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According to TotalPCGaming.com, Steam, and the official site, The Witcher 2 requires at least a Radeon HD 3850. How firm is this requirement? Has anyone managed to play with a lesser card? (Bonus points if you can talk about the other required specs as well.)

I ask because one of my PCs has a Radeon HD 3650* (later rebranded 4570/4580), and I'd prefer to use it if possible. I've also noticed that nowadays "minimum specs" are generally the specs required to have everything at medium detail and the like, rather than an actual hard minimum.

* The 3650 is actually superior in some respects, such as having twice the RAM. Memory bandwidth is a bit over half, though.

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  • Regarding your own PC (rather than the question as a whole), have you tried the various advices from this question?
    – Grace Note ♦
    Commented May 17, 2011 at 17:31
  • @Grace Hmm, "Can You Run It?" looks interesting, but can only really tell me whether it thinks the 3450 matches up to the 3850 (it doesn't). I'll try it out later though. A demo would be a good idea too, but there doesn't appear to be one. Thanks for the link!
    – Matthew Read
    Commented May 17, 2011 at 17:37
  • Yep, it says I have everything required (video memory, pixel shader version, etc.) but that I don't meet the minimum specs regardless.
    – Matthew Read
    Commented May 18, 2011 at 1:58
  • I have no idea how much it lets you to cut down on the GPU power, but I know it scales well with higher end GPUs. My 6970 starts to sweat north of "High" graphics setting. I guess it is mainly the shadow quality having the deepest impact on overall performance.
    – DrFish
    Commented May 18, 2011 at 10:04

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The answer: Pretty firm. The game is playable on the lowest settings, but pretty choppy. Not an enjoyable experience, but at least it's doable. The CPU requirements seem to be basically the same -- you can run it on a fast single-core, but not well.

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