What operating system to use with a new rig?

[Heliocon]

Originally Posted by naz

Perhaps I was being a tad harsh on the guy with the "2nd hand car salesman" reference, however, he does seem to be uninformed on the needs of a gaming rig...and at the end of the day, it is your money being spent.

The computer you are using now is pretty much the same as one of my previous rigs, except that I had a better video card (I cant remember which one to be honest, it was a while ago now). I was able to run IL2 fine with that and a big you-beaut flash top end video card at the time, however I reckon you'd definitely struggle with COD with that setup.

One thing you can and probably should do is transfer your current sound card over to the new rig...that will save you a little bit of coin. You could also transfer over your CD and DVD drives as well, but to be honest, they are so cheap nowadays that its probably better to just go with a new total system that is pre built. Depending on what video card etc you go with you "may" be able to keep the power source and the case as well but the beefier video cards need a big power supply so you would need to be sure if the current power supply can handle the card (and that it has the correct "plugs" to fit with the card).

To be honest, depending on your budget, you may as well just bite the bullet and get an entire new system if you are not sure how to transfer the components over yourself or are unsure of what components are going to be compatible with the new system. Its pretty hard to advise what to keep and what to change unless you are confident enough to be able to figure out what can be kept and to do a lot of the assembling and transferring over yourself.

I suppose it really comes down to how much you are prepared to spend mate. I admit I am not good at holding on to my money when it comes to upgrading. I am quite lazy so I tend to just bite the bullet and buy most components that are near the top end (but not at the top) of the scale. I do, however, generally splurge on the top end video card. Overall, at least I know I will be able to run all the newer games without much hassle. I just look around a fair bit to compare prices to be aware of how much I should be paying....I am sure you could buy a rig that is not at the top end but will still run the game fine, but to be honest, i am probably not the best person to advise you on that, given I have not really done the research and don't know what will give you the best bang for your buck. There are plenty of sites that review the various components however and you might get some good insights from a quick reading of them. Even if you (and I) don't understand all the technical references, you will still get enough of an idea from the reviews.

Off the top of my head; http://www.overclockers.com.au/ and http://www.tomshardware.com/ are decent review sites that I have used in the past and have gotten enough of an understanding of what I was buying to make an informed choice.

For what its worth, my rig is as follows;
Intel Core i7 950
Gigabyte EX58-UD5 m/board
6 Gig RAM
ATI Radeon 5970 Vid card
Win 7 64

That was reasonably beefy just over a year ago when I got it and it runs every game I have fluidly. For example, Shogun 2:Total War is a new release and it still runs flawlessly (@1920x1200 screen resolution) on my rig with all settings set to max.,,so fingers crossed, I should be right for COD.

Why not hold off on upgrading immediately mate? The game is out in less than two weeks (in Australia). I am sure there will be plenty of discussion from people on the various forums as to how COD runs on various setups. Perhaps then you might be more informed as to what system specifications will best suit your budget whilst being able to run the game at settings acceptable to you?

I have pre ordered COD on steam as well, so I will be happy to let you know how it runs on my system once I have had a go.

Yea but Shogun 2 is currently only running with DX9 and non Anti-Aliasing.

But Les and naz gave some really solid advice here. Unfortunetly many pc assemblers at stores really know very little about what they are selling as a finished machine, in the end many of them are salesmen. Thats why I would never buy a premade / shelf pc, because they like to list all the cool sounding and powerful hardware in the computer on their list, but conveniently leave out the fact that one part of another is very cheap because thats their profit margin. Unfortunetly with pcs there has to be a balance, because the weakest link in the chain (slowest component) slows the whole computer down to its speed.

Also onboard graphics is a giant no no. Same with sound although some people dont care about low quality sound, low quality onboard graphics however will be a big spoiler.

[naz]

Just to clarify, when I refer to "pre-made" I actually mean you selecting the components you want (albeit using the "gaming systems" from a shop like the one I referred you to as a helpful starting point or a good base -- Most of these stores will allow you to chop and change components even within their prebuilt systems) and then letting them assemble it all and test it for you if you are unable to do so yourself.

Like Heliocon, I would never buy a shelf system from most "mom and pop" stores or somewhere like Harvey Norman etc. ... and certainly not from a retired guy working from home who suggests on board video for a gaming rig, no matter how good his intentions may be.

Hope I have been of some help mate.

[timholt]

[/QUOTE]For what its worth, my rig is as follows;
Intel Core i7 950
Gigabyte EX58-UD5 m/board
6 Gig RAM
ATI Radeon 5970 Vid card
Win 7 64

Why not hold off on upgrading immediately mate? The game is out in less than two weeks (in Australia). I am sure there will be plenty of discussion from people on the various forums as to how COD runs on various setups. Perhaps then you might be more informed as to what system specifications will best suit your budget whilst being able to run the game at settings acceptable to you?
[/QUOTE]

Naz,
good advice I think and probably the best way to go. I have spent biggest part of the last 2 days trying to come to grips with all the various options for hardware and ended up with a pounding headache and no further advanced on any selection.
Do you perchance play Rise of Flight and if so how does your rig handle that?
And yes, I would be interested in how it handles CoD thanks.

[naz]

Yeah, I know exactly how you feel mate...I upgrade every 2 or three years and the computer parts and architecture all seem so to have changed so much each time I have had to delve into it.

It can really do your head in trying to learn or re-learn enough so you can be confident enough to even just know what it is you are buying! They way the various CPU and Video Card models are labelled are often so damn messy as well, so it just seems impossible to follow it sometimes.

I suppose it is a matter of breaking it down to the major components you need (CPU, motherboard, RAM, Video Card etc) and systematically going through them one by one to work out which is the best one for your budget...and which ones tie in together.

Actually, I can tell you what was a great help for me last time I upgraded. Go to a newsagent when you get a spare minute and buy a copy of an Australian gaming magazine called "PC Powerplay". I haven't looked at it for a while, but they used to have a section each month called the "Beast" which was a list of all the parts they would use to build the best monster gaming rig...if money was no object. Of course, that is way out of most of our price ranges, but they also had the same lists for lesser-beasts and budget beasts that would get you a great computer at a more realistic price. Anyway I used to look at those and they were extremely helpful in pointing me where to start.

I don't have RoF as yet but IL2 runs smooth as silk on my rig (my IL2 is heavily modded as well).

Again, good luck mate....you will eventually see some light at the end of the tunnel, and to be honest, its quite a sense of satisfaction when you have a nice rig running your favorite game smoothly, knowing you chose everything inside personally.

Cheers

[timholt]

Thanks again Naz, I shall check out the mag at the newsagents tomorrow for some (hopefully) enlightenment.
p.s. my rig also plays IL2-1946 on perfect smooth as silk. On RoF it starts to stutter if there are more than 3 or 4 a/c in the near vicinity. I have been hanging off upgrading waiting for CoD specs to be published. As it turned out they were a lot less than I expected, albeit minimum requirements, a sure way to get the unwary to purchase methinks.

[PeterPanPan]

Originally Posted by Heliocon

Dont need to do that. Win 7 has a "compatibility mode" which allows you to run software thats only compatible with older versions of windows. So I can choose to launch the software in compatibility mode for XP sp2 - and it emulates it. No need for dual boot

True, Win 7 does have that compatibility mode, but it's not 100%. I have just tried to to run some old accounting software in Win 7 and whilst it mainly works, there are a few bits in it which do not. The only way to be sure it will work 100% is within XP.

[naz]

Originally Posted by timholt

Thanks again Naz, I shall check out the mag at the newsagents tomorrow for some (hopefully) enlightenment.
p.s. my rig also plays IL2-1946 on perfect smooth as silk. On RoF it starts to stutter if there are more than 3 or 4 a/c in the near vicinity. I have been hanging off upgrading waiting for CoD specs to be published. As it turned out they were a lot less than I expected, albeit minimum requirements, a sure way to get the unwary to purchase methinks.

No worries mate. I always ignore the minimum requirements that game publishers give....in my experience, they always seem to be the bare minimum that will get only just get the game to run (but with pretty much everything ingame set to the lowest possible level). I'd probably use the "recommended" specs for the game as your lowest bar for an upgrade.

Let us know how you get on.

[Les]

I pretty much agree with the other comments made here. I did get the impression though your potential computer builder was referring to the on-board graphics of the new Intel Sandy Bridge CPU's. If so, they might be better than the on-board graphics you can get built into motherboards, but yes, you'd still want a dedicated graphics/video card if putting together a decent gaming system. The thing is, you might still end up getting one of those new Sandy Bridge CPU's (as they are pretty good), but only using it as a CPU, and not using it's in-built graphics processing ability.

As you said (?), if you put up a tentative list of what you're thinking of getting, after seeing how playable CloDo really is, I'm sure you'll get some feedback. No guaranteeing it'll make your decision-making any easier though.

[naz]

Originally Posted by Les

I did get the impression though your potential computer builder was referring to the on-board graphics of the new Intel Sandy Bridge CPU's. If so, they might be better than the on-board graphics you can get built into motherboards, but yes, you'd still want a dedicated graphics/video card if putting together a decent gaming system. The thing is, you might still end up getting one of those new Sandy Bridge CPU's (as they are pretty good), but only using it as a CPU, and not using it's in-built graphics processing ability.

Well, there you go...I must admit the video capability of the Sandy Bridge CPU had not crossed my mind. Just shows how out of touch with the new hardware one can get when only looking at it all every few years for upgrades ...perhaps I owe your guy an apology timholt!

As Les said though, you'd most likely still want a dedicated video card. You got some reading ahead of you old boy

[Heliocon]

This post from me is about 3-4 months old, it was copied and pasted into the thread for shogun to help players with their setups. Some of the info is a bit outdated and or could be twinked but it gives a good general rundown of components and I would say applies to COD well interms of the engine being scaled up in the future.

http://forums.totalwar.com/showthrea...ead-first-post)

Basic Guidline:


by: Heliocon

The Technical Staff of this forum did not make the following guideline, and its more for rating than buying any said hardware, always ask if a specific piece of hardware is good for your system by PMing me(hardwaremaster) or mentioning it in the thread.

This guide is for the following reason.
Shogun 2: Can my rig handle her, and if so what can I expect? Also if I am upgrading, what should I trend towards for future tw games and upgrade-ability in order to incrementally max out the graphics!


Basics: Shogun will run in DX9/10, and in DX11. DX9 is available in XP and up. DX10 and DX11 are avalable in Vista and Win 7.
DX9/10: You can expect modern game graphics, an improvement over NTW, but not a leap.

What do I need?: Minimum specs and/or:

GPU:

Nvidia = 8800 or 9800, these cards are DX9/10 capable, they give good performance. I would not go any lower then this. Mid to high range 200 series cards will also do the trick. If you dont want Dx11 but want better performance, consider SLI.

ATI = I know less about ATI but I would suggest Radeon HD 4000 series, aim for a 4800 for high range DX9/10 graphical quality. Consider CrossFire to improve performance.


CPU:

XP: A higher end dual core absolute minimum (Single core OCing doesnt gain much due to NM architecture heat, remember minimum specs are what you need to boot the game up and see moving pixels, so take them as exactly that: What do I need to play the game in the most simple way possible, lowest resolution and still be operable etc.), anything less will lead to likely very bad performance that cannot be remedied other then increasing the CPU clock or replacing it.
A better option is a intel i5 cpu, which gives you four threads (not hyperthreaded) or the AMD equivalent. XP does not handle multiple threads very well so a i7 would be a waste of money. For the AMD you want a AMD X4 Phenom, which has four cores but is par for par slower then Intel i5-i7 range.

Vista: Vista strains the system more then XP, but it also makes better use of threads and therefor gives bigger benefits for 4 core CPU's. I suggest a Intel i5-i7 (again) or a high range AMD x4 Phenom II.

Ram: This is simplified to assume people running vista/xp are on 32bit not 64bit which will be addressed for DX11. The maximum ram for XP 32bit is 4gb (which wont show as 4 due to system addressing ram ie, reserving ram for xp tasks and therefor unless your a techhead, improves performance but by buffing XP rather then programs).

XP: 2gb minimum, aim for 4gb of ddr2 ram (800mhz should do it).
Vista: 4gb of ddr2/ddr3 ram, 800mhz minimum. Vista is a system hog, it in many cases uses MORE rescources then Windows 7 does! At the same time the 32bit limits your upper end and therefor you get caught with a limited expansion ability, yet need for more rescources.


Windows 7-64bit + DX11: 64 bit is very much a must for win7. It allows the OS access to much much more power then 32 bit. With Win7 home max ram is 16gb, with higher tiers of win7 the cap moves to over 100gb. Win7 is the new "XP" and I would strongly suggest people to skip vista and move to Win7. Win7 also has DX11 Exclusively.

DX11: You can expect a major leap in graphical quality and performance. DX11 allows tessalation which will be applied to character models allowing a massive increase in geometry detail with less performance hit. This could and may also be used on terrain in and outside of the battle map. It also allows direct compute and physics enabling complex particle interaction such as volumetric clouds and fog that swirls when a horse runs through it for example, banners that ripple and move realistically when carried or when there is a wind along with particle effects such as dust and smoke, water effects such as dynamic interactive splashing when a soldier walks through a puddle/river. You can also expect substantially better quality shading/lighting with less performance hit, more light sources (like lanterns the troops hold and how the light interacts with the models geometry) and much improved performance for visuals with CPU's with more then 2 cores.

What you need:


GPU:
Nvidia = Nvidia 400 and 500 series are DX11 gpu's. Nvidia 400 series is no longer in serial production, its now 500s only. They use the same chip set but the 500 is redesigned to reduce heat, be more efficient and that enabled them to "turn on" parts of the GPU that were previously disabled. Due to this 400's will be very cheap very soon and will be comparable with ATI in price vs performance. I would suggest a 460GT as a minimum, they are popular due to their common use in SLI. A 460 might not enable ultra settings, but certainly will give you the DX11 eye candy, if not in full detail. A 480GTX, 570gt will allow you most likely to max out the game's dx11 features.
ATI = ATI Radeon 5000 or 6000 series cards are DX11 compatable and many people will say are better bang for your buck then Nvidia cards. ATI naming schemes are notoriously bad, but a higher number 5 or 6 should do fine with the game. It should be mentioned ATI cards seem to perform better at texturing and lighting, but suffer under DX11 tesselation vs Nvidia. They have the reputation as good performance for price though, so dont discount them (trying to be honest here, this is from a Nvidia fanboy ).

CPU: W7 makes good use of multithreaded applications and CPU's. DX11 also eases mutlithreaded interactions with the CPU improving efficiency.
Intel: Core i7 (930 should be fine and give great performance especially if OCed, feel free to go higher). i7 is 4 core but 8 threads allowing better performance (substantially). The new sandy bridge CPU's you should only consider due to them lowering the G1 i7 range prices. They are 32nm not 40nm, which has improved there performance per wat, and therefore size/heat allowing a higher stock OC which makes them look more powerful then a G1 i7. Ignore this, and if you cant OC buy a stock OCed i7 cpu. Sand bridge also has a integrated GPU on many of the cpus increasing their cost for little/no benefit.

AMD: I would strongly discourage a AMD CPU currently until the Bulldozer line is released. The new 4 core architecture will allow the equivalent of hyperthreading (intels x2 multiplier) except the bulldozer threading is hardware based not software (hyperthreading) inside the core. It remains to be seen how well Bulldozer will pull its weight.

Ram: Since you will be running Win7:
Min: 4gb absolute minimum of ddr3 1200mhz+ ram. Stock my win7 uses near 2gb of ram idle for the OS leaving 2gb for games/software in this config.
Aim for: 6gb-8gb is the sweat spot currently. It will allow you much improved game performance due to less hard drive paging and is necessary due to the nature of the threading and processing in the background. This can come either as dual or tri channel memory, so think about upgrade-ability in the future when buying since the sticks have to all be the same.

Thanks and I hope this helps people!