Question AOE 4 - Least expensive PC to purchase for playing?

[GravelKicker]

I’m looking to buy a PC with the sole purpose of playing Age of Empires 4. That’s it. I’m a console gamer and own a Mac which I use for work so I’m not interested in running Parallels.

Simply put, I’m looking for the least expensive laptop that will run AOE 4. Any recommendations would be appreciated.

 

[Brian Boru]

To save everyone looking it up, here are Microsoft's system requirements copied from Steam:

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

• MINIMUM:
  • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
  • OS: Windows 10 64bit
  • Processor: Intel Core i5-6300U or AMD Ryzen 5 2400G | CPU with AVX support required
  • Memory: 8 GB RAM
  • Graphics: Intel HD 520 or AMD Radeon RX Vega 11
  • DirectX: Version 12
  • Storage: 50 GB available space

• RECOMMENDED:
  • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
  • OS: Windows 10 64bit
  • Processor: 3.6 GHz 6-core (Intel i5) or AMD Ryzen 5 1600 | CPU with AVX support required
  • Memory: 16 GB RAM
  • Graphics: Nvidia GeForce 970 GPU or AMD Radeon RX 570 GPU with 4GB of VRAM
  • DirectX: Version 12
  • Storage: 50 GB available space
  • Additional Notes: 4 GB of video RAM and 16 GB of system RAM

Doesn't look bad. It's best tho to wait until after release and see the reviews about how it plays in practice.

 

[ZedClampet]

To save everyone looking it up, here are Microsoft's system requirements copied from Steam:

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

• MINIMUM:
  • 
    
  • Graphics: Intel HD 520 or AMD Radeon RX Vega 11

One issue here is that I don't believe those are technically available on laptops, and I'm not sure how they compare to the ones that actually are available on laptops.

My brother plays games like this on a cheap laptop without a GPU and gets along just fine.

Something like this SHOULD work:

HP 15.6 inch Full HD Laptop, AMD 6-Cores Ryzen 5-5500, AMD Radeon Graphics, HP Fast Charge, Webcam, Thin&Portable, 16GB DDR4 RAM, 512GB PCIE SSD, Windows 10 Home, Natural Silver

It's $650, has a good CPU and RAM, but hell if I know what the Radeon R5 is. Some of these integrated AMD chips are just plain horrible graphically.

There's one with an Intel CPU for $520 that sounds sufficient, but, again, I'm not sure about the particular integrated graphics. I don't know how you compare a desktop CPU's graphics to a mobile CPU's graphics.

 

[Zloth]

Is the game on Stadia or anything like that?

 

[Brian Boru]

Is the game on Stadia or anything like that?

Yep, it's on Xbox Cloud Gaming as well as Windows.

So buying an Xbox is an option which should be cheaper than a PC.