What the heck? did they up the system requirements? See Sawyer's post on this page:
link (http://forums.obsidianent.com/index.php?showtopic=43178&st=30)

In particular, requiring a GeForce 7800GT seems quite extreme (since the previous recomendation was the 6800). If that's true, a lot of people would be unable to play this game, I think.

Bah, meant to post in the NWN2 forum. Mods please move this.

Most of the graphics-intensive games coming out at the time NWN2 will will probably have similary high recommended requirements. But yes, this is a considerable upping of the recommended (and also minimum; see change from 2 to 2.4 GHz) requirements. I've updated the list on SP accordingly.

Honestly, games are pretty much the only thing left today that will force a casual user to upgrade their 5+ years old PC - it'd still be good enough for everything else. As with Oblivion, there'll be a lot of complaining, but the huge majority of people will simply wind up upgrading their PCs because they won't want to miss out on NWN2 and future D&D titles which will only have higher requirements. That's how it goes.

What a pain. It will now be a long time before I will be able to play this game. And I'm really looking forward to it too. Maybe it will be a crap game and therefore I won't be missing anything.

Well, it is true that people will upgrade, eventually. But the key word here is 'eventually'. I thought that it's in the publisher's interest that people spend money on this game in the first weeks it will came out, meaning this Christmas season. I don't see that happening if most would need to upgrade their computer first.

Actually, it's kind of ridiculous, I looked on Newegg, and the prices for the GeForce 7800 GT are in the range $250+ . I think the developer must have misspoken; or possibly he has such a humonguous monitor that to play the game at high resolution requires a beefed up video card. I am sure that with smaller resolution a weaker card should do fine.

About the processor speed: 2.4 Gh with a pentium 4 is not such a great deal. I think you can get a processor which will beat that for under $100; and any computer bough in the last 3 years should have an equivalent or better processor (heck, I think my 5 ys old laptop can probably deal with that).

HB: don't despair yet :) actually, I would say that in a couple of months you should be able to buy a computer good enough to play NWN2 for arouns 1000USD. The XPS 410 model from Dell comes close right now, the only problem being with the video card (which is a 7300 GS, and should be fine if the earlier requirements actually apply).

Dell If the company (or their PCs) haven't blown up by then.

Actually, it's kind of ridiculous, I looked on Newegg, and the prices for the GeForce 7800 GT are in the range $250+ . I think the developer must have misspoken; or possibly he has such a humonguous monitor that to play the game at high resolution requires a beefed up video card. I am sure that with smaller resolution a weaker card should do fine.Note that he said to play it reasonably. You can probably assume that this means with the settings thrown right up to the max. From what I understand, you're looking at similar requirements as Oblivion (although I don't know much about Oblivion...).

Quite. khaavern, look at the list of supported graphics cards on SP; you'll be able to play the game with any of them: http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/NWN2/nwn2_system_requirements.php

eh, I just bought a Geforce 7600 GT for the computer I am building, so I am pretty sure I'll be fine. Now if only they would put out the game already :)

Looks like I will only just make it: 512 RAM, GeForce FX go5700 and 3.2 GHz.

Eeeeh... I had hoped my old & trusty laptop would rise to the challenge, but it doesn't seem likely. The tragedy of finding such a good pal...obsolete.

I take it 512 MB of RAM are the minimum, but what about processor speed?

Check the link I posted above.

When everything is maxxed the game is simply unplayable, framerate on an AMD 3800+ with a GeFroce 7900 GTX and 2Gig of RAM is under 10 FPS. You have to reduce the size of the shadows textures to be able to enjoy the game.

A summation for everyone to prosper!

3.2Ghz chip is being rated off an old system for the speed of chips but if you get any chip made since August 2.01Ghz will smoke a p4 4Ghz chip because of design > frequency. Don't buy p4's if they're still available to you, they're worthless. AMD 4000+ will smoke any p4, pm or pd in existence and only costs $130.

Any 256MB video card (of decent quality - don't buy cards that require a certain amount of RAM to work, they are not worth the money you paid for them because they use RAM instead of onboard memory and in essence slow down the grahpics processing. For NVidia chips, these are the ones in the mostly grey boxes) will run any game today at max grahpics. A 512MB card MIGHT be useful to run next gen. games at high settings, but since everyone is playing MMO's that doesn't really matter anymore.

Hope this helps. Mainly the processor portion because most people don't realize that the processor speed doesn't actually match the scales from before. It's hard to tell exactly how a new chip might tie together with an older version, ie: is a 1.6Ghz Core 2 Duo faster than a 4Ghz P4?(probably 3x faster..), but if you know a little bit more than nothing you can make a better decision (good one vs. bad one). Upgrades don't have to be expensive. In fact you can build a computer from scratch at $1,000 that can run things like an XPS (slower because you'd lack the Core2 Extreme but if you're not a hardcore gamer, who cares?).

Youch! Minimum specs of:

- 512MB System RAM
- 2.4 GHz Intel Pentium 4
- 128MB Direct3D compatible video card with DirectX 9.0c compatible driver

Okay, I confess that perfectly describes my system. So, assuming I don't want to blow several hundred dollars upgrading my box, just how clunky is the game going to feel? How many bells and whistles will I have to turn off in order to get the thing to run?

You shouldn't need to do more than run your graphics at minimum-medium. The minimum spec's are usually, "Minimum to run the game at regular settings", not, "You're computer can't handle this game unless you have at least this", despite what most people seem to think.

I'm a bit wary about the 128MB vid card requirement, but it said that about Dreamfall and I ran that just fine. I'm definitely interested in NWN2, but I'll have to get a demo or something to make sure I can run it. :-/

Okay, but what about GeForce FX 4? I think that's what my laptop has, I'll have to check after classes.

Probably MX 4, which is way below the oldest graphics card NWN2 still supports. In other words - won't work with that.

Well, some game had to be the first that eclipsed most people's system requirements, forcing massive hardware upgrades across the gaming community.

Unfortunately, it's hard for me to justify spending a thousand dollars for the first game that eclipses my system. I'll wait a good two-three years so that I can play six or seven years worth of new games instead of just three or four.

It just sucks that it had to be a game that I was really looking forward to.

I have ATI Radeon X550, seems that lower X300 & higher X600 are supported. Does mine work?

@omnigodly
You shouldn't need to do more than run your graphics at minimum-medium. The minimum spec's are usually, "Minimum to run the game at regular settings", not, "You're computer can't handle this game unless you have at least this", despite what most people seem to think.You were right on. It runs fine on my minimum spec machine.