Building a computer

[dlljones]

Slept on it and a new CPU and motherboard it is then!!

Do you know of any good comparison sites for motherboards? - I want to make sure I get one with forward compatibility as the one I have at the moment never had that capability. I think I'm going to opt for an Intel CPU this time rather than AMD.

Thanks again for your help which is much appreciated and has made the way ahead much clearer for me.

Llew

[deltic009]

Slept on it and a new CPU and motherboard it is then!!

Do you know of any good comparison sites for motherboards? - I want to make sure I get one with forward compatibility as the one I have at the moment never had that capability. I think I'm going to opt for an Intel CPU this time rather than AMD.

Thanks again for your help which is much appreciated and has made the way ahead much clearer for me.

Llew

I'm no expert and please don't think I'm being sarcastic, but forwards compatibility is a bit harder than backwards as the stuff in the future has yet to be made. I hope that makes sense and doesn't seem harsh.

[rkk01]

I'm no expert and please don't think I'm being sarcastic, but forwards compatibility is a bit harder than backwards as the stuff in the future has yet to be made. I hope that makes sense and doesn't seem harsh.

Well - there are some things you can (used to be able to) do...

My favoured approach was to buy the latest line of m/b / chipset architecture and keep costs down by installing the lowest spec CPU that would run (it used to be the case that the latests cpus were always mega-bucks, but were sensible price in a year or so). Then when the cpu / mb architecture moved on a level, pick up the formerly top-priced CPU at a more affordable price...

As posted above ^^, that now leaves me with a socket 775 m/b and core 2 duo CPU - so probably time to repeat

[h5djr]

Slept on it and a new CPU and motherboard it is then!!

Do you know of any good comparison sites for motherboards? - I want to make sure I get one with forward compatibility as the one I have at the moment never had that capability. I think I'm going to opt for an Intel CPU this time rather than AMD.

Thanks again for your help which is much appreciated and has made the way ahead much clearer for me.

Llew

A good comparison and review website is: http://hexus.net/

I have used it recently to compate items for my new computer.

[dlljones]

Hmmm! Food for thought I think.

Thanks

Llew

Ps Best to be harsh and honest in my view!!

[ttjph]

I can't remember what cpu is in it at the moment. I'm fairly sure that it started out with a Core 2 Duo E6600, but have it in mind that I swapped that out for something around 2.9 gig, possibly an E7500.

No idea how that compares, performance wise, with today's offerings. Always intended to overclock, but never got around to it because the OC Guru utility was reporting some fairly high temps (which I didn't really trust...)

Are there any 775 based CPUs still on sale that would offer a quick and relatively cheap speed increase?

As a fellow 775 owner, I think the short answer is... not really.

Working from http://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html, my E6850 scores 1134; an X9770 scores 1389 which is a 22% improvement in single-thread performance. I'm currently playing with overclocking, and from teh Interwebs it appears that 3.6 GHz is entirely possible - which would be pretty much the same increase. A middling i5 (2550k) scores 1900.

Of course, if you then overclocked the X9770... (I'm an O/Cing newb, but if anyone fancies an overclocking thread I'll join in )


More generally, on the CPU/GPU balance, I'm starting to think that my CPU (old though it is) is not the limiting factor. My GTX 260 (112 GB/s!) trundles along at about 90% usage on a 25 fps lock at 1680x1050, with either highest shadows or the first notch of SSAA - I can't do both without running out of GPU. The CPU occasionally drops the fps to 18 or so in busy areas of WCML-N, but it rarely lasts long. Since all other detail settings are maxed, I'm thinking that whilst a little bit of overclock will be nice, it's actually my GPU that's limiting further increases in fps or detail.

[rkk01]

(apologies for thread hijack... )

Thanks ttjph, some useful info.

I might have another look at the clock speeds on mine.

The Abit OC Guru utility is supposed to make overclocking easy, but I need to get the bottom of the reported high temps - i.e. work out if they are real, or have a play with the cooling (which should be WAY more than adequate) It's possibly that the arctic silver was applied in a shonky manner and needs a wipe down and re-application.

Have only recently acquired WCML(N), so will test the system with that before fiddling. Other routes (S&C, Maerdy, defaults etc) run ok.

[ttjph]

More generally, on the CPU/GPU balance, I'm starting to think that my CPU (old though it is) is not the limiting factor... it's actually my GPU that's limiting further increases in fps or detail.

I (partly) take that back. I've just run a series of tests at Paddington (Chasing Yellows) and Polmadie (Polmadie Hop), with the conclusion that even with a 10% overclock I'm still CPU-limited with 1x2 SSAA. With 2x2 SSAA, it's definitely GPU, and I can't get acceptable framerates (i.e. 20+) with shadows on Highest although it will with no shadows.

AA (particularly SSAA) hits the graphics card a lot and the CPU a little bit; shadows hit both rather hard. So the balance mostly depends on how much SSAA you want to run...

[msey0002]

Last question, guys.

So is the MSI R7750 - 1GB GDDR5 GPU card powerful enough for this game? I'm sure 2GB would be better, but it is quite a bit more expensive. Would the 1GB DDR5 version render quality results?

All parts are bought, just wish to confirm the GPU!

cheers

[gptech]

vRAM only really comes in to consideration if you're using very high resolutions, or very large amounts of Anti-Aliasing. All graphics cards are able to utilise main system memory if they start running short of their own dedicated RAM, even though this is slower the GPU will farm out the 'not as essential' stuff first.
Bottom line, save the money as 1GB is enough---it's debatable whether the game can actually utilise more anyway.

[msey0002]

this is great news, thank you gptech

[msey0002]

So it's done, and everything seems to be working like a charm .

Now a case of downloading/installing TS2013. No mean feat at 9GB as a clean install!!

Many many thanks to all who helped

Now with regards to settings, what do you suggest? Start from lowest and work my way up?

Quite excited to say the least, would be the first time I'm touching the sim since October!

[gptech]

Now with regards to settings, what do you suggest? Start from lowest and work my way up?

The install routine will set settings that work, but if you can remember what you had before I'd suggest putting them in so you can see what improvements you're getting ...... and feel really, really smug about it

Then start notching things up, decide what matters most to you whether that be high frame rates or great looking details and work on those parts first. Then you can nudge the others up to see what impact they have. There's no single bunch of settings that will suit everybody or every combination of hardware so playing about is part of the fun.

[msey0002]

Thanks gptech .

Currently installing. However I noticed that it is installing to Program Files x86 instead of the 64-bit one, does this make a difference on Windows 7 64-bit?

If it does, how can I get Steam to move it post download? (dont want to install 9GB again!)

[gptech]

It's a 32bit application, Windows is putting it where it thinks 32bit apps should live.
I'd certainly advocate getting it out of Program Files, UAC is brilliant at protecting programs that don't alter much (those where we dont add new content daily, tweak settings etc) but can be a bit over zealous around games. Luckily moving Steam and your games is straight forward... https://support.steampowered.com/kb_art ... -YUBN-8129
You won't have to re-download anything, and the whole procedure only takes a few minutes.