RCT3 System Requirements

Gonchar: I'll correct 'em. ;)

64-bit processor
Intel Itanium
AMD Athlon 64 (again)

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Lord Gonchar said:
OK, so which is it that primarily determines how well the game runs (in a 3d environment like this)? Or is it a combo of all three?

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It is a combination of all 3.
The video card will handle the graphics in the game. If it is at the minimum requirement, it will handle most of the 3d rendering, and what it can't do it will pass off to the CPU. Don't exepect to have lighting, reflections or fog in the game if you just meet the bare graphics requirement unless you have a top of the line CPU and loads of ram.

The CPU will handle everything else: the AI, calculating the positions of the objects, and everything else. You could have a top of the line graphics card, but barely meet this, and it should run fine for smaller parks, but as they get larger and more involved, expect to see the game lagging with a slow processor.

The RAM is used to remember things. The more of this you have the more your computer can "remember" before it has to start using virtual memory on the HD. It decreases the access time to find these memories. There will be a preformance increase limit if you increase this. For example if you increase from 512 MB to 640 MB you may see a slight increase, but if you were to go to 1024MB instead, you'll see the same improvement as the 640MB upgrade, but you probably won't see much more. Of course if you plan on running 1000s of other programs in the background, you'll want as much as you can get.

So if you want it to look pretty and run decently invest in the video card. If you want it to run very well and look ok, invest in a processor. If you want it to run decently, and look ok, but want to do lots of other stuff at the same time invest in RAM.

To answer your question BaronOwnz, your system meets and excedes those specs by quite a bit, you should have no problem running it at all.

Dane186, why won't you be able to run it? Just use your website's server macine. I bet it runs with quad Apteron processors! Those things rock! They make the Itanium (thanks for the correction!!!!) look like a 486XP2!

That would be Opteron. :)

Anyway, LG, you'll be fine with what you have for now. However, if you're going to be in the market for a new vid card at the end of the year, you might as well pick up a new CPU to go with it. *Right now* an Athlon XP 2400 (2.0GHz, 266FSB) only costs 67 bucks and I fully expect that price to drop by the end of the year as AMD really tries to push the Athlon64 and demote the AthlonXP to "entry level" status.

Note: I only picked this model as it is the fastest 266 FSB Socket A chip, assuring that you can keep your motherboard, if your MoBo supports higher FSB speeds you can jump up higher but a 2400+ is plenty for now.

As for vid cards, there is a mini "revolution" going on with NVidia and ATI. While both have a set of "high-end" cards right aound $400-$500, those cards have a very well planned obsolecence. Later this year, MoBos are switching from AGP slot vid cards to the new PCI-Express standard. The next round of latest and greatest with use this standard.

That's good news to cheap ppl like me as that means that the "old" AGP cards will necessarily fall in price. Now, the *killer* games already on the horizon (Doom3, Half-Life2, etc.) will *not* be made with this new standard in mind so the *good* cards of today, will be just fine and *much* cheaper, by the end of the year. At which time (or soon thereafter) I intend to step up from my XP2000+ and my Radeon 9600SE.

BTW: If you *really* want to test your system, try playing Far Cry if you comp can handle the demo then there isn't a game that would scare your comp.

lata, jeremy

-who just put together a system for a little under $500

Athlon XP 2000+, 256MB ram, 80GB HD, Radeon 9600SE, 52x24x52x16 DVD-Rom/CD-RW (yay me!)

Nice, Jeremy.

I was not aware the AMD CPU's went as high as the 2400 and stayed at 266FSB. That's a no-brainer!

Definitely upgrade the vid card and probably toss in a CPU. Heck, I might snag one of those CPU's sometime soon. It'd help with a bunch of video rendering I've been doing (moving old home movies over to DVD from VHS)

I originally built this sytem in 2001 and figured I'd build a new one in 2005, but it turns out, I'm on a constant "upgrade" cycle. A new something here, a better something there. It'll probably be a while before I go totally from scratch again. I'll definitely up the vid card to a good mid-level card and swap out the CPU in time for RCT3.

Danimal, your post didn't go unnoticed either :)

I know plenty about what the parts do, I'm just not a big PC gamer. It was kind of common sense but I appreciate the breakdown. I'm more than solid as I stand, but I'm still going to upgrade a bit between now and then :)

The nice thing about your system is the Athlons stayed with the same Socket A for a nice amount of time. I mean, it was fully three years before they let it go in favor of the A64. That would favor a "steady upgrade" plan instead of 'junk it and start over'.

Honestly, I just got into the whole "Build your own" scene a few months ago. My 'collge years' comp was a Cyrix-II (VIA PII clone), 64MB, 5GB HD, dinosaur, but did "well enough" for internet surfing and light word processing. But, since I had it since '98, I figured it was time for a change. I wanted to go "all out" and get the latest and greatest, the Athlon 64, but after research, I found out that the current Athlon 64's (socket 754) will soon be usurped by *new* Athlon 64's (socket 939) with PCI-Express and other stuff. So I figured I'd just wait a while till things calmed down.

Meanwhile, Penelope (my old comp) had had enough and just died. So I was comp-less, hence the *ahem* frugal "Frankenstien" noted above.

The good thing though is I have a lot of headroom to grow into. I got more MoBo than I needed; one that supports all XPs including the 3200+ (~$187 too rich for me right now :)) and high speed RAM (DDR 400).

BUT, whenever M$ gets their ducks in a row and Windows "Longhorn" (64bit version) becomes the OS of choice, a complete sys re-build will be in order. But even then, it will only be the CPU, GPU and MoBo as the RAM, HD, etc will be moving too.

But I dont expect that to happen for at least the next 3 to 4 years, since people are *just* getting used to Windows XP ;)

lata, jeremy

--still not yet into overclocking though...sounds interesting, but risky

I'm not a big OC'er either. I have an Epox Mobo and their stuff is highly tweakable. The FSB is controller in the bios and there are little switches/jumpers on the Mobo for multiplier speed. My system should run 133FSB with a 10x multiplier (for my 1.33GHz CPU)

I started by setting the jumpers to 9x and upping the FSB to 148 (9x148= 1.32Ghz) then I kept upping the FSB and RAM voltage (there's jumpers for that too) until it became unstable and then backed off a hair.

That landed me at 150 FSB. I then did the same with the multiplier.

It could go a lot higher from what I understand but I'm not that big of a geek. It runs solid where it's at and it's a 167mhz increase in CPU speed (my first PC had a 166mhz processor!) DDR ram at 150FSB = 300.

I'll take the tiny boost in performance for 10 minutes of effort.

I did look at newegg real quick and saw the 2400+ for $67. What's the deal with two being listed?

There's the 'Thoroughbred' and "Thorton" - what the hell's the 'Thorton' and what's the difference? Specs looked the same to me.

I'll probably base my next new "from scratch" build on Longhorn too. I built this one 3 months before XP came out and regretted it. I just got XP on this PC last fall!

I'm sorry but 333 Mhz does not cut it, you should check the first post i beleive it says 700 MHz. and yes they do make 64 Ghz processors but they are massive #1, cost too much for you, need a liquid nitrogen cooling system and you can't handle it! As for that correction. I'm sorry for misspelling Athlon, as for the game if you want to know look at the first post if you are at least the first post and above you will be fine. Please I don't like to argue! :) *** Edited 5/13/2004 8:47:50 PM UTC by DC2Beltz3***

Well the whole "Thoroughbred" and "Thorton" (and by extension "Barton") gets a little tricky.

Short version, the Thorton and T'bred are equivalent. Major difference is the die on the Thorton is bigger, resulting in more surface area, which leads to better cooling so the Thortons run cooler. But if you're only modest in OCing, this really shouldnt bother you. Either is fine.

Long Version, the T'bred is the original 2400+ and lower core with a 256K L2 cache. When AMD wanted to move to a faster chip core for the 2500+ series (called "Barton") they decided to make *all* there chips using the same process (and machines). However, the 2400+ series has a 256K L2 cache, while the 2500+ Barton core has a 512K L2 cache. So to "tone down" the Bartons to be suitable as a 2400+ process, they simply laser cut a signal line to sever off the addition 256K of cache. Thus creating the Thorton

HOWEVER, they say it is possible to reconnect the severed cache and yielding a 2400+ XP with a 512k L2 cache, which will of course boost performance over a regular T'bred. But I've not seen good enough instructions on how to do that, though I imagine soldering would be needed ;)

Oh, one other thing, your MoBo BIOS would have to support the Barton cores (i.e. support a 2500+, 333FSB) to even use the extra cache. Though if it could support the Barton cores, you'd be better off just getting a 2500+ and saving the headache!

But basically, to the average Joe Sixpack, the only difference is the Thorton runs a little cooler.

lata, jeremy

--who coincidentally bought all his comp stuff from Newegg...they rock!

DC: the 333MHz s/he was talking about is the speed of the front side bus (FSB). The 733MHz mentioned in the game's specs refers to the internal clock speed of the Central Processing Unit (CPU=chip=processor). These are two different things that are *never* equal (in current applications). The Athlon XP 2500+ has a CPU speed of 1.83 GHz or 1830MHz, more than enough to handle RCT3 (or pretty much any game out on the market).

Ah, I see.

I'm familar with T-Bred's and Barton's, never heard of Thorton until today.

I downloaded that Far Cry demo (in under 20 minutes even :) ), I'll check it out later and see if I can cripple my system with it or not.

I'm going to have to snag a 2400+ one of these days , thanks for the heads up.

2Hostyl, I'm sorry I misread...lol...I think it happens to us all. I'm not computer dumb i thought that was his processing speed, well then thats a differant story now isn't it? lol...! :)

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DC2Beltz3 said:
and yes they do make 64 Ghz processors but they are massive #1, cost too much for you, need a liquid nitrogen cooling system and you can't handle it!

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They don't "make" 64ghz processors. The world's current fastest computer is the Earth Simulator in Japan and it has a peak processor node performance of 64GFlops. That isn't ghz! Total peak performance of it is 40TFlops. But, I don't know who this "they" is, and whoever "they" is, "they" defenitally don't make these processors, since there is only one Earth Simulator!

You sound like you're in Entel's trap of "more mhz more gooder" but the thing that matters is flops.

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2Hostyl said:

BTW: If you *really* want to test your system, try playing Far Cry if you comp can handle the demo then there isn't a game that would scare your comp.

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Finally ran the demo. Worked fine at 1024 x 768 x 32 with all the graphics options set to "very high"

I guess I'll be just fine with RCT3. :)

Well Intel Makes them, they are not out on market, first of all you must make or have at least $30,000,000 and they are custom made with their own motherboard and second of all they are about they are still massive and even if anyone knew about it, Intel woudn't tell you, and you can't find it anywhere because nobody (the good majority of people) can't afford one!

Oh yeah, if Faf Cry ran fine, then you're golden. For me, the demo runs fine on medium, but is a little choppy on very high. But that's primarily because the game is a memory hog and I only have 256 in there now. But I can pretty much guarantee that RCT3 will run like a champ on your box.

lata, jeremy

--who seems to have misplaced his Loopy Landscapes CD...

I actually played it a little more in depth after I wrote that. It does get 'choppy' once a lot starts happening. (lots of trees, enemies and gunfire)

Nothing too serious, a little annoying for a FPS like FarCry but it'd be fine for something like RCT.

Once I backed off the graphics a little, it worked fine.

On a side note, I did some research into my Mobo since I was considering that AMD 2400+ and my Mobo only supports up to the 2000+.

That seemed weird at first but then I started looking inside my PC and Mobo manual and it only goes as high as a 12.5 multiplier.

133FSB x 12.5 = 1.67Ghz (the running speed of the 2000+)

That was a little disappointing. I'm running at 1500 now. Might not be worth it unless it would run as the 150FSB like this CPU does. Then I'd have 1.88Ghz which is a pretty nice little jump for the $52 price. We'll see, I guess.

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DC2Beltz3 said:
Well Intel Makes them, they are not out on market, first of all you must make or have at least $30,000,000 and they are custom made with their own motherboard and second of all they are about they are still massive and even if anyone knew about it, Intel woudn't tell you, and you can't find it anywhere because nobody (the good majority of people) can't afford one!

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And its based on the Pentium 4 architecture, specifically the (axed) Teja core. Right? Of course its x86 based, and uses AMD64 instructions too. Of course Intel wouldn't tell me about it, because I'm an AMD user. And does it really use an Intel motherboard? I had no idea Intel made motherboards! I bet it even has an Intel chipset!

Uh oh, I just stepped in what you said... And its all over the bottom of my shoes and smells bad... Eww...

Yes, your close, its specially designed by AMD, it runs along those lines....I don't think it has the Intel Chipset...sorry about the posts above, and my mistake on 30,000 it cost 700,000 so yes! Its one of those....but a little bit better! :)

LG: I've read around and 1.8 on a 2000+ is not out of the question. I've seen several claims of hitting 2GHz with one and only air cooling. Not sure *I* want to be that ambitious but supposedly, it has been done. The "Thoroughbred" cores are apparently pretty good overclockers, especially the "B" variety.

I dunno, I'll at some point fool around with o/c'ing. I've got the MoBo and case to handle it. Still studying though. :)