What You'll Need To Play Dragon Age On PC

I still can't get over god damned marilyn manson in the trailer.

Even my friend's super high end computer capable of running Oblivion at max settings couldn't run this on recommended.
Guess its the 360 version for me then.

20 Gigs?!  What the hell is this game doing that it needs 20 gigs?

Also, I assume that the 360 version will come on two disks?

20 GB???

my new laptop should be able to run this... although for me a laptop is less than ideal for gaming, so i think i'll play this on ps3 anyway. besides, i'm saving the space on my laptop for developing games for college rather than playing games.

I'd rather play Dragon Age on my PC for the controls, but I have a feeling my computer wouldn't be able to handle it.  Looks like PS3 for me!

20 gigs? That's a lot of nu metal.

sweet, I can run this at recommended.

I said this on Game Trailers earlier this morning. Specs don't hold true to me. I have a fairly nice laptop and a really crappy laptop as backup storage just incase my laptop I use fails. My backup is a 3 year old Dell running xp with a half gig of ram and 50 gigs of HD. I run L4D and TF2 on it just fine. No FPS raping or lag spikes, all smooth. So I am pretty sure that this will run on my laptop I have now. I am getting the 360 version and the PC version. If the PC one just happens to not work, I have backup.

Brad, I'm pretty sure my old rig is the same as yours and I've never been too impressed with the performance of the Athlon processor.

But I just upgraded to a sweet custom-built Intel i7 system, overclocked to 3.8GHZ, 6G DDR3 RAM, GeFORCE GTX 295 1.8G video card.

Even CRYSIS on full settings runs really well on it.

Recommended Specifications

• CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4Ghz Processor or equivalent      CHECK
  
• RAM: 4 GB (Vista) or 2 GB (XP)                              CHECK
• Video: ATI 3850 512 MB or greater                CHECK
  
• NVIDIA 8800GTS 512 MB or greater                         CHECK
  
• DVD ROM (Physical copy)                     CHECK
  
• 20 GB HD space                 AND CHECK!!!!!!!
  

Strange, pretty high rec. specs for a game that didn't look THAT good in trailers.

wow hit the recommended requirements almost exactly. glad i won't have to upgrade

You shouldn't need to spend that much to create a computer running this.

Graphics: Radeon 4850: $120 (actually way above the requirements, but barely more expensive).
CPU: Core 2 Quad Q8300 or Q6600: $175 (Both about meet the requirements, but these are easily overclockable by 30-50%ish, so you are again actually getting far more power then needed)
Motherboard: $60-120 depending on what you want. (Good motherboards with overclocking ability will cost a tad bit more, but pay off if you need it)
RAM: 2x2G of DDR2 RAM 800 : $50 (You don't even need 4 Gigs with an updated copy of vista or with win7, this is just as insurance for people who are running fresh copies with all the problems Vista had on release. 2.5 gigs should do it, maybe 3 gigs if you want to stretch it)
Total: About $450-500
All prices I got off newegg, may be able to get even cheaper if you look around.

Assuming you are using a computer at the moment, you already have everything else like the monitor, speakers/headphones, keyboard, mouse, and OS I assume, just keep those. In fact if your computer is relatively recent, there is a good chance you already have a compatible motherboard, and if you overclock your CPU to meet the recommended requirements thats even more money in your pocket. If you wanted to trim down the cost even further, a comp that ONLY met the recommended requirements would probably cost about $400, but honestly its better just to pay the extra $50-100 so that your computer is significantly faster and when a game comes out 1-2 years from now you aren't forced to upgrade again. This system should easily be runnable (not maxed, but decently beating the minimum requirements enough to be smooth) on games for a good 2-3 years.


Personally I have a Q6600 overclocked from 2.4 Ghz to 3.4 Ghz, a geforce 8800GT, and 2 gigs of RAM. Could probably use another stick of RAM at some point, but I'm doing fine at the moment.

I'll rent it for the PS3 first. I am not going to make the same mistake I did with Fallout 3. 

When everyone said there was Manson in the trailer, I didn't know they meant "The New Shit". I approve.

Also, I meet recommended specs. Gigahertz all up in your face!

I always knew Giant Bomb was very console oriented site but reading these system requirements as a pc gamer really I'm astonished so many here think these requirements are steep. In my group of pc gamer freinds I'm the bottom feeder with tri-sli gtx 260s and a core 2 duo E8400 @ 4.05Ghz, can you say bottleneck (yeah I know). Anywho... with my year old pc I paid $1500 for I'll be crushing Dragon Age with no problems probably on max settings 1920x1200. Can't wait. Brad I'm astonished as a reviewer your system is so antiquated, my god man what if anything do you guys review pc games on? Giant bomb should have a killer i7 rig with a 975 and Quad sli running 2 gtx 295s and toss in a 3rd graphics card for dedicated PhysX. I've seen the control scheme for the x-box from your E3 coverage and sicerely I wasn't impressed, I'm going with the pc version on this one.

I usually never even look at the requirements any more. And the requirements aren't too steep. Vista always has a tendency to require a hell of a lot more RAM than XP. I am warily looking at that 20GB hard drive space though. I have half-a-tera, but these games are getting massive!

Wow, i meet all the Recommended besides the dang video card, but isnt the 88gt better than the 88gts?
probably not, and 20 gigs is alot, but Age of Conan is 26gigs, which is fucking crazy!
Bear

Woot! My computer destroys those specs and I can't wait for this game.

I pass all the recommended except my processor is a quad core 2.33ghz and video card doesn't pass :(

there was no question i would be forced, i say again FORCED to play DAO on 360, which sounds like it would work, but on the photage alone you could tell this game would be a hog to play on any slightly old PC, such as my own

" CPU: Core 2 Quad Q8300 or Q6600: $175 (Both about meet the requirements, but these are easily overclockable by 30-50%ish, so you are again actually getting far more power then needed). "

well computer is old and im really to lazy to updated it so im going to get it on the 360

Sounds like my MacBook Pro should be able to run this game reasonably well. Would I be mistaking in this assumption?

Hellz yeah! Recommended settings for me. *Starts banging on the table*

I'm right at the recommended requirements. I guess that means I won't be able to run it. 
Darn shame....yup.

Hmm 8800GTS 512 is what is recommended and that is what I have. However I like to play games maxxed out and I doubt it's enough for that. Usually required is that is needed to play on low and recommended what is needed to play on medium settings, but I wan't to play on high or very high settings so I guess a new card is in order...

Just about. Though it's more than likely that's it's gonna run like shite. At least I still can play it though, that's all I want.

My computer would explode if I tried to play that.

A good way to test whether or not your comptuter will even be able to run the game will be to run the Character Creation part of the game. This will let you tell if you can run the game but not how well you can run the game.

Just to show off my pride and joy. 
 
@Bioware: My machine can eat this thing for breakfast and ask for seconds ;-p 

My system: 
ATI Radeon HD 4870 2GB 
4GB RAM (Heatproof)  
Quad-core Phenom, black edition.
Vindicator CPU fan. (Depending on the paste that is used, this bad boy can reduce CPU temperature from 60C all the way down to 20C. and mine runs at a cool and stable, 25C.)  

Runs crysis, Farcry 2 and Fallout 3 like a dream. (Still have to open a window though lol, even with great heat control, it gets damn hot.) 

I can't wait for Dragon Age Though.

My computer is this:
  
Windows XP
Pentium 4 cpu, 3,60ghz
1gb ram
Radeon X800 XT
 
I barely meet the minimum system requirements, except my graphics card is a bit too old. (minimum says it wants a X850). I intend to play on the lowest possible graphics settings possible, but, will the fact that my graphics is an x800 instead of an x850 make the game unplayable, or can I squeeze by as is? I really want to play this on the pc and bring back memories of old Bauldur's gate 2 playthroughs.

I hope a 9800 gt will play this smoothly.

" Just to show off my pride and joy.  @Bioware: My machine can eat this thing for breakfast and ask for seconds ;-p My system: ATI Radeon HD 4870 2GB 4GB RAM (Heatproof)  Quad-core Phenom, black edition.Vindicator CPU fan. (Depending on the paste that is used, this bad boy can reduce CPU temperature from 60C all the way down to 20C. and mine runs at a cool and stable, 25C.)  Runs crysis, Farcry 2 and Fallout 3 like a dream. (Still have to open a window though lol, even with great heat control, it gets damn hot.) I can't wait for Dragon Age Though. "

" My computer is this:    Windows XPPentium 4 cpu, 3,60ghz 1gb ram Radeon X800 XT   I barely meet the minimum system requirements, except my graphics card is a bit too old. (minimum says it wants a X850). I intend to play on the lowest possible graphics settings possible, but, will the fact that my graphics is an x800 instead of an x850 make the game unplayable, or can I squeeze by as is? I really want to play this on the pc and bring back memories of old Bauldur's gate 2 playthroughs. "