So i got AoC and quite frankly it's unplayable. With the setting on low, shadows and water turned off. distance set to dang near zero etc. the best i can seem to get is 5-7 FPS. by contrast i get consistant 70 FPS playing Wow and other games.
I would expect a lower performance for AoC compared to WOW but 90% reduction? doesnt seem right.
My system while not out of this world is not that shabby.
Duo-core 2.3G
2 Gigs of ram
Realtek HD audio
NVidia 7500 LE 256ram(i think)

I know my Vid card is not that great but i'd think it should get better than 5 FPS and that there is something else going on here.
Any Ideas, advice or Vodoo rituals i can try will be much appreciated.

Just talked to my son, and he mentioned that none of the people he knows running the 7 series cards are having good performance. He recommends the 8800GT. I have that card in one of my machines and like it a lot. He uses the overclocked one.

The 8800 GT I have comes wth 1 gig onboard ram, fyi.

Sadly that seems to be the consesus i'm getting. sucks because if i crack the case open i'll void my paid for warranty.
sucks worse i cant even tell if i like the game play enough yet to spring for the 8800gts now or wether to wait for Warhammer.

you will want the 8800 before Warhammer, you will run into the same issue you do with AoC if you dont.

You can get a 8800GT 512 for $130 - $150 after MIR now. Not a huge investment but you would get a huge performance gain.

Depending on who you have your warranty through, you may be able to bring your machine in and pay them to install it for you. You'd have to weigh that cost VS how long you have on your warranty and if you think it would be more worthwhile for you to just do it yourself.

One thing, though... make sure you have a PCI-Ex16 slot... otherwise you're SoL.

One thing, though... make sure you have a PCI-Ex16 slot... otherwise you're SoL.

how can you tell? My PC isn't quite 2 years old, I have an 8600GT in it, I want to plop an 8800GT in it but I'm not sure which slot it has.

how can you tell? My PC isn't quite 2 years old, I have an 8600GT in it, I want to plop an 8800GT in it but I'm not sure which slot it has.The moron's way (that's me, not you, I always have to do this) is to download and run CPU-Z. It's a freeware utility - just Google it - that will tell you the make and model of your equipment, and then you can Google search for what your motherboard can handle. It's great if you're like me and only open the PC box once a year, and always forget what brand and configuration of equipment you shoved inside.

I'm sure you can find the information digging through system utilities, but off the top of my head I don't remember where.