I have seen a best guess from a web site that compiles lists of requirements, and they grabbed an old (Oblivion era?) list of supported cards that includes all of the 6800s, including the terrible LE/SE and XT models, the 7300s, the 8400, and the Radeon X1300, HD 2400 also.

All of those were no better than the original Oblivion 6600 GT and Radeon 9700 pair (and worse than the Radeon).

Has anyone from BETHESDA (Oops, not "Bioware", sorry about that) ever hinted at WHEN the official list would be announced?

SURELY there will be improvements in the engine, and the graphics, so also the requirements!


Gorath

Er, probably the same as Fallout 3's? Very nearly the same core game engine and a ton of the same assets.

Same time that the game gets shipped... Usually about a week before release.

What were the specs for Fallout 3? I play on console so I am not shure how it would play.

Lets try this. This is for people who played Oblivion. Could you play it with no problems? Now for these people who had no problems with Oblivion and did not upgrade their PC, could you play Fallout 3? How was the experiance? Now where were your specs?

So if Fallout 3 played like Oblivion, maybe New Vegas will play like Fallout 3 then. If there was an increas from Fallout 3 from Oblivion, then roughly take the difference and add it to what Fallout 3 is then.

I'm guessing almost the same as Fallout 3, maybe a little bit higher but if so not much. So if you can run Fallout 3, you can be pretty sure that you can run New Vegas too. Unless you were playing Fallout 3 on the very lowest graphics settings, maybe.


Edit: Also, Bioware?

I don't think someone from Bioware would announce when the requirements will be released, seeing as the game is developed by Obsidian and published by Bethesda, and Bioware really has no connection to it...

But as far as I know, there has been no indication as to when the PC requirements will be available, though I'd imagine it will be some time before the release date, so probably in the not too distant future, though I really can't see the requirements being very different from Fallout 3's, seeing as both games use the same engine, and in fact, I can't see any signs of graphical improvements in New Vegas, if there have been, I'd say that the differences are certainly not major, so I'd say that if your computer can run Fallout 3 without problems, it should be able to handle New Vegas as well, of course, this is just an assumption on my part, I have not actually seen the game's requirements, so I can only speculate.



I don't think that would work, since Fallout 3 had a fair amount of graphical enhancements compared to Oblivion, though I could see that both games used the same engine, Fallout 3 still looked quite different. Now the graphical standards of New Vegas seem to be much closer to Fallout 3's than that game was to Oblivion, so if the requirements have increased, I'd imagine it will be a smaller difference than Fallout 3 was to Oblivion.

Fixed that mistake, at least to match the forums I'm visiting right now, at least, but surely the graphics must be somewhat better?


Gorath

3D combo kit from NewEgg:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.492319&Tpk=nvidia%20sli%203d

Anyone have an extra $1,087 lying around?

Of course you don't NEED to play FONV in 3D, but I'm just saying, if you did, it would be totally badass...

Besides my "main" gaming PC, there are three others here that can all run games such as Oblivion and The Witcher easily enough, when I have some grandkids over, and they get tired of whatever Shooters they like better than rpgs. I haven't kept those other up to date particularly well, as console game limitations seem to have put a cap on what the developers are willing to try to do. But I remember that both KotOR-II and NWN-2 jumped seriously upward in requirements when Obsidian handles the sequels.

In the past, Bethesda has released such information 10 days to two weeks prior to the code going gold. That should be about now, + / - about ten days.


Gorath

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_3_FAQ#What_are_the_PC_system_requirements.3F
http://www.overclock.net/graphics-cards-general/502403-graphics-card-ranking-5th-time-last.html, to compare whatever card you have to those requirements.



Yes. Actually, FO3 ran a tad better, I think. And my system is a kinda low-end. (ATI HD2600XT/256mb, 2gb ram, 2.66 Core 2 Duo, Win XP SP3)



Honestly, given the FO:NV premise of "lets see what Obsidian can do with the FO3 engine", I'd expect it to be almost identical to FO3. As far as is obvious up to now, the main engine changes seem to be things like using multiple ammo types and having actual companion controls, not graphics changes.

OK, maybe that'll be all, which will simplify things seriously.

Meanwhile, when it comes to video card rankings, did Not the King totally quit updating his VGA Rankings list?

G.

I just want to know the CPU requirement.. I am afraid my Phenom II X4 820 is not capable of running this game :[.. its only 2.8 Ghz.. I wish I had opted for the six core. Hopefully Obsidian optimizes it better for lower end CPUs.

On a related note, what do longer draw distances stress more, the GPU or the CPU? Because I think I read in an interview that Obsidian pushed for longer draw distances in New Vegas than in Fallout 3 so that could be a factor.

It will run the game fine. (The 6 core would be a waste for games, since games only use 1-2 cores). The CPU speed doesnt matter when comparing different CPU architectures. It will be much faster then the minimum/recommended CPU.

That's good to know

Does anyone know if a larger draw distance would be a factor in system requirements? Apparently Fallout New Vegas will have a much longer draw distance than its predecessor.

hey guys. newcomer here. i ordered the game today based on a hunch i could play FO new vegas cause a few tech guys at bestbuy said i could run FO3. my computer runs assassins creed 2 and TF2 fine with no problems. so i assume theres no problem with my specs. yet its still a gamble. my specs:

Dual-Core 2.70 GHz
4 GB RAM
Windows 7
700 GB free space
Radeon ATI HD 5550 1 GB
600 watt power supply

You should have no problems running the game.

I could run Oblivion on High settings, but I could only run Fallout 3 on Low Settings on the same PC. Intel Pentium 4 3.0 ghz, Nvidia 6800 GTX, 2 GB RAM.

Luckily I have since gotten a new PC that runs Fallout 3 on maxed settings buttery-smooth.


That's really weird. The opposite of what happened to me as you can see above.


Why must the graphics be better? Two years isn't a lot of turn around time on a major PC game release, especially an RPG. Obsidian took the engine and art assets of Fallout 3 and went to town crafting a whole new game using the same tools. I heard they rewrote the way the engine handles dialogue so it would be easier to do what they wanted, and I've heard they have tweaked and polished existing animations, but besides that, I have not heard mention of them pushing anything farther graphically (nor do they need to in my opinion). If your PC runs Fallout 3 on anything above Low Settings, I wouldn't worry a bit about it. All the previewers mention that there is no jump in graphics.

Hmm. Maybe I imagined it, then.
(Or maybe I subconsciously got that idea from the fact that other aspects of it ran better - like not being nearly as crash-happy as Oblivion. Hmm.)






Yeah, considering that all of those specs are better than mine (especially the graphics card, which is miles better), you should have no horsepower issues at all.

It's the PC's in the "Family Room" that the grandkids use when they are here, that are somewhat behind the curve. The gaming system in my bedroom (which will soon be moved in here) is just fine, and the one I'm using right now isn't bad at all. Maybe the "LID Effect" of consoles not being upgraded will continue to shore up those older machines I have!


Gorath

I don't think there has been an overhaul of any type on the graphics. However, new elements are added for the new content and areas in the game where the existing graphics would not fill the need. There are two types of graphics files that give fits to the video cards for these games, hi res textures/meshes and Lights. I doubt the Textures and Meshes have been revamped as they are at the limit for what consoles can handle smoothly. Plus, they are pretty good right now.

I see Lights as being the biggest issue. This is not say a light bulb on a building (although there will be more of those) but Light Sources and the Shadows that are created from them is what can bog things down. I remember mods that have gone through and removed extra light sources (these are sources that provide light and shadow, but are not actual light fixtures in the cells) to make the games run smoother. Instead of putting one light source in a cell (which would look like a sun lit day), it looks better to have lots of smaller ones putting off shadows and various levels of light as you move through a cell. Too many and the cell FPS will slow to a crawl.

So, as long as Obsidian does not load the game up with a bunch of new or extra light sources, then it should run the same even with any new content.

I know that I'm really hoping that continues for awhile yet. It was nice being able to get good performance on Dragon Age and ME2 with my crappy system.

I doubt it be anything above Fallout 3, and that pleases me greatly, my several years old PC is getting old and more and more games minimum is getting above what I can handle.


so F:NV needs no fancy graphics thank you :3

No, but for Fallout 3, the official game requirements were released ~2 weeks before the game release, when the game went gold. And I don't recall it being much different with Oblivion, the game requirements were released very late there too.

So they do it late

The Oblivion requirements were announced early on, but that was for a new engine/graphics system. FO3, and FO:NV are essentially the same games, graphics and CPU load wise, so that is probably why there is no advanced announcement for these.

Just checked on the www.elderscrolls.com website, and the game requirements were released on february 1st 2006, and the game was released on march 21st. So about 7 weeks before the game release.

While Fallout 3 was 2 weeks before the game release. And I guess it will be closer to 2 weeks this time too.