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| IL-2 Sturmovik: Cliffs of Dover Latest instalment in the acclaimed IL-2 Sturmovik series from award-winning developer Maddox Games. |
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#1
03-23-2011, 10:05 AM
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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. 
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#2
03-23-2011, 10:30 AM
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Let us know how you get on. 
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#3
03-23-2011, 05:58 PM
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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. 
Last edited by Les; 03-23-2011 at 08:06 PM.
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#4
03-23-2011, 09:59 PM
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As Les said though, you'd most likely still want a dedicated video card. You got some reading ahead of you old boy 
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#5
03-23-2011, 10:34 PM
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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 Some of the info is a bit outdated and or could be twinked but it gives a good general rundown of components and I would say applies to COD well interms of the engine being scaled up in the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!
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#6
03-24-2011, 12:18 AM
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Men, I am absolutely overwhelmed by these responses - once again many thanks.
I had a look the Mag Naz mentioned yesterday, went straight over to the right hand column titled 'the beast', glanced down the bottom and saw $1500 plus. Thought this is not bad and went one column left (the beastie) and saw $2,975, rechecked the right hand column (the beast) again and its $15,615. When the palpitations ceased I had a slower look at the beastie column and, without the periphials that I already have it is thus; CPU Intel i7 2600 $339 or AMD Phenom II x4 965 BE @ 3.4gh Mobo Asus P8P67 Pro $239 Ram Corsair Vengeance 1600Mhz (2 x 4Gb) $149 Video Gigabyte HD6950 (1GB) crossfire $640 ( but I read somewhere RoF does not like crossfire???????) or a Radeon 6950 2GB Power Silverstone Strider 850W Gold $229 Samsung SH-B123A Blu-ray optical drive combo $69 (do I really need blu-ray for 2 flight sims only) Storage WD Caviar Black 1TB $120 Case Coolmaster CM690 II Advantage $140 The only item not mentioned is a sound card. Look OK gurus? I will still take the advice of waiting for some feedback on CoD after release and some user comments but at least I feel some headway has been made, rather than head done in as per the previous 2 days. Last edited by timholt; 03-24-2011 at 12:29 AM.
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#7
03-24-2011, 02:08 AM
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That all looks pretty decent to me mate. I had a very quick look at the Intel CPU online and it looks to be quite bloody good (If anything its possibly a bit of overkill, and you could probably save a hundred or so by going one level lower with the CPU, for example an i5 2500, and using the extra $ on the video card(s) - kind of depends on how CoD actually performs on release I guess). I don't think you need the Bluray if your only using the computer for the two flight sims obviously. You could transfer over your existing drives (but as mentioned before, a new DVD/cd drive is basically spare change now anyway). Your current sound Card is a definite keeper though, hang on to it and transfer it over to the new machine.
Regarding the Video cards, I have always steered away from crossfire. The only reason being is I always tend to see people in forums having problems with it in various games ... but I have never looked into it properly to have a real opinion I must admit: - it may well work perfectly fine for ROF, IL2 and CoD? Perhaps the other lads can advise you on that. As I sort of mentioned earlier, I tend to just whore myself out to the biggest strongest video card on the market at the time I upgrade so I have no idea on how the mid-range cards perform in practice. From the little I have read though, they seem generally capable of holding their own in many games. I've also noticed a few similar threads to this on this very website, so perhaps you should have a look through those to get some more ideas. In any event, like you said, you seem to now have a good starting point and can take it from there once the performance reports of CoD start getting revealed by us all next week. PS: - You know, i actually thought about mentioning the usual heavy price tag for the "beast" when I typed the message out yesterday, but thought, ...nah, he'll enjoy the surprise of seeing the price tag on his own lol
Last edited by naz; 03-24-2011 at 02:41 AM.
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#8
03-24-2011, 02:21 PM
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But overall I would say you should get minimum of 6gb of ram, might want to look at changing the gpu (I am not great with AMD gpus, so someone else should recommend) and check the RPM on the Hard drive. I was thinking of going either SSD or SATA2 raptors but instead I settled on a Western digital 2tb 7200rpm drive but with a 64mb cache, which makes it a really awesome harddrive for its size (its pretty fast).
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