When the action heats up, the frame rate heads to the gutter.
Given the preponderance of bugs and crashes, it's no surprise that the game features below-average graphics and suffers from poor performance. Visually, Empire Earth 3 is a mostly mediocre affair; Models - including units and buildings - are of an acceptable level of quality, but are no match for the detail in titles such as World in Conflict and Company of Heroes. At the highest detail settings, with shader and texture detail cranked to maximum, the landscape is still bland. Uninspired map design does little to offset the game's unremarkable lighting engine and nearly nonexistent special effects. Frustratingly, performance is poor on even well-equipped systems, which may explain the severely restricted camera zoom-out level; zooming out to a greater degree would likely bring the game crawling to a halt.
Some creative tweaking is required to attain a playable frame rate, and this often means turning off all dynamic lighting and shadow effects, and not enabling the "Grass" option (which alone is responsible for up to a 50 percent drop in FPS on numerous test configurations). Such meager performance on an entirely mundane graphics engine is inexcusable, and the gameplay offers no reason to wait for another patch to sort out the frame rate issue.
If, for some reason, you are compelled to install and play the game (masochist, perhaps?), then you'll have to compensate for the lack of engine optimization in the form of capable hardware. At a minimum, you'll need an AMD Athlon 64 3500+ or Intel Pentium 4 540 with 1 GB of RAM. And while the game will run on a video card meeting Sierra's minimum specifications - a DirectX 9.0c-compliant GPU with 128MB of video memory - it won't run well. For a playable experience (after carefully selecting graphics options, mind you), have at least a 256MB ATI Radeon X1650 or NVIDIA GeForce 7600 video card. This setup - the YouGamers' minimum - will allow for decent performance at a resolution of 1280 x 1024, but don't expect to see the high side of 30 FPS once the on-screen action gets busy.
A shot with the Sierra's minimum requirements, only capable of playing the game on all Low settings.
With the publisher's minimum requirements, effects are nonexistent and scenery is dull with just Shader Model 2.0 shaders.
YouGamers' minimum requirements are far more capable than Sierra's; they afford a playable resolution with greater texture and lighting detail...
... as well as simple dynamic shadows and lighting, and enhanced water detail.
Again, some careful tweaking is required to achieve a playable framer ate. Graphics settings with YouGamers' minimum hardware, page one...
... and page two
Realistically, a faster dual core processor (such as an AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ or Intel Core 2 Duo E6450) with 2 GB of system RAM is an appropriate baseline for running the game. Coupled with either a 512MB ATI Radeon HD 2900 Pro or 640MB NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS, a system meeting these requirements (the YouGamers' recommended setup) can deliver a playable frame rate at 1650 x 1080, though reaching higher resolutions is only possible with the top-of-the-line 8800 GTX-based GPUs. Again, some dynamic lighting and shadow effects must remain disabled (see the screenshots below), but those options have a negligible effect on visual quality anyway. Keep in mind that even with the best of hardware (and the latest video card drivers), Empire Earth 3 will still exhibit graphical weirdness from time to time in the form of missing textures and obvious clipping issues.
Sierra's recommended system requirements allow for a realistic resolution and greater texture detail.
A moderate level of dynamic lighting and water effects can be used on a system which meets Sierra's recommended requirements.
The game is playable at 1680 x 1050 with graphics options nearly maxed out on a system matching YouGamers' recommended specs.
On a YouGamers' recommended system, water effects and texture detail are maxed out, and most shadow and lighting effects can be enabled.
Graphics options on a YouGamers' recommended system. We did say nearly maxed out - antialiasing can be turned on...
... though grass and some dynamic shadow effects still have to be disabled in the name of preserving frame rate.
ESRB:
Blood and Gore,Language - Mild,Suggestive Themes,Violence
Games: Empire Earth III
AMD Athlon 64 3500+
