Best performance upgrade for the dollar?

Hey,

I haven't played any games in a few years but when I heard about PA I knew I had to play it. I'm very happy so far aside from random stability problems but I imagine those will be worked out in the coming months. I'm also very happy that the developers decided to release the game for windows as I would hate to have to install Windows again just to play it. I am also interested in being able to host my own server as I have a dedicated ESXi server that would work well for this purpose but my general purpose (PA) machine is only a Sandy Bridge celeron 2.4ghz and a nVidia GTS 450 I had laying around. I'm actually pretty pleased with the performance given the specs on this computer but I would like to upgrade to get some better performance, however I don't really want to spend $700 to do it all at once. My question is this: would I be better suited getting a new motherboard / CPU combo or a better GPU, in terms of PA performance? My current motherboard only supports Sandy Bridge processors (not Ivy) so it would have to be a CPU / motherboard upgrade unless I can find a used i5 somewhere.

Thanks,

Get a job and money wont be a issue.. " CRAP JOKE!!"

Nah i think it would be better to save up and make a new computer from scratch.. Start off with a good mobo and cpu and ram and then save up to get a nice graphics card ect. Otherwise if you do what most people say you should do then its going to cost you a lot in the long run mate

maybe you meant linux?
for the server, graphics won't be needed, see : https://forums.uberent.com/threads/server-question.54087/


your graphic card is insufficient and you probably don't have enough ram (you didn't say how much you had.)

I think the answer is GPU as your CPU should be sufficient.

Could you attach a dxdiag.txt to your next reply?
to do this hit ÿ
then "dxdiag", ↩
let the program run, allow the progress bar to finish
hit "Save All Information..."
in anycase this game leaning so heavily on GPU and RAM, I think you should put all that money into those two without holding back. the CPU should hold up fine.

Yeah, I did mean Linux haha. Seriously.. A 2.4Ghz celeron is enough? Would an i5 make a difference at all? The computer has 8GB of ram.

Also, would a card with 2 or 3GB of RAM be best?

the most vram.

I know of no other game that consumes this much vram.

all the vram.
8 gigs? that's good. can you upgrade it to 16? or 32? ...you won't regret it with PA.

about the CPU, yeah it should cut it seing as the simulation is server-side.

not the case if you want to run it locally...

I did a huge update to my gfx card during the alpha, and got a GTX780. It made a big difference at the time, but things like instancing weren't happening as I understood it. I think CPU is probably the best thing you can get so long as your GPU is passable - I find myself arriving ingame long after people have started (see specs in signature). Cheers

ah that is a good point.

@ketamonster it's your call in the end.

the fact of the matter is : which trouble do you want to have? arriving in game late or constantly have bad FPS.

I'm always in first but I'd trade that in for the good FPS others seem to have around here.

I would go for a 4770k and a good mobo for over clocking, don't forget new RAM. I would upgrade the gpu a month or so later when i had some spare cash.

Out of curiosity why would this be better than a new GPU? I have all settings turned to lowest and it is acceptable for the time being except in late game where the play gets choppy. Am I getting processor or GPU bound? Someone mentioned that they typically start after everyone else with a crappy processor but I don't find this to be the case at all.

Regarding GPU choice, I have read that it is best to get a card with the most VRAM possible. There are a number of affordable options for cards with 2GB of VRAM and there is one affordable option with 3GB VRAM (a 660, although it is more money) and then there is a 4GB option with crappy DDR3 RAM for under $100. Can I assume the $100 4GB card will not suit PA?

GPU obviously

CPU only helps with generating planets.

...or the whole simulation if you plan to be playing it offline.

untrue.

it may, what is the card? the way i see it the card with the most VRAM wins at PA.

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500317
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130911

And then there are a few 2GB cards that are around $140 to $180.. namely the 650 and 750Ti

oh definitely avoid those atrocious GT's, GTS is a billion times better. and GTX is what you wanna have. if you can get the 750TI, then by Zeus, go get it.

In all honesty I think you should stick with your mobo and see if you can grab that i5.

(and hopefully fill a couple more ram slots if you have any free)

Gpu is probably more of a bottleneck than you'd think... Currently the render engine is only single thread so its quite easy to bog it down before even a mid spec graphics card. I7 isn't worth it for pa (client) as really you'd be better off disabling ht. A decent i5 is they way to go (sandy is fine imo, single thread perf sandy - haswell is minimal difference).

Lots of ram is also worth it and also plenty of vram. The new 750ti looks nice if you want an efficient mid range card.

Good to know. Do you think I'm better off with a 750Ti 2GB or a 660 3GB?

fwiw, i'm running

• Linux Mint 16
• dual core Athlon 64 6000+
• 8gig DDR2
• GTX 760 (2gig)

and I'm happier'n a pig in slop so far as performance. If I'm able to pick up a quadcore Phenom for around $80, I might do that, but other than that I'm really hoping this rig will do PA for me. I think it will.

660ti blows the 750ti away.
If you live in Europe Amd cards are a better choice because they are way cheaper than nvidia.

My Ivy bridge 3570K runs the game very well now. The integrated graphics on the CPU actually run it well as well. I used to run it with an AMD 5850 and recently upgraded to a 670 GTX (200$ during the newegg black friday sale FTW!). The graphics card upgrade did not noticeably make the game faster for me than my AMD card, although I have less general bugginess and crash prone OS/games now for what it's worth. Especially on Linux ( which I believe you stated you use) where the Nvidia blob does a better job than either the open source or the proprietary drivers do for AMD cards. When I got rid of the AMD card, my performance with Nvidia was on par or faster than Windows ( I dual boot Arch Linux/Windows).

My biggest boost has been upgrading my ram from 8 gb to 16 gb.

So I say upgrade the CPU/Ram and use the integrated chip on the CPU or existing GFX card until you can afford something better. DO NOT get a cheapo graphics card. You will WASTE your money on those, check the recent benchmarks against the on chip graphics from Intel vs lower end dedicated graphics cards. There is almost NO difference.

And in a game like PA right now and most RTS's in general, a good motherboard, CPU, and ram is much better than a GPU. Especially when they are like PA when they are loaded mostly in ram anyways.

P

Just be aware that pa doesn't benefit from multiple cores for the client so a phenom 1 quad would probably slow your system down! The 6000 is actually pretty good for single thread performance (in amd terms at least). A quad will be better for the server. Now if you can get a higher clocked phenom 2 then you'd be talking, just depends on your motherboard...

A 3gb 660 is better imo so long as its gddr5 memory on it. The 750ti is very very efficient (uses very little power for its performance) but it isn't especially fast. The main thing is to ensure your power supply can handle the 660...