52 replies to this topic

[Woodstock]

Hey All you tech guys.

I'm seeking advice for a budget machine to run this game. I know we don't know the min requirements yet but does anyone have experience of cryengine 3?

What would you suggest

Graphics Card?
Ram?
Processor?

Please be aware, I have a wife, Child on the way ... and I'm only a teacher. So I am the definition of poor

I'm seeking something that will run this game well / comfortably.

Rik

Edited by woodstock, 04 April 2012 - 04:35 AM.

[Mason Grimm]

You should know better than this.... 300 posts and still posting in the wrong area? For shame!!!

Moving to hardware.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

You will get all sorts of random answers if you dont at least provide basic info.
You say you are poor and want a budget machine, great but what is your budget even roughly so we know what we are working with.
Do you own a computer atm? If so what are its specs? we may be able to re-use parts.
Do you have preiphials? Do you have a copy of windows?

[Woodstock]

My current machine will be becoming a entertainment hub.

So no parts to cannibalise.

Really if I could get the whole thing (minus Monitor) for less than £300 I would be happy.

[Catamount]

I saw the last poster and thought "Mason doesn't post here...", then I realized what must have happened


Woodstock, it's crucial to know what budget you're looking at, and/or, what level of performance you want. You could probably make a machine for $400 that would physically run the game; it just wouldn't be very much fun to play with.


Here's the cheapest machine you could probably get away with to play the game smoothly:

Case: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16811146061 $46

PSU: http://www.newegg.co...Corsair%20CX430 :$27 after MiR ($47 without)
Motherboard: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16813157277 $63

CPU/GPU: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16819103942 $130

RAM: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820231552 $60 (APUs are the one thing that greatly benefit from fast RAM)65

Optical Drive: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16827136236 $18

Hard drive: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16822136591 $65

Windows 7 Home Premium: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16832116986 $100


Total price with shipping: $509

If your budget is bigger, you can do better, but that's the cheapest way to go of that nets acceptable gaming performance that I'm aware of.

EDIT: I see you're in the UK. Well IF you get the same prices over there, that build would be 320 pounds, probably plus VAT (Newegg doesn't charge tax in most states; US citizens just pay it back at the end of the year as "use tax", well, in theory they do ).

Less than that... not gonna happen unless someone has some odd idea I haven't considered.


Edit 2: With VAT, that comes to 380 it looks like.

Edited by Catamount, 04 April 2012 - 04:56 AM.

[Woodstock]

Okay so (simplified) thats a

Quad core 2.8gig processor
8gig of ram
320 hard drive


How about the graphics card?

$500 would be okay I guess. I am British but I live and work in Poland ...so earn Polish Zloty ...hence the money issue.

[Catamount]

The graphics card is a built-in Radeon HD 6550D, which I *think* perfoms somewhere in the ballpark of a desktop Radeon HD 5570. You should be able to run the game smoothly at a decent resolution at either lower or mediumish settings (I'd have to look up how it runs on Llano chips to see which).

[Woodstock]

I have never got decent results from an 'on-board' graphics card. Is that because of old on-board cards? Has this situation changed now?

Or would I be better off scraping together another $50-100 more for a separate card? Mid range to upper half graphics that has decent frames per second.

Rik

[Barbaric Soul]

Personally, I don't see £300 being even close to enough, not for a full tower. Here's what I'm looking at as a suggested build-

http://www.ebuyer.co...r-ad3650wngxbox

http://www.ebuyer.co...udio-ga-a75-d3h

http://www.ebuyer.co...600c9d3b1k2-8gx

http://www.ebuyer.co...-0-ne5x560zhd02

http://www.ebuyer.co...cmpsu-600cxv2uk

http://www.ebuyer.co...blue-wd5000aaks

http://www.ebuyer.co...se-nzxts210e001

http://www.ebuyer.co...-in-ad-5280s-0b

price, not including shipping- £484.33

Personally, I would not go any less on any on the main components I listed with the cry3 engine in mind.

Edited by Barbaric Soul, 04 April 2012 - 05:22 AM.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Think i have an idea, let me see if the cost works out.

[Woodstock]

cheers guys you have definitely given me some rough ideas at what I should be aiming at.

[WithSilentWings]

woodstock, on 04 April 2012 - 05:15 AM, said:

I have never got decent results from an 'on-board' graphics card. Is that because of old on-board cards? Has this situation changed now?

Or would I be better off scraping together another $50-100 more for a separate card? Mid range to upper half graphics that has decent frames per second.

Rik

The Llano architecture puts the graphics silicon in the same package as the CPU silicon, so it is "technically" a dedicated graphics processor that is built on to the CPU. Though it has less in terms of memory bandwidth because of the lack of dedicated video RAM, it can communicate MUCH faster with the CPU and this tends to either even things out or bring about better performance than would usually be expected from a dedicated GPU of the same size.

Personally, my opinion is you'd be better off saving for a short while longer and investing in a dedicated GPU if you mean to game, as it will also allow you to upgrade over time. Best bang for buck is AMD for CPU. There's a case made by cooler master that's micro-atx that comes with a PSU that is more than enough for the $200 range graphics cards, motherboard can be any cheapy as long as it supports the parts (would recommend Gigabyte over all else for lower end boards) and AMD graphics are typically best bang for buck as well especially on the lower end. I would recommend 8GB of DDR3 right now because it is simply SO CHEAP that you'd be crazy not to do it, and just buy the biggest HD you can afford after the rest of the budget is done with.

Also, I hope you have a monitor, keyboard and mouse to use, otherwise these can add up to a decent chunk of your budget unless you can find some good Logitech OEM stuff for the kayboard/mouse (these things seem to have gone missing from my local computer stores and the only options now seem to be over priced.)

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Not going to lie its over £300 but i really do not think you'll enjoy a gaming exp on those Llano chips.

http://www.amazon.co...=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE
http://www.amazon.co...=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE
http://www.amazon.co...=A1PE185HUIC6C4
http://www.amazon.co...=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE
http://www.amazon.co...=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE
http://www.amazon.co...=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE
http://www.amazon.co...=A1AUCPBF2P18HS
http://www.amazon.co...=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE

Sub Total - £515

Marginally more expensive than Barbaric's system up above, but features a dedicated GPU. Your not going to get much in the way of future upgrades out of any of these though.

[Barbaric Soul]

DV^McKenna, on 04 April 2012 - 06:05 AM, said:

Not going to lie its over £300 but i really do not think you'll enjoy a gaming exp on those Llano chips.

http://www.amazon.co...=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE
http://www.amazon.co...=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE
http://www.amazon.co...=A1PE185HUIC6C4
http://www.amazon.co...=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE
http://www.amazon.co...=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE
http://www.amazon.co...=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE
http://www.amazon.co...=A1AUCPBF2P18HS
http://www.amazon.co...=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE

Sub Total - £515

Marginally more expensive than Barbaric's system up above, but features a dedicated GPU. Your not going to get much in the way of future upgrades out of any of these though.

My build has a dedicated GPU, a Palit GTX560 to be exact. I think I still got you beat bro.

Ok, I looked at McKenna's build. Here's my thoughts of it. He does have a stronger CPU, I have a stronger GPU, we both have the same hard drive. I have a 600 watt corsair PSU, he has a 500 watt corsair PSU. Case is a personal preference. Maybe try combining our builds, go with his CPU and MB, my PSU and GPU, and which ever set of RAM is less expensive,

Edited by Barbaric Soul, 04 April 2012 - 06:15 AM.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Barbaric Soul, on 04 April 2012 - 06:08 AM, said:

My build has a dedicated GPU, a Palit GTX560 to be exact. I think I still got you beat bro.

So it does i must have missed out 1 link, i saw the Llano chip tho ;p. But honestly the Phenom II will be better than the Llano IMO. The 6850 is marginally cheaper than the 560.
But the 560> 6850

[Barbaric Soul]

DV^McKenna, on 04 April 2012 - 06:12 AM, said:

So it does i must have missed out 1 link, i saw the Llano chip tho ;p. But honestly the Phenom II will be better than the Llano IMO. The 6850 is marginally cheaper than the 560.
But the 560> 6850

check my edit of my last post McKenna, tell me what you think about combining the two builds.


DANM IT, WHERE'S VULPESVERITAS AT? HE'S THE AMD EXPERT OUT OF ALL OF US.

[XSive Death]

Probably a much better idea to save up just to get parts with better longevity (or consider buying parts over time...much better for some of us weak-willed people! ), but you can get away with a budget of £300.

Mobo - msi 870-c45 - £45
ram 4gb - £19
cpu - Athlon dual core 3.3ghz - £48
gpu - AMD 6850 - £90
psu - alpine 550w - £13
case - cheap and nasty - £20
HD - £60

All from a quick glance over at scan.co.uk, total of £295. A friend has a similar spec, and runs BF3 perfectly fine....don't think you need the dog's bollocks to actually play a game (especially an MMO, PGI would be committing suicide making it require too high a spec).

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Barbaric Soul, on 04 April 2012 - 06:19 AM, said:

check my edit of my last post McKenna, tell me what you think about combining the two builds.


DANM IT, WHERE'S VULPESVERITAS AT? HE'S THE AMD EXPERT OUT OF ALL OF US.

I'd agree that is probably the best of both worlds.

[Shepard]

If you want gaming on a budget and with a discreet gfx card, I would suggest the following build:


CPU - Intel Pentium G620 2.6GHz[/url] http://www.ebuyer.co...sor-bx80623g620 £44.70

MB - MSI H61M-P25 (B3) [/url]http://www.ebuyer.co...rd-h61m-p25-b3- £36.75inc. vat

RAM - Crucial 4GB DDR3 1333MHz[/url] http://www.ebuyer.co...9-rm51264ba1339 £16.70

GPU - ASUS HD 6850 Direct CU 1GB GDDR5[/url] http://www.ebuyer.co...dc-2dis-1gd5-v2 £98.99

HDD - Seagate 500GB 3.5" SATA-III 6Gb/s Barracuda Hard Drive [/url] http://www.ebuyer.co...ache-st500dm002£61.00

ODD - LG 22x DVD-RW SATA Black http://www.ebuyer.co...h22ns70-auau50b £14.99

Casing - Arctic Cooling Black Silentium T11 Case[/url] http://www.ebuyer.co...e-silentium-t11 £24.99

PSU - OCZ ZS Series 550W 80+ Bronze PSU http://www.ebuyer.co...e-ocz-zs550w-uk £47.99

Total is £331.12 without adding in Windows 7 OS, which will set you back another £68.95.

[Edited for formatting]

Edited by Shepard, 04 April 2012 - 06:51 AM.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

http://www.scan.co.u...8ee3c8c72d23258

Food for thought.

I like the above build from Shepard, but that CPU will need some hefty overclock and a decent CPU cooler, which takes it into the £400 bracket.