Just wanted to provide an update and my final thoughts on this topic. First off, probably all of you have more knowledge than me on these things. I'd like to say thank you for the input and advice.
After the upgrades I made, I am now running the game with everything on ultra, and getting perfectly smooth game-play. It doesn't stutter or hiccup at all, unless the issue is a latency hit from the broadband, which is rare. The upgrades weren't cheap, but the results were well worth it. Not just for this game, but for the next year and half I'd say too.
Started with a cross hair that would stutter while tracking targets, and an environment that wouldn't transition smoothly. This setup was not acceptable to me for a nice gaming experience. I don't like dying because my hardware is limiting my ability to aim.
All @ 1080p on 42" LED TV 120Hz
Went from Settings on Med, DirectX9. Shadows on low and these hardware specs:
Gigabyte 990 FXA-UD3 (Rev. 1, 125w only)
16GB Corsair Vengeance 1600 Ram
AMD Phenom II x4 970 @3.4Ghz
1TB Western Digital Caviar Black 7200rpm
Windows 7 64 bit
MSI HD 6950 2GB Twin Frozer II unlocked to 6970
To this. Setting on Med, Directx9, Shadows on Med. This stepped it up to almost a perfectly smooth refresh rate, with very minimal skipping like I had before. But still not to my liking.
AMD Phenom II x4 970 @4.1Ghz (just an overclock)
Samsung Evo 500 GB SSD ($250 on special)
This upgrade got me to HIGH settings with shadows on Med. Marginally worse frame-rates, but still playable.
AMD FX 8350 @4.0Ghz ($159)
And finally, Everything on ULTRA settings, smooth as butter. Directx11
Zotac Geforce GTX 970 ($329)
From what I went through, I would say the game does indeed suffer heavily from an under powered CPU. I made the biggest gains IMO from the CPU upgrades. I feel like the video card only made a difference when trying to achieve the upper end of the graphics spectrum.
On a side note, I had never heard of Zotac before. I only got one because it was the only 970 I could find on the internet for that price. I've had MSI, PNY, and ASUS cards before. This card is on the same level of build quality as any of those brands. Its running great.
Hope that helps
Edited by EnzyteBob82, 22 October 2014 - 06:10 PM.
4
Peter2k, on 22 October 2014 - 06:43 AM, said:
