It's supposedly takes a Dual Core, 2GB of ram, the DirectX 10 card(whatever you call it) and of course a person to pull you away from the game, my computer can run it on low graphical settings and get a decent fps rate + it still looks beautilful
You should list the settings indicidually rather than say "maxed out" because if you have XP, it only goes up to high (which is still awesome). Very high is only available with Vista, although you can change the config file manually in XP to enable very high, as the game does not use direct X 10.
Also, different cards have different levels of Anti Aliasing. For instance, my 8800GTX can do 16xQ AA, which as I gather takes double the samples while the same 16x scanning on the edges of the pixels. I make it do 4x instead, because I can't see the difference. Also, Shadows. No difference except frame rate from high to medium. So I play with medium. As it stands, its only when I use the sniper scope to zoom or im being owned by Koreans on the hardest difficulty that it slows down.
Also, you can DL a mod file to change ingame values such as levels of HDR, sunbeams, shadows, contrast and eye adjustment from light to dark and vice versa. When you get that file, you really know what HDR means. Change from 1.0 to 1.5, and it all becomes very much more cinematic, and very much less playable:crazy:(not in terms of frame rate, in terms of brightness).
Ill tell you one thing though. There is very little in the way of hardware that wont have problems with this game.
If you want to build a PC around this computer, here's what you're gonna need:
Q6600 Quad core. Default clock speed 2.6 GHz, Overclock to 3.6 GHz on air cooling. And make sure you buy a chip with the G0 stepping. The other stepping, B3, doesn't OC as well and runs hotter.
8800 GTX/Ultra. overclock either one, they come with good coolers and they can take it. If you aren't satisfied with the hot 60+ degrees C that it runs when Overclocked, then get a Zalman VF-1000 (I think thats it...) which can take away a sizable chunk of that heat when installed properly.
Motherboard with the P35 or X38 chipset. Asus Maximus is an example. This part is essential for getting the most out of all your parts.
Arctic Cooler Freezer Pro 7, or Zalman CNPS9700. This is also essential to stop your CPU from burning out early.
Those are the basic parts, which in Britain, would set you back 700 pounds sterling (1400 USD). Not including the case, DVD drive, etc etc.
Now, that is what i'd get. If you have money lining the inside of your nose, then replace the Q6600 with the QX9650, the new 3 GHz Penryn chip from Intel. Can go up to 4.2 GHz on air cooling... but costs around 800 pounds now (1600 USD) for the chip alone.
(Sorry, people start talking about computer parts and I go mental...)