Upgrade of PC to run CoD Properly
 

As most posters have previously reported, the tweaks required to run this game adequately are sometimes mind-boggling. I have followed many threads and have certainly achieved the best possible "playable" settings on my current system. So, thanks to everyone for the input and advice. It is without doubt that, whatever problem one has, there is somebody out there who has had the same issue or has solved it.

However, I have decided to upgrade my motherboard and processor to the best spec I can afford. Currently I am running Windows 7 64 on a 2Ghz AMD Phenom Dual Core processor with one VTX Radeon 6970 card. I can acheive acceptable FPS rates of 20+ average but only if I create a mission in the builder with not too many AI planes and/or ground items. If I try to run the set missions the FPS rates fall dramatically to below 10 with annoying stuttering. I have not tried to fly on-line as yet.

I am due to upgrade to a 3.6Ghz AMD FX-8150 processor and a Gigabyte 990FXA motherboard and waiting for the parts to be delivered. I will ask the "shop" to put the system together for me using existing hard drives, 750watt power supply etc. I also intend to get another 6970 card and apply the Crossfire technology. I will start off with a minimum of 16Gb RAM although the board will take up to 32!

One big question worries me. As I understand it from reading up in the forums, CoD only uses one core of the processor? So am I going very much over the top with this purchase or will it run the game with ease?

I know I am throwing a lot of cash at this but I want (need!) a system that really gets the best out of the game because I love it - 1946 was great but CoD is potentially graphically excellent. Before I finally commit to this upgrade, can I ask for feedback on the pros and cons of the processor/Crossfire combination?

Thanks.

S!

Luthier has stated they have improved the use of multiple cores in recent patches even the RTS option is not in conf.ini anymore. So you should be just fine. CrossFire can cause stutters and all, but seems that those with CrossFire use the LostPlanet2-profile in the settings and it helps. I still use a single card due all the problems SLI/CrossFire seems to induce in games. I also linked 12.7 beta drivers for AMD, they work nicely with CoD as well.

Have fun with your rig :) It should be enough to run CoD easily.

I would forget about the FX-8150 right now, it might have alot of cores but despite that it performs outright horrible compared to similar priced Intel processors.
CLOD does use multiple cores btw, even if it's not to their full capacity.
Just compare the gaming (and other) scores in this,or any other, test with a FX-8150 and a I5 3570K : http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpu...k-cpu-review/6

A good motherboard for a 3570K would be something based on the intel Z77 chipset.
Personally I like Asus, but others are fine too. Depending on the features you want and overclocking you plan on anything from a ASUS Maximus V Gene down to a ASUS P8Z77-V LX will do.
Compared to your planned Gigabyte it will give you PCI-E 3.0, allowing for a graphics upgrade further down the road without bottlenecking it.
Throw in a good CPU-cooler and those I5's easily hit 4.5GHZ.

A single 6970 like you have now is also enough to run CLOD at pretty high settings at a resolution of 1920x1200 and will do even better at lower resolutions. Add in some quircks and bugs with Crossfire and CLOD, and you are probably better off saving money.
Can always use it to get a new generation graphics card in 2013 or spend it right now on a SSD harddrive, which will help windows and CLOD load faster and give you a more responsive PC in general. Samsung 830 series are really good for their money and a 128GB one will do if it's just for the OS and games (and you don't have tons of games you want to have installed all at once).
Most people who installed a SSD say it's the best upgrade they ever did, and once you've used a SSD system pretty much any regular HDD system will feel sluggish in comparison.

Finally, be sure to compare prices rigorously as some shops are alot more expensive than others.
http://skinflint.co.uk/?m=1 Should give you an idea about prices...just remember to also pick a shop with good RMA (hopefully a fellow Brit can help you here).
Building the thing yourself could also save you some money which would be better spent on beer or slightly better parts. If you've ever built a Meccano kit and can follow a step by step manual it's a cakewalk really.
First time will be a bit stressfull, but just follow the motherboard manual's steps and not much can go wrong.

Oh and have you the deleted Logo.wmv file in your install? It buggers up most ATI cards and stops them from clocking up to 3D speeds..with luck it might allow you to get 30FPS on your current system. So be sure to check this aswell and remember to do it on your new system too.
It just removes the Ubi logo at startup, so don't worry about it messing anything else up.
In your Steam folder, go to "SteamApps\common\il-2 sturmovik cliffs of dover\parts\core\GUI". Rename "Logo.wmv" to any random name (or outright delete it).


Hope this helps a bit and you end up a happy CLOD pilot :)
and kinda praying you didn't order that FX-8150 allready.. ;(

^ +1

http://guru3d.com/article/amd-fx-815...ssor-review/19
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4955/t...x8150-tested/8
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpu...-8150-review/9

And if you want to stay with AMD anyway, better go with much cheaper
960T, 1050T or FX-4100 because you will not gain anything in CloD with 8150.
Revision of Buldozer(Piledriver) should get out Q3(Q4?) this year and I hope it will be much better and competitive with Intel CPUs so you can upgrade later.

As an alternative viewpoint to the endless Intel hype everywhere :evil:, I would suggest the FX-8120 instead of the FX-8150. If you understand how processors are rated, you would realise that the essential differences between the two are the default settings for the multipliers (which are unlocked anyway). I should point out that both of these were released with multipliers set way too low, and need to be overclocked to get the best out of them. If you are reluctant to do this, then the FX-8150 would be a better choice, as it will run CloD at 3.90GHz (state P1) by default.

I use AMD OverDrive (AOD) for overclocking, and it really is very simple. This also allows me to keep all the power saving features enabled, which is beneficial with Bulldozer, particularly at higher clocks. Subsequent BIOS updates for my mobo have also improved performance as manufacturers have come to grips with how BD operates, which should improve in future. If you are considering going this route, PM me and we can discuss it further, or we can do it here and maybe provide some enlightenment in the sea of Intel blue :-P

CloD currently loads all eight cores at about 30% on my cpu, and performance is very good (one of the benefits of the DirectX 11 API). This wasn’t the case before the latest beta update, where it couldn’t quite match that of my previous 3.80GHz Phenom-II 965. Even at times when the frame rate is lower (eg, over London), it is very smooth with very little in the way of stutters. Hopefully the next update will improve things further.

Multi-gpu’s are currently not much of a benefit in CloD, although some users have reported some success. I know that they have stated that this will be fully supported at some point, but I would suggest holding off on going this route at the moment.

Even though I am a died-in-the-wool AMD fan, I would also suggest a 3570k (or 2500k if they’re available) if you wanted to take the safest route – this cpu is in excess of what you would require to run any game, and should reasonably last a long time (I detest the company, not necessarily their products). You would also not need to overclock it to at the best out of it, which is currently the case with BD.

But Bulldozer is not nearly as poor a performer as most would have you believe. Just to add to the review links:

http://www.hardwareheaven.com/review...roduction.html

Piledriver is still using the AM3+ socket and even the newly designed 1090FX chipset will lack PCI-E 3.0...though that might be rectified with a future revision.
Even worse, it looks like it won't be competitive, the mobile version of Piledriver (Trinity) has allready been benched and proven to be slow compared to Sandy/Ivy Bridge's mobile offerings.
So it's likely Piledriver itself will be no match either.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5831/a...m-a-new-hope/5

It's Integrated Graphics solution is faster than Intel's, but that's irrelevant to gamers with dedicated graphics cards like us.
So I'd say it's not worth waiting for that.
Think we'd all like AMD to be competitive again but I don't see it happening with Piledriver.

@TonyD, I'm 100% neutral to either company and just look for the best performer or best performance/price, and right now AMD just can't compete unless you want a budget PC.
I Loved my Athlon 700, 1100, 1700+ and Barton 3200+, but after the "Core" design Intel just took over and kept leading the way.
Luckily ATI is still competitive, but even they are sliding downhill now.
I can see AMD as a company get into deep trouble unless they release a winning design next year, preferrably a CPU as that's where the real volume is. They had a massive restructuring quite recently ,then massive delays with Bulldozer which ended up slow and sold bad.
Their marketshare keeps dropping and unless it get's turned around somehow I fear we're headed to a de facto Intel/Nvidia duopoly with high prices and little/slower innovation. :x

@ Warhound: I beg to differ. It also really depends on what you do with your pc. If I had the time and inclination, I could selectively choose benchmarks that favour either cpu to prove one is better than the other, and Anandtech is probably the worst (best?) example of Intel bias there is on the ‘net.

I did spend a fair bit of time reading up before deciding, and one of the articles that made up my mind was this one: http://www.overclock.net/t/1210060/f...chmark-results (although it degenerated into an argument that needed to be locked – sound familiar? :)) This showed how close the two were overall when overclocked to the same speed.

I also have the benefit of being able to do a direct comparison between my son’s Core i5 2500k and mine, using whatever benchmark I choose. I therefore do not have to rely on finding a website that may compare programs relevant to me, as I can do this myself. Currently my performance matches his in everything I have tested, but needs a higher frequency to do so (except for CloD, where having 8 cores does provide an advantage). Since the 2500k is widely considered to be the best gaming cpu you can buy (or its 3570k replacement, which is no faster), having an AMD cpu that matches it means that I have the best gaming cpu money can buy (not bad for a ‘budget pc’)

The other aspect to consider is that you do not need a very fast cpu for a game station, just one that is adequately fast. You get far better value by spending more on a fast graphics card than a fast cpu, as most games are gpu bound. It certainly isn’t detrimental having a fast cpu, it’s just not as beneficial as some would have you believe. A Core i3 2130 with a GTX680 will run every game you try faster than a Core i7 3770k with a HD7950, and cost the same (just as an example).

Lots to learn . . .
 

Thanks for your very detailed responses. I suppose I am sticking with AMD because I have got used to it and using Catalyst. I know that Intel (mostly) perform better than the AMD but from what some of you are saying the 8120 or 8150 will run the program.

Now I have concerns about the graphics cards and Crossfire link up. I am not sure how this works technically and just assumed that the cards would share any processing and therefore enhance the output. It seems from your comments that CoD actually needs to know that it has linked cards and, at present, doesn't handle it very well? I will have to wait and see as I have already got the two cards (both are 2Gb).

As far as the Motherboard and Processor are concerned, the shop (they are a good place and a few of my friends have used them for years) has got the stuff in for me but I will definitely share the comments and advice you have all given me with them to see what they think before I commit.

Still a minefield for me but I am a fast learner! :confused:

Also, I would like to run it without overclocking as the process worries me somewhat. Perhaps, once I am up and running with whatever rig I end up with I can post again about performance etc and, if need be, consult about specific overclocking if required?

Thanks again for advice and comment.

Tony D - Gigabyte 990FXA-UD5 | AMD FX-8120 | MSI HD6970 | 8GB Corsair DDR-III 1866 | Win7 Pro 64-bit. Your spec seems similar to what I am going to have:
Gigabyte 990FXA-UD7 - AMD FX-8150 - VTX Radeon HD 6970 (2gb) x2 - 16Gb DDR3 RAM (not sure what manufacturer yet?) - Win 7 Home Premium 64-bit - Track IR5 - joystick (no pedals as yet)

Taking comments on board
 

I am planning to visit the shop this pm with my PC. I have printed out this thread and will address your comments when I speak to them.

Thanks again for the advice.

Damnit just wrote a whole post and had it vanish..i'll try to recap everything quickly.

-Noone said the 8150 won't run it ,just that for the same money you could get some extra FPS.
Also don't worry about changing brands, Catalyst is the software your ATI-cards use so it won't affect your CPU in any way and you won't have to relearn a thing.

-I'd even stick with the 8150 if you had the shop preorder all those parts. By asking this and having them buy them for you... you commited yourself by your word, even if you haven't paid yet.
Ignore this if you're buying out of stock.

-Might need a stronger PSU if you use crossfire and plan to overclock the CPU later on. 2 6970's will draw 500Wattt combined under load, and an highly OC'd 8150 will draw about the same.
Add some periphirals like USB , harddisks, DVD-drive etc and 750Watt will be insufficient.
Also if you have some extra cash to burn, strongly consider an SSD as the general windows experience will be night and day difference, aswel as CLOD loadingtimes without having to fiddle with RAM-drives and the likes.

There that's the gist of it, hope you still read this before heading off.
And please let us know your experiences once everything is up and running. :-)

Power Supply & SSD
 

Thanks Warhound.

Yeah, I do feel kinda committed as they have got the board and processor in for me. However, I am prepared to negotiate given the wealth of input you have given me.

I think the SSD is a good idea and I will enquire about a more robust PSU.

Question - I wanted to avoid reinstalling everything - I have Win 7 on one drive and XP on the other running 1946 very well. Can they simply copy all the data from the HDD onto the new SSD and can I get away with just one SSD and be able to switch from a Win 7 partition to an XP partition? In which case I would need a higher capacity?

I wouldn’t recommend this – the new board and cpu will require different drivers to your current installation, and Windows will ask for re-activation because of this. It can be done (I have done something similar with Win7 before), but a fresh install will be a great deal better.

XP will most likely only work if you go through the installation repair routine, which entails starting the repair install on the old system, switching it off when it re-boots and change to the new machine with the same HDD, start it up again and let it continue. You would then need to use a disk cloning utility to copy the XP partition onto the new drive, preferably into the first partition of the drive. Win7 can be cloned onto the second partition, but you may need to edit the boot image if it isn’t currently on the same partition on the old drive.

The above should work, but you’ll only know on completion. In the end, there are no shortcuts to a good installation.

And I agree with Warhound about the power supply - depending how much you overclock, BD can be very power hungry, and a 750W will be insufficient (are you sure that you really want a second HD6970?)

No, at this moment in time I am not sure about the Crossfire with two cards. I may see what I get from just the one card first?

Bloody 'ell, I didn't realise it would be so complicated to sort all of this out. Perhaps I will hold off the upgrade to an SSD until later. One step at a time eh!

Will keep you posted.:rolleyes:

In progress
 

As anticipated I am morally obliged to stay with the Gigabyte board and AMD 8150 processor - rightly or wrongly, for better, for worse etc.

Also, I have taken your advice and moved to a 1050w Power supply (very necessary if Crossfire is to be utilised with both cards) and I have gone for a SSD 240Gb drive. Since I am effectively buying a new rig, it basically means I will get my old PC back as a usable/saleable bit of kit which will help offset the additional cost of the upgrade. I also have an ASUS HD 6770 Radeon card that I can sell.

We had issues finding a suitable case that would take the two cards and an additional fan for cooling with the power supply sitauated at the top. I am reliably informed that the power supply can interfere with the card cooling if too close at the base of the case? That's a new one on me! I am limited to the amount of space the case can take up due to a custom built computer station so a case over 500mm tall was out of the question.

I am confident that the "shop" will adequately stress test the rig before handing it over. Interestingly, they hadn't come across CLOD before so, perhaps it will help them to experience the difficulties we are all having. If they come up with radical and successful solutions (using Crossfire for example) you will be the first to know.

It will be a few days before I get it back so watch this space.

I bought a Corsair Carbide 500R case and H100 cooler when I built my new system because I wanted to avoid cooling issues altogether, and the case has a pre-designed mounting for the radiator in the top (bottom mounted psu). This case has plenty of room for multiple graphics cards, both width and length, and is almost exactly 500mm tall. I too have a customised stand and am limited for space – my case has 20mm clearance at the top, and my monitor about 6mm each side, so everything just fits.

A bottom mounted psu shouldn’t interfere with gfx card cooling as the inlet would be at the base of the case with the exhaust out of the rear, so I’m not sure what they are referring to. Most modern gaming cases have the psu situated this way as this permits large exhaust fans/radiator mounting at the top.

You’ll find a number of reviews on the ’net ( http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/C...de_500R/1.html , http://www.guru3d.com/article/corsai...e-500r-review/ ), but they seem to favour the white model for pictures (mine’s the black one). I have built a number of custom machines in the past, and my opinion of this one is that it compares favourably with some costing twice as much (CoolerMaster HAF-X for eg.), both in terms of quality of construction and function.

Best Case that fits all criteria
 

Settled on the Enermax Staray Midi=ATX Tower. Right overall size and plenty of room inside. Price was not the main issue and this was very reasonable. I nearly went for a much larger case and more expensive, but had visions of major carpentry required on my desk and consequently a horrific vision of extra work put me off.

I am not sure about the PWS position issue either. As I think I understand it, the PWS fan is reasonably powerful compared to the GPU fans and MAY win the battle in terms of available airflow if too close. In some cases we looked at the VTX card I have would have been very adjacent. Obviously this applies more when having two cards in place - no point having a case that can't accommodate both GPUs if eventually fitted.

I suppose, since I have the two cards I can at least test on a single card basis and on the Crossfire set-up. That may prove interesting and will illustrate/confirm some of your concerns. If little or no improvement or disruption with "stuttering" occurs with both cards installed, then I can always leave one out and either keep it on the backburner or sell it.

Up and Running
 

I now have the new PC and have tentatively run some programs including 1946 and COD. There is a definite improvement across the board. 1946 in XP really "flies" (excuse the pun!) on max settings without a glitch, stutter or flashing with Crossfire enabled but I am not sure if the program is pushing the GPUs to high performance at all.

COD (win 7 64) runs much better than before (obviously with the capability of the new rig). But, I am experiencing the same old familiar problems that many posters have remarked upon in the past. COD runs well enough on one card (Crossfire disabled) at 35 to 70 fps on higher settings than before. I have only tried a couple of Mission Builder scenarios that I set up and have played regularly in the past so that gives me a direct comparison. There are not many AI planes or ground items in these missions and I have used one of the "island" maps which is also much "smaller" in data terms than the full southern England map.

With Crossfire enabled I am getting some stuttering and the rivers, in particular, are flashing quite badly. As discussed here I have renamed the Ubisoft logo file and have set up Crossfire to run with the Lost Planet settings. I will continue to experiment to get the best out of it.

Some forum members are helpful in terms of BIOS set up etc. I believe the Beta patch(es) for COD can improve performance but, thus far, I have not tried to download anything because I am not sure which is best and where exactly to obtain them from.

I will hopefully get used to the system over the next few days and any input would be helpful.

Gigabyte 990FXA-UD7 - AMD FX-8150 - VTX Radeon HD 6970 (2gb) x2 - 16Gb DDR3 RAM - Win 7 Home Premium 64-bit - Track IR5 - Logitech joystick

New Rig Pics
 

Attached are pics of the new rig.

It has already been pointed out to me that the RAM should be installed in slots 2 and 4 (as seen to the right of the processor) and this has been changed.

Also, as suggested, I should add an additional fan at the rear of the case to extract warm air.

Looking good! Those two cards look awesome together :)

S!

Looks great :) For the CrossFire try out the Lost Planet 2 profile with IL-2 Cliffs Of Dover. Some have said it helps a bit. Also remember to disable or remove the UBI Soft logo. It causes AMD GPU clocks not to kick in properly when entering 3D. Look under X:\..\steam\steamapps\common\il-2 sturmovik cliffs of dover\parts\core\GUI\

Tried that
 

Thanks Flanker,

Interestingly I did try the Lost Planet profile as discussed in this forum. I do take notice of what you guys recommend;)

However, the sky was just flickering constantly. So, I experimented and tried other profiles after downloading the latest CAP from AMD and randomly found that the Warhammer Space Marine profile worked perfectly. I was on max settings and getting 35+ FPS all the time with no stutters, flickers or anything.

The only problem I could find was that the lettering in Mission Builder was all "fuzzy" but still readable. Once the game was started it was fine. On leaving the game I disabled Crossfire in ATI Catalyst and went into my Windows Live Mail - the lettering in the menu sections was "fuzzy" but the email notes themselves were crystal clear? Will have to play around with display settings to sort that out.

For your interest I have attached the ATI Catalyst settings that I applied to the profile.

This is due to the Morphological filtering setting - it tries to AA everything (one of its draw-backs). I use SMAA instead (search for one of Buchon's posts, he has a link in his sig), which gives (relatively) good results with no performance hit. I'm not sure if you can change an individual setting in a selected X-fire profile while it's active, but if you can de-select this option you'll find that the fuzziness disappears.

Thanks
 

Good to know there's someone still looking over my shoulder:)

Green smoke and ground dust?
 

My new rig is performing very well. I have tried various settings and AMD CAP profiles. As expected, the Lost Planet 2 profile seems best graphically but the screen does stutter quite a lot when Crossfire is enabled. If I try other profiles (i.e. Space Marine, World of Warcraft) the stuttering is less but sometimes I get green smoke, green gun smoke and ground dust? Is that to do with the various profiles and how they treat colour individually? When I clear the cache it sometimes reverts to normal but not consistently? Any ideas what may be happening?

The good news is that I can now fly on max settings achieving FPS rates of 60 + most of the time. I am using Speedfan to show GPU and CPU temperatures on a separate monitor linked by HDMI and max GPU has been 65 degrees and max CPU 55 degrees - is that acceptable?

The Gigabyte Easytune 6 software wouldn't install successfully - do I need to look into the BIOS at all? I don't know enough about BIOS settings and I am fearful of changing anything without real knowledge.

I have installed the latest 1.07 patch and SMAA.

Green Smoke sussed - I think?
 

Since I installed the 1.07 Beta patch it seems that any missions I created before the install are "corrupted" slightly and the green smoke/dust appears. When I start a normal Single player game everything is normal. I will create a new mission and see if that is indeed the problem to prove the issue.

Any others experienced this?

S!

Sometimes I have seen this greenish smoke, but random phenomenom only. If I had a second 7970HD I could experiment a bit more, but more than happy on the performance of one already :) GHz Edition is on it's way unless something interesting pops up :)

Plan to reinstall COD
 

One thing I haven't done is reinstall COD from scratch - I have the CD that the missus bought me (and has regretted it ever since 'cos I spend so much time either playing or tweaking!!)

This paragraph from one of the posts intrigues me:- "*Reinstalling The Game after the latest patch has proven to be a performance booster."

I have recently installed the latest 1.07 patch. If I reinstall the game as suggested, do I uninstall first - in which case what happens to the patch tweaks? - or just reinstall over what I have and everything will fall into place? I gather a new Beta patch is due imminently.

Will I lose missions that I have created? I am still getting green smoke and dust in Mission Builder files whether old ones or newly created. Is there a fix for this. Nothing I do with CCC settings makes any difference. The standard Single player games are fine?

I also have Buchon's SMAA installed. I assume I just reinstall the files after the program is installed?

Would appreciate some guidance (again!).

Thanks