hi im new here and need some advice. want to get early bird and want a cheap computer that can run it. doesn't need to be high end don't mind running it at low settings and not expecting the best framerates. the problem is I need it to be cheap as it can be as im not rich atm lol. any advice on a setup? already got screen mouse and kb. is there anything that can run it around £200? thanks.
This is the sort of build I love being that I'm a professional tightwad
With the budget you have you're deep into self build second hand territory if you want to make something that will run this game. It can be done though if you're willing to be patient and spend a few days looking for parts on various sites. With your budget I'd be looking at a socket 1155 motherboard, RAM, Sandybridge i3 (i3-2xxx or higher) CPU, video card (something GTX 750 level) and a power supply. The more stuff you already have, the better! The Sanybridge + i3's will be ok with this game if you supply a dedicated video card. Don't expect miracles however as this game is CPU bound. A cheap i3 will just be enough to get you going and act as a stop gap before you can afford something i5 or i7 flavoured to drop into the board!
I recently completed a similar build to this for my children that was able to play Planet Coaster for £140ish. Has an i3 540 that I got for 99p, socket 1156 motherboard with 4gb of RAM that was £35+£12 to make it 8gb, GTX 760 that was £60, 500w PSU for £20 and free hard disk that I found in an old scrapped computer outside a year ago
(Dad of the year 2016[haha]). Found an old intel stock heat sink I had laying around, smashed it all together and topped it off with a £10 copy of windows 8 pro upgraded to 10 from eBay and away we go! It's far from being the best experience ever in this game but you know what, it can play smaller parks on high settings absolutely no problems at all. Just today bought a dirt cheap intel xeon for £30 that should be a nice upgrade for this machine and give better framerates for large parks. With the current specs it's a miserable 15fps in a maxed out park with stupid amounts of rocks, 3k guests, loads of buildings, 4 coasters and all of the flat rides down!
For me personally, a game like this is playable at 20FPS. Ok - far from ideal but doable for a sandbox builder like this. Pretty sure the more modern i3's will easily do that no problem. I've seen a few recently go for £20 on eBay with boards going for similar. It's all about compromises at this budget level but second hand with £200, yeah, a half decent machine is doable!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMXcOMlOq7Q&feature=youtu.be
Not bad for a CPU that cost me less than a disgusting cup of tea from the hospital vending machine earlier I'm sure you'll agree! [big grin]
Edit: The loadings times in that video might be exaggerated by the freebie HDD in use as it's clicking loads and on its way out. It's also recording itself so the performance isn't quite as good as the real machine!
