|
Game Installation and Requirements
Here are the manufacturer's reccommended
requirements for playing Chessmaster 9000:
- Windows 98/ME/XP
(95 and 2000 are not supported)
- Pentium II 450 or AMD K6-3 500
- 64 MB RAM for 98 & ME (128Recommended)
128 MB RAM for XP (256
Recommended)
- DirectX 8.1 (included on disc)
- Video Card (DirectX 8.1 compatible)
- 300 MB Hard Drive Space
- 3D Video Card optional
- 56K modem for Internet play
Setup was a breeze. The standard install
wizard walks you through the setup process. Aside from install
location, the only option you have to worry about is if you want a partial or full install. The full
install will copy the endgame database and hours of voice
files to your computer. The full install takes up 900 MB in the target directory
and 285 MB in MyDocuments. If you choose the partial install, the
endgame database will not be available until installed, and you'll be prompted to put in
disk 2 for the voice files during training. The partial install
takes up 130 MB in the target directory and 120 MB in MyDocuments.
My test machine has an AMD 1GHz Athlon
and a Gainward GeForce2. I was very impressed with the graphics of the game. The reflections, shadows, and detail of
the game pieces are great. I spent at least an hour trying out
all of the different combinations of chess sets and gameboards, and
looking at the sets from every angle.And to make things more difficult you
can select different backgrounds as well. Basically any bitmap on your computer. Can't say
that I have a favorite, but the mirrored look of the polished
pieces and gameboards look really cool. You can see screenshots
of some of the sets on Ubi's site. The Halloween set gets the
most interesting award.
Out of curosity I installed the game on an older pc I have.
It's powered by an AMD K6-2 333MHz and an Voodoo3 2000
graphics card. Even though this was well below the
manufacturer's specifications, I was still happy with
the performance of the game on this machine. I could still
view the 3D sets, but the reflections were missing.
| 
