Dragon Age 2 Demo Soon, Says BioWare

I hate that the minimum requirements are so low. C'mon, it's 2011, it's about time that the minimum requirements of games be increased! When games can be played on these rigs you know that the graphics will suffer (don't get me wrong, Dragon Age is a gorgeous game on full settings). We live in a day and age where OS can't take full advantages of the todays processors. We have graphics cards that are pumping out more performance than they ever have. The whole computer hardware industry is moving in the right direction. It pain's me that the software that runs on our machines must be inferior just so that it can run on the xbox 360 and ps3. MS and Sony Stop Milking your consoles with these "neat" peripheral additions, bring something new to the table and allow the industry to move forward!

"Apparently no one platform will get first dibs over the other two."

And it's about **** time some developer treats us PC gamers as equals, rather then leaving us to eat what the console users leave behind.

Makes me have faith in Bioware as one of the few decent developers left.

Anyway, I liked Dragon age, despite my character having like no personality, worse then the Master Chief. Least he talks. I'm looking forward to seeing what DA2 has going for it. Just make the player character have a personality like Shepard from Mass Effect.

I don't get the system specs though:

# CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4 GHz Processor or equivalent
# CPU: AMD Phenom II X3 Triple core 2.8 GHz or equivalent

Does that mean the AMD CPU actually has an advantage? Requiring a faster clock but less cores to do it, while the intel requires more cores but a slower clock.

Whatever the case, hopefully it will be properly multi-threaded for suggesting tri and quad core CPU's.

^ i think you don't fully understand that statement. the way i look at it the game will definitely can take benefit from 3 cores but not so from the forth one. but intel never sell odd core processors like AMD (in this case 3 core cpu) so the dev put quad core cpus for those who opt for intel cpu. so in short it doesn't mean that you only need 3 cores if your cpu has higher clock speed.

The recommended settings describe my build.
Don't get me wrong dcompart, you have a fair statement but when they build a game they dont want to exclude 95% of users from start. Look how succesful WoW is with so modest system requirements.
The key is scalability so guys with better systems get a richer experience.

Ahh I understand.

It didn't occur to me that intel didn't make a tri-core CPU like AMD did. So that would make sense, and also that it may not fully use a 4th core, or may not need too.

Thanks^^

Meh. Dragon Age 1 was 80% dialogue 20% fighting. Having to constantly pause fights really killed the game for me. If it's the same for 2, count me out.

I see DirectX 11...

The biggest discrepancy isn’t in the CPU recommendation but the minimum GPU.
A GF 7900GS is at least twice as powerful as a HD2600 PRO if not more.

Where did you figure this? Toms own charts for Q3 2008 show the 2600 winning in most games against the 7900GS

Obviously some differences in a few, but that happens. But overall, the 7900GS is not twice as powerful as the 2600, if anything maybe 8% where they trade blows in different games but that's it.

But point of the min spec is they are in the same range and class. They don't need to be exact strength.

Waiting for Diablo 3 could give us gray hair lol. I'm on the wall though, I liked the Dungeon Siege variant a little better, esp the combat controls. Didn't have to click every single swing with a little lighter atmosphere. Downside was once mobs were dead, they stayed Dead, unlike diablo.

Each game offers something nice over the other though. Playing all 3 will be fun^^ (Long as they make your PC in Dragon age a little more personable. If I wanted the chief I'd play halo^^)

anyway, guess we'll find out in 2 weeks.