Black Crossbow
Will COD Black Ops Require A New PC?
The highly anticipated launch of Call of Duty Black Ops is getting ever nearer and whilst the new gameplay videos look fantastic, realistically Desktop PC owners are going to have to take out a new mortgage for the hardware if they want to play the game in full detail.
Whilst full specs arent yet released, it would be realistic to assume you arent going to be getting away with that old Geforce 4400 if you want to play it, let alone at a decent resolution. What isn’t clear is what you really are going to need. when it comes to processors, its a straight fight between AMD and Intel, although you still need to choose between 6 core and quad core? Well, thats a fairly easy answer, either should be able to do the job.
Its the same with PC memory too, plenty of it is the obvious requirement and as fast as your motherboard can cope with, certainly anything less than 4GB is going to struggle.
The real problem comes with the multitude of graphics cards available. Based on the videos alone the game is going to need a beast to get the best out of it and leave you with a chance of landing any of those awesome crossbow kills. Its safe to say that anything under 30 fps is going to bring tears to your eyes and not those of joy.
So even if you have the best PC parts First off, forget the clash between Nvidia and ATI, they both produce high quality pieces of kit which are more than capable of running the game and staying current through drivers, the main worry would be which version of DX the card uses and ensuring you have a DX11 card should be your major thought process when buying. The first choice you need to make is between nVidia and ATi, but in truth, either of these is a fine choice, what will matter more is which version of DirectX the card is capable of working with and in that sense, you would be foolish to invest in anything other than a DX11 card.
If money is no object when it comes to computer hardware, then sticking one of the GTX 480 cards from Nvidia will ensure that not only can you play Call of Duty Black Ops in full glorious resolution with all the graphics turned up high, but you also future proof yourself for the inevitable follow up in 12 months time.
black ops: mouthfull of crossbow