46 replies to this topic

[digital O-Q]

Firstly . . . Hello,
Discovered this free to play game on steam and am having a blast.

Secondly . . . I'm running an old laptop with an i5 3230 and a NVidia gt650m. The game runs, but choppy as hell on a couple of maps, I'm thinking of a new laptop, what should I throw my money at the cpu or the gpu to make this run smoother?

Also . . . As a new player, why do we choose the mech and then the map . . .it would make sense to choose the other way round, I should imagine if you have 3 or 4 mechs you could custom fit them for each map?

[Monkey Lover]

This game loves CPU but at some point today the vcard needs updated too. If you plan on getting a new desktop i would go with a top of the line CPU and anything around 1060 vcard is great.

The best way to find out ewhat you need is now is to run monitor programs and log how much of you CPU or vcard is being used.

Cpuz gpuz for example. If your vcard hits 100% and your CPU is at 10% you would kind of know.



As for picking map then mechs you run into a lot of meta. For example if you did this you would run I to lots of lrms and range weapons on polar every time. But the system we have now you can get brawl games and range games.


Welcome to mwo


Edit : sorry I was you said new laptop was on the phone. Laptops almost always have bad vcard. I would try to get the best vcard you can in a laptop as then best laptop cards are about the same as mid-range desktop.

Try to get a benchmark of.the vcard and make sure it does atleast a value of a desktop 960 card.
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net
Remember 960m is not the same as a 960 (desktop)

Something like a 980m would be nice and I'm sure it would come with a good CPU as this isn't going to be cheap.

Edited by Monkey Lover, 14 May 2017 - 06:51 AM.

[Ryllen Kriel]

Hi, welcome to the community. There are a few graphics options you can select to help your frame rate on an older machine. If you haven't already tried this, then you may want to disable cockpit glass, use low shadows, turn down anti-aliasing, turn off cockpit monitors and disable damage glow.

When looking for a new computer, if you insist on a laptop, any newer i5 or i7 processor will be great. 16 gigs of system RAM and at least 2 gigs of dedicated GPU RAM on your graphics card is nice. For good deals, Asus and MSi have some of the better prices. They also have some excellent choices for laptops that run fairly cool. Make sure to read some reviews.

See you on the battlefield!

[Scyther]

As Monkey Lover said, laptops tend to either lag desktops in graphics performance, or charge a fair bit extra to get decent performance.

A couple handy links, Newegg.com generally has decent prices and selection, and they have a 'Gaming Laptop' section.
https://www.newegg.c...Category/ID-363

Also, Tom's Hardware has a handy GPU hierarchy chart:
http://www.tomshardw...archy,4388.html

If you look down to the Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti / Radeon R9 280 line, anything in that category or above (either Nvidia or Radeon side) will get you decent current gaming performance at decent settings, and should last you a couple more years as well.

[Felbombling]

Welcome to the game and community! Boy, did you pick an interesting time to become a MechWarrior. Big patch coming up on Tuesday... read the patch notes on Monday and buckle up.

[Mister Blastman]

psudonym, on 14 May 2017 - 06:28 AM, said:

Also . . . As a new player, why do we choose the mech and then the map . . .it would make sense to choose the other way round, I should imagine if you have 3 or 4 mechs you could custom fit them for each map?

This is a feature that is LONG overdue. Past Mechwarrior games let you choose map, then mech (well, fit your mech to the map). There is NO reason this one shouldn't, either.

[Roughneck45]

psudonym, on 14 May 2017 - 06:28 AM, said:

Also . . . As a new player, why do we choose the mech and then the map . . .it would make sense to choose the other way round, I should imagine if you have 3 or 4 mechs you could custom fit them for each map?

Preach. I've been saying this for 5 years.

Monkey Lover, on 14 May 2017 - 06:35 AM, said:

As for picking map then mechs you run into a lot of meta. For example if you did this you would run I to lots of lrms and range weapons on polar every time. But the system we have now you can get brawl games and range games.

That's a bad thing? Part of the reason the meta is the meta is because we don't know what map we get, so you have to bring something that is effective on all maps, and its not a frankenmech.

Edited by Roughneck45, 14 May 2017 - 10:48 AM.

[Monkey Lover]

Roughneck45, on 14 May 2017 - 10:47 AM, said:

Preach. I've been saying this for 5 years.


That's a bad thing? Part of the reason the meta is the meta is because we don't know what map we get, so you have to bring something that is effective on all maps, and its not a frankenmech.

Personally I do, this is one of the reasons I don't like cw. They're the same fights on every map.

I don't believe in the mix mech setups so I take what ever I want in group Q when we're not doing something g special. If I take a sniper and get a good range map good if not I make it work. Same with brawling..x
The other team does the same and it makes good matches .

Edited by Monkey Lover, 14 May 2017 - 11:21 AM.

[Commander A9]

This game is also notorious for memory leaks, client crashes, texture popping...and on some patch programs, you need 45 gigs free, even if your file is less than 15 gigs big because it has to essentially reinstall the entire game every time it patches.

Edited by Commander A9, 14 May 2017 - 11:24 AM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Mister Blastman, on 14 May 2017 - 08:54 AM, said:

This is a feature that is LONG overdue. Past Mechwarrior games let you choose map, then mech (well, fit your mech to the map). There is NO reason this one shouldn't, either.

yup that wouldn't bring the minmaxing power gaming past 9000 or anything.......

[Coolant]

welcome to the game

3 things I would recommend to help you maximize your FPS for the game. 1) Make sure everything in power options is maxed. 2) Since you have a Nvidia card, bring up Nvidia Control Panel and set everything to low. You can override settings in MWO with Nvidia Control Panel. 3) go into Advanced Video settings and set everything to Low and turn off Anti-aliasing. I would try and keep shadows to medium that way you can see enemy mech shadows.

Honorable mention: You can stay zoomed in. For some reason the UI HUD reduces frames by almost 10. By zooming in you are using less of the HUD.

[MechaBattler]

Sometime as a Mechwarrior you have to drop on whatever mudball of a planet your client chooses.

[Mister Blastman]

Bishop Steiner, on 14 May 2017 - 11:55 AM, said:

yup that wouldn't bring the minmaxing power gaming past 9000 or anything.......

It was a standard feature of past titles. It is also standard issue Battletech. No commander worth a damn would ever deploy a battalion of flamethrower men versus a tank platoon.

[HGAK47]

Welcome to the game.

Unless you have your heart set on a laptop I would say get a desktop as you will get more for your money and much better cooling for future overclocking, of course this is your choice.

Generally it is better to spend money on GPU over CPU for gaming but a good mix of both is ideal. Im running a i7 6700k and a GTX 1070 and normally my FPS is great at max @ 1080p however I often get stutters and framerate drops from time to time, so dont worry too much about getting the absolute best. Actually Star Citizen which uses a heavily modified version of this engine runs about as well as this and that is saying something.... but I digress.

As for picking mech before map, it used to be that you didnt vote for map but things have changed much over the years. The game was a very different place back when I started.

There is much upcoming new stuff so you are in for a fun ride! Couple of days and we get the new skill tree, couple of months we get a host of new weapons and tech.

Edited by HGAK47, 14 May 2017 - 02:22 PM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Mister Blastman, on 14 May 2017 - 02:15 PM, said:

It was a standard feature of past titles. It is also standard issue Battletech. No commander worth a damn would ever deploy a battalion of flamethrower men versus a tank platoon.

another standard feature of battletech is the mechwarrior never had 100 mechs in their garage to choose from, and mechs were rare enough that you used what you owned, whether optimal or not. Wolfs Dragoons didn't switch which mechs were in Alpha Regiment between drops. And Regiments were NEVER optimized.

Also, this is the first "official" batteltech title to start life as a PvP not PvE. Makes a huge difference.

But nice dodge over the issue of it allowing further minmax ridiculousness in a a ame already utterly plagued by it.

[DAYLEET]

psudonym, on 14 May 2017 - 06:28 AM, said:

why do we choose the mech and then the map . . .it would make sense to choose the other way round, I should imagine if you have 3 or 4 mechs you could custom fit them for each map?

Would kill diversity, the match maker also need to know the weight class you drop in, would add more window waiting for people to chose.

Community Warfare has that, you know which map you drop and you can change your deck accordingly. CW is the serious part of the game, it does not want diversity or good clean fun; It wants competition with the same 4 mech for everyone.

[Mister Blastman]

Bishop Steiner, on 14 May 2017 - 02:25 PM, said:

another standard feature of battletech is the mechwarrior never had 100 mechs in their garage to choose from, and mechs were rare enough that you used what you owned, whether optimal or not. Wolfs Dragoons didn't switch which mechs were in Alpha Regiment between drops. And Regiments were NEVER optimized.

Also, this is the first "official" batteltech title to start life as a PvP not PvE. Makes a huge difference.

But nice dodge over the issue of it allowing further minmax ridiculousness in a a ame already utterly plagued by it.

This isn't about minmax, this is about common sense. It is a standard feature and as such, should be available.

The PvP thing doesn't matter. Microprose made a MAJOR balance pass to Mechwarrior 3 because of... dun dun dun! Multiplayer!

So you're only 18 years too late trying to bring that argument to the table. Nice try but... fail.

Have a nice day!

[Dollar Bill]

If the system is mostly for gaming, then go with a i5 CPU and put the money you save into the GPU. The i7 is a waste when it comes to just gaming and would only be good for nerd cred.

As far as running smoother, a new rig will help. But this game is not well optimized, so no matter what you have it will still be a bit choppy at times. But not so much it's not playable. You'll still have a good time.

[Bishop Steiner]

Mister Blastman, on 14 May 2017 - 02:52 PM, said:

This isn't about minmax, this is about common sense. It is a standard feature and as such, should be available.

The PvP thing doesn't matter. Microprose made a MAJOR balance pass to Mechwarrior 3 because of... dun dun dun! Multiplayer!

So you're only 18 years too late trying to bring that argument to the table. Nice try but... fail.

Have a nice day!

except it does directly feed to minmax and further crystallizing metas, along with serious MM headaches.

All this will do is see the rise of only specific chassis/loadouts ever getting used on a given map.

For all your claims of "battletech" being the reason, Battletech was always built around inefficiency and lack of optimal, and making it work, anyhow.

Tag. You're it.

[xSleeZyx]

Dollar Bill, on 14 May 2017 - 03:10 PM, said:

If the system is mostly for gaming, then go with a i5 CPU and put the money you save into the GPU. The i7 is a waste when it comes to just gaming and would only be good for nerd cred.

As far as running smoother, a new rig will help. But this game is not well optimized, so no matter what you have it will still be a bit choppy at times. But not so much it's not playable. You'll still have a good time.

When it comes to laptops. i7 is actually alot better.
Due i5 is just 2 logical cores, where'as i7 is 4 cores.

The same is not true for standalone computer however.
But for laptops i7 will perform better than i5.

I personally run mwo decently around 40-45 fps on low on my old laptop.
i7 3610qm / nvidia 640m le / 6 gb ram / ssd.
So a decent laptop with the newest i7 and a decent graphics card in 960+ range should be sufficent.
Or if you got tons of money to spend and just NEED a laptop, i'd go a step up higher and just buy a gaming laptop with the newest nvidia gtx tech. Bulkier laptops though but it's good for new games. But you will pay almost the double the cost if u were to just buy a standalone computer and build it yourself.

for say 1000$ you'll get much better computer standalone than an laptop. Espeially if you worry about gaming performance.