The 'help me choose hardware to run PA' megathread

A mid tier PC, so that's like 400-500$

Are you US based then? I can look on sites for over there to give you $ prices. I'm in UK myself so I tend to deal more in £ however £400 - £500 is quite a bit more than your looking at I think

Yes I am US based

Here is an example of a new system in that price range in USD...

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/hW4LjX

Note that is *without buying the OS* but is all brand new kit. The FX6300 is a reasonable cpu that can be easily over-clocked.

Edit: Also you can get a more powerful graphics card overall by going AMD R7 range (e.g. an R7 260X or 265) however I haven't done that as for PA specifically Nvidia tends to be better for this game (I run PA on an AMD card and it does work btw, it just tends to be a bit faster on the equivalent Nvidia card due to better OpenGL drivers for Nvidia).

Edit: Here is a similar build based on the latest Intel platform:

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/wh3YwP

The processor on this (core i3) is a dual core with Hyper-threading (means Windows will see it as 4 cores) which should be fine for most games. Imo the FX is probably a better chip overall and will over clock better. The advantage to the Intel build is you can upgrade the processor to the much faster Core i5 or Core i7 at a later date, whereas with the FX there isn't anything much better than that for gaming from AMD. It really depends if you are planning the change the system much in the future really.

Thanks a lot man!

I'll probably get the i3 one since it is cheaper, what would be the recommended graphics for this? (Medium, low, high?)

That depends allot on what screen you have. Assuming it's full HD (1920 x 1080 pixels) then your looking at playing well at medium settings (high would be ok early game and on small maps but it will probably start to struggle as things escalate). If you have an older screen with a lower resolution then higher settings are probably possible as it will put less load on the GPU.

So seeing that this is where my hunt for new PC began I feel obliged to thank you. At the end I'll be getting:

Intel Core™ i7 4790K "Unlocked"
Kingston PC3-12800 "HyperX blu" KIT 16384MB 1600 MHz DDR III
Kingston SSDnow V300 240GB SATA III (6Gb/s)
Gigabyte NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 4GB
Corsair CX750
Gigabyte GA-Z97X-Gaming 3
Zalman Z3-Plus Midi-Tower

EDIT: UPDATED

The downside is that I bought a new case and Graphics card with one supplier and the rest with another one, I basically went for he lowest prices and that has come back to bite me. My GTX 970 and my case are sitting at home collecting dust while I wont be getting the other parts until next year. And by that time I'll have school and diploma to think about. Well I guess the endless mines of UCGO Icarus server will keep me company.

This is the wurst.

So frustrating having to wait! Still with a spec like that it will be worth it That should handle everything at full settings for some time to come.

You're going to be on a similar set-up to me:

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/user/cwarner7264/saved/p2D7YJ

Similar situation, I'm waiting on a couple of parts that haven't arrived. I'm gonna take photos of the build process this time because my last one was very poorly documented.

Yea pretty similar. I basically got more cash than I though I would initially. I had to cut the extra parts that would allow me to overclock since that saved me almost 300 euros, though. Still seeing that my last venture into OC land left me with my initial PSU, CPU and MOBO fused together (yes this is hoe I got my core 2 duo and basically my current setup) I'm not that bothered.

I have no idea what to upgrade. Here's my dxdiag.

I'm not looking for what to get specifically, I jut want to know if anything (besides video driver) needs improvement

This is worrying. You should probably invest in a CPU

Hey. I don't tell you how to run your life. *pedals scooter that is processor*

The only other thing I can see on there is that you've 8GB of RAM which should run the game fine - 16GB would allow you to run it better. If you've anything less than a quad core processor that will likely be your bottleneck.

no but seriously why is that happening

So after being almost 3 weeks overdue, my new PC is finally arriving this Thursday.

I'm not sure, I gather your cpu is an amd A8 Apu based on the graphics card...? Maybe the database for dx hasn't been updated with the correct model number?

If you want to check the cpu, try getting 'cpu z' as that should be able to give you info on pretty much any cpu out there.

I have one of the crappiest All-in-ones i can get(even school laptops have better specs)

System Model: Lenovo C205
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Memory: 8GB RAM
Processor: AMD E-350 running at 1.6GHz
Graphics: AMD Radeon HD 6310
Monitor Size: 1366 x 768

You can have my DxDiag aswell

Yeah I'm not sure that's going to cope with PA. The main issues are the very weak gfx card and the slow dual core processor.

You really need an AMD A8 APU (and not the low power one either as it has no gfx capability) with a 384 core GPU part in it to play PA ok. That's a good minimum to start from, the A10's are even better (again not counting the A10 'micro').

Edit alternatively any laptop with an Intel Core i3 (standard variant rather than the low power 'u' version) with HD3000 or better GPU should be ok for minimum settings (with at least 8gb of ram).

It runs PA fine enough that i can actually play.

Also i've run big ZE(Zombie Escape) Maps on both CS:S and CS:GO with 40 players finely.