30 replies to this topic

[ScrapIron Prime]

The gaming rig is dead, long live the gaming rig! Finally retired the Windows 8 PC I built in 2015 and I'm up and running on my new budget monster. Gone from low/medium graphics settings to High/Very High (again, following graphic setting tips from DATA's channel) and from 50 fps to 200 fps. I even remembered to lower my mouse sensitivity!

Redoing weapon groups... not so much. So that first game could have gone better.

The difference in game play from the old rig to the new one is not very pronounced, since the game engine is pretty old its not a real challenge to the graphics hardware. Only real improvement is the lack of lag when the lurms/atms start flying and the higher resolution textures and shadows are prettier.

Tonight I'll install MW5. The difference there should be phenomenal.

[Meep Meep]

Congrats! Finally fully retired my old gaming rig myself earlier this year when gpu prices finally dropped down to msrp. Now sporting an 11900k and 3080 12gb and it eats up every game I toss at it 4k 60. It could run them at higher frames but I use a 58" 4k tv as my monitor and its glorious. They have 120hz models now some around $500ish but my current one is perfectly fine so I'll wait a few more years before upgrading.

[Aleksandr Sergeyevich Kerensky]

I’m starting to think I might need to upgrade my TI-85 to a better potato some day… you guys make it sound super fun… I should have checked prices in November… oh well… maybe next year

[Meep Meep]

Aleksandr Sergeyevich Kerensky, on 29 December 2022 - 03:07 PM, said:

I’m starting to think I might need to upgrade my TI-85 to a better potato some day… you guys make it sound super fun… I should have checked prices in November… oh well… maybe next year

If you are sticking to 1080p then the used market is exploding atm. 1080ti are very affordable now if you can get one from a reputable reseller. I was still using mine in the 11900k rig but finally replaced it with the 3080 so I could use dlss and rtx. Otherwise even at 4k it was doing just fine with only the most recent AAA games giving it any issues at 4k. At 1080p or even 1440p it still crushes most games easily.

A quick search found a nice founders edition blower style(the better micron memory iirc) from a trusted reseller with a 30 day return.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/374217643276

Pop these new parts into your old case along with whatever storage and other goodies you already have and game like a champ for years to come.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/bqwRXy

You could save about $50 or so and get a b660 mobo but this allows for a much better upgrade path if you want to grab a better cpu later.

And if you act fast this would be the best deal as the 6600xt is about on par with a 1080ti unless its an older game where the 1080ti will give you sometimes much greater performance since the 6600xt is optimized more for dx12 and dx11.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/rB4rBj

Or.. If you want to save even more money then the rx580 is still a great 1080p gpu.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/124624576264

Edited by Meep Meep, 29 December 2022 - 05:08 PM.

[w0qj]

Playing MWO is hazardous to your computer's health

- - - - - -
But seriously, just remember to port your old MWO game settings for QoL:

Steam:
C:\Users\abc\Saved Games\MechWarrior Online\profiles

Standalone MWO Install:
C:\users\abc\saved games\Mechwarrior Online\profiles

ActionMaps.xml ==> holds your custom keybinds

Weapongroups.xml ==> holds your weapon group bindings

Attributes.xml ==> holds your game settings

[LordNothing]

yea, new hardware is wasted on this game. cryengine was notoriously designed with clock speed in mind. they assumed that moore's law would continue as normal and made an engine that could take advantage of clock speeds in excess of 5ghz. unfortunately thats not the hardware we got, we hovered at 4ghz and actually started backsliding for some time. core counts went up but those cores only sit there if you are not set up to use them. cryengine was not. it might consume 2 or 3 threads tops. its a case of misprediction of future technology. so cryengine was stunted from the get go. now we are finally seeing the clock speeds we were supposed to have back in 2015. now cryengine cant even handle powerstates correctly, im convinced this is why mwo is so crashy (full window is just the workaround).

[Meep Meep]

LordNothing, on 30 December 2022 - 03:59 AM, said:

im convinced this is why mwo is so crashy (full window is just the workaround).

The only time mwo crashes on me is if I alt tab out of fullscreen mode. So yeah probably a powerstate issue but not a huge deal to me as I almost never alt tab out and as you say you can work around that by running borderless window mode. Performance was also never really an issue except when it first launched and it was still unoptimized.

[Aleksandr Sergeyevich Kerensky]

Meep Meep, on 29 December 2022 - 04:54 PM, said:

If you are sticking to 1080p then the used market is exploding atm. 1080ti are very affordable now if you can get one from a reputable reseller. I was still using mine in the 11900k rig but finally replaced it with the 3080 so I could use dlss and rtx. Otherwise even at 4k it was doing just fine with only the most recent AAA games giving it any issues at 4k. At 1080p or even 1440p it still crushes most games easily.

A quick search found a nice founders edition blower style(the better micron memory iirc) from a trusted reseller with a 30 day return.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/374217643276

Pop these new parts into your old case along with whatever storage and other goodies you already have and game like a champ for years to come.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/bqwRXy

You could save about $50 or so and get a b660 mobo but this allows for a much better upgrade path if you want to grab a better cpu later.

And if you act fast this would be the best deal as the 6600xt is about on par with a 1080ti unless its an older game where the 1080ti will give you sometimes much greater performance since the 6600xt is optimized more for dx12 and dx11.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/rB4rBj

Or.. If you want to save even more money then the rx580 is still a great 1080p gpu.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/124624576264

Thank you for all this info… I’m currently running on a like 15+ year old $500 laptop with a 13inch screen… the same discount laptop I bought when mwo went into beta… I think it uses some type of onboard graphics card… or maybe some magic space hamster… but he is getting tired running in the same wheel over and over again…

The hamster went on strike when Lurmaggedon happened and almost went into full cardiac arrest when MRMs were introduced into the game…

[LordNothing]

Meep Meep, on 30 December 2022 - 12:02 PM, said:

The only time mwo crashes on me is if I alt tab out of fullscreen mode. So yeah probably a powerstate issue but not a huge deal to me as I almost never alt tab out and as you say you can work around that by running borderless window mode. Performance was also never really an issue except when it first launched and it was still unoptimized.

its a combination of alt tab and video mode and the fact that alt tab does different things in each. in full screen its assumed that you will free up the video hardware for other uses, and restore its state when you tab back. for some reason this doesnt always work. in full window, it does not try to free the gpu, because the window is still up and needs to render and it makes no sense to change gpu state in that situation. it effectively bypasses the sometimes crashy thing.

its not really an optimization feature, as the gpu and its drivers now has features that this game does not understand, that did not exist when the engine was created. tech simply moved on and the muntant ce3 engine we use did not. i suppose you could have a coder go in and try to figure out why state restore sometimes fails. but you need a low level guy (expensive) to go in there fix it and possibly recompile parts/all of the engine. its sad that much of this game is built on sand.

i suspect its power state, because those are the exceptions ive seen (on 3 different gpus mind you). most are power state exceptions. you are supposed to write a handler for those to either handle the problem or crash gracefully. my 750ti was notorious for these, because it didnt have a power header, it would have to source all its power over the mobo, and that caused a lot of power state crashes. the 1060 and 2070 super that succeeded it also have this problem but a lot fewer instances.

but i think you would be better off at this point to make full window the default video option, and if you try to change it to full screen have a popup tell you that fullscreen can be crashy and you should use full window if you have problems. you can also not alt-tab, but considering the amount of wait time this game has in it, i dont think that is remotely practical.

Edited by LordNothing, 30 December 2022 - 04:49 PM.

[Meep Meep]

Aleksandr Sergeyevich Kerensky, on 30 December 2022 - 04:05 PM, said:

Thank you for all this info… I’m currently running on a like 15+ year old $500 laptop with a 13inch screen… the same discount laptop I bought when mwo went into beta… I think it uses some type of onboard graphics card… or maybe some magic space hamster… but he is getting tired running in the same wheel over and over again…

The hamster went on strike when Lurmaggedon happened and almost went into full cardiac arrest when MRMs were introduced into the game…

What is your budget and I will whip up something complete with case, monitor and everything.

[LordNothing]

...member when a gaming rig could be built for under $600...

[Meep Meep]

LordNothing, on 31 December 2022 - 01:38 PM, said:

...member when a gaming rig could be built for under $600...

Depends on the level of gaming to be honest. If you stick to 1080p and don't need to play AAA games at full bling levels then most of the popular games especially the online types are quite hardware friendly as long as its not a 15+ year old laptop.

The r7 5700g with the built in vega graphics is perfect for a new upgrade friendly budget build and would crush mwo.

$583 https://pcpartpicker.com/list/B7mGgb

Add in a dedicated gpu later. That rx580 I linked would be perfect but the cpu and psu can take even a high end gpu if you wish.




.

Edited by Meep Meep, 31 December 2022 - 02:52 PM.

[ScrapIron Prime]

LordNothing, on 31 December 2022 - 01:38 PM, said:

...member when a gaming rig could be built for under $600...

I didn’t do too badly, got an Radeon 6600 based system for 800.

[Meep Meep]

Toasty Bros must have read this thread as they just dropped a $600 gaming pc with a 6600.



I could probably build the same if I was doing the dedicated gpu route but the one I linked earlier has more ram and storage and a much better psu for future upgradability.

[LordNothing]

Meep Meep, on 31 December 2022 - 02:41 PM, said:

Depends on the level of gaming to be honest. If you stick to 1080p and don't need to play AAA games at full bling levels then most of the popular games especially the online types are quite hardware friendly as long as its not a 15+ year old laptop.

The r7 5700g with the built in vega graphics is perfect for a new upgrade friendly budget build and would crush mwo.

$583 https://pcpartpicker.com/list/B7mGgb

Add in a dedicated gpu later. That rx580 I linked would be perfect but the cpu and psu can take even a high end gpu if you wish.

my gpu is the oldest thing in my computer, a 2070 super. it runs the games i play, most of them at 4k. i generally dislike aaa games so thats in my favor.

[LordNothing]

i ended up doing a ryzen 5800x system, 32 gigs of ram, 2tb gen 4 nvme (system drive) + 2tb gen 3 nvme (data), 750w sfx psu, all noctua cpu cooler and case fans. all stuffed into an ncase m1 with that 2070 super. it took me 18 months to build it though. cpu sat on the work bench (3dv cache version came out while it was sitting there) while i mined enough crypto to pay for the mobo, the fast ssd, and ram. i would not have been able to build it without mining though.

i like to build a new computer every 3 or 4 years to keep my knowledge up to date. i used to be a system integrator back in the p4 days.

Edited by LordNothing, 31 December 2022 - 06:43 PM.

[Meep Meep]

Thats my pc. An ongoing ever lasting upgrade where some parts might be almost a decade old like my samsung 1tb 840 pro which is still going strong. I'm still using my very first atx case which was an absurdly large atx office tower with a zillion drive bays which I filled with seagate 2tb constellation nas drives on an old z87 mobo with 12 sata3 ports. Weighs a ton but can probably withstand an emp attack its so solid and the 2.5g wired network means its like using a local drive.

[sycocys]

w0qj, on 29 December 2022 - 05:17 PM, said:

Playing MWO is hazardous to your computer's health

- - - - - -
But seriously, just remember to port your old MWO game settings for QoL:

Steam:
C:\Users\abc\Saved Games\MechWarrior Online\profiles

Standalone MWO Install:
C:\users\abc\saved games\Mechwarrior Online\profiles

ActionMaps.xml ==> holds your custom keybinds

Weapongroups.xml ==> holds your weapon group bindings

Attributes.xml ==> holds your game settings

I wish I would have thought of this when I upgraded my rig this fall because something in it was beginning to fail after almost 10 years, totally sucked having to redo the weapons groups and key binds. Though the new rig convinced me to get MW5 and now I'm more acquainted with 3-4+ groups on this particular mouse, its more awkward than my old mouse but workable.

[LordNothing]

sycocys, on 01 January 2023 - 08:37 PM, said:

I wish I would have thought of this when I upgraded my rig this fall because something in it was beginning to fail after almost 10 years, totally sucked having to redo the weapons groups and key binds. Though the new rig convinced me to get MW5 and now I'm more acquainted with 3-4+ groups on this particular mouse, its more awkward than my old mouse but workable.

what i do is make a junction point where the save folder is with the mklink /j command. the actual files reside on a drive i bother backing up. so long as i keep that backup up to date, the system drive can go kaput, get formatted, nuked from orbit, etc, and i can just restore the drive and run a script to re-set all my junction points.

i tend to resist all efforts of operating system developers to put my files in the designated locations. because that inevitably leads to stuff i care about mingling with stuff i dont, and who knows maybe they are reading my files and transmitting them to the nsa. but its worth doing for the organizational utility alone.

Edited by LordNothing, 01 January 2023 - 09:16 PM.

[sycocys]

LordNothing, on 01 January 2023 - 09:16 PM, said:

what i do is make a junction point where the save folder is with the mklink /j command. the actual files reside on a drive i bother backing up. so long as i keep that backup up to date, the system drive can go kaput, get formatted, nuked from orbit, etc, and i can just restore the drive and run a script to re-set all my junction points.

i tend to resist all efforts of operating system developers to put my files in the designated locations. because that inevitably leads to stuff i care about mingling with stuff i dont, and who knows maybe they are reading my files and transmitting them to the nsa. but its worth doing for the organizational utility alone.

I think I have a failing hd issue in my old one, didn't want to cycle it any more than I had to in case it was a multiple drive issue - once SSDs go, they go and there's no saving anything. Didn't get a new external storage until several weeks after the new rig showed up - Alienware rig, amazing how much better it runs stuff with half the power supply and damn near silent versus my old rig with a pile of fans to just barely stay cool from day one. Only issue I have is I didn't realize Win11 was such a memory hog so I didn't order it with enough ram for my tastes, mostly only an issue when doing non-gaming processing though.

As far as windows goes, if you didn't (and honestly probably even if you did) do a hard scrub to disable the telemetry it probably doesn't much matter where you put your files, they are going to scan it all and send whatever info/data/copies they want to their cloud in the background anyhow. There is just so much ******** running I doubt its actually possible to disable most of their crap other than hide/disable the top level processes.

I just wish they made it so audio didn't have to buffer through all the layers and then through their **** software when you are running much more powerful DSP's on external devices. It just gets worse with every newer iteration of windows.