Scalable game graphic

Over the weekend I downloaded the demo of Command & Conquer 3.

What's up with demo's these days?
Over 900Mb to play a tutorial and
two small missions. This is really
getting ridiculous.

I wasn't expecting to be able to really play the demo. My laptop is almost three years old you see, so it's really not up to todays gaming requirements. The graphics card isn't bad, but it's seriously lacking some memory. And so is the PC itself, because in these Gigabyte days the 512Mb of my laptop seem meager in comparison. Or so I thought...

My expectations were based on recent demo's I tried. The best of these did run on my system, but were simply unplayable. The worst was Supreme Commander, which didn't even want to start on my system. Come on people! I know this is probably the best game ever released, but does that really mean you should require a machine with at least a gig of memory just to have a look at it? Really?

With this experience, I wasn't expecting Command & Conquer 3 to do much better. But much to my surprise the game installed without a problem and even started up in an acceptable time. After the entertaining introduction movie I got to the menu and started the tutorial mission. And that too started up with an acceptable loading time. And more... it was actually quite playable. Admitted: the graphics didn't look very detailed, which at times made it hard to make out the separate units. But still... it was playable! On my three year old laptop!!!














Hardcore gamers might complain that Command &Conquer 3 is evolutionary instead of revolutionary. But for me it means that I can actually play the new Command & Conquer, compared to having to gather from screenshots and reviews whether Supreme Commander is worth buying. Especially if buying the Supreme Commander means also having to upgrade to a new machine!