Project Reality Forums

Posted: **2013-10-27 14:07**

Gracler wrote:I can give you some tips on buying a PC and the basics of what a PC consist of.

Your first choice for the common gamer who don't know anything about building PC's is to pick a PC with the word "GAMING" on it. In my experience you get a lot of extra features like over-clocking and other fancy tweaks that you will never fully use and if the PC has a fancy brand name it is often over-priced like with the Apple IPhone etc. It works as intended but you pay extra for the fancy package.

Your second choice is to build a PC from components you pick from a web store where they might provide a "PC builder tool". You pick and chose the part's and they guarantee they work together and they assemble your "custom" PC and make sure it works before shipping. You probably won't have unlimited options but maybe more options than the "GAMING" PC setup.

Your third choice if you want to get your feet wet is to attempt to build your own PC. If it is your first time and your money is limited I strongly recommend you find a friend that knows what he is doing and get him to help you out the first time so you don't waste your hard earned money. That being said, it has never been more fool-proof than it is today, although there is limitless combinations and limitless bugs that may occur.

When it comes to brands in my experience there isn't that much of a difference anymore, as long as you don't buy some no-name brand made for china.
ASRock, ASUS, GIGABYTE and MSI are all good for gaming to name a few.

First you need to choose a Central Processing Unit (CPU)
(Recommended for PS2 is Intel i5 processor or higher / AMD Phenom II X6 or higher)
The CPU does all the calculations needed to run a Program/Game except Graphic's.
A slow CPU shows if your PC takes a long time to start-up or to begin a program/game or if the PC get's "stuck" briefly.

Secondly you need to choose a Graphics Processing Unit) GPU
(Recommended for PS2 is nVidia GeForce GTX 560 series or higher / AMD HD 6870 or higher)
The GPU is working with the Graphic's tasks so the CPU don't have to.
The GPU can be one or even two identical Graphic cards connected to the MB through a specific slot. Today's standard is PCIe v3.0
The Graphic Card comes with it's own designated RAM (Random-Access Memory) (recommended 1GB total for PS2)

Thirdly you need to chose a Motherboard (MB)
The MB is the largest component in your PC, and there is several choices you need to make before picking one out.
1: What type of CPU socket do I need? (this depends on the CPU model you got)
2: How many SDRAM slot's does it have and is the total max RAM enough for me? (8GB or more is recommended for PS2)
3: What type of PCI ports does it have and can my Graphic-Card Physically fit inside?
4: How many HDD (Hard Disk Drives) do I want to use including SSD (Solid State Drive)? and what standard do they use? SATA 1.5, 3, or 6
5: What does the IO shield offer? USB ports? etc.

Other notes to make about the MB the normal size is ATX which fit with a standard ATX tower Casing for example. ATX-e cases are a little bigger and makes it easier to fit in large graphic's cards, but it is normally not necessary.

Other things you need is a power supply, if it isn't included with the case. There are websites available to calculate how much power your pc needs but you should always go over by maybe 20% since PSU (power supply units) normally are very inefficient when above 80% load. Save the planet

My own rule of thumb for a gaming pc the cost of the components look like this.

25% GPU
20% CPU
15% MB
15% RAM
25% Other (PSU, HDD, SSD)

Casing, Screens, Fans, keyboard/mouse etc. not included. since they have no direct impact on performance.

I hope I didn't lose you completely through this wall of text, but you can always ask again or search YouTube for tutorials. Some of them are quite detailed.

wow thx for this reply this will definately help i may wanna read it trough a couple of times tho but ty verry much for the effort

i wanna thank everyone aswell for the effort of looking this trough for me and please keep the suggestions,tips and info coming life experience has learned me u can never have enough of those

edit: how much would i aprox spend? for a new pc that will last me years when it comes to gaming

Posted: **2013-10-27 21:28**

RedDrag0n0 wrote:how much would i aprox spend? for a new pc that will last me years when it comes to gaming

That is a good question

You would have to buy components that are fairly new on the market which would bring your bank to it's knees which is a bad idea for an average gamer to be honest.

Instead I would aim at components that give good value for your money so that you can afford a new PC in a couple of years or at-least replace your GPU, CPU and MB and maybe add some RAM.

I think you would be able to buy your vital components for around 750 Euros and have a very decent gaming PC.

All ~ numbers are in Euros and an estimate of course.

~175 GPU (AMD Radeon HD 7870 or Nvidia Geforce GTX 660 )
~140 CPU (AMD FX-8320 AM3+ or Intel i5 4430 LGA 1150)
~100 MB (MSI ATX AMD AM3+ 990FXA-GD65 or MSI ATX Intel 1150 Z87-G43)
~100 RAM (Corsair XMS3 Series DIMM DDR3 1333 CL9, 4 GB X2 = 8GB)
~220 Other (PSU Antec HCG-520M ~75, SSD OCZ Vector 2.5 inch SATA III 128GB ~100, Seagate Barracuda 7200 3.5 inch SATA III 500GB ~45

total for this example ~735 Euros

If you should chose AMD or Intel is up to you. AMD is focused on gaming and is generally cheaper but also consumes more power. Intel CPU's are better at every day tasks and generate much less heat since they use less power, but you need to spend extra money if you want to compete against AMD in games. (with old games like BF2 it is the opposite since AMD performs very badly with single thread programs)

In relation to graphics AMD Radeon consumes much less power than Nvidia and is therefore a good companion to AMD CPU's. The game performance and cost is almost the same between AMD Radeon and Nvidia.

In relation to RAM you could buy 2 blocks now and 2 blocks later to add extra memory when needed. 8gb is still enough for games though and you only really need 16 or more if your doing video editing or similar.

Posted: **2013-10-31 11:20**

Gracler wrote:
~175 GPU (AMD Radeon HD 7870 or Nvidia Geforce GTX 660 )
~140 CPU (AMD FX-8320 AM3+ or Intel i5 4430 LGA 1150)
~100 MB (MSI ATX AMD AM3+ 990FXA-GD65 or MSI ATX Intel 1150 Z87-G43)
~100 RAM (Corsair XMS3 Series DIMM DDR3 1333 CL9, 4 GB X2 = 8GB)
~220 Other (PSU Antec HCG-520M ~75, SSD OCZ Vector 2.5 inch SATA III 128GB ~100, Seagate Barracuda 7200 3.5 inch SATA III 500GB ~45

total for this example ~735 Euros

If you should chose AMD or Intel is up to you. AMD is focused on gaming and is generally cheaper but also consumes more power. Intel CPU's are better at every day tasks and generate much less heat since they use less power, but you need to spend extra money if you want to compete against AMD in games. (with old games like BF2 it is the opposite since AMD performs very badly with single thread programs)

In relation to graphics AMD Radeon consumes much less power than Nvidia and is therefore a good companion to AMD CPU's. The game performance and cost is almost the same between AMD Radeon and Nvidia.

In relation to RAM you could buy 2 blocks now and 2 blocks later to add extra memory when needed. 8gb is still enough for games though and you only really need 16 or more if your doing video editing or similar.

He could save money by spending less on the motherboard (if he's willing to sacrifice "hardcore 1337 overcloacking FTW"), even if it's 20 to 30 euros.

Also save about 50 to 100 euros by not buying a new case. Buy it in the near future if you really need one.

4GB RAM is enough for gaming. Latest game can run on 4GB, so PR would not need 8GB.
Again, this can be upgraded later as it has not a major performance boost. Also, don't go for the latest RAM-sticks. Older one with lower speeds are fine, the speed has practicaly no visible performance penalty. This has been tested numerous times.

AMD CPU's are indeed good for basic gaming, the same goes for their GPU's (although I always thought they use up more power than Nvidia GPU's).

About the GPU, it's all in OP's hands. GTX 660 is still a good card for today's standards and I'm pretty sure it could run BF4 on it. But again the price.
You can cheap out by buying an AMD one, sometimes saving up to 100 euros for 5 less fps.

Then again, latest cheap cards will run PR without a problem, I suppose.

Posted: **2013-10-31 15:49**

Careless wrote:He could save money by spending less on the motherboard (if he's willing to sacrifice "hardcore 1337 overcloacking FTW"), even if it's 20 to 30 euros.

I didn't chose the 990FXA-GD65 for it's overclocking ability, but for the higher power draw for the cpu and the tdp. Although cheaper cards are certified to use the FX-8320 they are also known to be unstable in certain events.

The LGA 1150 intel cards are newer on the market and fitted well in the comparison price range, but you could of course jump back one step and go buy a 1155.

Careless wrote: 4GB RAM is enough for gaming. Latest game can run on 4GB, so PR would not need 8GB.
Again, this can be upgraded later as it has not a major performance boost. Also, don't go for the latest RAM-sticks. Older one with lower speeds are fine, the speed has practicaly no visible performance penalty. This has been tested numerous times.

The price difference between 1066, 1333 and 1600 is so small that again I'm going for stability. The 1333 normally comes with a heat-spreader where the 1066 does not. In my experience the heat difference is minimal so your better off getting ram with a better heat spreader, especially if your using a packed tower with just air-cooling.

The OP also wants to be able to play Planetside 2 and it alone uses more than 2gb and windows 7 64 also uses around 2gb so your going to be dry on ram if you only have 4gb so your better off aiming at 8 now and then add perhaps 8 later. However I'm not familiar with win 8 usage of ram.

Not to mention most people run several program's while playing games like browsers, VoIP, and fancy game controller software that draw from the starving pool of RAM.

Careless wrote: AMD CPU's are indeed good for basic gaming, the same goes for their GPU's (although I always thought they use up more power than Nvidia GPU's).

Nvidia has for a long time been sucking up a lot of power compared to Radeon, although Nvidia is getting better (or Radeon is getting worse) so the new cards almost use the same amount of power.

Careless wrote: About the GPU, it's all in OP's hands. GTX 660 is still a good card for today's standards and I'm pretty sure it could run BF4 on it. But again the price.
You can cheap out by buying an AMD one, sometimes saving up to 100 euros for 5 less fps.

Then again, latest cheap cards will run PR without a problem, I suppose.

You could run BF4 on a 5 times worse card than GTX 660. GTX 660 is good enough to make BF4 run as intended.

If you want a cheap card for PR specifically your better off buying a very old used card than a new cheap card as the new cards won't help you with there new features most likely.

Building a PC specifically for BF2 PR is not a good idea though unless your a die hard fan and you want to have a BF2 PR system that your only going to play BF2 PR on

.

It's better to build a PC that can also run the Cryengine and/or the Real Virtuality (ARMA) engine, to make your PC future proof.

Posted: **2013-10-31 16:45**

OP said he doesn't have the funds to build a super-computer, that's why I'd suggest him buying AMD stuff instead of Intel/Nvidia. But at further expection, the 660 is about 150 euros.. A card in the same region is a 7850 which you can probably find for 100 euros.

I don't think one of the latest AMD-cards (or the ones which are on par with a 660) are going to give up that soon when it comes to future-proofing.

For gaming, you don't have to put a lot of effort in future proofing, just make sure you can play recent/new games on high/mids and that's it.

As for the RAM; people are stupid enough to buy 4GB sticks for 100 dollar because of the "speed" and the "awesome looking covering".. Just don't do that.. ever

Again, my suggestion for OP is just to find good deals on the internet and making a new computer. Some parts go for -10% or something like that, or are selled in a combo-pack. You can save about 100 euros considering you're building a whole new computer with new parts.

tweakers.net is a good Dutch site, they show the cheapest prices and do reviews.

Posted: **2013-10-31 17:22**

Careless wrote:OP said he doesn't have the funds to build a super-computer, that's why I'd suggest him buying AMD stuff instead of Intel/Nvidia.

He wanted a pc that can last for years of gaming and since that is a very difficult question I went for components that give very good performance for there current price.

Careless wrote: I don't think one of the latest AMD-cards (or the ones which are on par with a 660) are going to give up that soon when it comes to future-proofing.

Radeon HD 7870 is on par with gtx660 and they cost the same pretty much so why would AMD give up sooner? makes no sense. It is just a matter of taste in this case. If you want eyefinity of course you go for amd but I doubt that is relevant in this case.

Careless wrote: For gaming, you don't have to put a lot of effort in future proofing, just make sure you can play recent/new games on high/mids and that's it.

Games keeps pushing the limit and often forget to optimize as much as they should, so just because you can play today's games on High certainty doesn't mean you can purchase a game in 2 years and crank it up on just medium out of the box. You would most likely have to sacrifice a lot of features like particles or AA, making the game look different than intended.
It is all guesswork though as no-one not even the developers of new games knows exactly how there game is going to run when it is finished.

Careless wrote: As for the RAM; people are stupid enough to buy 4GB sticks for 100 dollar because of the "speed" and the "awesome looking covering".. Just don't do that.. ever

You right which is why I choose the Corsair XMS3 which is one of the least fancy ram they have, that still offers a heat-spreader.
Also note that the Intel i5 4430 needs at least 1333 ram which is why I went with that.

Posted: **2013-10-31 18:14**

Gracler wrote:

Radeon HD 7870 is on par with gtx660 and they cost the same pretty much so why would AMD give up sooner? makes no sense. It is just a matter of taste in this case. If you want eyefinity of course you go for amd but I doubt that is irrelevant in this case.

I didn't say it will give up sooner, I said that it will NOT give up sooner, making it a good competitor against the 660 which costs a bit more.

Posted: **2013-11-01 02:20**

So this topic turned into PC building from bad optimization issue? I gotta love this community...

Posted: **2013-11-01 10:43**

I play PR on a laptop with most settings on low, I would like a PC but it is not handy now because im studying and live in a dorm. Are there Laptops with good gaming quality? High settings is not a must, but medium and capable for a some years? And with PR2 coming in the near future?
Or do you really need a PC for good gaming? The best of the best I will never get and is not necessary.

Posted: **2013-11-01 12:40**

mries wrote:I play PR on a laptop with most settings on low, I would like a PC but it is not handy now because im studying and live in a dorm. Are there Laptops with good gaming quality? High settings is not a must, but medium and capable for a some years? And with PR2 coming in the near future?
Or do you really need a PC for good gaming? The best of the best I will never get and is not necessary.

I'd really suggest you a mini-ITX pc, just because they're very small (eVGA Hadron Air is 30x17x30, Alienware x51 is 35x10x35, Lian Li PC-TU200, enz)

You'll get the power of a desktop. The price/performance ratio will be mucht better. The bad thing is that they're somewhat ''restricted'' to upgrades. The eVGA has a 500 watts power supply, the Alienware has 330 watts, and they're not upgradeable. But they can handle the latest grapjics cards and CPU's.

You'll get around a price of 500 to 700 euros for a good stable gaming computer.

If you really want a laptop; pcspecialist.co.uk
Here you can customize it. I guess all of the cards and CPU's will handle PR on high, and this for about 600 to 1000 euros, but there will be a slight problem later on. The bad thing about this is that they're not upgradeable at all for the most part

I'm having the same problem now. College students and PC's are a pain in the arse

Posted: **2013-11-02 04:35**

a3dboy1 wrote:So this topic turned into PC building from bad optimization issue? I gotta love this community...

But you have to admit that original poster's laptop is way too antic for PR 1.0 and as a matter of fact for playing games other than "10 years old".
Pentium 4 with 1GB ram and X600, I got three letters for you : LOL

You need to buy a whole new computer and I don't recommend you to buy as above recommended because you have to upgrade some parts in near future.

DO NOT buy a market computer or already build ones, but buy parts individually in some cheap and reliable pc-parts (online) store. Build your rig yourself or with a friend who knows how to do that and you'll save money, at least 15%.

Intel Haswell processor and mainboard suitable for your needs
Decent graphic card
1 x sdd drive for windows
1 x hdd for games and stuff
8 GB 1600mhz DDR3 (dual kits 2x4GB)
~550w QUALITY PSU
23" HD quality monitor with 1920x1080 resolution
perhaps a better cooler for processor if you like your computer being more silent
and a case which you fancy (should have couple installed fans).
Mouse, keyboard etc etc accessories which you need.
Do you overclock? That is really important question because you don't have to buy for example ram, mainboard and even processor which are made for overclockers.
You have to keep that in mind. You don't want to pay extra for something which you don't need.

Posted: **2013-11-03 13:01**

Meerkat wrote:DO NOT buy a market computer or already build ones, but buy parts individually in some cheap and reliable pc-parts (online) store. Build your rig yourself or with a friend who knows how to do that and you'll save money, at least 15%.

You don't necessarily save money building your own PC. Only the fancy named PC's make you pay extra, but if you buy an unknown PC it will often be just as cheap if not cheaper than what you can buy in single parts.

The reason for this is that the PC builder company buy the parts they need in bulk and mass produce it making it much cheaper than what a private person can do, buying it piece by piece.

If your lucky you can also get a small discount when buying all the parts at the same shop though.

Furthermore you don't get any operating system for "free" when you build your own PC.

The benefit from building your own PC is that you get unlimited choices on what parts to put together and you can reuse parts from your old PC like the casing, power supply and drives etc.

Meerkat wrote: Intel Haswell processor and mainboard suitable for your needs how does one know his needs?
Decent graphic card what is a decent graphic card?
1 x sdd drive for windows why just windows? if your a gamer you want your best game on it.
1 x hdd for games and stuff
8 GB 1600mhz DDR3 (dual kits 2x4GB) why 1600 and not 1333?
~550w QUALITY PSU again what is quality and what is junk?
23" HD quality monitor with 1920x1080 resolution aka FULL HD
perhaps a better cooler for processor if you like your computer being more silent
and a case which you fancy (should have couple installed fans).
Mouse, keyboard etc etc accessories which you need.
Do you overclock? That is really important question because you don't have to buy for example ram, mainboard and even processor which are made for overclockers.
You have to keep that in mind. You don't want to pay extra for something which you don't need. Serious overclocker's don't care about the OC stamps because they make things more expensive by default. They buy the value parts and push them to the limit (they do what the factory do before they put OC stamps on there product basically)

Posted: **2013-11-05 21:08**

unfortunately looking at the information you've posted about your computer. I cannot recommend upgrading parts. You're only going to end up spending a lot of money replacing parts more frequently over time. If you can i suggest saving up your money for a while then build a brand new rig all together. as it is now upgrading your rig is going suck a lot of money out of you as you discover that certain components wont be compatible with your older equipment, in which case you are stuck buying older (but still better) equipment and then a year or so down the road realize you'll need to swap out everything again including the parts that you've only just upgraded to.

incremental upgrades are not the way to go. Build yourself something that will last you 5 years and then beyond that with MINOR upgrades only such as more ram or another graphics card if your card can stack with another (SLI i think it's called?). once that rig reaches it's operational ceiling with that set of minor upgrades and you realize you need more power out of it, then it's time to build a new rig again.

chances are your case and powersupply are going to need to be replaced as well so you can't save money there when you build this new rig. However, buy a large case and a good enough power supply and the next time you need to rebuild, you can then reuse those and save money then

Posted: **2013-11-08 00:34**

kk il see what i can do ty all for responding and being so helpfull

sry for the late response was busy with irl things

Posted: **2013-11-08 01:00**

You should post a thread on the Custom builds forum section.

You will have everyone help.

Posted: **2013-11-14 11:16**

a gaming pc that runs PR should cost you sub 500 ? . I upgraded mine eons ago and on max it still copes.

HM24 GamingPC AMD A8 3870K unlocked 8GB bei notebooksbilliger.de

I cant see what grafics card it has. If you throw in an nvidia gt 640 you are set though. Thats about 70 bucks to add. Or pick up a used ati 5870.

Posted: **2013-12-09 20:43**

Or XFX HD 7750 Core Edition. Also around 70 bucks.

Posted: **2013-12-14 01:06**

Jolly wrote:4GB is okay for the GAME.
But system and some backgrounds need RAM too.

exactly, all the people saying you don't need more than 4 need to consider these. for one PR already itself comes with an auxiliary program that needs to be run, that being Mumble. Other programs that people may choose to run like Teamspeak, some others may choose to also have Xfire on, or for those who bought via steam that may need to be running to some capacity.

i dont know if hardware drivers use ram but certain drivers may also have additional programs that need to be running for it to work properly, such as logitech headsets, keyboards and mice. they'll work without the program on but then you often lose some advanced functions.

so yeah Bf2 only uses up 3.8, but if you only have 4 all those other things are going to be taking up your ram and thus Bf2 won't even have 3.8 to work with.

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