20 replies to this topic

[CwStrife]

Here is the system:

Athlon 64 x2 5200+ oc to 3.3GHz
4GB DDR2
128GB SSD
Windows 7 64-Bit

I have a Geforce 610 in there now which cannot play the game at any playable framerate...

I can pick up either of these 2 cards for $40 from one of my friends friends...

Geforce GTS 240

Geforce 640

He says, the 640, and from the benchmarks I tend to agree, but it seems like the 240 is better at some DX9 applications so i'm a bit confused.

This is just a secondary system, my main system has a GTX 550TI SLI so I just need something playable with like 40FPS avg. at 1920x1080 on this second system.

And yes I know the processor is old but it's what I have laying around, and can't afford much right now.

[Egomane]

Moving to our hardware forum. I'm sure you will find competent helpers there.

[CwStrife]

Sorry my bad.

[Youngblood]

CwStrife, on 21 January 2013 - 10:19 AM, said:

This is just a secondary system, my main system has a GTX 550TI SLI so I just need something playable with like 40FPS avg. at 1920x1080 on this second system.

And yes I know the processor is old but it's what I have laying around, and can't afford much right now.

You're going to need to lower your expectations, then.

[CwStrife]

Why is this not possible on all low settings? This game doesn't have the best graphics, but I did hear it's CPU intensive cuz things are still messed up?

[Oderint dum Metuant]

The game is graphically intensive, and even more CPU intensive it certainly does not like dual core systems at this time, neither of the GPU's you are looking at are gaming grade GPU's.

[CwStrife]

I'm aware neither are for high performance gaming, but out of the two which will put me closer to my goal?

I can try and overclock the CPU some more, but I already took it from 2.6 to 3.3 and i'm out of VCore increase on this motherboard.. only allows a small voltage increase unfortunatly of .025v.

Still, I fail to see how a 3.3GHz dual core is a bad system? Which will be the bottleneck? CPU or the Geforce GTS 240 or 640.

[Gremlich Johns]

CwStrife, on 21 January 2013 - 11:31 AM, said:

Still, I fail to see how a 3.3GHz dual core is a bad system? Which will be the bottleneck? CPU or the Geforce GTS 240 or 640.

You don't have a 3.3GHz dual core, you have an overclocked 2.6, not the same thing. And those graphics cards are not modern day gaming cards (especially that 640, CHEAP and more like a business card, IMHO. No pun intended.)(really) TheGTS240 was released in 2009.

short term (and cheapest) solution before you build a heftier system?

Buy a quad-core CPU with at least 3.6GHz and a mobo that will support it (about $200). 4-8 GB RAM ($30-$100) Then, get a higher end Nvidia or AMD $150-200 video card (read the reviews!!). As long as your HDD (and optical drives if you have them) are sata, you'll be spending under $500. Then OC the "S" out of the CPU and GPU and make sure you have enough air flowing through your case.

The game is optimized for DX9 ATM which depends more on the CPU. DX11 hands over more graphics to the GPU.

Edited by Gremlich Johns, 21 January 2013 - 12:22 PM.

[CwStrife]

Gremlich Johns, on 21 January 2013 - 12:16 PM, said:

You don't have a 3.3GHz dual core, you have an overclocked 2.6, not the same thing. And those graphics cards are not modern day gaming cards (especially that 640, CHEAP and more like a business card, IMHO. No pun intended.)(really) TheGTS240 was released in 2009.

short term (and cheapest) solution before you build a heftier system?

Buy a quad-core CPU with at least 3.6GHz and a mobo that will support it (about $200). 4-8 GB RAM ($30-$100) Then, get a higher end Nvidia or AMD $150-200 video card (read the reviews!!). As long as your HDD (and optical drives if you have them) are sata, you'll be spending under $500. Then OC the "S" out of the CPU and GPU and make sure you have enough air flowing through your case.

The game is optimized for DX9 ATM which depends more on the CPU. DX11 hands over more graphics to the GPU.

Again, this is a spare machine. My main rig is a Quad core FX-4100 with 2x GTX 550Ti and 8GB Ram.

I don't have extra money like stated above.

I'm not going to go and buy a $200 motherboard???? I have the Asus Crosshair V Formula in my computer, and it doesn't make much of a difference wether you get a $90 motherboard or $200 unless you want more flexibility in the bios and for SLI and such.

So what i'm asking is, for the price, for $40 which is better because a Geforce 610 cannot play the game at all

[Vulpesveritas]

CwStrife, on 21 January 2013 - 04:03 PM, said:

Again, this is a spare machine. My main rig is a Quad core FX-4100 with 2x GTX 550Ti and 8GB Ram.

I don't have extra money like stated above.

I'm not going to go and buy a $200 motherboard???? I have the Asus Crosshair V Formula in my computer, and it doesn't make much of a difference wether you get a $90 motherboard or $200 unless you want more flexibility in the bios and for SLI and such.

So what i'm asking is, for the price, for $40 which is better because a Geforce 610 cannot play the game at all

The main problem is for 40fps@1080p in Mechwarrior: Online, you are going to need at minimum both a 3ghz+ quad-core CPU and either a Radeon HD 7850 or Geforce GTX 660. If you knock down the resolution to around 720p, you could probably get by with a Radeon HD 7770/7750/Geforce GTX 550ti/640.

[Catamount]

At the lowest settings? A 7770 would still do at 1080P, but not with that CPU. An X2 5200 is just too old; it's just not suited to game anymore, any gaming, let alone gaming in a title as CPU-intensive as MWO.

A GT640 paired with that CPU definitely wouldn't do it.

[CwStrife]

Ok well let me put it this way, in the meantime how can I get decent gameplay on the setup.

I'm gonna go grab the 640 from him tomorrow, what settings will this run on, and what things should i optimize/change for the best gameplay?

I'm paying a whopping $40 for this, actually not even... don't ask...

[Catamount]

CwStrife, on 21 January 2013 - 07:04 PM, said:

Ok well let me put it this way, in the meantime how can I get decent gameplay on the setup.

I'm gonna go grab the 640 from him tomorrow, what settings will this run on, and what things should i optimize/change for the best gameplay?

I'm paying a whopping $40 for this, actually not even... don't ask...

Basically, just bottom out the resolution while turning things down. 720P is a lot more realistic than 1080P. Unfortunately, with the CPU being your bottleneck, that will only help a little, but it should make things quite playable. When DX11 comes along, it should lighten the load on that CPU a lot, but in the meantime MWO just doesn't play well on lower end systems.

My laptop's Core i7 720QM (1.6ghz, like 1.9 on all four after turbo boost iirc) and Mobility Radeon HD 5730M have a lot of trouble even at 720P and the lowest settings.

[Gremlich Johns]

CwStrife, on 21 January 2013 - 04:03 PM, said:

I'm not going to go and buy a $200 motherboard????

Learn to read better, I posted "Buy a quad-core CPU with at least 3.6GHz and a mobo that will support it (about $200)" not "buy a $200 mobo and a quad-core CPU"

sheesh

[Funkin Disher]

The only piece of advice i can give you is that you dont want to stray away form an NVidia graphics card.

I thought I'd upgrade my older 1gb Nvidia card with a 2bg radeon i found and my frames dropped form 40 to 7...

[Ocilfa]

Of both, go for the 640. Its a bit of a rebadge, but still better through optimizations over the years.

Here's some benchmarks: http://www.anandtech...duct/611?vs=612

However, neither will even really do anything on this game. Even worse, your cpu is not even in the same realm. My grandpa's cpu in his computer is moderately better than your cpu, and it has a rough time with rise of legends(pretty tame graphics, more than a few years old). Go on ebay and look for a better cpu for your socket. Your bound to find something better for really cheap.

For what its worth, my system stays in the 40-60 range at 1080p.
2.8ghz i5-760
amd 7850 2gb

Edited by Ocilfa, 21 January 2013 - 08:58 PM.

[Catamount]

Kane0, on 21 January 2013 - 08:25 PM, said:

The only piece of advice i can give you is that you dont want to stray away form an NVidia graphics card.

I thought I'd upgrade my older 1gb Nvidia card with a 2bg radeon i found and my frames dropped form 40 to 7...

That's because "2GB" isn't video card, anymore than "Windows XP" is a computer. If you buy a 2gb card that's slower, then of course you'll get worse performance. I have a 1gb Radeon HD 5850 that easily gets 40-50fps on med/high at 1080P. Tomorrow, Iexpect my new 3GB 7970 to do better, but it'll be fast because it's a Radeon HD 7970, not because it has 3GB of memory.

[Barbaric Soul]

I have friend with the same CPU matched up to a GTX260 video card. He only get 25 fps and ALL low settings, 720p, and gets drops lower than that when in brawls. Dont expect much from that X2 5200.

Edited by Barbaric Soul, 22 January 2013 - 04:21 AM.

[pcunite]

The game currently requires and Intel i5-3570K paired with a GeForce GTX 660 to play reasonable FPS ... by most people's standards anyway.

[Catamount]

pcunite, on 22 January 2013 - 07:35 AM, said:

The game currently requires and Intel i5-3570K paired with a GeForce GTX 660 to play reasonable FPS ... by most people's standards anyway.

Yep, that's what's required to approach 60fps, and consistently stay above 45.

An old Nehalem CPU or Phenom II can do 30-40 though. My mobile Core i7 720QM gets 20-30, regardless of settings/resolution (to a point), so it's clearly bottlenecking even an old midrange GPU.


An Athlon X2? I'm sorry, OP, but while you can try it (and it might be okay for many other games), I just can't see this working for MWO that well. It'll be playable, but it won't be smooth. DX11 might fix things later on (CE3 runs well even on Athlon IIs in DX11), but until then...

Edited by Catamount, 22 January 2013 - 07:59 AM.