Patch Notes and PC System Specs

My state-of-the-art 7-year-old PC is unable to run this thing. I am sad and in need of much comfort.

Time for a new computer, I reckon.

SLI is complicated. In theory you should have more or less 4Gb of VRAM, however VRAM here is not the only important thing, it also matters things like the architecture and overall technology used by the graphic card. It also depends on the game, some games perform just fine with SLI while some others don't.

As an example, for all intends and purposes one single card with 4Gb of VRAM will always be superior than 2x2Gb cards. SLI (or Crossfire for that matter) tends to have issues with textures too, pop-ups, glitches, even artifacts (rare ocassions). So if possible, it's always better to have just one card with the amount of VRAM needed.
Again, that is just an example, I understand that you may not be able to buy a new graphics card.

So, bad news is that Simon couldn't be upgraded. Good news is I got a beautiful beast of a new laptop.

I realized that a desktop and I are really just not compatible.

Meet Simon 2.0

www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX64232

WHEW! THAT'S A RELIEF!!!

I was worried a GTX 1080 would be the minimum, but it's not even the recommended. Or that Windows 10 would be mandatory.

A 660 2 gig is really old and low powered, though higher than the DAI min specs. Which makes me think the Low setting on MEA will be a smidge better than the Low settings on DAI. Bad news for laptop-only players, though.

I have a GTX 970, so yay, I don't have to upgrade just to play!

When I first bought my gaming PC years ago, I was told my CPU was gross overkill with an 8 core i7. Now it barely meets the minimum spec, lol.

I only have 8 gig RAM, though.

As someone who overworked a couple of laptops to death: Watch out for high temperatures; don't keep the CPU or the GPU working at 100% for extended periods of time, take breaks while gaming, etc.

As much as I like power in mobile solutions, after having a gaming laptop I have to say its not worth it and should be ONLY considered if you really travel a lot and want to play games.

Rule of thumb is, for 50% of the price for your selected gaming laptop, you can always build a PC that is at least 50% more powerful (or even more in most cases).

Plus, upgrading laptops is a harder hobby, as mostly you can just upgrade RAM or insert SSD.
You can also upgrade the CPU what is relatively easy, but upgrading your mGPU is out of the picture most of the time.

Well then, nothing to be guily about
If you travel a lot - thats where laptop comes in.

GTX 970 - still great card for 1920x1080, nothing really to change here.
I only upgraded to GTX 1080 from my GTX 970, because I was worried it might actually require GTX 1070 or more on ultra (given how they went into partnership with NVidia this time).
Now that I see the specs, I see I could have stayed on GTX 970.

Notice also how GTX 1060 in recommended needs only 3 GB of VRAM, GTX 970 has 4 GB of VRAM in total and is only ~15 % slower, than GTX 1060.

I also have "only" 8 GB of RAM and believe me, Battlefield 1 also has 16 GB in recommended like ME:A.
Yet, I am still to see a moment where 8 GB of RAM causes me problems on gigantic maps with 64 players.
I never see the game use more than 7 GB of RAM on highest possible settings. So where that 16 GB of recommended RAM would even be useful ?

8 GB of RAM is still plenty for gaming.

1060 should be good for gaming for quite a few years I should think; as I've said in previous comments the 1060 is supposed to be slightly superior to the 980 and at a much lower price, plus the new Pascal architecture.
You said you had an AMD CPU, right? I don't really know a thing about AMD CPUs, so can't really tell you if it will in fact bottleneck, maybe it wont though. Someone with knowledge in AMD processors should be able to clarify that.

I agree with those people, I think you'll even be able to switch most settings to Ultra with that GPU.

Since you guys seem to enjoy sharing your PC specs, marvel at this. Your envy will be my sustenance.

Phenom II X6, 4GB RAM, and the best of all, the crown jewel, Radeon HD 5670.

Beat that if you can! Which you can't. 

Yeah a lot of people love throwing that word around, bottlenecking. It can be a concern in some games but I actually don't expect MEA to be as CPU intensive as GTA V, since it won't have to render a huge open world like that.
MSAA is a setting that relies more on GPU. Turning down stuff like shadows/lighting, draw distance or particles could reduce the load on your CPU