The 'help me choose hardware to run PA' megathread

AMD's caatalyst updates are buggy thats all that they dont have going atm.

Hi guys,

I would appreciate if someone with the relevant knowledge could advise me on this, thanks in advance!

I currently have a laptop with the following specs:

ASUS Laptop
Intel Core i5 3230M, 2.6GHz
4 GB RAM
nVidia GeForce 610M, 2GB

I run PA with the lowest settings and, while in-game, performance is ok except for the occasional lag. The problem appears when a system is loading, a singular event happens (comm destruction, planet crash...) or when leaving a match: the game sttuters and lags beyond acceptable levels and I usually have to force-close the game.

My question is: what is bottlenecking for performance in my rig? Is my system just not powerful enough to run PA smoothly or could I fix it by upgrading RAM?

Moar RAM, 8 gigs and you'll do nicely. Pa would be playable with 4, but you'd be severely limited on system size.

The main problem you've got there is lack of ram. 4gb is enough to play on single planet maps basically. The CPU is ok, as for the GPU you'd probably get more performance out of the iGPU on the core i5 (HD 4000 I believe) as the 610M is rather basic. That said you'd definitely need more ram to do that. Ideally you want to be looking at increasing your ram to 8gb.

As a test to prove ram is the issue, why not go into the system designer and make a map that consists of only 1 moon with a radius of 500. That should fit comfortably in 4gb of memory. Host a skirmish game and load you map and play against a single AI. If the game runs smoothly from start to finish then I think we've identified your issue

If you provide me with make and model of the laptop I can probably advise on what ram you need as well.

Ouh! Ouh! Ouh! Me ! Me ! Me !

It's crap

personally I thing upgrading THIS laptop is a terrible waste of time.

And you BEST bet would be to sell it and build a pc from parts (it's just like lego!)

Your wisdom, it never ceases to amaze me Tatsu! Simply profound... /s

Just make sure you have a 64 bit OS if you put in more RAM.
And yes you need more RAM. The more the better

haha well I did let him know that upgrading that laptop was a bad bet. as it will cost alot and he'll still be bottlenecked on the graphic card after getting his 16GiG ram and you can't change the cpu or graphic card on a laptop so....

like I said. when he's ready he can ask and I'll tell him what to buy for what budget.

A stick of ram will cost all of about £40... probably worth trying before replacing whole system. FYI I play fine on my laptop (minimum graphics settings) which is much older than that *but* has 8gb ram.

The game is very scalable in terms of graphics thankfully.

Only iff i play alone vs Ais i always got + then 80 fps even with + 5000 units all on Ultra
But on multiplayer things are diferent to have +20 fps in half game its a lucky

The system i got its top got all build from ROG
Even on 5.0 ghz that i run every day got a cooling from corsair that wont let pass from 32º Celsius
GTX 780 TI OC Special ediction/32 gb ddr3 2400 HyperX XMP

Net its fast enouth to play +stream+download
And still got lag on multiplayer about 15/25 fps.

So its not the system you can have but the otimazation its need on PA.
But i5 2500k+gtx S700+8/12gb its more then enouth.

Well, thank you very much indeed guys.

My laptop is ASUS K55V, any comments?

Thanks a lot!

This is probably easiest place to get memory from:
http://uk.crucial.com/gbr/en/compatible-memory-for/ASUS/k55vd

Hopefully they will have configured it as 1 x 4gb module (so you'll have a slot free) in which case get either a 4gb or 8gb module (giving 8 / 12 gb total respectively). It *might* be 2 x 2 gb already in your laptop, in which case you'll need to take one of them out.

This video shows how to get at your memory- looks to be just a panel on back (I always like ASUS laptops for this, unlike some other companies who put one of the ram slots under the keyboard).

@cdrkf Thank you!

Hi i want to build a rig, for the first time, just to play PA singleplayer preferably on a Single HUGE (by that i mean it) planet and a tiny moon. Before i list the components a little backstory is needed in my case.

Firstly my budget is loosely around 50,000 INR (Indian rupees) / 810$
I don't play much games beside RTS's. Actually i haven't played any game that's not a RTS except D2:LOD, (There's a reason for it).

Currently i have a >decade old win xp pc with a pentium 4 @ 2.8 GHz, a chinese manufactured mobo as the original died 2 yrs ago, no graphics card(16 mb vram), 4 GB ram, 150 GB HDD, and an optical drive. It ran TA superbly with more than 3ooo units on a 44x63 map (Aorounga Crater Chain), and all the programs i had (netbeans ide 7.1, atmel studio 6, Blender etc.) I was perfectly happy with it but my dad screwed it by installing win 7 on it for android syncing lol now it lags like hell.

Now i finally "need" to get a new PC and have "valid" reasons for it hahaha lol..

And here is the build i'm looking at:-

Processor: AMD 3.5 AM3+ FX 6-Core Edition FX-6300; OR AMD 4 GHz AM3+ FX-4300 FX-Series Four-Core Edition; OR Intel® Pentium® Processor G3258 Anniversary Edition (Dual core, Overclockable to 4.8GHz. I've heard that it's a wolf in a sheep's skin).
Any other recommendation is welcome. Prices not more than 8000 INR.

Graphics card: EVGA GeForce GTX 760 FTW 4GB w/ EVGA ACX Cooler This is finalised.

RAM: 16 GB Kingston, Corsair/G skill are comparatively expensive.

MoBo: No idea. Processor not confirmed.

PSU: No idea. Advice needed. Price not more than 3000 INR

Cooling: Air cooler from coolermaster or liquid if needed. Price limit for liquid cooling 6000 INR.

Cabinet: Just a cabinet. Nothing fancy.

Internal HDD: 500 GB is enough for me. I neither have nor will have HD content for next few years. Yes, i don't care about video quality of movies+i delete them after watching.

Here is the website which i use Flipkart.com

Personally I would go with the FX 6300 (or even better an FX 8320 as they can be found very cheap now). There is little point getting the slower FX4XXX parts as you can just over-clock the the 6 or 8 series to the same speed and you get the benefit of more cores.

As good as the pentium is, it's rather limited as a dual core with no HT and PA needs at least 4 logical cores (so core i3 or FX 4XXX minimum). The only advantage to getting the pentium would be if you plan to upgrade the CPU in the future, but based on your info about your earlier rig I think you plan to keep it for a while, in which case FX6300 / FX8320 are much better choices long term.

Everything else should be fine imo, 16gb ram is ideal for PA (and most other games) and a GTX 760 is a superb card As for the motherboard, remember to get something with solid state capacitors for VRMs. I'd recommend looking up for recommendations based on over-clocking performance, better boards will mean longer lived machine. Also remember *don't skimp on the PSU*. Get a decent quality model from a known brand, I personally like the Corsair CX series supplies as they offer good life span and features at a sensible price.

i5-750 processor
Gtx 560 3gb VRAM
8 gb of RAM
Windows 7 64-bit

Good? Something better that's cheaper? Let me know whatnyou think. Gonna get this for Christmas hopefully. Not planning to do videos or anything just need a good PC for medium-high graphics around this range.

Note that I have no experience in building a PC, this is my first time. So I have no idea what version of the processor to buy lol (I might also get a 16 gb just so I can playna lot more systems)

That's some rather old kit to be getting now, is it second hand?

The i5 750 is first gen (they are on 4th about to release 5th gen Core processors soon).
Also a GTX 560 with 3gb of vram? Are you sure about that as I don't think i've ever seen one with that much memory before (I had a 560, it had 1gb of vram, maybe your thinking of a 580 as they did go up to 3?).

Anyway if that is the spec your looking at it should run PA fine, however if your looking for good second hand kit you'd be better looking at one of the second get i5's (these all have model numbers in the 2000 range), as they are much faster per clock (and the 3xxx / 4xxx chips aren't really much quicker).

Also a graphics card with at least 2gb vram is a good idea for PA (which is why I suggest double checking what that card is- if it's a 560 I don't think it will be 3gb).

8gb of ram is decent for the majority of maps (I've yet to run into a problem), though on really big maps PA can use more.

Thanks!

As I said I'm a newbie to this stuff
:S

If you are looking at getting new stuff let me know your budget and I'd be happy to make some suggestions of what is current and should fit your budget.....