I feel it's way too early to do anything to your PC for the sake of Pantheon, which won't come out until late next year at the earliest. As new stuff comes out, last generation's high-end becomes mid-range and prices are adjusted, so you'll definitely be able to do more for the same price than if you go out and upgrade today.
I don't expect to upgrade much of anything personally, since I built my current PC not two years ago with pretty high specs at the time. It should play Pantheon at max settings, but if it doesn't I might consider some choice upgrades. Also, the main reason I don't do 4K is because I play on my TV, which is limited to 1080p and I don't want to replace it until it gives up the ghost. It's going on 10 years now, so you never know... I might need to pick up a new one and go for 4K/HDR then, which might force me to consider upgrading the GPU as well.
Now, if I had an older rig that needed some boosts and didn't want to go all out on a completely new rig, this is what I'd do, by order of priority:
- Swap the HDD for an SDD, if you don't already have one. Read/write speads on SDDs are an order of magnitude better than on HDDs and it makes a huge difference on system boot and game loading times. SATA SSDs are still much faster than HDDs, but ideally (if your motherboard supports it) you would want to go with a PCIe SSD. While they're expensive, you can still keep your HDD for large scale storage and go with a smaller but much faster SSD to install your OS and games.
- Have a comfortable amount of RAM. I'm pretty certain Pantheon will be a 64-bit application, so the 4 GB limit that used to exist in 32-bit programs shouldn't be an issue. How beneficial more RAM will be depends on the game being well optimised, of course, but I would expect a good amount - 16 GB seems quite reasonable nowadays - will reduce the need to read from HDD/SSD and speed things up, especially in situations with many assets/players/effects.
- Consider if you need to upgrade your GFX card. Because MMOs have so much stuff going on and can become very taxing on even fast systems, the graphics are usually not as heavy as on other games, otherwise many people would need to play with greatly reduced settings. I expect my current GPU - a 980TI - should be able to run Pantheon at 1080p at max settings. If you absolutely want 4K resolution or 100+ fps you may need a beefier GPU. Still, the very highest-end cards sell for a pretty big premium compared to more mid-range ones, so maybe wait for launch and check out other players' feedback for your use case to decide if you need an upgrade, and which GPU to upgrade to if that's the case.
- I would consider switching your CPU last because it usually means also replacing your motherboard and sometimes your RAM. Also, most games are GPU-bound rather than CPU-bound, with MMOs also depending heavily on connection quality to the servers. Again, I would wait until the game is out to see if your current CPU can handle it, and check user feedback on the benefits of faster CPUs. If the bottleneck is something else, a CPU + Motherboard + RAM can be as expensive as a mid- to high-range GPU, and it might not do much for you in the end.
dorotea said:Zewtastic (or anyone else) have you played MMOs in 4K?
I've heard that it doesn't much improve the looks (at least on older games not made with 4K in mind) but reduces framerate quite a bit because of the higher native resolution.
Does this match your experience?
Second question for anyone familiar with Unity - whatever 4K does for games like LOTRO or EQ2 or Rift or SWTOR is it likely to improve the looks of a Unity game?
I am trying to talk myself into a 4K monitor and a video card or cards to support it - but so far I have rolled my savings throws.
That's exactly the way it is. 4k right now isn't that great for gaming but is fine for other media and static images, even the best graphics cards out now struggle to hit a steady 60 fps at 4k. Sure you can lower the settings for better frame rates in games...but I feel that defeats the purpose of gaming in 4k vs 1440p. Next gen of video cards should be able to handle it.
Personally for gaming I'd take higher refresh rate at 1440p over 4k for now. I didn't belive the hype around 144hz free/G-sync but after getting one it makes a lot more of a difference than I ever noticed from a step upward in resolution.
Iksar said:dorotea said:Zewtastic (or anyone else) have you played MMOs in 4K?
I've heard that it doesn't much improve the looks (at least on older games not made with 4K in mind) but reduces framerate quite a bit because of the higher native resolution.
Does this match your experience?
Second question for anyone familiar with Unity - whatever 4K does for games like LOTRO or EQ2 or Rift or SWTOR is it likely to improve the looks of a Unity game?
I am trying to talk myself into a 4K monitor and a video card or cards to support it - but so far I have rolled my savings throws.
That's exactly the way it is. 4k right now isn't that great for gaming but is fine for other media and static images, even the best graphics cards out now struggle to hit a steady 60 fps at 4k. Sure you can lower the settings for better frame rates in games...but I feel that defeats the purpose of gaming in 4k vs 1440p. Next gen of video cards should be able to handle it.
Personally for gaming I'd take higher refresh rate at 1440p over 4k for now. I didn't belive the hype around 144hz free/G-sync but after getting one it makes a lot more of a difference than I ever noticed from a step upward in resolution.
I beg to differ. My machine (utilizing an eVGA overclocked, and water cooled nVidia 1080) plays Doom 2017 in 4k nightmare graphics mode at 60fps just fine. It also plays the Prey 2017 reboot at 4k 60fps just fine too.
Tralyan said:Iksar said:Going to build a brand new top end PC maybe a month from launch, until then my old rig should hold up fine. Likely going to be a full AMD/Ryzen build, hopefully the next AMD GPU is out by then as I am mostly unimpressed with the specs/reviews of Vega, but I want to be able to continue taking advantage of my freesync monitor in the future.
Tralyan said:Poll for the masses. For someone like myself that has no idea how to build a PC himself, and has no local friends that would be willing to help, should I look to purchase a new one at a retail outlet, or a pre-built gaming PC through a forum like Craigslist?
It isn't very hard to build a PC these days. I remember being terrified building my first one only to find it not so bad, I thought I would break a delicate part or something but it turns out the components are all very sturdy.
Attach CPU to motherboard, attach heatsink/fan to CPU housing, slot the RAM in, mount motherboard to tower, slot in GPU, attach hard drives, put power supply in and plug in the various cables, make sure all cables plugged in including fans/audio, close case, boot PC. If it doesn't boot then troubleshoot. Only time I had one not boot was because it turned out the wire connected to the tower's power button was nicked, so I had to turn it on manually with the motherboard.
It's not so much the building of it that scares me, as it is the deciding on which parts to use for the building.
I mean, I don't know what motherboard works best with what video card or what the difference is between types of RAM or how big of a power supply I'll need or how that's even determined. Nor do I know if anything I just said makes even a modicum of sense.
The idea of purchasing parts for a new computer, only to have them not work, or to have them work but not be optimal for my overall build, is what deters me from attempting.
Try building one, you never know you may enjoy it!! As Iskar mentioned you can use pcparts picker, which is essentially a website you can list your theoretical build while having the benefit of linking the site with the cheapist listed price for your components. It can be a bit intimidating at first, I just built my first pc last week, but it's definetly rewarding using a machine I built myself.
Google lifehacker pc build, they have a few decent guides for different price level builds, I loosely followed the 600$ build while upgrading some different components. Just read and join a few forums, that way if you have any questions you can always ask.
I believe I'm doing nothing for pre-alpha :D
First off, VR needs feedback from computers from every level (I believe mine is in the mid-lower teir bracket at current date D: )
Secondly: my pc build thread: here (poorly named and burried in the sands or time because of this! This thread is a much moe appropriately named thread)
My specs (built in 2012) (going to upgrade next year (maybe next next year) I think) (In actuality this means near release);
CPU: AMD FX-8150 black edition 8 core (cooled with a Cooler Master V8) (Used Arctic Silver 5 Thermal paste)
MB: ASUS Crosshair V Formula
GPU: Asus GTX 760 (2GB) (Originally Asus GTX 560TI
Memory: 16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 (went lower end to save a bit of money :P)
PSU: Corsair TX750 (I'd like to go modular for my next build xD)
Case: Corsair 780t case with 6 corsair AF120 fans, and stock rear exhaust fan (upgraded from an Old Sentey GS-6400W)
HDD: Samsung HD 850 EVO 500GB SSD, WD greed 320GB (original drive), WD 2TB My Passport Ultra (Portable drive)
Peripherals:
Speakers: Logitech z960 5.1 (Originally (from my very first custom PC) Z640 5.1 (but they eventually wore out from way to many moves (LAN parties)))
Headset: Logitech G933 (TBH got this in part to complete the latest Logitech G series :P I know there are probably better (they work great for watching videos, without a cord, on my phone while I work!))
Mouse: Logitech G900 (previous G502 broke (Originally Logitech G500 broke)) (I might be rought with mice? I dont think I am but this is not a good track record)
Keyboard: Logitech G910 (Originally Logitech G510 (broke over the years))
Monitor: Asus VH242H (I want to upgrade to a 4k on my next build but they are still quite expensive, hopefully they come down when I do upgrade) (this is something I desperatly need to replace in next build!)
I dont expect to upgrade until near launch date, hoping for "Volta" GPU's at least!
A few games I like to play are starting to be modded to a point that makes this PC seriously struggle, >30 fps type stuggle, is making the hold out hard to tolerate! (and these are not crazy games I mean Fallout 4 modded (currently 125+ mods, 2-4k textures))
I think the system is preforming admirably with what I'm asking from it, and I would like to honour it as a "wall build" when I build my next system :D
The main reason why I built a new computer, of stupid high specs, was because my main machine was a laptop, and I hadn't built a new computer since like 2008, so it was time....heheheh This one, however, I will keep fairly up to date as my son-in-law wants my hand-me-downs.....hehehe
I bought a new pc to get ready for this game (it was time anyway). 4k & VR ready. I play dual monitors, so 1 is currently 4k ready and will get another with the holiday specials coming up. My rule of thumb is to upgrade every 2 yrs if if I can. Then I "gift" the old ones to friends/family members who can't afford to upgrade as often. :) I keep the os & drivers up to date. Should be good to go.
