My hardware woes...looking for advice

eachann

E
My computer specs are as such:
AMD Phenom II 12045T 6 core processor (2.70GHz)

AMD Radeon HD 6450

8GB Ram.


I knew going into this that my video card was weak.. they recommended a video card with 1GB video ram and mine has only 512. I figured I could upgrade my video later. I started playing it and sure enough... the game plays but even with low/medium graphics settings I only get around 15 FPS... sometimes a big higher, but that's about what I get. That's fine.... my problem is that having been away from keeping up with the latest and greatest developments for some time I was unaware of the change from PCIe v2 to PCIe v3.... so the video cards I was looking to upgrade to are now out of the question as I have a PCIe 2 computer :(((

So I'm wondering... is anybody playing the game wtih an older PCIe 2.0 video card and are you able to play with a reasonable frame rate and medium-high video settings? What is the best PCIe 2 card I can get, and what can I expect for game performance in your experience?

Thanks for any insight and advice!
 

adoredtv

adoredtv
I'm amazed you even get 15fps on that card tbh!

You shouldn't have to worry about PCIE 2 and PCIE 3 as the spec is backwardly compatible. Depending on what power supply you have, either look at a 750 Ti (weak power supply) or an R9 270 if your PSU has a 6-pin PCIE connector.
 

Lasse B.

Lasse B.
PCIe 3 video cards are backwards compatible and can be run in PCIe 2 slots. While there is a performance hit when doing so, it is only hardly noticed if you're not going for a multi-card setup. So don't worry and get whatever card you like.
 

Davevti

Davevti
Agreed with the above, need not worry. But.....if you wanted to upgrade your CPU and mobo as well, AMD are very competitively priced at the moment, very cheap, worth a look!
 

eachann

E
Oh interesting! I was told that I could not use a PCI 3 card in a PCI 2 slot.... that I could use either type of card in a PCI 3 slot, but not the other way around. That is good news.... gives me more options.
 

Traciatim

T
I agree with the others, that's a pretty solid processor being held back by a video card that isn't even really designed for gaming. My secondary machine is a Phenom 985BE with a 7850 in it and it will pretty much play any game we throw at it quite well with a little tweaking of the settings.
 

Muss

Muss
eachann said:
My computer specs are as such:
AMD Phenom II 12045T 6 core processor (2.70GHz)

AMD Radeon HD 6450

8GB Ram.
Click to expand...

I am Running a Dell T3400 With
x3360 Xeon 2.8 Ghz (same as Q9550)
8 GB ddr2 800 MHZ
GTX680
I get some jitters coming out of SC but other than that I usually run at around 80+ FPS,

You can grab a second hand GTX680 on eBay for $200 AUD (bought two recently)

I think even an old Gigabyte 460 SOC would do ok upgraded one of my T3400 from 2.66 duo with 460 SOC to 2.4 Quad with GTX 680 last night and got 100% more min FPS 25 % more average FPS and 25% more max FPS in heaven

Grab a second hand GTX off ebay don’t pay more than 200 for a 680, 100 for a 460 and 120 for a 660 and I think you will get much better frame rates
 

Stressfest

Stressfest
I built one on the cheap, 8 core AMD 4350+ and a R9 290 card... getting anywhere from 60 to 120 fps in congested areas with graphics all set max.
 

Tronicus

T
GTX 970 owner here, buy with confidence. I have zero issue playing this game on highest settings. Just make sure whatever card you purchase fits on your board/ in your case, as some cards are getting quite large now.
 

Alec Turner

Alec Turner
OK, this is going to read like an alcoholics anonymous introduction but ... my name is Alec, I'm playing on an HP s5760uk PC which has an HD5450 and I'm having an absolutely brilliant time. Most of the time I'm getting around 20FPS and that is good enough to really enjoy the game (which looks glorious even on mostly Low settings). In stations (especially the modern white ones like the Coriolis orbiting Mars) this can drop to around 8 or 9 FPS and yes, that's less than ideal but honestly, is still perfectly playable. For me the biggest pain with these low frame rates is that the interface menus can be a tad unresponsive and the System map (for some bizarre reason) takes AGES to render. I appreciate that I'm missing out on some high end, almost photo-realistic graphics but most of the time I barely notice this. I know many people on this forum will simply say that these low frame rates make the game unplayable (not true) and that I should but a new PC (sadly I can't just upgrade the card as I think I'd also have to upgrade the power supply and then the case and that's WAY too much hassle) but I really don't feel it's worth spending many many £100s just for a game (even Elite!). What I'd like to do here (or in another thread perhaps?) is turn the discussion to how to get the best from a low end system without simply throwing money at it.

So, here's a few things about my setup which may help others in a similar situation. I'm running my desktop at 1024x768. Yes, I know that's low by today's standards but it's a hell of a lot less pixels to throw around the screen. I guess if you have a bit more than that (the game is obviously suited to widescreen) then it should still be OK but the number of pixels the game is having to manipulate is REALLY significant. I began with the Low graphics preset and then starting turning things back on incrementally to see what difference they made to the frame rate (press Ctrl+F to show the frame rate down next to the version number in the bottom left of the screen). Incidentally, it would REALLY help in this process if someone could explain what some/all of those settings mean. I've left "Bloom" off since I gather it's expensive and probably an effect I can live without. Ditto for Blur (which I assume refers to motion blur). I've got anti-aliasing set to FXAA. I believe this is to do with smoothing out jagged pixels by using intermediate colors along edges and that seemed worth having (can someone explain more about the different options for this setting?). I've got Ambient Occlusion Off (what does this do ... anyone?) and everything else set to Low except texture quality (the primary level of "detail" I would guess) which is Medium. I haven't yet played with the draw distance, I'm kind of happy with things now and Elite seems like the kind of game where you don't want to mess with that setting too much (someone correct me if I'm wrong).

One final note - I'm absolutely planning on getting the Occulus when it comes out. I'm pretty sure my old PC will NOT be able to handle that, at which point I will almost certainly be looking to buy a new PC.

Oh, and I'm also playing on a Lenovo X121e laptop. That's worse than the PC but you know what? still playable.
 
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Lasse B.

Lasse B.
Especially on low frame rates you should think about enabling motion blur as it helps masking details that our eyes fixate on. The fewer details we notice the smoother a motion looks to us.

Ambient occlusion is a technique used for rendering an image. It calculates how ambient lighting affects each pixel. Or for short: more realistic lighting and shadows.

The different methods of anti aliasing are best explained elsewhere, e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1rb964/antialiasing_modes_explained/

The biggest culprits of a low frame rate is that while yes, it might still be playable on an individual basis (seen a dude in the SWTOR forums who was happy with 15FPS),
a) the frequency with which the game reacts to the inputs you make is greatly reduced
b) the time until your screen updates to a new situation is extended to a level where you're practically flying in the past most of the time

A more graphical explanation would be that while you're still shooting another player in front of you, he's already destroyed your ship, looted your cargo, supercruised to a station and has docked.
 
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Alec Turner

Alec Turner
Awesome, thanks Lasse. I'll give SMAA anti-aliasing a try as it sounds like a cheaper but still very effective alternative to FXAA. I'll also have a second look at Blur and Ambient Occlusion (now I understand them), although I think they might just tip my framerate over into unacceptable.

Re: your explanation of the effects of low frame rate - I appreciate what you're saying but I still maintain that the game is perfectly playable around 15-20fps (and even a tad lower as long as it's not running like that all the time). One of the things I noticed with a game like Elite is that, because of the generally gentle motion of what's happening on screen in relation to the players inputs (even in combat) compared to something like a deathmatch FPS shooter or racing sim', the effects of low FPS are far less troublesome (I was even docking at around 5 FPS before I started tinkering and just assumed the ship was floating around a bit like when you're trying to steer a narrow-boat).

I'm trying to focus on the positive in this thread as there are people out there with low spec' machines for whom upgrading their PC is perhaps not a realistic option and are faced with the alternatives of either not playing it at all or else being pressured into buying hardware when they'd really rather not have to.
 
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adoredtv

adoredtv
It's true that some people can basically play at nearly any fps but the difference when you hit 30 is incredible compared to sub-30. 25 is almost playable but 15 is a slideshow.

If you stuck in a little card like even the r7 250 you'd see a huge difference in smoothness.
 

Rog

Rog
Regular monthly feature at 'Tom's Hardware':

Best Graphics Cards For The Money: November 2014

You'll need to know what sort of power supply you currently have of course to make sure you don't buy something your PSU can't handle.

The good news is literally anything will be light years better than what you've got. Even my current crappy laptop with integrated Intel HD4000 is nearly twice as 'powerful'.

If you want a boost now without getting too spendy, there are low wattage cheap-ish cards that should see you OK.
 
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Tar Stone

Banned
Tar Stone
For what it's worth, I'm running at a lower resolution than most, 1176 x something. The trade off for the extra frame rate was worth it, and the only place I notice the lower resolution is inside stations. Also I wanted to have shadows inside the cockpit, because they just look glorious.
 

Alec Turner

Alec Turner
adoredtv said:
It's true that some people can basically play at nearly any fps but the difference when you hit 30 is incredible compared to sub-30. 25 is almost playable but 15 is a slideshow.

If you stuck in a little card like even the r7 250 you'd see a huge difference in smoothness.
Click to expand...

I think I may have an issue with any kind of graphics card upgrade on my small form factor PC but I will look into that card.

Re: "25 is almost playable", PAL is 25FPS. I know it's not interactive but ask yourself whether you've been troubled by your TV flickering.
 

adoredtv

adoredtv
Alec Turner said:
I think I may have an issue with any kind of graphics card upgrade on my small form factor PC but I will look into that card.

Re: "25 is almost playable", PAL is 25FPS. I know it's not interactive but ask yourself whether you've been troubled by your TV flickering.
Click to expand...

(long but interesting) http://amo.net/NT/02-21-01FPS.html

http://www.30vs60.com/

10 years ago I could have told you the difference between 59 and 60 fps. Now I'm generally happy with 50+, even 40+ in some cases but it depends on the game. With Elite I can instantly tell when I've dropped below 60fps (entering stations for example) as I get a horrible "shimmer" effect.
 

Lasse B.

Lasse B.
Please don't confuse camera recorded FPS with computer generated FPS. Big difference! But even in movies the 24FPS are noticeable. One such example is near the beginning of the movie "RED: retired, extremely dangerous" where you can clearly see the stuttering while the camera is panning around Willis' character.

The difference between movie & tv FPS vs computer FPS is that movies and shows are recorded using cameras which have shutters. While the shutter is open when recording a single frame, objects in motion usually continue to move, which causes a blur effect to be recorded into the movie. You can see for yourself if you hit the pause button when movement is occurring in a show or movie.

Computer generated images are exactly that. They're not recorded using a camera, so there are no shutters that could record any motion blur. To compensate for that you'd need to add artificial motion blur, or you'd need a higher frame time.

As in reality motion blur happens only in our eyes and brain (I don't think we'll ever be able to see effects of the Heisenberg indeterminacy principle with our naked eyes), the way computers generate moving pictures is actually a lot closer to said reality than shows and movies are. You just need a high enough frame rate.
 
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