Computer upgrade advice

SeungRyul · Aug 26, 2015

I would suggest trying out an SSD before anything and then if you can spare 8gb of ram.

mromutt · Aug 26, 2015

SeungRyul said:
I would suggest trying out an SSD before anything and then if you can spare 8gb of ram.

I think hes saying he has a 4 stick kit (16 gb) but I agree an ssd would be where I would start too.

EnclaveZombie · Aug 26, 2015

I would definitely support an SSD as the first step. Back up any personal or media files you want to save and then do a clean install. You may have malware or just other underlying OS issues that may be causing problems. Or... and I hate to say this but turn down settings just a smidge. I know I know blasphemy but sometimes older hardware may not perform quite as strong as day one. But yea clean install on an SSD would be step one.

Wolf Lord Caldersson · Aug 26, 2015

an SSD isn't going to improve his frame rate.

What settings are you playing at? That 970 should be able to handle at least medium graphics.

TBH the only bottle neck i see is your cpu/mobo. AMD doesn't support PCIE 3.0, so you are running on PCIE 2.0 x16, which is the same as PCIE 3.0 x8. It's not a major bottleneck with the PCIE support, but the cpu might not be that great, I don't have any experience with the 8120 though.

mromutt · Aug 26, 2015

Salt Lake said:
an SSD isn't going to improve his frame rate.

What settings are you playing at? That 970 should be able to handle at least medium graphics.

TBH the only bottle neck i see is your cpu/mobo. AMD doesn't support PCIE 3.0, so you are running on PCIE 2.0 x16, which is the same as PCIE 3.0 x8. It's not a major bottleneck with the PCIE support, but the cpu might not be that great, I don't have any experience with the 8120 though.

the 8120 is pretty good, the only thing I saw in his build that needed an upgrade was an ssd, may not increase FPS but overall it would make for for a smoother experience (load screens are really short now in SC with ssd)

dubbzy · Aug 26, 2015

Upgrade the 970. It sucks. Give it to me!

aftershock2100 · Aug 31, 2015

You need at least 8 gigs of ram for star citizen, start there. An SSD will not improve your framerate. Edit: Disregard if that is a 4gb per stick kit. Also, are you running any system monitoring software? If so, shut it off before running any games, it destroys frame rates.

KingNerd · Aug 31, 2015

Okay with the system you have absolutely add an SSD but why are you getting 20fps? That should not be happening with your build. When you said upgrade build I laughed when I saw how powerful your rig is. Get the SSD for overall quality of life improvement, make sure your drivers are up to date and nothing is eating all your CPU process in the background. You should be running beautifully my friend, you don't need an upgrade but some troubleshooting it sounds like to me.

Elac · Aug 31, 2015

Your MOBO and CPU looks a bit dated but i would wait with upgrading those untill closer to launch. In the mean time i would go for an SSD.

glockjs · Sep 4, 2015

uhhh the rig looks fine. if anything i would suggest upgrading drivers lol. also in the past AMD has been weak on 4 slot memory. their memory controllers have been bad :( try taking out two sticks and leaving two in the main slots and see what happens. also do a full clean of you computer with ccleaner and malwarebytes then do a defrag and see what happens.

imo your rig is decent.

Harkuno · Sep 4, 2015

glockjs said:
uhhh the rig looks fine. if anything i would suggest upgrading drivers lol. also in the past AMD has been weak on 4 slot memory. their memory controllers have been bad :( try taking out two sticks and leaving two in the main slots and see what happens. also do a full clean of you computer with ccleaner and malwarebytes then do a defrag and see what happens.

imo your rig is decent.

I would have to agree, make sure everything is up to date first before buying anything. The GTX 970 should be enough to run Star Citizen fine. I have a GTX 980 and looking at the stats, your card shouldn't be too far off.

Also, I would recommend upgrading your RAM to a higher capacity kit, unless it's a 4x 4gb (16gb) kit.

What cooling system are you using? I don't see it listed?

rogesh · Sep 4, 2015

Harkuno said:
What cooling system are you using? I don't see it listed?

That is a valid point. My system was overheating and limiting itself so maybe it's too hot in your case? Or could dust be your problem?

Well I don't exactly see any other problems with your system, it's good. Though I prefer less sticks with higher capacity

glockjs · Sep 4, 2015

Harkuno said:
I would have to agree, make sure everything is up to date first before buying anything. The GTX 970 should be enough to run Star Citizen fine. I have a GTX 980 and looking at the stats, your card shouldn't be too far off.

Also, I would recommend upgrading your RAM to a higher capacity kit, unless it's a 4x 4gb (16gb) kit.

What cooling system are you using? I don't see it listed?

actually to think about it we didn't ask the most important question...what resolution. i guess we all assume 1080p but what if he's trying to run it at 4k?? then lol

Harkuno · Sep 4, 2015

glockjs said:
actually to think about it we didn't ask the most important question...what resolution. i guess we all assume 1080p but what if he's trying to run it at 4k?? then lol

Looking at what he's given in his specs, it seems that he has 1 4K monitor and 1 1080p monitor. I would have to agree that, if running the game on the 4K monitor, the resolution would have an effect on framerate.

Edit: Monitor is 4K, not 2K... oops :)

glockjs · Sep 4, 2015

Harkuno said:
Looking at what he's given in his specs, it seems that he has 1 2K monitor and 1 1080p monitor. I would have to agree that, if running the game on the 2K monitor, the resolution would have an effect on framerate.

actually now that i looked at it closer yeah the aoc is 4k. then lol. need a major gpu upgrade probably followed by psu upgrade

Harkuno · Sep 4, 2015

glockjs said:
actually now that i looked at it closer yeah the aoc is 4k. then lol. need a major gpu upgrade probably followed by psu upgrade

I agree, he could get a second 970 and run SLI. However, I don't really know about GPU performance when it comes to 4K resolution as I only have a 1080p monitor :)

glockjs · Sep 4, 2015

Harkuno said:
I agree, he could get a second 970 and run SLI. However, I don't really know about GPU performance when it comes to 4K resolution as I only have a 1080p monitor :)

i'm at 1440p and watching it. the new flagships handle 4k ok but you are paying a premium for it.

Ichiru · Sep 4, 2015

If running in 4k resolution then the issue with frame rate will definately be due to running on only one card. Even with a 980Ti I plan to SLI before even thinking of going 4k.

Take a look at Horizonz's benchmarks (https://testsquadron.com/threads/star-citizen-benchmarks-r9-fury-x-vs-980ti.4891/) from when he ran 4k on a single 980Ti and he was only getting an av of 28fps in hanger.

980TI - G1 Gaming Edition by Gigabyte: (single card) - 4K Resolution

STAR CITIZEN FPS MEAN RESULTS "G1 Gaming 980TI"
(benchmarks were taken 5 times for each and then mean times were taken from results)

Star Citizen ( Hanger - Retaliator - walk around ) = Avg: 28.3 --- Min: 25 --- Max: 32
Star Citizen ( Broken Moon - Gladiator - fly around) = Avg: 26.5 --- Min: 24 --- Max: 31.4
Star Citizen ( Dying Star- Gladiator - fly around ) = Avg: 26 --- Min: 23 --- Max: 29.6

Temperature degrees *C - 58

glockjs · Sep 4, 2015

Ichiru said:
If running in 4k resolution then the issue with frame rate will definately be due to running on only one card. Even with a 980Ti I plan to SLI before even thinking of going 4k.

Take a look at Horizonz's benchmarks (https://testsquadron.com/threads/star-citizen-benchmarks-r9-fury-x-vs-980ti.4891/) from when he ran 4k on a single 980Ti and he was only getting an av of 28fps in hanger.

980TI - G1 Gaming Edition by Gigabyte: (single card) - 4K Resolution

STAR CITIZEN FPS MEAN RESULTS "G1 Gaming 980TI"
(benchmarks were taken 5 times for each and then mean times were taken from results)

Star Citizen ( Hanger - Retaliator - walk around ) = Avg: 28.3 --- Min: 25 --- Max: 32
Star Citizen ( Broken Moon - Gladiator - fly around) = Avg: 26.5 --- Min: 24 --- Max: 31.4
Star Citizen ( Dying Star- Gladiator - fly around ) = Avg: 26 --- Min: 23 --- Max: 29.6

Temperature degrees *C - 58

basically we are not ready for 4k. close but a gen or two off. 4k=4x 1080p weeeeee

dear OP. dont build around a game that's not finished yet.

also down the resolution or pay out the ass :D end message.

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