which bare minimum Vid card can play Warcraft III?

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duuuma

Senior member
Sep 29, 2001
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my roommate's got a Dell Optiplex Gx110, the onboard vid of 4mb just isn't going to cut it, so which cheapo old card can I get that'll run Warcraft III?

And I mean run it somewhat well at least. I know the recommended is 32mb 3d card with dx8.1 support...so what cards in particular? If you have any for sale, please pm too! :)
 
RichieZ

RichieZ

Diamond Member
Jun 1, 2000
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Turn the resolution down and all the effects off and it might be able to do it, I ran it on my laptop: S3 Savage IX with a whopping 8MB of ram.

But if he really wants to play you better get a new video card. I ran it on my Geforce 2 Ultra with no slow downs. So I suppose Geforce 3 and above should run it like butter.
 
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Mloot

Diamond Member
Aug 24, 2002
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According to Dell's website, the Gx110 has no AGP port, so your friend will be limited to a PCI video card. If he plans on keeping the pc for any length of time, I suggest an MX440 PCI or Radeon 9000 PCI. Either one should have no problem with WC3.
 
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duuuma

Senior member
Sep 29, 2001
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yeah i'm afraid b/c it's PCI, that a card like a tnt2 or voodoo3 won't be able to handle it. Me and some friends wanted to buy WC3 and a vid card for him for his bday, but we didn't want to spend too much.

 
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Mloot

Diamond Member
Aug 24, 2002
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Only $30 for a PCI card that needs to be able to play WC3 smoothly and have 32mb of RAM? I don't know, but $30 is probably putting you in the range of perhaps a GeF2MX card or Radeon 7000 or thereabouts. As to whether they could handle WC3 smoothly, I don't know. I had a 7000 32mb PCI and it was pretty choppy playing Dungeon Siege at 800x600 with the details turned down. My suggestion would be to camp out in the FS/T forums. People sell PCI cards there pretty frequently and you might get a good deal. For example, I just sold my 440 PCI for $50 a couple of days ago. Or better yet, post a message in that forum with the header WTB (Want to Buy) and post what size card you are looking for and how much you are willing to spend. You may get more hits that way. Good luck.
 
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duuuma

Senior member
Sep 29, 2001
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thanks, I know $30 is pushing it.....

I found a GF2 mx200 PCI, you guys think that'll work?
 
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ant80

Senior member
Dec 4, 2001
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i dont know man. I had several problems with my gf2 gts. but on the other hand, i upgraded my duron 700 to athlon 1200, and my graphics card to gf4 ti4200 at the same time. it might be the processor that had something to do with the way wc3 used to play. good luck aniways.
 
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duuuma

Senior member
Sep 29, 2001
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damn...i don't think we can afford a gf4 for him....he's got a p3 600 too....
 
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BlvdKing

Golden Member
Jun 7, 2000
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Go for the GF2 MX 200 - I will probably be faster than the Radeon 7000. I have heard of the game being played on a Radeon 32 MB DDR, but it was low res and low detail.

Personally, I think WC3 plays like crap on a Piii 866 w/ GF3 Ti 200 in multiplayer - it gets really stuttery when there is alot of action on screen.
 
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duuuma

Senior member
Sep 29, 2001
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I just checked and he's got a P3 667mhz with 384mb of ram, but damn, if it can't handle being played on a Radeon DDR board, how's it going to play on a gf2 mx200 with SDRAM?

 
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chizow

Diamond Member
Jun 26, 2001
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Honestly, that rig is gonna stutter no matter what you slap into that PCI slot :-/

Bliz did a poor job on its estimated system req's, as thousands have complained about since its release. I really think a 1.2 gig processor and a gf3/Radeon 7500 should be the bare minimum to play this game.

I've run WC3 since legit beta, and had an AXP 1800+ and a gf3 ti200 OC'd. It ran very well with maxed out everything at 1600x1280x32. Now, most people are saying thats the extreme resolution, but honestly, the game looks pretty crappy at anything other than maxed out rez and details. I just slapped in an Albatron ti4200 Turbo and didn't even realize how much the game stuttered before. Whether it was scrolling or a massive bloodlusted battle, the game would lag some on my gf3, but it runs without a hitch now.

Now those of you who have played WC3 know how important it is to have good frame rate in a huge battle like that...you simply can't micro if you aren't getting consistent, high frame rate. I would go with the best possible PCI card around, the Radeon 9000, otherwise your friend may want to consider a full system upgrade. I'm pretty sure WC3 is gpu intensive rather than CPU intensive, but thats just my guess as I haven't seen it on anything other than my AXP at 1.7 gigs. But judging from the very significant increase in performance I saw when I switched from a gf3 to a gf4, I think its the GPU thats the bottle-neck.

Chiz
 
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ant80

Senior member
Dec 4, 2001
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I agree that Blizzard did not do a good job listing its sys. req. though i think at the low endsystem that duuuma is planning to build, both cpu and gpu are bottlenecks, almost the same. When I had my duron 700 and gf2 gts 32mb, I realized that the processor utilization was extremely high (close to 100%) during gameplay. It is about 70 - 80% with athlon 1200 and ti4200. my 2c.
 
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MrC4

Diamond Member
Jun 27, 2000
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Stay away from the GF MX200 at all costs. I could not even break 1000 in 3dmark 2001 on a Duron 900 with this POS!
 
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Wind

Diamond Member
Jul 22, 2001
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Originally posted by: duuuma
damn...i don't think we can afford a gf4 for him....he's got a p3 600 too....
Click to expand...

GF2 MX200 w/ 32MB RAM is most probably the way to go. Turn down the graphics detail in the game setting. U just hv to sacrifice the graphic details & gained performance.
 
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duuuma

Senior member
Sep 29, 2001
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yeah actually i had a mx200 with athlon 1.1 and i ran 1500 on 3dmark...once i swapped to a radeon 8500le it shot my score up to 6500 (7000 oc'd at 1265mhz :) )

Well, thanks for the advice guys, I went ahead and picked up a cheapo Visiontek TNT2 16mb PCI for $16 shipped off of ebay. My old roommate ran WC3 on a P3 700mhz with an 8mb onboard, and it worked ok...kinda....sorta...., so we're hoping the TNT2 will do.

If not, then I also picked up a newegg refurb ATI Radeon 7000 (64mb DDR) for $39 shipped, and I would really hope that a P3-667mhz with 384mb of memory and a 64mb DDR video card will work.

thx again.
 
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duuuma

Senior member
Sep 29, 2001
874
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geforce 2? gts? ti? mx? which card are you talking about?

Either way, the Radeon 7000 is due to come in tomorrow...i'll get back to you guys about how well it works! thx
 
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duuuma

Senior member
Sep 29, 2001
874
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well i just installed the radeon 7000 in his Dell optiplex gx110....benched a big 990 or so on 3DMark2001se....haven't tried WC3 yet, maybe tomorrow.... kinda scared since the bench was so horrible
 
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duuuma

Senior member
Sep 29, 2001
874
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maybe if i oc his p3 without him knowing......hmmm....anyone know about oc'ing on a Dell Optiplex GX110 with a pentium 3 665mhz processor?
 
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chizow

Diamond Member
Jun 26, 2001
9,537
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Originally posted by: duuuma
maybe if i oc his p3 without him knowing......hmmm....anyone know about oc'ing on a Dell Optiplex GX110 with a pentium 3 665mhz processor?
Click to expand...

Not possible. Locked mobo FSB + Locked CPU multis = No Overclocking.

Chiz

 
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