E8400 CPU - Anyone using this for PA?

My brother bought the game, but he hasn't upgraded his computer in a while.
Anyone using specs like this? Will it run the game okay? Does the video card need at least 1gb memory ?
Thanks!

He can upgrade the RAM easily enough, right now he only has 2gb which is not good.

CPU: Intel Core2 Duo Processor E8400 http://ark.intel.com/products/33910
Video Card: NVidia 8800 GTS

You can press Ctrl+P twice and see how much VRAM some planet use with settings you have.

There is two version of this video card: 320mb and 640mb, which one your brother have?
I goes 320mb won't work, but 640mb should be enough for moons and metal planets.

Thanks. I will check. I do see sometimes it is over 1gb video memory for me, but my card is only a 1gb card. Perhaps it uses normal RAM to supplement it?

As long as I know yes, but it's significantly slower and will cause huge performance drop. You can easily set textures to high, make some extra large planet and see what happen when all video memory used.

I want to preface this with a disclaimer. I have not delved into what kind of system resources PA needs or what it does with them or anything technical in any respect what so ever. My comment is really just an observation of what seems to happen to my computer when I play a match.

My speks:
Xeon i7 quad core 2.13GHz per core
12 GB of ddr3 ram which is about to be 24gb when the UPS guy gets here today
EVGA GeForce GTX 650 Ti with 2gbs.

--All drivers are up to date.

I am pretty sure my rig kills the stated system requirements on the PA page. That being said I've noticed that in longer/bigger matches where players have built up significant forces that my system can almost gets completely choked up with lag. My FPS seems to drop down to nothing and at times the game can become unplayable. This phenomenon really seems to spike if players have sizable forces moving in between planets.

That being said I'd like to add another disclaimer. As I said before I haven't done any analysis of the game on system performance or what not and I have also not looked at their code for this game either as I'm sure that is some sort of breach of contract.

That being said, I would speculate that there are some problems in their code. Depending on the algorithms you write, how you handle your I/O, file read/write, and and threading/process handling you can basically assassinate any machines resources. I'm not saying they wrote bad code, or that that what they have is even a problem. This game is still in beta and they may be 100% aware of the problems and working on fixing them. Debugging serious problems in your code isn't something that you do halfheartedly. The reason why I would suggest it is their code and not my machine, similar machines, or even superior machines is because requiring the players to have such high performance machines would eliminate a lot of their potential customers and if they are planning on making money off of this venture it would probably be financial suicide.

Your system will not even see a performance benefit from having over 8 gig of RAM, you are wasting alot of money there. I also hope you are using 64bit windows.
You really need to buy a new cpu+mobo because your cpu is 7 years old and is not a Core I7 unless you typed it wrong.

Really guy? Really, after all that commentary about algorithms and I/O writing you think that the only thing I use this machine for is to play Planetary Annihilation. And that I need you my new found internet buddy to point out to me that if I'm running a 32 bit OS that I cannot write more than 4 gigs worth of RAM addresses ? Please, please share with me your knowledge of computer architecture I am both titillated and sitting on the edge of my seat to find out what you'll teach me next.

P.S I did write the processor name in wrong. My processor is apx 2 years old and at this point I couldn't give a $#!@ less on what it is. I can see what the level of commentary is going to be on this board after I try to add something constructive.

Ok.
First of all i would over clock your cpu, you will need a aftermarket cooler which cost $30+. Best go to a hardware forum like tomshardware or overclcokers for more info.
Secondly your GTX650 is quite a slow card, you would see a significant improvement in performance with a GTX760 / AMD R280X or higher gpus.