Vanguard: Saga of Heroes

Originally posted by dink

I have a fairly good gaming PC.  It isn't top-of-the-line, but it plays most games at maximum settings with at least 40-60 FPS.  This is a 2.4 Ghz processor, 1 GB RAM, GeForce 6800 256 MB PC.  It's not a race car, but it is definitely sporty.

However, I've been trying to play Vanguard and even with performance settings pushed to the ultimate low available (settings that make the game look WORSE than DAoC graphics), I am slideshowing whenever I play near other players or on occasion as I move through a zone and new graphics are streamed in.

Yes, it is a beta, and I am hearing from others that while their performance is bad compared to prettier games they can also run on their system, it is pretty much unanimous that the performance is just awful.

I've only been able to get to level 5 as I can't play on servers that have high populations (being near other people makes it unplayable - how will I ever group?), but from what I've seen so far, combat is fairly standard for MMOs.  Auto-attacks and special skills.  I did diplomacy missions all morning and had a really good time doing them as I enjoy stories, but they aren't  rewarding - at least not so far as I have nothing to show for my efforts yet besides more skill in diplomacy which doesn't seem to have any use outside the diplomacy mini-game. 

It's really surprising to me that the performance is so awful.  I mean, I saw this at E3 and wondered why the graphics were so bad.  Maybe they couldn't run the game with settings that normal games would use even on monster PCs back then.   Unless I come into $3K and can by an uber PC with dual GPUs or they make huge fixes to this before release, there is no way that I would ever purchase this game. . .

If I can't play it even when it looks like ass (something I'm not interested in doing), then I'm pretty much SOL.  I can't imagine even the high-end rigs being able to function in a raid environment.  It just boggles my mind that the game is in this state during open beta.

I'll agree to that. Add a gig of ram and get that video card updated...you'll be happy.

It's important to realize the difference between when your PC is lacking and when the game is lacking before you criticize.

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Originally posted by dink

Why do that when every other game plays  at max settings with great FPS?  I'll just not purchase Vanguard.  You shouldn't have to have a top-of-the-line PC to be able to play this game.  I simply can't afford to pay $500-$800 to play one game that I'm not even sure about.  Many of us have to wait for video cards to come down in price to around $200 before we even consider purchasing them.  Compared to other PC gamers I know, I have a middle-of-the-road gaming system that is quite capable of running all other games at very good speed (though not at HD resolutions and with 90 FPS like the monster systems). 

Plus, we aren't talking about a game that LOOKS great.  I understood why I had to turn shadows off (my only caveat) in Oblivion to be able to have the highest resolution textures and still get 40 FPS (which could dip down to ten FPS if I had more than 8 or so mobs on screen - so I needed it up to 40 FPS).  Vanguard just looks okay when at max settings (It slideshows and is unplayable but I can get "screenshots" at max settings).  It just doesn't make sense for a game that looks average to have such god-awful performance.

Yeah, it doesn't look good on old hardware. Looks amazing on my rig BTW. It's just a fact of life I'm afraid. The latest PC games require newish hardware. You can fight it all you like, it's not going to change.