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What PC should I buy to run There?
As of February 1, 2004 Many people have asked us what PC they should buy to run There. We're flattered by the interest, and wanted to provide some guidance about PCs. Our favorite site for up-to-date information is CNET (www.cnet.com), which we strongly encourage you to use. But, first,...a note from our lawyers: Please note that we are not in the business of recommending or reviewing PC hardware. We are doing this purely as a courtesy to our members. We do not make any warranty of any kind on the accuracy of this information. MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS Before jumping into the specific product recommendations, we highly recommend that you read the minimum requirements to run There. This information will be helpful in case you are looking at a machine that is not specifically on our list. UPGRADING YOUR DESKTOP OR LAPTOP (SPECIFIC RECOMMENDATIONS) Now that PCs are so affordable, it's often easiest to just buy a new one (though that does cost more). If your desktop PC has a CPU that is fast enough, and has everything else you need except enough RAM and a graphics card, then you should consider adding more RAM and replacing your video card. If you have a laptop that doesn't run There, it will be almost impossible to upgrade it, so think carefully before you try to go that route! Adding RAM to your desktop is relatively simple. Read CNET's guide to buying RAM to find out just how easy it is to add RAM to your PC. Adding a graphics card is a little more work. The first thing to find out is whether your PC has an "AGP slot." This is the slot that holds the graphics card. Most of the newer PCs have these slots. A "PCI slot" is similar, but not the same thing. We currently do not support graphics cards installed in a PCI slot. Assuming you have an AGP slot, we recommend you purchase one of the following supported graphics cards: Desktop PC Cards:
NVIDIA is the other major graphics board manufacturer, and they also make great products. For NVIDIA, anything that says "GeForce" and has at least 32 MB of graphics memory should work fine. Some Intel based computers include "on-board" graphics chips. We support the Intel Extreme 3D Graphics only when the i845 or i855 chipsets is installed with at least a Pentium 4, 2.0 GHz CPU with 256 MB of DDR RAM (double-data-rate RAM). If you have an Intel "on-board" graphics chip that is not supported (an i845 or i855 with a slower CPU or single date rate RAM, or an 810, 815, or 830 chipset), you can install a supported graphics card in the AGP slot to run There.
BUYING A NEW DESKTOP PC TO RUN THERE (SPECIFIC RECOMMENDATIONS) Today it's almost impossible to buy a CPU or memory configuration that doesn't meet There's requirements. (The minimum spec is 256 MB, but we think that an upgrade to 512 MB is well worth the money.)
BUYING A NEW LAPTOP TO RUN THERE (SPECIFIC RECOMMENDATIONS) Please note: Most of the cheaper models use integrated SiS or S3 graphics cards or ATI RADEON IGP graphics which do not support There. There requires 32 MB of graphics RAM, and support for the two features "Hardware Transform and Lighting" and "Texture Compression." The models we recommend below fulfill these requirements.
CONCLUSION Congratulations for making it through our PC Buying and Upgrading FAQ! Once you have your system working and can log into There, you can forget the hassles and just have fun! If you need any other help upgrading or purchasing a PC, please email us at help@there.com, or post a message to our Forums. |
