at 3.1ghz (overclocked), 4GB DDR2 RAM, and was used with the Radeon 4850 GDDR3 512MB, Radeon 4870 GDDR5 512MB and GTX 280 1GB video cards under Vista x64. Performance with 8x CSAA (plus transparency MSAA) and 16x AF was rock-solid, never dipping below 45 in even large-scale RVR (70-100+ players on-screen)  at 1680×1050, at maximum in-game settings. The Radeon 4870 fared very well itself, however due to a lack of in-game antialiasing options at the time, I was unable to enable it to test. However, with 16x AF (anisotropic filtering) applied, it ran butter-smooth under all circumstances, even during a city siege in Altdorf during its contested stage with RVR inside. With the Radeon 4850, I noticed a small amount of choppiness during heavy action in this siege on a different night,  using the same settings as the 4870. However, it didn’t dip below around 30 FPS.

 

System 2: This system had a Core 2 Duo E2200 (2.2ghz), 4GB of DDR2 RAM, and was used with the Geforce 8800GT 512MB video card under Vista x64. Running at 1680×1050, 16x AF, and 4x MSAA was an “OK” experience during a city siege, while being flawless elsewhere. The framerates during the city siege with these settings (and maximum in-game ones) dipped to the 15-20 range during some of the most intense action, though it generally hovered around 30-35 for most of the siege. Under normal game circumstances it was great, however. Turning off the MSAA helped the framerates significantly, boosting them to much more playable levels.

 

Load times are generally short (7-10 seconds on a 320GB 7200RPM 16MB cache Seagate 7200.10 series hard drive under Vista x64), never exceeding 15 seconds for me. The only times you will have loading is when entering and exiting a Scenario, moving between Tiers on foot or via teleports, and entering the Capital Cities, which are immense. Loading is not a bother in the game, as each Tier and zone is very large, meaning you won’t encounter it much in any case.

 

Overall, the game performs pretty well for its graphical fidelity, complete with nicely-detailed textures, high-quality models, and excellent lighting effects, on both systems. Excellent! The textures are pretty high-res when the settings are maxed, and again, the lighting effects are very well-done, providing a nice level of ambience and shadowing. The animations are extremely fluid. While screenshots can’t show the animations, take a look at a couple of the ones below for some examples of the graphical quality (taken at 1680×1050 with 16x AF, maximum in-game settings, and varying levels of antialiasing).

 

Click the pictures for large versions:

 

 

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 at 8:53 pm and is filed under Frequently Asked Questions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.