guess it's gonna be time to upgrade then.....'cause what's the use of turning off all the cool groovy new stuff?
edit.....
what do you mean? the 9800gtx is what they're using to test this?
also....does it matter where on the machine i put the game?\
If I'm not terribly mistaken, hitech is using a machine very similar to your current one for all his testing.
IMO, that's terrible as all the base capture guys will turn off all the eye candy so they can find the towns easily. All the GV guys will do the same so they can have an advantage finding the enemy. Never mind whether they need to because of weak hardware!
My hope is that htc will announce the advancement of the minimum and maximum ground clutter ranges on a fixed schedule of every 6 months to a year to keep the upgrade path predictable and keep everyone on an equal footing with state of the art graphics.
I hate that anyone can turn off clutter to gain an advantage but I understand the current necessity.
These beautiful graphics, or something similar could have happened 4 or 5 years ago but too many people would have been caught in the hardware upgrade bind. IMO The numbers in the Main Arenas are the result of not keeping up with the competition. I will maintain that the MA numbers exhibit the result in not making the changes earlier and I sincerely hope it's not too late!
IMHO, Hitech's work is beautiful and the game should be experienced with all the graphics set to the absolute maximum! You might be able to see what it CAN look like in off-line mode with your machine, but you'll never be able to appreciate all Hitech's work until you have better hardware!
Check the hardware forum if you're serious about obtaining or building a new machine.
Edit:
Unless you have an SSD hard drive (best), install the game on your fastest SATA hard drive if you have one. The point is, install it on your fastest drive because in the past, it only loads the textures when it needs them and the faster the drive the less stutter and or possibility of a crash.
If any of my advice is wrong, I'm sure someone from htc will weigh in.