[FAQ] Machine Specs and what kind of performance to expect

[Zerlin]

Minimum Specs

Intel Pentium III 1 GHz or equivalent
512 MB system RAM (1 GB paging file)
5 GB free disk space
4x CD-ROM
56K dial-up internet connection
DX8.1 compliant sound
64MB GeForce 2 or equivalent AGP video

- don't expect stellar performance with a system of this configuration as you will have to lower all of the graphics settings and disable sound to get non-stuttery performance
- definitely disable microvegetation, clouds and shadows
- use the windows display adapter settings and set the 3D settings to 'performance' instead of 'quality'
- make sure the system paging file is at least 1024 MB - fixed size runs faster than dynamic allocation

Recommended Specs

Intel Pentium 4 2 GHz or equivalent
1024 MB system RAM (1 GB paging file)
5 GB disk space
4x CD-ROM
Broadband internet connection
DX8.1 compliant sound
128 MB GeForce 4 or Radeon 9700 or better AGP video

- you will probably have to lower some things like LoD (Level of Detail) and clipping distances for landscape and characters to get best perfomance
- switching off microvegetation, clouds and shadows will also help improve performance
- use the windows display adapter 3D settings and set things to 'performance' to eak out a bit more speed

Better Specs

Intel Pentium 4 3 GHz or better
1.5 GB system RAM
5 GB disk space
4x CD-ROM
Broadband internet connection
EAX 3 compliant hardware sound card such as Audigy 2
DX9 compliant video 256 MB GeForce 6800 or Radeon x800 GAGP 8x or PCI-x video

- the latest and greatest will not do you wrong (unless you use beta drivers)
- you can run with all settings maximised
- windows display adapter 3D settings can be pushed to 'quality'

Notes

1) an Intel Celeron processor is essentially the same as the Pentium a tier below it. So a P4 Celeron CPU is, for all intents and purposes, the same as a P3.

2) a mobile CPU usually has speed throttling enabled to save power. Make sure that it is set to run at 100% speed when the laptop is plugged into the mains.

3) the game only uses about 5 Kbytes per second of bandwidth. Having DSL/Cable just means patching is faster and that you can do some other things while playing Ryzom. But downloading/uploading and things like streaming audio can have an adverse effect on the game lag.

4) Ryzom will use 800 MB or more of RAM with graphics settings maxed out so disable as many extraneous apps as possible, especially if you have less than 1024 MB of system RAM.

5) always remove current video drivers before installing newer ones. Files that are in use will not get updated properly. Stay away from beta or omega drivers, Ryzom will not usually work well with those.

6) keep your system clean of viruses and spyware.

7) overclocking has caused lots of problems with Ryzom. If you need to overclock then maybe you should think of a system upgrade.

8) onboard video chips such as Intel Extreme Graphics, GeForce 6100, SiS, lower end Mobility Radeons, etc will not usually work with Ryzom.
- to possibly get Ryzom going with one of these then run the 'game configuration' from the launcher and do the following:
-- disable all 4 options in 'display advanced'
-- lower all sliders to 'low' in 'display details'
-- select 'OpenGL' from 'display'
-- launch the game and click 'okay' when the message about 'AGP not detected' comes up
-- when in game open the 'game configuration' window and disable 'shadows' and 'microvegetation' and lower the 'LoD' sliders for 'Landscape' and 'Characters'
-- you may see missing textures and things may not look the best but you can play around with settings more