PC requirements - old config & old world

[PiR]

Hi

I'm not sure my old computer can stand the test of time... I mean the test of Old World.

I have:

• AMD Phenom II X4 945 ~3.0GHz
• 8GB RAM
• GeForce GTX 1660 Ti

Any chance I will enjoy the game without upgrading my specs? I'd like to feel more confident about this before buying the game.

 

[Dale]

You might struggle on the CPU being a 2013 chip. GPU and RAM should be fine, but minimum specs is a i5-6400 which is a 2015 chip. You might be lucky though as the game is more GPU bound than CPU, and your GPU is better than mine.

I've got the following and find the game runs pretty smoothly on high graphics options for normal maps and smaller. If I want to play on bigger maps, I need to put graphics on low.
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-7500 CPU @ 3.40GHz
RAM: 16342MB
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti

 

[PiR]

Thanks a lot! I actually built this in 2010 for Starcraft 2, so even a bit older!

I'll try the game then thanks again @Dale

 

[The_J]

Having the official requirements in a sticky thread might be useful .

 

[PiR]

Having the official requirements in a sticky thread might be useful .

I had checked those on Epic Games first: https://www.epicgames.com/store/fr/p/old-world

 

[The_J]

Ah, good .
It was mainly directed at Dale though, it would be good to have the information directly here in the forum. Would probably serve well as a thread for people to ask these questions .

 

[nolegskitten]

Thanks a lot! I actually built this in 2010 for Starcraft 2, so even a bit older!

I'll try the game then thanks again @Dale

I have a Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4670K CPU @ 3.40GHz, bought in 2013 (probably below recommended specs) and a GTX 1660 Super bought in 2019 I think, 24 GB ram and I can play just fine.
The game gets slower in the late game, but It feels normal to me in a 4X so I'm OK with it. I'm not sure how your CPU compares but it might work just fine.

 

[PiR]

Thanks!
I've tried it and after 30 minutes very few and short lags only, with all settings to maximum.

If someone could share a late-game savefile so that I check that it's acceptable too, that would be awesome.
(I don't think I can get there in the 2 hours I have to get the Epic refund if needed)

 

[PiR]

OK so after my first game, it started to slow around T80, unpleasant around T100, and unbearable from T120.
Mostly this was due to war and the game displaying enemy's moves, on peace time it was much better. There was also a "carpet of doom" effect on the map.

Looking at Windows task manager I could see that RAM usage was very high, but also HDD #2 was at 100%!
The game is installed on C: which is a SSD. But my Windows documents are on another HDD with is not SSD. Could it be that saving the game, via autosave, would be a bottleneck for performance?

 

[Dale]

OK so after my first game, it started to slow around T80, unpleasant around T100, and unbearable from T120.
Mostly this was due to war and the game displaying enemy's moves, on peace time it was much better. There was also a "carpet of doom" effect on the map.

Looking at Windows task manager I could see that RAM usage was very high, but also HDD #2 was at 100%!
The game is installed on C: which is a SSD. But my Windows documents are on another HDD with is not SSD. Could it be that saving the game, via autosave, would be a bottleneck for performance?

Saves and log files are in the /My documents/My Games/ folder.

 

[Solver]

Saving the game is definitely not a bottleneck, it's pretty quick even on old PCs.

The HDD use you're seeing is probably swapping. You're getting bottlenecked by your CPU. As a settings tweak, I'd recommend switching to Single Object Mode - that will reduce the load on the CPU from some of the stuff it has to do with unit models, and your CPU needs all the help it can get - it's an AMD K10 chip from 2009/10, so it's over a decade old and inferior to contemporary Intels, in any case it's 2 generations below our minspec, so the CPU will definitely keep dragging your turn times and framerates down.

 

[PiR]

Thanks, I'll try that and see if it's better.

 

[PiR]

Yes, also with the quick moves option, it helps. Thanks!

 

[Qactus]

Fwiw, I am very pleased with the performance and looks of Old World despite my old system (AMD FX 6300, 8GB RAM, AMD Radeon 7850).

 

[PiR]

Hi,

Saving the game is definitely not a bottleneck, it's pretty quick even on old PCs.

The HDD use you're seeing is probably swapping. You're getting bottlenecked by your CPU. As a settings tweak, I'd recommend switching to Single Object Mode - that will reduce the load on the CPU from some of the stuff it has to do with unit models, and your CPU needs all the help it can get - it's an AMD K10 chip from 2009/10, so it's over a decade old and inferior to contemporary Intels, in any case it's 2 generations below our minspec, so the CPU will definitely keep dragging your turn times and framerates down.

Coming back to this, sorry... But there is a weird correlation between the quick save and the HDD usage:

CPU goes crazy during AI turns yes, but during a quick save of a 30 Mb file (zipped into 16), the HDD goes crazy instead with a huge lag in the game also.

Is there any way to change the path for the saves in the config files?
Otherwise I'll try to bring all "My Documents" folder into C: but it's quite big

 

[Dale]

Sorry, it all goes under My Documents. What about a separate profile and just move that My Documents folder?

And just a general comment, it's recommended to keep My Documents on C drive anyways for better PC performance.

 

[Solver]

I suppose it's plausible that an old metal plate disk takes a while to save a late-game save.

On a real operating system I'd recommend just doing a symlink, but it's also possible with Windows - create a folder for OW somewhere else, and have a "My Games/OldWorld" link to where you made it on another drive, on Windows that's done through mklink.

 

[PiR]

Thanks both of you for the ideas, I've tried the mklink, then moving the documents to C drive, but in both cases I had still a lot of lag and during most lags a high disk usage which was clearly due to OW:



That was very confusing but it turns out Solver was on the right track at the beginning, Windows wanted to swap on the HDD instead of the SSD... I manually force-changed that. I thought I already had told Windows to do so, but I guess it doesn't swap often enough for me to find out.

Now the high peaks are CPU during next turn and sometimes SSD instead of HDD, but much shorter duration of course. That's more consistent and the delays are more acceptable. I guess I need to add RAM if I don't upgrade the computer.



Thanks again for the help!



PS: What I dislike most about the lags: select a worker, choose an improvement to build, click on it, then move your mouse on the map. The click is made on the map and unselects the worker.