Building/Buying a New PC for Cliffs of Dover? Read this!

I figured I'd make another one of these threads since I see a lot of people giving the same "advice" again and again, and again, which really doesn't help people playing Cliffs of Dover. This is for people who want to build a system that will play CloD well, not for people who want to show off how much money they can spend on hardware they will never use.

CPU: The i7's gains over the i5 are marginal at best (like under 5% in most games) and given the cost difference not worth it. Most people who get i7's are either doing a lot of video, or audio encoding, running a database, or have money to blow for little to no advantage. Like was mentioned before, DON'T get an i7 unless you fall into one of the above categories. CloD will never make use of hyperthreading, and I'm not aware of a single game that does.

Most games being made today are still being written for 2 cores. Not that many actually make use of 4 cores, and that list is still quite small. If a game is running crappy on 4 cores it's because it hasn't been written poorly, so adding another two or four cores makes absolutely no sense.

Only a few games properly use 4 cores, and they're pretty much A+++ titles like Bad Company 2. Like others have said, put your money into your video card. Get one with more than 1GB of ram if you want to get the most bang for your buck.

Video Cards:Here is where you can go "balls out" and spend some money. This is where you're going to start seeing a difference. My advice is to go to Tom's Hardware and take a look at their GPU charts and compare it to your favourite computer hardware retailer. Pick a benchmark like one of the "3Dmark" benchmarks and do the following.

Price divided by 3Dmark score = #

The lower the number, the better. That's the dollar per "score point". A card getting a score of 4 is twice as good as a card getting a score of 8. That means you're only spending 4 dollars per score point rather than 8 per score point. You can do the same thing with FPS.

Here is a good one: (pick your price range) http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2...amer,2659.html

ATI/Nvidia. . . it doesn't matter. This isn't IL-2 1946, it's not made with OpenGL, so it doesn't matter what brand you go for. Get a DX11 card since I'm hoping they adopt it some day, and the performance gains should be worth it. Like has been mentioned before, get a +1GB card since you're going to want as much eye candy on as possible. Someone might tell you that ATI have horrible drivers, but that hasn't been the case since the late 90's. Actually most crashes in Windows Vista were attributed to Nvidia drivers. I'm not an ATI or Nvidia fanboy, I just get the one that has the best "bang for the buck". This has been switching back and forth over the years, so I have had a few of both. Just do that math formula I posted above and you'll be happy.

As for Xfire or SLI, unless you're gaming on multiple monitors or at some manner of huge resolution on your giand Dell monitor, don't bother. Dual GPU's have yet to give any worthwhile benefits to CloD, and I don't see that happening soon. If you're gaming on a regular monitor at a typical resolution with a 2 GPU card or two video cards, you're just going to see one of them being wasted and increasing your electrical bill.

Power Supply: Some people will tell you to get a huge one, and that's just a bunch of hype. Get a good quality one. Unless you have multiple video cards and a whole stack of Hard Drives and 10+ fans, you're not going to need any of the monster ones. Going over 600W is usually reserved for people who have full server-sized PC's with a ton of HD bays all being used and power hungry cooling options.

- 1 PCIe power plug on the card (GTX460, Radeon 6850): 400w
- 2 PCIe power plugs on card(GTX560, Radeon 6950): 500w

I recommend Corsair (non-Builder Series), Seasonic, Antec (Earthwatt series), and XFX PSUs. They're all quality units and you'll be happy with them.

Motherboards: Don't go out of your way to buy the biggest and best. Buy a motherboard based on the features you will use. If you don't need RAID/multiple PCI slots/firewire/etc, then don't pay extra for them. MicroATX boards are also as full-featured as full ATX boards and there's no reason to avoid them. Don't get one with onboard Video!!! That's just extra money for something you are not going to use.

Sound cards: Again, don't bother since this isn't 1998 and onboard sound is more than you'll need unless you're making and mixing music semi-professionally. Getting that Fatality SB Card is not going to be noticeable unless you spend $200 on your headphones, $500 on your speakers, or have the ears of a desert fox.

Hard Disks: Get a SSD Hard Disk if you want to cut those load times in 1/2 or if you want really fast boots. They'll give you the most "visible differences" on how fast things happen in your computer, but won't actually do much for gameplay. Stay away from High RPM drives, they don't actually give you any real performance gains and just cost extra and create extra heat. If you want faster than a 7200k drive, get an SSD.

RAM: 8GB is still all you're going to need, and DDR-1333 is fine for gaming. Going to DDR3-1600 is only going to give you (slight) increases in speed if you're encoding/decoding, not playing a game.

If someone says they are building a "future proof" system and that's why they are spending more than a $2000 USD, 1,279.83 GBP, 1,531.41 EUR, you can bet they are either rich and need to show off, or are a giant manchild who has nothing better to do than spend an excessive amount of money on a system that will be spanked by a system less than 1/2 that price next year. A third (and less likely reason) is that they use that system for some manner of professional purpose that requires total overkill.

Hope this has dispelled some of the myths that have been floating around the forums. The less money you have to spend on your gaming system, the more money you can spend on your HOTAS, bills or Girlfriend.

Please feel free to add your two cents. Please remember that the suggestions are to give people the most "bang for their buck". Not to push fanboy agendas or show how much money they can waste on products that are either overkill or have diminishing returns regarding FPS/$.

[335th_GRAthos]

Regarding Graphics Cards I would like to add:

Even the highest DX10 card of 2011 is hardly sufficient to play the game at the highest settings. So, be prepared to live with compromises waiting for the next or the after next generation of GPUs...
SLI (and I suppose Crossfire as well) does not really work (so do not hope that a second GPU will give you the performance you are missing with your 2011 or older GPU). As far SLI is concerned, the game officialy (JAN2012) does not support it, you can make SLI work but the performance (on my GTX570 1.3Gb VRAM) has more fps but more stutter so I can not recommend sli to anyone.

According to some people who tested it with their 3Gb graphics cards, the game requires 2,4Gb VRAM with the highest settings.
Therefore what you need is a card with at least 2,5Gb VRAM if you want to see all "eye candy". Again, you may still be dissapointed with the performance but at least, VRAM will not be the factor that destroys your experience.

In worst case, go for a card with min 2Gb if you want to buy a card with the least money now.


The new generation of ATI cards is out now. I have no experience about it so it is good to keep your eays and ears open for reviews on this card and hopefully we will have CoD users soon to share their impressions with us!


~S~

Regarding Video cards and VRam size. A lot of what 335th_GRAthos said is corrent, but it also depends on the number of monitors you're playing on and the resolution. If you're on a typical 20" monitor, playing at 1600x900 or somewhere around that area, you're probably going to be fine with a 2GB card for all the eye candy. Going to higher resolution with everything maxed is when you start getting into the 2.4GB VRAM requirement he mentioned.

When going for the 2GB+ cards, be mindful if they are single or dual GPU cards. A dual GPU card is pretty much an SLI/XFire setup that's confined to one card, so don't expect amazing gains.

Believe it or not, the biggest limiting factor isn't hardware, but software. The game was released in what could be called a "broken state" so it's requiring more system resources and horsepower than it really should need. If you can, wait for the new Graphics engine to be released and see what happens after that. Maybe it will be the 20-50% FPS increase that Luthier was saying, but it might also be another flop. Remember those guys who bought cutting edge systems for $2000 during the summer of 2010? Well they're getting their systems spanked by people with $800 PC's now, and they're lucky to have their games playing at anything higher than medium across the board.

HOLD ON TO YOUR MONEY! You're waited damn near a year for this game to be playable, just wait another month or two! The best thing that can happen is component prices drop, you save money, and getting a better system than if you bought now.

[FFCW_Urizen]

Performance of an ATi Radeon HD7970 over a GTX580 in a Nutshell:

In average 10% more FPS. Not many FPS in Starcraft 2 or GTAIV, but 25%-33% more FPS in Serious Sam BFE and Crysis 2 with SSAA. Increased Tesselationperformance.

Powerdraw: 185Watts under power, 12Watts idling.

Fan: idle 0.7 Sone, power 4.1 Sone (AMD Fandesign, Custom ones can and will be more Silent)

http://www.pcgameshardware.de/aid,86...fikkarte/Test/

Originally Posted by cheesehawk

That can be said every month though, at some point you'll have to pull the trigger. Computers in 2014 will be more powerful than now, and then again in 2018. Can't wait that long, who knows if the game will still be around by then?

If a player is only interested in Cliffs of Dover, then not pulling the trigger might be the best choice. If the new graphics engine is released, it's a flop, and the fans decide they've had enough, then the whole damn series might be canceled. Then what are you going to do with that $2000 system.

The advice I'm giving is to keep people from wasting money. If they only play Cliffs of Dover, then waiting until the graphics engine patch comes out is the best thing they can do. That way they can see if they need to spend a lot, or a little to get their ideal FPS. Heck, maybe their system only needs a slight upgrade because the new Graphics engine is so good. Maybe they decided trying to get a constant 60+ is not worth it because the new graphics engine only give a 5% boost in FPS.

The decision to "pull the trigger" is ultimately up to them, but financially speaking, waiting makes sense.

[Timberwolf]

Alot of people go with the Intell chipsets i5 i7 $1,000 etc Many years ago I knew nothing about computers I had a Dell optiplex P4 windows xp 2 gig nvidia 9800gt Great for wolfeinstein online and a few other 2006 games

From then till now i been upgrading and learning how to speed up and better my computer other then adding parts. Defrag Ping fps processes firewall anti virse Overclocking The list go's on

I pay for 12 mbps i get 21Mbps download on a good day 19 Avg I could pay for more but It works for me and what i do

I now run a Amd duel core II x2 215 Unlocked to 240.
8 gigs of ram duel channel DDR3 Kingston Overclockable
Lsp 750watt Psu 80 gold rated
Asus Crosshair formula V Motherboard ATX up to 32gigs 3 way SLI or crossfire
OC button Rog connect
5770 XFX DDR5 1 gig Video card
SSD master
1TB Slave
Windows 7 Home
47" LG LCD Tv for a screen

Now i know i'm lacking in some places ( Duel core and video )
However Money is tight I have a mortgage of $480,000 cars wife etc
My computer isn't my number issue But part of my hobby in my man cave
It runs CLOD just fine with teamspeak and Fraps running in the back ground and high settings with no jitters or frezze
AMD is half the cost of intell and many run par or "just" under

My biggest issue was i came into cliffs thinking it was a start and go game like fighter ace Were the most you had to do was learn about flaps and rudder and not warm up, air screws , prop pitch, ..at least have a online combat room were new people learn at there own pace .. Since April 2011 till now i been in the rooms 3 times ...Got to start and blow the engine 1 time..Anyone that tells me ..well its a combat sim then i tell you this where is the rain and fog for london? Seach lights at night heavy flak fire storms after a raid Anyways Well at anyrate i'll still think they will see this and open the game to more of the "Game" customers or a option for new gamers to play with the sim pros ..new meat sorta speaking cheers

[priller26]

I went with a Evga 580gtx with 3 gigs of Vram. It was not cheap, but I do
play other sims/games, and I think the game runs very well with this card.
I'm still adjusting various settings, to see what runs the best for me. I
just wanted to have lots of ram, and the new nvidia Kepler cards may not
be out for a while.

[Thee_oddball]

well said speculum, there is no need to go crazy.... $615 and your playing the game

AMD FX-4100 Zambezi 3.6GHz $110
GIGABYTE GA-990XA-UD3 AM3+ motherboard $130
G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB $50
6850 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 $135
CORSAIR Professional Series HX750 $120
SSD 30GB $50
ASUS 24X DVD Burner $20

TOTAL $615 smile

I've seen a few people trying to push the i7 recently, and I'll restate this again.

The i7 DOES NOT help you get better performance in any game. NO GAMES USE HYPERTHREADING in a manner that garners any sort of visible FPS increase. Most gamers actually suggest that you disable hyperthreading in the BIOS so it doesn't slow down your gaming.

Oh, it's $100 more than the i5 as well.

Here are some questions you should ask yourself:
Do I run a Fortune 500 database on my Gaming Rig?
Am I currently running simulations for medical research?
Am I currently farming my PC out for generic number crunching research?
Do I spend hours a day encoding/decoding audio or video?
Am I spending hours a day using the newest version of Photoshop to edit Gigapixel photos?

Notice how I said "hours" for those last two? That's because you would have to spend hours, multiple hours using those programs before you even saved a minute by using hyperthreading.

Before you drop an additional $100 on an i7 processor, you need to know that it will make ZERO difference in your Cliffs of Dover gaming. That money would be better put towards a $100 more expensive video card, or maybe a $50 more expensive video card and 2-4GB more RAM so you can create a RAM drive to help combat stuttering.