You should be able to do it now -- try it and find out!  That's the point of a beta!  If it isn't working now, they need to hear about it!

As far as I can tell, max graphics should work, but you need to try it on your system.

My system is:

• Q6600 3.0 GHz OC
• GTX 280 OC
• 780i Nforce
• 4 GB DDR2

Now I think we can agree this should be able to handle it max settings right? Well I have noticed that as soon I as I add Blooming, everything starts to lag immediately, even from the very start.

But I gotta say I enjoy the little additions to the game, and I find it worth the small amount of cash I paid for it good job

Actually thats far from eachother if I can say so without sounding arrogant.

However I like to pay on big maps, the biggest often, with as many AI as possible. The lag I enounter isn't beyond playable, but I most assume that this is due to bad coding, and not cause of the hardware.

I wish I had the money for a new i7 rig, I'm sure those beasts can run a gigantic map with 7 AIs. But my current Core 2 dup at 3.01Ghz is only a little more than a year old and it handles thing pretty well until all 100 planets have been colonized and everybody had a giant fleet. Then it makes playing the game a test of patience