The adventure continues

[sinanju]

So I logged into Planetside again this evening, saw that there were hotspots I could jump into (one of the options in this game is to hit a single button and get thrown into a battle immediately). So I did. And promptly got slagged. So I changed characters to one who can wear and use MAX (powered armor, basically). And got sLAGGED again.

Yes, that's right--I started taking hits from...somewhere. But I couldn't bloody move! Again. Got killed. Swore a bit (okay, a lot) and disconnected from the game. Then I went and looked at My Computer. And discovered that I have 256 Megs of RAM, while the "bare minimum" according to folks on the Planetside forums is 512, and several aver that 1 GIG is needed to make the game run smoothly.

Well, hell, Bubba--no wonder I suffer so much lag time. My computer just can't handle the load fast enough when things get hectic (i.e., anytime there's real combat going on around me). Now, I could probably shell out the cash to buy a couple of new 512 Meg memory boards for my computer (I looked in the motherboard manual--I have 2 DDR SDRAM Dimm sockets).

But. Twoson, whose game this is, and who plays the game a lot seems to have no trouble playing under these conditions. Either his expectations are lower (maybe), he's just younger than me and has the reflexes to deal with the game and I don't (quite possibly), or he's just got a hell of a lot more patience than I do with uncooperative machines (an absolute certainty).

As I say, I could pay for a memory upgrade, but...I'm not sure it's worth it. What attracts me to the idea of playing Planetside is being able to work with other live players cooperatively, being part of a team, using real tactics (as opposed to the "scream and leap" Kzinti school that most first-person shooters favor) to achieve specific goals. Planetside is designed to allow (even encourage) that; you can form squads (pick-up units that don't last past when you log off), Outfits (larger, permanent organizations) and so forth. But I suspect that to get into that kind of thing regularly, you'd have to log a lot more hours online playing the game than I'm willing (or able, given my other time commitments) to manage.

Ah well. The dream meets reality...again.

Comments

Re: Planetside

[raine-wynd.livejournal.com]

radarrider has been playing Planetside a lot since it became available. He seems to have no problems playing it, but he does have a newer computer (bought within the last year and designed for intensive gaming), a very high-speed Internet connection, and he's able to join squads and play. It does seem to be that there are more players playing in the mid-evening (around 8 pm PST) than others; at least that's my impression when I watch him play.

[sinanju.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there seem to be a lot of players at 8 p.m. But that's when Twoson is playing, since his bedtime is 9 p.m. on school nights. By the time I go, typically around 10 or later, there are a lot fewer players--especially on the servers I play, which are located on the east coast (Twoson has the max. number of characters on the west coast servers).

We've got a cable modem, so I'm pretty sure at this point that the problem lies in my computer lacking sufficient RAM (and, frankly, my impatience).