How well would my computer run? A realistic gaming computer.

Re: How well would my computer run? A realistic gaming compu

To the OP, I would suggest you read the CPU and GPU buying guides on tomshardare.com before you go and buy and parts for a new build.

You can also look at the newegg wishlists I put together just for threads like this. If you have an keyboard, mouse, screen, optical drive, hard drive, and speakers that you can reuse from an old machine then you can look at the budget PA box list and the high end PA box list.

If you don't have an old machine to pull spare parts from then you can complete either system with the PA box supplement list.

As for dual video cards, not all motherboards can run two PCIe 16x slots with all 32 PCIe lanes active at the same time. Many will split the 16 lanes so that each slot has 8 active lanes when there are cards in both slots. This is very chip set dependent though. Whether or not this is a problem largely depends on the game in question and how it uses the GPU bus. Some games really benefit from the extra bandwidth of a full 32 lanes, others don't.

Re: How well would my computer run? A realistic gaming compu

antille, I don't think you linked to public wishlists or at least didn't save them as such. It just brings it to my own wishlists (of which I have none).

Re: How well would my computer run? A realistic gaming compu

That's weird.... They are marked and shared... I will see if I can figure out what is going on with that.

Edit: Ok links fixed. Sorry about that.

Re: How well would my computer run? A realistic gaming compu

Antillie???? windows for a hundred bucks on a Budget????? HE HAS WINDOWS, the key is on the bottom of his laptop, i suggested this aproach in the first thread reply, not only that but for the release, he'll do just as well (or better) with a linux distro.

Answer this: how is windows a budget?

EDIT: plus you forgot all of the periferals.

as for getting SLI or crossfireX (dual graphic cards), I'd advise against it in the particular case of PA.

Re: How well would my computer run? A realistic gaming compu

I don't mind linux, but some people shouldn't be fooled into thinking they have the ability to fluently work linux. Windows is a necessity to some.

That being said, i looked up that physics processors are being phased into other things, not standalone. Shame, i didn't know they were a fluke of a moment in technology.

So it isn't very useful on most games atm to use two chips. I think ill wait to see how well or choppy my sad little emachine will do once my gpu arrives. Currently does not run it. Should run poorly afterwards.

Re: How well would my computer run? A realistic gaming compu

Well not everyone has a windows license they can reuse. Some people have old boxes with XP on them. Or they have already used the spare license that came with their last pre built system. But if you prefer Linux then by all means drop the Windows license and save $100. But since most people are not familiar with Linux and may want to play other games that are Windows only I include a Windows license in the lists under the assumption that people will be smart enough to decide if they really need it or not on their own.

Also I explained the lack of peripherals in my post and provided a link to a wishlist of said peripherals. Reusing old parts is the cornerstone of system building. Why buy a new screen every time you need a new CPU/Video card?

But yes. Windows certainly has a place in budget builds. It has for years and I don't think that is going to change any time soon.

Once I have had a chance to test PA on an APU based system I may put together a list for an APU box depending on how well PA runs on my A10-6800K.

I just wanted to inform, that apparently if anyone is wondering, 1g gpu, 4g ram, and dual core, will in fact start the game in it's current state.

I just got it to run for the first time on my own computer (before this it's always been my friend's).

I would in-fact recommend people trying to then proceed to play it afterwards to TURN OFF SHADERS™.

4GB of RAM it's usually not enough to finish game, but it's depends on biome and scale.

In most games I've noticed a significant increase of performance when using two GPUs. Having said that not ALL games support multiple GPUs very well. I could name a few bad ports from console to PC which come to mind but I wont.

At the moment with PA I've noticed worse performance with two GPUs. but of course it's still alpha so it doesn't surprise me.

Cheers,

-Todd

Since there aren't any SLI or Crossfire profiles for PA it can't utilize dual GPU setups yet. So even if you have two cards like me it only uses one when it runs. I'm sure this will change soon after release.

Personally I don't like dual GPU setups as I feel that they are generally more trouble than they are worth when you consider that one fast card can run any game on the market at max settings at 1080p without breaking a sweat.

Also since no game currently on the market can fully utilize more than an upper mid range CPU I don't see any real reason to have a GPU for physics. Just get a slightly more powerful CPU and run them on there.

That is what I heard too. I don't see also why people sloganeer getting two gpus, when they don't work with the vast majority of produced games, unless they bought a computer stock with one bridgeable gpu and it's cheap to get another.

Generally, you are paying the cost of a high level gpu that could run anything, just to get 2 smaller ones, that only work if the game allows it, which there is a colossal list of games that do not use two gpus. just get the one gpu you could buy at the combined cost of the other two.

I did some research btw, and found that physics processing units for games were offered for a very short time around 2008, and then were bought out by graphics cards to integrate them with gpus. Today, there are even less games that are made functional to run physics on one and graphics on another, than there is to run two graphics cards, and you could run two graphics cards and dedicate one as a ppu the rare occasions it is supported, but it is even less worth the cost when you could just use the combined cost to buy 1 card.

However, you might be able to squeeze more performance out of one card designed more like a ppu, and another designed more like a gpu, for less cost than the card that could run both outright, but that would be very game specific, half life 2 maybe. The only useful thing about that, is depending on the majority of games you play, if you do look for a gpu, you can try to lean the single one you do get, to be orientated to render game actions more, or game graphics more.

I heard somewhere that solid state hard drives offer more speed, slightly increasing speed of computer by allowing faster data access. Still isn't ram-fast, but is having a hard drive that is faster really a big performance booster?

It's depends on game specifics and it's only actual for games which need to stream lot of assets from disk to RAM. You'll get really big performance boost in games with tons of content such Skyrim, but it's won't change anything for PA.

Actually SSD also might give general OS boost (by using page file from SSD) if you on low RAM (and 4GB is low), but it's will decrease SSD lifetime and actually buying more RAM probably will be cheaper.

So open world games with tons of assets being loaded into an engine as you travel through it for trees water castles ect. Got it.

It's not only about open world games, but about any console titles. Current consoles have very low RAM, so engines are designed to stream assets on the fly. And even if you have lot of RAM they usually can't use it efficiently.

It's also will be true for next generation of consoles because after few years they will have much lower RAM than middle-end PCs.

No, so you mean GTA5 will probs be like this on PC. Crap.

It's only depends on porting/optimization quality. As you know GTA4 port was really bad. But in general it's correct for most of console games.

If you're like me not great at building pc's http://pcpartpicker.com/ is a great website to give you the costs and it'll eliminate every conflicting piece of hardwear as you work along. I spent the same as you're willing to go and got 4.2ghz quadcore 8gb ram ssd 1tb hdd EVGA GeForce GTX 650 2GB and I then had my IT mate build it

All those guides are really good, but i'd hang fire dropping too much cash before it's optimised and requirements are finalised.

Yeah, at the moment it's a RAM addict and heavy on the GPU, but they've not implemented LOD and a lot of features aren't implemented yet that might push systems harder.

If you're just upgrading for PA, wait till it's finished. By the sounds of the live streams, the Devs are still coming up with cool ideas as they work, so even they might not be able to give you a complete answer right now.

What applies to PA is true also for every single other game there is : you'll have a bad time with gaming on the laptop and on low hardware (this stems from many things one of which is wifi and can be easily fixed by plugging in an ethernet cable.)

What I'm saying is that you will, in any case unlock more of the game's content (not kidding) with better hardware. And I do agree that people can wait untill the end of the beta draws near to have a precise answer as to what kind of performance they'll get with such and such hardware.

In the meantime I have suggested the cheapest build you could get that will run PA and quite decently at that, guaranteed, here : https://forums.uberent.com/threads/...-realistic-gaming-computer.50223/#post-770251 there are also tips as to how to save extra bucks so have a read.

Plus, its good for those who did or will buy alpha to know the type of computer they need and performance they will have. At this point for alpha using integrated graphics or a laptop is risky.

Also, i have an unrelated question. What would anyone recommend to put in a spare pci slot that isn't graphics. does audio actually improve performance, cuz i don't care for fancy audio if it don't improve running anything. I was thinking if it's possible that i could make it a usb 3.0