109 replies to this topic

[Sprouticus]

I built my current rig back right before closed beta. It was a budget machine, and obviously is a couple of years old now.

My FPS is kind of meh (30-40), although for most maps it is not horrible. I do see problems with smoke and other particle effects killing my FPS.



I want to do a small upgrade, but even after reading some of these article I am still torn on whether to bump my video card or just upgrade my CPU.


Here is my hardware:

AMD FX-4100
1 x AMD FX-4100 Zambezi Quad-Core 3.6GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) Socket AM3+ 95W Desktop Processor FD4100WMGUSBX

AMD 7770
1 x HIS IceQ X H777QN1G2M Radeon HD 7770 GHz Edition 1GB 128-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX


I could bump my video card of course. The thing is I am pretty sure I am CPU bound. Not sure how to tell though.


There are some decent 8300 series CPU's at 95 or 125 MW. I think my power supply can handle the extra load without issue. Those are in the $150-200 range. Plus a separate fan I assume.

The FX-6350 is $50 cheaper though. If I get the fx-8320, will I end up GPU bound and waste my cash?


Sorry if Im being foolish, I am not a hardware guy so keeping up with performance is not something I have been focused on.


thanks ahead of time for any help.

Edited by Sprouticus, 13 October 2014 - 12:59 PM.

[GenJack]

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814150692

[Mobius245]

you might be upgrade graphic card.

Because your graphic is 1GB, it pretty much low handle it.

maybe this one will help
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814133531


AMD Fx-4100 don't has too upgrade, If you want too get AMD Fx-6350. I use Fx-8350 it amazing

* question*
1) is your computer case small? like ATX Mid-tower or ATX Mini-tower?



my system:

CPU: AMD FX-8350 4.0Ghz
Motherboard: ASUS Crosshair Formula-Z
GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX680 FTW 4GB
Case: Thermaltake Chaser Mk-i
OS: Windows 8.1 64-bit
Memory Ram: G.Skill Ripjaws 2133mhz (2x8GB)

[Flapdrol]

If you want to see if you're gpu limited or cpu limited you could install msi afterburner, run it while you play a game and look at the graph. If your gpu use is always at 100% you're gpu limited, if it's a decent bit below you're cpu limited.

Could also change to the lowest resolution, then play a round, if that runs a lot better you're gpu limited, if not you're cpu limited.

[Big Tin Man]

SSD.

[/thread]

I was running a i7-930 (slightly better CPU) and a Radeon 5670 (worse GPU), and switching to a SSD was night and day different. Look at your HD first.

[Goose]

I'm basically with Flapdrol: Get some telemetry, see if you can tweak based on any such info, then decide to spend money.

I do recommend HWiNFOxx, used on top of the RTSS that comes with Afterburner.

[xWiredx]

Flapdrol, on 13 October 2014 - 01:31 PM, said:

If you want to see if you're gpu limited or cpu limited you could install msi afterburner, run it while you play a game and look at the graph. If your gpu use is always at 100% you're gpu limited, if it's a decent bit below you're cpu limited.

Could also change to the lowest resolution, then play a round, if that runs a lot better you're gpu limited, if not you're cpu limited.

Essentially this.

Educated guess? I'd go with the CPU. There is another thread that tests the FX 8350 I believe (I can't remember which one, but its an 8000-series AMD FX CPU) and even in that thread the conclusion is to go with an Intel CPU for the best performance. A 4000-series CPU is definitely not going to perform well in MWO. Not at all.

[Pet Dude]

Could be both. www.newegg.com has some good deals running right now. You could upgrade to a asrock extreme9 mobo with an FX-8350 plus an R9 290. If you're looking to cut back costs you can go down to an r9-280, r9 285, r9 280x. Any of those will get you better performance. The discounts are expiring soon though.

[Goose]

If he spends money, I'd bet on a FX-8370E …

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Mobius245, on 13 October 2014 - 01:26 PM, said:

you might be upgrade graphic card.

Because your graphic is 1GB, it pretty much low handle it.

maybe this one will help
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814133531


AMD Fx-4100 don't has too upgrade, If you want too get AMD Fx-6350. I use Fx-8350 it amazing

* question*
1) is your computer case small? like ATX Mid-tower or ATX Mini-tower?



my system:

CPU: AMD FX-8350 4.0Ghz
Motherboard: ASUS Crosshair Formula-Z
GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX680 FTW 4GB
Case: Thermaltake Chaser Mk-i
OS: Windows 8.1 64-bit
Memory Ram: G.Skill Ripjaws 2133mhz (2x8GB)

No

Big Tin Man, on 13 October 2014 - 01:42 PM, said:

SSD.

[/thread]

I was running a i7-930 (slightly better CPU) and a Radeon 5670 (worse GPU), and switching to a SSD was night and day different. Look at your HD first.

Definate No

Flapdrol, on 13 October 2014 - 01:31 PM, said:

If you want to see if you're gpu limited or cpu limited you could install msi afterburner, run it while you play a game and look at the graph. If your gpu use is always at 100% you're gpu limited, if it's a decent bit below you're cpu limited.

Could also change to the lowest resolution, then play a round, if that runs a lot better you're gpu limited, if not you're cpu limited.

Definite yes.

Find out if your CPU or GPU bound, it's probably CPU as MWO does not like the AMD architecture but find out for the love of god before you spend.

[Chrithu]

Agreed with DV McKenna: Before you go out spending money find out if it's GPU or CPU.

MSI Afterburner is one way.

Another way would be using RadeonPro's overlay, which can show your GPU usage while in game. Which is a bit more precise, because the game tends to max out GPU usage in the Front End (not much to do there CPU wise).

Though getting the RadeonPro overlay to work is a bit tricky. If you need help feel free to shoot me a PM and I'll answer with a step by step guide on how to get RadeonPro running with MWO.

Edited by Jason Parker, 14 October 2014 - 12:04 AM.

[SpDmnAdam]

You might benefit more from a gpu upgrade. you might have to set some settings lower to account for the cpu but, a lot of games will work better. mwo is fairly cpu bound but graphics become a factor past med settings.

http://www.cpubenchm...-4100+Quad-Core
http://www.videocard...=Radeon+HD+7770

[Rogue Jedi]

Assuming you do not already have one a Solid State Drive would probably get you a better performance boost than a new CPU or GPU, however in direct answer to your question the CPU is weaker than the GPU.

my PC was too slow to play MWO at above medium graphics at a decent frame rate before adding an SSD (especially on caustic for some reason I always got lower framerate on that map), I upgraded the RAM (from 4gb sticks to 16GB) and the GPU (from a Radeon 5870) but this gave little performance boost so as a last resort before buying a new CPU and Motherboard I added an SSD, I was then able to up the resolution to 1080p (from 1600x900) and still set it to higher graphics quality

my PC current specs
AMD Phenom 2 x6 1075t (3ghz) CPU
16GB DDR3 RAM
Geforce GTX 560 GPU
120 GB SSD

runs MWO on custom high/very high graphics settings usualy at 50+ 40+ FPS

the same trick worked on an older PC with a Athlon 2 x3 2.7GHZ CPU

edit: factual correction

Edited by Rogue Jedi, 14 October 2014 - 05:54 AM.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Rogue Jedi, on 14 October 2014 - 03:52 AM, said:

Assuming you do not already have one a Solid State Drive would probably get you a better performance boost than a new CPU or GPU, however in direct answer to your question the CPU is weaker than the GPU.

my PC was too slow to play MWO at above medium graphics at a decent frame rate before adding an SSD (especially on caustic for some reason I always got lower framerate on that map), I upgraded the RAM (from 4gb sticks to 16GB) and the GPU (from a Radeon 5870) but this gave little performance boost so as a last resort before buying a new CPU and Motherboard I added an SSD, I was then able to up the resolution to 1080p (from 1600x900) and still set it to higher graphics quality

my PC current specs
AMD Phenom 2 x6 1075t (3ghz) CPU
16GB DDR3 RAM
Geforce GTX 560 GPU
120 GB SSD

runs MWO on custom high/very high graphics settings at 50+ FPS

the same trick worked on an older PC with a Athlon 2 x3 2.7GHZ CPU

Please for the love of god stop.

Edited by DV McKenna, 14 October 2014 - 04:18 AM.

[xWiredx]

Rogue Jedi, on 14 October 2014 - 03:52 AM, said:

Assuming you do not already have one a Solid State Drive would probably get you a better performance boost than a new CPU or GPU, however in direct answer to your question the CPU is weaker than the GPU.

my PC was too slow to play MWO at above medium graphics at a decent frame rate before adding an SSD (especially on caustic for some reason I always got lower framerate on that map), I upgraded the RAM (from 4gb sticks to 16GB) and the GPU (from a Radeon 5870) but this gave little performance boost so as a last resort before buying a new CPU and Motherboard I added an SSD, I was then able to up the resolution to 1080p (from 1600x900) and still set it to higher graphics quality

my PC current specs
AMD Phenom 2 x6 1075t (3ghz) CPU
16GB DDR3 RAM
Geforce GTX 560 GPU
120 GB SSD

runs MWO on custom high/very high graphics settings at 50+ FPS

the same trick worked on an older PC with a Athlon 2 x3 2.7GHZ CPU

This is definitely wrong.

Also, please show proof (real proof, we want min/max/avg/frametimes) of your claim that your system is running this game as well as mine (Intel Core i7 5820K @ 3.8GhZ, 16GB DDR4-2666, GTX 660 Ti, Samsung 840 Pro). My system has way more horsepower than yours.

[Rogue Jedi]

xWiredx, on 14 October 2014 - 04:37 AM, said:

This is definitely wrong.

Also, please show proof (real proof, we want min/max/avg/frametimes) of your claim that your system is running this game as well as mine (Intel Core i7 5820K @ 3.8GhZ, 16GB DDR4-2666, GTX 660 Ti, Samsung 840 Pro). My system has way more horsepower than yours.

you are correct, I was wrong.

Thank you for asking me to provide evidence, if you had not I would never have realized (as I do not usualy run with the FPS counter on screen and honestly I cannot see any difference between 35 and 60 FPS so I am sorry,
after the upgrade I turned the FPS counter on occasionally to check framerates against previous and usualy saw numbers on the 50s so that is the source of my error, so again sorry for providing bad information

In my case the SSD did provide a massive improvement, with the SSD upgrade I went from frequent bursts of less than 5 (rairly above 20) FPS on Caustic to usualy 40+ on that map

turns out my framerate is usualy between 40 and 50, and occasionally I do drop to around 30 fps in close combat, however here are proof of specs and screenshots as requested

https://onedrive.liv...nt=folder%2cpng

[Flapdrol]

Drops to 30 sounds about right on a phenom II with more than 2 cores.

[MercJ]

A relatively simple way to tell if you're CPU bound:

Make sure you have a baseline comparison (FPS, etc.) of how your system runs now, then increase the multiplier on that FX-4100. You should be able to run it past 4GHz - maybe 4.2 without any additional voltage? (It's been a bit since I've used one, you should be able to find an overclock guide online easily enough).

If your FPS increases, you were probably CPU bound - overclocking gains additional performance in this case, because you are alleviating the bottleneck. If you were GPU bound, changing the CPU speed wouldn't really result in much of a change; I'm with everyone else though, you're most likely bottlenecked by your CPU, the FX CPUs just have a hard time with MWO

[razor31]

your problem is u have a amd setup. Go with a intel chip and nivida card and all of your problems will go away.
I7 2600k, 16gb ram, asus pro v z68 mother board, GeForce gts 770. This will solve all your problems for any game you wish to play

[ninjitsu]

There's nothing wrong with AMD video cards. In fact, they've had fewer problems with MWO over the last couple of years. Intel performs much better than AMD CPU's in this game though. I suggest not going the six core route. I ran a 6300 and was not happy with it. I jumped ship and went Intel, so very glad I did. Intel handles this game far better than AMD, even when AMD processors are overclocked to 1ghz faster than an Intel equivalent.

This thread shows an FX 8350's performance in MWO and my performance http://mwomercs.com/...-rumors-in-mwo/

I've got an $80 video card and Lordred has a $500 video card. Check out how the CPU really influences this game.