SWTOR On Minimum System Specs

SWTOR on an almost-minimum spec system

In a galaxy far, far away, a long time ago, I bought a PC. I've kept that PC by my side for years, but last weekend it faced it's sternest test yet.

The specs of my system are:

Windows XP Home
Intel Core 2 6600 @ 2.4 GHz
2.75 GB RAM
Geforce 7800 GTX 256 MB RAM

Now let's take a look at the minimum specs for SWTOR:

Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 4000+ or better
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0GHz or better
Operating System:
Windows XP or later

RAM:

Windows XP: 1.5GB RAM
Windows Vista and Windows 7: 2GB RAM

Note: PCs using a built-in graphical chipset are recommended to have 2GB of RAM.
Star Wars: The Old Republic requires a video card that has a minimum of 256MB of on-board RAM as well as support for Shader 3.0 or better. Examples include:
ATI X1800 or better
nVidia 7800 or better
Intel 4100 Integrated Graphics or better

So I am sitting just above the minimum system specs.

So how did the game go? In a word: okay. In the last weekend build, the graphics somehow improved a lot, with everything looking sharper. Now I've taken screen shots for before and after and I can tell no difference. Still, it felt better. I suspect they increased the texture resolution on NPC faces, so cut scenes look decent.

I had everything on minimum settings - that's Low for everything, shadows disabled, no vsync, and at 1900x1080 resolution.

The game ran at a general average of 25 frames per second (FPS) (using the Ctrl-Shift-F shortcut to show FPS), sometimes more, sometimes a lot less when there were many player characters around. In space combat I was getting more like 15-20 FPS.

That frame rate is ok, it is certainly playable but won't be winning any awards for graphical prettiness. With low resolution textures things look ok but not really sharp.

Space combat certainly looks good at any system spec

Memory
One caution, SWTOR on my system really did need all of the free memory available. With even Firefox loaded, the game was constantly disking to the swap file, even when my toon was stood still. With nothing whatsoever loaded (apart from Windows XP), there was no disk access unless needed, the 2.75 GB memory was enough. I don't think 1.5 GB is enough RAM really.

Laptop Play
I also tried SWTOR on a laptop which was an Intel Core 2 Duo t9400 2.53 GHZ, with 2.99 GB ram and some ATI mobility graphics card. That also ran at 1920 by 1200 at much the same speed. Certainly playable.

Now that is interesting, because the Geforce 7800 certainly out-performs the mobile chip in the laptop. However the CPU in the laptop is faster. So is SWTOR somehow dependent on CPU as well as GPU?

SWTOR Performance Analysis
Helpfully the chaps at PC Games Hardware have taken a look at Star Wars The Old Republic, and here is their report, and translated into English.


What they found is that High-end graphics cards run at the CPU limit, making all the most powerful cards close to each other in FPS. For example, a £100 Geforce GTX 260 ran their 1080p non-AA benchmark at 42 FPS whereas the more powerful £400 GTX 580 runs at 81 FPS. Now 42 FPS is no slouch and is perfectly acceptable.

They discovered that with dual-core CPUs the game runs almost double the speed of a single core CPU (37 FPS vs 66FPS) with a top-end card (GTX 580), but having a 4-core CPU doesn't give much more of a boost (only 73 FPS). Therefore a dual-core CPU is fine for SWTOR, and it may be that the clock speed of the CPU and/or faster architecture is more important than having more cores. Perhaps the game engine will only use two cores, and more are only used for background programs like Windows.

An upgrade is quite certainly required, captain

Conclusion
Although based on beta versions of the SWTOR client, this is certainly interesting reading. It means splashing out for an 4 core Intel i7 is unnecessary, a dual core i3 is perfectly fine or a 4 core i5 would allow for more slack for a web browser/video capture in the background, while being cheaper than the i7. Going for the newest chip architecture and fastest Ghz speed looks like it is better than getting more cores.

Getting a top end graphics card is also unnecessary, a one hundred pound GTX 260 managed 42 FPS, which is fine, whereas for 4 times as much, you might see almost double the frame rate. The data suggests going for some mid-range card or something like a GTX 260 would do fine.

More RAM is better, and I would say 3 GB of system RAM is an absolute minimum, so best make it 4 GB just to be safe.

I will probably stick with my current system for a while, then maybe pick up an Intel i5 or i3 system with something like a low-medium end graphics card, and 4GB of RAM.

New Beta Testing Weekend 2nd Dec to ?

Hot off the forum is this news:

Sent Dec. 1: Final Beta Testing Weekend Invites

This is our final test before launch! We have invited a smaller number of testers than in our previous Beta Testing Weekend to assist us in testing a new build of the game. If you participated in the last Beta Testing Weekend, check your e-mail to see if you've been invited. All you need to do is open the launcher and begin patching – you'll be able to play at the time stated in the e-mail you received.

• Who was invited: Selected testers that participated in the previous Beta Testing Weekend
• What was sent: Final Beta Testing Weekend invitations
• Server locations: US East Coast, US West Cost, and EU servers
• Invite status: All invitations have been sent! Check your e-mail to see if you have been invited and for instructions!

I got an email with an invite, although it only says the start time is 1PM CST (7PM UK) and no end time. Hopefully its something like 1PM CST Monday, which would be 7PM Monday.

Still, I thought my SWTOR experience was over until live, so this is certainly an exciting and welcome surprise!

Tomb Raider: Sith Inquisitor Impressions

Over the large scale Beta Weekend I played a Sith Inquisitor to level 15. Here are my thoughts on the class, without major spoilers.

Story line
The storyline was good, and I found it a lot of fun to be evil and chose the dark side options all the time. I was presented with a moral choice to betray someone, which was great fun too. The dark and light side choices seem to boil down to kill someone you beat is dark side, whereas sparing their life is light side.

The general theme of the Sith Inquisitor story line was one of rising through the ranks in power, and when I stopped playing it was continuing in that line. There were a few twists along the way which I won't reveal here.

However, Sith will have to like tombs, because a lot of the quests involve trolling through one of the 3 tombs. There is even a line in one of the conversations where your character remarks that you are being sent into a lot of tombs. Which is entirely correct! The starter planet quests seem to involve at least 3 tombs, and its all just collect this artifact, collect that artifact. Luckily the starter planet has non-class quests which do not involve tombs.

The light saber bears mentioning. When you get your first light saber, it is not the epic moment I was hoping for. After reflection, I think it is an epic moment when you get your companion, and this makes up for the saber. The Sith Warrior is the opposite - epic light saber acquisition and non-epic companion acquisition.

Game play
Initially the combat is like WoW, apart from the lack of auto attack, which takes some getting used to. The resource for the SI is Force, which starts out full at 100 and each special attack uses some. It regenerates over time but you do get a basic attack which uses no force called Saber Strike. So essentially you go into combat with full force and can do a few specials before having to spam Saber Strike. Some abilities that were real fun were Shock which immobilizes the target for a short time and does damage, and Overload which does an AOE knock back, and can be used to blast enemies off high cliffs.

The Sith Inquisitor itself seems to get less powerful up to level 8-9, some of the packs of that level required crowd control and were still tricky. Then I got my companion and suddenly could mash through mobs with ease. Also at level 10 I got the choice of an advanced spec, and chose Sith Assassin, with some melee spells.

The Assassin has stealth which is of course really useful for skipping mobs, but it is based on melee so you need to get in close. It does have a positional attack called Maul which you need to be behind the mob for. Luckily your first companion is a reasonable tank, so you can go DPS.

My main issue with the SI was the lack of a closer move, you had to run in to do combat, only Shocking a mob before you were in range. The Assassin spec doesn't help this. Later on there is Death Field and Force Pull, which look useful in damaging mobs while you run in.

One warning here is that the class trainer does not pool all trainable spells on the same page. In fact they have two tabs on their window, one for base SI skills and one for your advanced spec. Therefore I noobishly failed to train my Sith Assassin spells for a level or two, which is embarrassing.

The Sith Inquisitor armour is interesting, it actually looks good. Each quest upgrades your gear and the look of the gear is coordinated, so you never end up looking like a clown. You also get only given 1 choice of gear, which is gear for your class. I also played the Sith Warrior and the exact same quests were giving me armour for a Sith Warrior, not a Sith Inquisitor. This is a major improvement over WoW, because at every stage of the game (so far), you look like a Sith and not some clown.

Companion
The companion does not speak English, so you have to read subtitles. I thought this might be a pain, but it is fine and there is a lot of fun to be had from the banter between the SI and Khem. Several times in conversations you can threaten people with the massive, monstrous Khem, treating him almost like an attack dog. This is also great fun.

There is currently a problem where your companion gets in the way a lot of the time, he will be there where you want to right click to loot, or in the way when you are trying to click an NPC to start a conversation. This can get quite irritating, and sometimes I sent him off on some mission while I was in a city, just to get rid of him.


Crew Skills
I wanted to try the trade skills, called Crew Skills in TOR, and I managed to have a small crack at them. They only seem to be trainable once you get to the space fleet, however I read you can leave the starter planet at level 1 and go do so. I did not. You can have 3 crew skills, but only 1 crafting one.

Still, Crew Skills are pretty cool, because it is your companions who are doing all the work. You don't need to find a crafting place to make things, just select the item in your skills window, click Craft and your companion will disappear and go make the item. I assume when you have people on your ship, you can order them to make stuff at any time.

You need materials to do a crafting skill. I picked Synthweaving and I needed things like Rubat Crystals, which luckily the gathering skill Archeology can find for you in crystal nodes around the world.

With the gathering skills Slicing and Archeology you can also send companions off on missions, which cost credits, and they will return later on with some findings, and some trade skill points. For example, I send Khem Val off on several Slicing missions, each cost 80 credits, took 3 minutes, and when he returned he had a lock box which gave 70-80 credits when I opened it. It also gave slicing skill, so the missions can be used to level the gathering skill instead of grinding on nodes in the world. This is a form of gambling where I assume at some point you get lucky and get some awesome return. Sending the companion off on missions is a curiously good diversion while your main toon is running around a city handing in quests.

When you do find a node in the world, you right click it and your companion goes off to gather from it. So you can be doing other things while they are gathering for you, plus would a Sith really dirty their hands doing gathering? I think not.

Speaking of which, being able to right click on the companion and tell them to sell all grey items is awesome. They disappear for a minute, then come back with some credits.


Slicing is still over powered - you get a credit box for mining a safe in the world, and each box was giving me 70-100 credits a time. I had 9000 credits by the time I hit level 14 and got my ship, so I think I will definitely take Slicing in live, despite the fact that Underworld Trading is a better fit for Synthweaving and Archeology.

Space Combat
I also wanted to try space combat. To do this, you need your own personal space ship, which you get when you complete the class quest chain on the second planet. For the SI this is Dromund Kaas. At level 14 I completed the chain and was able to find some space combat missions on the galactic map. The Sith ship looks very cool, a sort of enlarged Tie Advanced.

Firstly some ship upgrades were need, because your ship comes with slots for various things, but they are all empty. Yes, a visit to the Imperial Fleet Space Station later, I had found the Ship Upgrades vendor. I was only allowed to buy a couple of level 1 items, because they are restricted by character level. I could afford level 3 upgrades, but was not allowed to buy them.

Anyway I grabbed what I could and entered the space combat mission, by going to the galactic map and looking in the Hutta space area. The space combat itself was fun and the graphics looked good even on my system! I can see this mini-game being a fun diversion from the main game.

Conclusion
The Sith Inquisitor looks like a really good class. The class story line is very good, the combat abilities are a mixture of standard stuff and some really cool moves, plus it can tank or DPS in Assassin spec. My only hesitations are the slight squishy nature of the assassin, the lack of closing moves, and that the other Sith class looks a little bit more fun.

There are really 2 problems I have with SWTOR. 1 - I have to wait for 3 weeks to play again. 2 - I haven't decided which class to play yet.

Beta Weekend Starts Today!

Very exciting, its 9am in the UK, so we have 7 hours to wait, then us weekend testers will be able to try Star Wars The Old Republic. I am totally hyped at this point, but yet I am expecting queues and delays. Finally I will get to join in the fun with all those lucky people the Bioware random number generator picked for beta.

Much has changed since I last posted about the weekend. It was revealed, through the Force, that testers will get access on Friday at 4pm in the UK, and the weekend closes on Monday at 6am. Now forgive me for being silly, but that is not really "Friday to Monday" in spirit. Sure it is technically Friday and Monday, but yeah, like I am going to skip sleep to play a game in which my toon will be deleted when I go to bed!

USA peoples get a better deal, their access is from 10am Central Standard Time till midnight Sunday. Now I can see why this was done, if Europe got some servers at 10am GMT, what do you think would happen? All of America on the EU servers, that's what.

I hope it is different at launch. Early access which starts at 4pm on a particular day cannot be counted as giving you that entire day, more like the evening of the day. I think any American who rolls on a European server just to get a few more hours in, is quite crazy, because they will then have to dump that toon and reroll on their own servers if they came up later. Or, Bioware could use the location information for testers and give them access times which suit when their own local servers come online.

Still, given at this point I am detecting some US-centricity from Bioware, I don't hold out much hope. I suspect Early Access will be 4pm UK time on whatever day I get in. Sigh.

Anyway, despite all this timezone rubbish, it's sure exciting to finally get my hands on the game (queue)!

SWTOR Client Available For Download

The SWTOR client is now available for download. I went to swtor.com/tester, logged in and was asked to accept the test. I was then presented with a download link for the client.

I haven't received any email yet, but the portal does not lie!

Furthermore, I have access to the Beta Test Forum, so that's cool. But the content of the Beta Forums is confidential, so that is all I will say about them :)

Jedi Consular Play Through Videos (Spoilers)

Now the NDA has dropped, I can share these videos I found on YouTube. First up, BRBrainard shows us his experiences in the Beta Weekend just passed. He plays a Jedi Consular. The commentary is quite good on the first two, and I spotted the third has appeared just recently.

Warning, these videos contain SPOILERS. Plus some minor bad language. Enjoy.

Beta Weekend Aiming 25 - 28th November, NDA?

This just in, the Beta Weekend is aiming for Friday 25th to 28th of November, via twitter and web.

Updated the FAQ with this question and answer:

When will the Beta Testing Weekend start?

We are targeting November 25-28 for our upcoming Beta Testing Weekend. Exact timing on when you will be invited will be specified in your invite email.

Now this last part leads to the speculation that they are also testing Early Access, by rolling people into the weekend.

These dates are "Black Friday" to the Monday, so they did at least avoid Thanksgiving day itself.

Stephen Reid tweeted that the Beta client for this weekend may work in the live game, without any re-downloading. Apart from patches, but a few hundred megs is better than 20 gigs. Right?

Will I need to re-download the game client after the upcoming Beta Testing Weekend, or can I use it during Early Game Access?

You may have to re-download the game client, but we are hopeful you will not have to. This will be confirmed after the upcoming Beta Testing Weekend.

source.

This is code for, if there are many changes to make, they may make us download it again. But if there are small tweaks, they may just patch it.

There is also a tweet which hints that something may change with the NDA for the Weekend Beta:

Reedyn: @Rockjaw Will I be allowed to have mates over and try the #betaweekend so I can lure them into #swtor - or would that be breaking the nda?

Rockjaw: @Reedyn Stay tuned....!

One would assume this could mean the NDA will be dropped, or limited.

Weekend Testing Aims

With the news that everyone registered on SWTOR.com will be in the next Weekend Beta Test, I have begun to think about my aims for the weekend. The weekend may only be 3 days long, and for some of that I may well be busy, so what can I realistically achieve during the weekend?

Playing My Main
Recently an article went up on a fan site arguing that you should play your "main" class during a beta test. The argument goes along the lines that you want to give feedback on a class you're interested in, plus make sure it is for you. This is a good enough argument to convince me.

However, will I play through many levels on a main class? No, I think I will play enough to get an idea of whether I like Bounty Hunter or not, but I do want to try other classes. SWTOR looks like being quite an alting game, with the amazing story lines for all the classes, I want to play through a few other classes on the side. So I need to decide which ones that will be.

The Sith Inquisitor story sounds pretty cool, rising to power and manipulating things behind the scenes. The Imperial Agent story sounds awesome, that you are under cover in some sort of spy movie. The Sith Warrior is the one I am not too sold on, I've only heard you are a rage monster smashing stuff up, so I am actually wanting to try out Sith Warrior and see if it has more depth.

Trade Skills
As a crafter in WoW, I definitely want to check out some trade skills. Now you can have 3 trade skills and apparently one crafting and two gathering. I definitely want to check out how much credits Slicing makes, but I am interested in the Jedi gear making skills. So on the Sith Warrior: Synthweaving, Archeology, Diplomacy or Investigation. For the Bounty Hunter I'll try Slicing, Artifice and maybe Archeology or, if I can mail stuff from the other toon over, Treasure Hunting.

Of course that list is based on my best guess as to what gathering and mission skills might play together with crafting skills, part of the fun will be to find out. I hope it becomes quite obvious, or even that the NPC trainers will give you a hint. "Hey want to Synthweave? Then you'll need Archeology to get the mats" sort of thing would be very handy.

Space Combat
I am quite intrigued by space combat. It seems that one needs merely unlock one's space ship and space combat is available. Posts on the SWTOR.com forums suggest that you get your ship when you finish the starting planet, which can be from level 10 upward.

So it may be worth burning through the class quests on the starter planet just to get off it and get my hands on the space ship, on one class at least. Given I intend on playing a Bounty Hunter, I will likely "rush" the BH so I don't totally spoil everything on the starter planet.

Level Aim
So what level is a reasonable one to aim for? Advanced class, Star ship? Advanced class I think is at level 10, so that should be a reasonable one to get to, but ship is likely after that, if I dither around on the starter planets.


Again I'll have to limit what I do to fulfill my aims, so I'll only try to get a ship on one toon, then try some space combat if I can when the ship is unlocked. On the other toon I will get it to level 10 so I can see the Advanced Class choices.

PC Performance
Now a big thing is how well will SWTOR run on my PC? It is at exactly the minimum specs for SWTOR, so I am somewhat nervous. I really want to try the game just to see how it runs on minimum settings, and whether that is acceptable. Running a Flashpoint would be good, because my PC is as slow as it gets during raids in WoW.

Happily just getting the game client and getting logged in will be all I need to get a good idea of whether I need an upgrade or not. Getting a toon off the starter planet and into the Esseles Flashpoint would be a bonus.

Conclusion
With all this to do in merely one weekend, I just hope I don't get rolled into the beta on the last day. If so, I'll just be looking at the game performance and little else!

Friday Update: All Inclusive Beta Weekend

In a cunning move, Bioware's latest update is quite the doozy:

When we started our Beta Testing Weekends, we told you that each weekend would include more testers than the last. We’re excited to announce that later this month we will be conducting our largest Beta Testing Weekend yet, specifically designed to help us stress test our servers in preparation for the launch of Star Wars™: The Old Republic™.

How can you take part in this coming Beta Test Weekend? Well, for starters we are happy to announce that anyone who has signed up for our Game Testing Program prior to today, November 11th, will get invited! Invites will be sent in the coming weeks.

So anyone not signed up can try to win codes from various sites, but let's say if you're not signed up to test by now, why on earth would you be interested in testing with merely 2-3 weeks to go?

My money is on the weekend of the 26/27th November, which those in the USA call "Thanksgiving weekend". The next weekend seems too close to the current Beta Weekend, although I would be fine with that too :) Plus there are only 2 more weekends left in November.

Now an intriguing thing raises its head if it is Thanksgiving weekend. Thanksgiving day is Thursday 24th, which usually everyone in the USA has off, and they also generally take Friday 25th too for a nice 4 day weekend. So if the Beta weekend is that weekend, might it run from Thursday 24th to Sunday 27th?

Of course, it's a little rough if it is that weekend, because then tech support staff and maybe the developers will have to work during the one period of the year that everyone is off in the USA. Which isn't a problem for those in the Galway server center in Ireland, but I guess those in the USA will be less than impressed.

Anyway that's my speculation, but I guess we will find out more soon. Given I was registered for testing since Bioware allowed it, I should definitely get in this one!

Beta Weekend Number 3 This Weekend (12/13)

Some exciting news from SWTOR.com, this weekend of the 12th and 13th is Beta Weekend number 3! Well, that would be exciting if you live in North America, as the thread only mentions that testers from NA are being invited.

So erm EU invites anyone? Is this the case that the thread will be updated when EU invites go out, or are they going to move EU Beta Weekends to another weekend.

Invitations are being sent for a weekend test this weekend!
Sent Nov. 8: Beta Testing Weekend #3 Invites

Who was invited: Testers from North America
What was sent: Beta Weekend #3 Invites
Server locations: US East Coast
Invite status: We are currently in the process of sending these invites, and will continue throughout this evening.

Update: This weekend is not for EU because Bioware are stressing their USA servers, but but Mr Reid says there will be some EU testing ASAP:

Yes, we can, but when we send our next batch of testing invites it'll be to every EU launch country.

One of the reasons for this weekend's Beta Testing Weekend is to specifically stress test servers in our East Coast data center. To help achieve this aim, we're inviting North American players (USA and Canada), who'll be playing in a similar timezone to each other, to help max out the server capacity.

We're absolutely aware of how anxious Europeans are to test The Old Republic, and we're going to be inviting many more Europeans to testing ASAP. I'm not going to suggest a timeframe, but we'll let you know as soon as invites are sent. The next batch of invites for Europeans will be to general Game Testing, which will persist beyond a weekend.

I also hope that they will want to stress the hell out of their Ireland servers too, so there might be a big EU test at some point.

More Beta Invites Out

Stephen Reid updated his invites thread, and actually made a new one and locked it, saying more Beta Testing and Beta Weekend invites have gone out:

Hello everyone -

First and most important notice:

This afternoon we sent out two more batches of invites. Half were general Game Testing invites, half were additional invites to this weekend's Beta Testing Weekend #2. These invites went out to USA, Canada and European countries (all of our launch countries). Adding more invites is pretty standard practice for us; it helps brings up our numbers so we hit our targets during testing.

Again, make sure you check your email, looking for an email from the exact email address of no-reply@bioware.swtor.com for your invite.

Please note: the email will just inform you of your acceptance to testing and will link you to swtor.com. There are no other 'requirements' to test The Old Republic, so don't be fooled by a phishing email.

If you're unsure if you've been invited, login to the site at www.swtor.com/tester to check - you'll be able to download the client from there.

Second and less important notice:

We're going to leave this thread locked as a purely informational resource. There was a little too much noise-to-signal ratio in the last thread.

When we send invites, I'll add a post to the thread and update the main OP above.

source.

Now to check my testing status in a hopeful manner. Remember you can just log in to swtor.com and go to www.swtor.com/tester to see if you are invited.

Beta Weekends October 7 to 11th

An article has gone up on SWTOR.com saying that there will be a Beta Weekend on October 7th to 11th, the dates I speculated on in my last post in fact:

Beta Testing Weekends for Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ began earlier this month and during our first weekend, we invited more players into testing than we’ve ever invited before in a single weekend! Now we’re getting ready for another Beta Testing Weekend, starting on October 7th and finishing on October 11th. With increased invite numbers from the first weekend, even more of you will get to play The Old Republic.

As if this wasn't exciting enough, they will be sending out invites this week!

Invites to the Beta Testing Weekend are being sent this week. If you are selected, an email invite will be sent to the email address associated with your Star Wars: The Old Republic account.

In fact today:

Invitations to Beta Testing Weekend #2 are going out over the rest of today, October 4th. The original post in this thread has been updated.

So where are these invites being sent?

Please note: Invites for the Beta Testing Weekend are being sent over the course of today, October 4th.

    * Who was invited: Testers from the USA, Canada and all European launch countries (see list here)
    * Please note - We will be re-inviting all testers from Beta Testing Weekend #1 (AKA 'Squadron 1020') as promised.
    * What was sent: Beta Testing Weekend #2 invites (October 7th to 11th)
    * Server locations: East Coast USA (all testers)

source.

So oddly they are inviting European testers, but not using the European servers. Maybe that Ireland internet pipe is still in need of fattening.

But when can I stop refreshing my inbox?

Guys and gals. Seriously. Invites going out THROUGHOUT THE DAY. ;) I'll let you know when we've stopped sending invites.

Aha ok.

Now for everyone to monitor their inboxes, until midnight today! PST!