8 replies to this topic

[karrade85]

I've been playing for about 3 months now and feel I've gone as far as I can go with my little laptop. Some people would say it's un playable.... from there perspective I guess it is but it's introduced me to the game I now love. That being said I have been playing at 6 to 16 FPS and feel my skill at using my mechs with this has peaked.

Not very tech savy but to give you and idea it's a 2 year old $270 dollar laptop with a Intell I3 in it and not much else lol. That said FPS is with all settings at low as you can go and then some thanks to somebody who helped me modify some files to make it run even lower. Needless to say I'm ready to upgrade now because I'm at a serious disadvantage with anything but a LRM boat since my aim is almost spray and pray.

I have some space issues, thus the laptop I use however someone was telling me they make compact towers for PC's. If this is the case here's what I'm looking for.

1. I currently put my laptop away into a cabinet and I would like to be able to do the same with the tower but that being said I could always find a shelf somewhere. Point is it will be taken down and put away every time I finish using it so it can't be huge.

2. Can I sit it on carpet? heat issue? I don't know if it's okay or not but currently I setup a T.V. tray to play on so the tower sits on carpet next to me.

3.I want to run at least 40 FPS or higher but I don't know how pricey that would be so feel free to post some options. I would prefer to spend only 400 but I realize that graphics cards are pricey so I could be persuaded to wait a bit and splurge 750ish. Again not sure what kinda bang for my buck I can get. Also while I'd love to run high on graphics I'm sure I'd be fine with a medium low mix to get my frame rate up.

4.Don't need a screen, mouse or keyboard. Just the tower and guts to run them. It would be nice if it's somewhat upgradable since I don't wanna replace this in 2 or 3 years.

[Kaptain]

Wait until you can spend $500-750

MWO runs best on Intel as it is CPU single thread performance intensive.

As an example the FX6300: https://www.cpubench...X-6300+Six-Core
Scores only 1409 in single thread performance. Where as a similarly prices chip from intel performs far better at: 2136 http://www.cpubenchm...170+%40+3.70GHz

Although Intels new chips are out on the 1151 socket you will find better value in the 1150 socked. The Z97 chipset will allow you to overclock now or in the future so long as you have a chip skew ending in"k" http://www.newegg.co...N82E16813128716 This board is also small ATX so you can use a small case.

8gb of 1600mhz+ ram will run you about $50 bucks on new egg, amazon or your fav retailer.

A GTX950 is about $150 and should be capable of high settings.

As for CPU
$69 g3258Pentium (overclockable) http://www.newegg.co...N82E16819117374

$125 I3 4170 http://www.newegg.co...82E16819117543. Personal experience on this one. Minimum of 50fps on high. This is a dual core with hyperthreading but it is not overclockable.

$239 Gets you an overclock-able I5 quad core. http://www.newegg.co...N82E16819117372

$339 And down the road there is alway this if you need more cores: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16819117369

Figure $50 for a power supply (I like evga personally)
Another $50-$100 for a small case you like.
and another $100 for a 250gb SSD
Motherboard linked earlier $125
I3 CPU $125
GTX950 $150
Ram: $50

=About $650-$700

If you use PC parts picker and shop around I'm sure you can find those parts a bit cheaper here and there.
Used GTX760/670/660TIs sometimes go for as low as $100 on ebay and would save you $50 but with some risk I suppose.

Edited by Kaptain, 13 November 2015 - 02:08 AM.

[mad kat]

Not much help for buying a tower across the pond but i will say avoid AMD chipset if you can. I currently use a AMD FX chip-set in a lenovo Z50 laptop ( i know) and i have to disable the antivirus boost it with AMD overdrive (turn turbo core off) Tweak various settings in catalyst control centre, Force the Processor to run at full pelt when MWO is on in CCC and occasionally i even try setting the MWO client to high priority in task manager (which seems to work well). Every graphic setting to off and low, minimum resolution and tweaks to the USER.CFG file and i can see about mid 50's fps but when a brawl breaks out that easily halves and i get a lot of juddering (screen tearing?).

Make sure its an Intel machine is all i'll say.

[karrade85]

Ok this does help give me an idea what I should be looking for. I'll be honest though I'm far from computer savvy so don't know if I want to risk putting one together myself but there is a local shop who can do it for me.

Do you get better deals buying parts individually rather than just buying a completed tower/pc?

Little over budget but something like this? not sure if it's a good deal or not.

http://www.overstock...KY&searchidx=15

Edited by karrade85, 13 November 2015 - 03:23 AM.

[Rogue Jedi]

karrade85, on 13 November 2015 - 02:39 AM, said:

Ok this does help give me an idea what I should be looking for. I'll be honest though I'm far from computer savvy so don't know if I want to risk putting one together myself but there is a local shop who can do it for me.

Do you get better deals buying parts individually rather than just buying a completed tower/pc?

building your own tends to work out cheaper if you are after spending more than £400 ^{($600 although for most electronic stuff you generally can just change the £ sign for a $ sign, yes in the UK we get ripped off for cost of electronics)}
less than about £350 the £80 cost for a Windows license makes build your own less economical than buying a prebuilt.

you can build tiny PCs or purchase them prebuilt, however going really small makes upgrading more difficult, you probably want to be looking at the micro ATX or mini ITX form factors both work out at about about 30cm x 36cm x44cm.
building a PC is really simple, not much harder than a childs block puzzle, each part goes in a slot, the slots are shaped to prevent you putting anything in incorrectly, however if you lack the confidence to do it talk to your local computer shop or look for a local IT guy, I am an IT guy, unpacking the parts and putting a new computer together will usualy take me about 30 minutes, plus about 90 minutes to setup Windows, and make sure everything is working properly, if someone wants me to build the PC then set it up for them at their home I would charge about £100 for that

the only real risk is damaging the parts through static electricity, you can remove that risk by using a ESD wrist strap and attaching the crocodile clip to something electrically grounded, a wrist strap costs less than £3
http://www.ebay.co.u...ps=true&ff13=80

here is an example of roughly what you want, this is using a UK supplier but will give you a rough idea, and would be upgradable at a later date
case with 500w puower supply, £25.74
this will do but buying a better quality PSU seporately would be better however it sould likely add another £30
http://www.ebuyer.co...ack-psu-templar

any quad core processor would sufice although an i5 would be best, choose your processor and note its socket type before choosing your motherboard as the socket type must match, 1151 is for the newest CPUs and supports the newer DDR4 RAM, in a few years a RAM upgrade may drasticly improve your PCs performance
£140 for an i5 processor, socket 1151
http://www.ebuyer.co...d-bx80662i56400

41.72 for a Micro ATX motherboard with built in sound (a sound card will give better quality sound but the onboard does the job)
http://www.ebuyer.co...rd-h110m-pro-vd

RAM, you want at least 8GB. check what is compatable with the motherboard before purchasing
16GB 74.54
http://www.ebuyer.co...hx424c15fbk2-16

SSD, a Solid State drive is high speed storage, good for making things load faster than with a traditional spinning rust Hard Disk Drive, an HDD is far cheeper per GB so is better if you want to store lots of data e.g. pictures, videos ect.
a 240 GB SSD will be plenty for Windows, a few games and regular documents and pictures
this 240 SSD costs 65.96, 500GB drives start at about £110
http://www.ebuyer.co...-sv300s37a-240g

graphics card, 86.99, if you spend a bit more you can get a better card, I would usualy aim for about £150 on a card which should be good for 2-3 years but this should suffice, make sure the card you order is not too big for the case, it should have physical dimensions listed in the cards description
http://www.ebuyer.co...s-gv-n75td5-2gi

total of about £436, on top of that you will need a license for Windows, Windows 10 costs about £77 taking combined total to roughly £513, and considering the usual rip off nature of UK electronics that will probably be about the same in US$.

all combined you will have something weighing maybe 5KG (11LB)with dimensions of about 10"x14"x18"
as it is a desktop you can add things like an internal optical drive (DVD or Blu-Ray) or a Memory Card Reader if you want, and pretty much every part can be removed and upgraded ^{(although if you replace the motherboard be careful to make sure everything remains compatible or you could end up effectively building a new PC)}, provided it is compatable with your Motherboard you could put in a better CPU, more RAM, more storage be it SSD or HDD for capacity, there are 2 spare PCIe slots allowing additional expansion cards be they sound cards, more USB ports of any thing else you can find for a PCIe x1 slot, if, in a few years your graphics card is no longer up to the job you can just swap it out, just make sure the new card is PCIe x16 (all are at current but it is possible they may retire PCIe x16 in a few years.

when you are ready to build feel free to ask, including how much you want to spend, and what besides MWO you would be using it for and I will happily check through a few American hardware sites to give you a build for your budget

[Rogue Jedi]

karrade85, on 13 November 2015 - 02:39 AM, said:

Little over budget but something like this? not sure if it's a good deal or not.

http://www.overstock...KY&searchidx=15

something like that would be fine for MWO, however it does not look like it would be easy to upgrade

[Spetulhu]

Good advice offered already so I'll just put in a few points that I've come to see as pretty important from a comfort perspective.

Cheap cases aren't always that nice to work with so look at some test articles before buying one. Saving 20$ isn't necessarily worth it if the noise from cpu/gpu/case fans comes through like a vacuum cleaner or screw fittings are badly machined. The boxed CPU fans are good enough for the cooling if you're not overclocking but you could get less noise even with a pretty cheap aftermarket solution. I don't bother fitting new cooling on the GPU but if the jump from a stock cooler to a card with something less noisy isn't too high (depending on budget ofc) it is often worth it.

[karrade85]

Thanks for the help guys! Not sure if I'll build it on my own or not yet but if anything this information will give me a good idea of what I'm shopping for. I'm going to check and see what the local shop charges to assemble it for me. If it's somewhat reasonable then I'll purchase parts myself and use this route.

Also someone has now mentioned to me that they have wireless monitors now? If that's the case the tower size restriction wouldn't matter and I wouldn't have to constantly worry about wires and setup. I could put tower in my entertainment center cabinet and just throw the monitor on a T.V. tray just like I do with my laptop! course it means using a wireless mouse and keyboard then to..

Are there and delay or lag issues using all this wireless stuff? I really only plan to run MWO on it, no other game really.

Edited by karrade85, 13 November 2015 - 09:24 PM.

[Rogue Jedi]

karrade85, on 13 November 2015 - 09:07 PM, said:

Also someone has now mentioned to me that they have wireless monitors now? If that's the case the tower size restriction wouldn't matter and I wouldn't have to constantly worry about wires and setup. I could put tower in my entertainment center cabinet and just throw the monitor on a T.V. tray just like I do with my laptop! course it means using a wireless mouse and keyboard then to..

Are there and delay or lag issues using all this wireless stuff? I really only plan to run MWO on it, no other game really.

wireless monitors definitely exist, just do a search for wireless monitor and it will show you several solutions, including ways to set up any existing monitor to work without a cable connecting it to the PC.

I do not know if there would be noticeable lag involved ^{_{(there would almost definitely be some but probably measured in single figure thousands of a second, and thus not noticeable)}}, that would depend on many factors, including distance, obstructions ^{(a piece of paper would not have significant effect but a lead sheet or concrete wall would likely totally block the signal)}, wireless technology used.

wireless in general be it wifi, keyboard, mouse, or anything else is almost always inferior to a hardwired connection, it is a case of balancing the convenience of not being tethered with the disadvantages of potential lag and possibility of interference, e.g. if your base unit is 2m away from all the wireless stuff and has clear line of sight, and no interference the lag would be unnoticeable, however if there is a wall between the equipment the lag will be much more significant.

Edited by Rogue Jedi, 14 November 2015 - 04:15 AM.