Hardware & Technical Computer Build to run Elite Dangerous

[Squicker]

Really.. Spend extra to do the same job, sometimes worse...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sIWez9HAbA

Thats for all the blind Apple users! Intel is about the same...

Generally for Apple it is true except in a handful of cases. One business I used to own was a conglomerate of record labels and a recording studio. The studio was always fully kitted out with Macs because the industry standard software is Logic Pro, which of course only runs on OSX. So to be taken seriously you offer Logic, and being as all other music software and hardware will most definitely have an Apple version, by using Macs you have a common denominator machine type so overall cost of ownership is lower due to simplicity and commonality. Since Apple went to Intel architecture they have no performance benefit over PC however.

The Apple Retina screens really are the best I have seen to date, but you do pay for that! For example, I have both a Surface Pro and an iPad Retina and whilst I will say the Surface Pro eats the iPad for breakfast at nearly anything, the screen on the iPad is simply far better. I am personally not a massive Apple fan as I do tend to think it's mostly hype, as do you, but I have to give them their dues when they are earned.

Intel, as stated, is totally different. You will not see many large-sized organisations using AMD for their server back-end due to the weaker performance with server workloads, particularly virtualisation (which is where all the cost savings are). You will not see me use AMD in my machines because I own a technology business and so cost is meaningless to me, they are all company assets, and by choosing a single family we again get some benefits in terms of simplicity (physical to virtual migrations and live VM migrations across different CPU architectures will break things).

Plus I am a gaming addict, so I of course want the best there is! An analogy: I have a 180mph car outside, UK speed limits are 70mph, so apart from the occasional track day, the odd quiet road (very odd in the south east of England) or European road-trip, it's not ever remotely utilised, but sometimes you just want to buy the best thing in its class. And the same thing goes through people's minds when they buy computers. They may only use full power on the most demanding modern game, but it feels cosy knowing you have power on tap!

So whilst it might make the world a simpler place to make the sort of sweeping generalisations you are making, everyone has their own requirements and different sets of priorities and they will make their own decisions. You might not have made those decisions yourself, but it doesn't mean those others made those decisions blindly.

 

[The Space Pirate]

To be fair, installing a motherboard and PSU is the only part of building a PC I'm a bit wary about. GPUs, HDD/SSDs, Optical drives, RAM and PCI/E cards are not a problem.

 

[Squicker]

My car does 120Mph max, its a diesel and it can travel over 300 miles on just under half a tank of diesel. I can also drive through rivers, climb mountains and go where you will never go in your little car. But I do not need to boast about it. Thats childs play and it makes no difference to the way you are still acting in this thread.

Seems you dont like it, so no one else should like it either...

No need to keep going on about it...

Your 4x4 statement actually validates my argument re technology choice; horses for courses. Initially you were attempting to say one size should fit all (people who choose Intel or Apple are blind). What has made you change stance so quickly?

 

[Faerie]

So as a follow up to a previous post I installed the alpha on my old computer, which has a Core2 Duo E8400 CPU @ 3.3gHz (O/C), a GeForce GTX 460 (1Gb GDDR5), & 4Gb memory. I did a clean install of Windows 7 64-bit only a couple of days before installing the game, so nothing else (apart from AV & Fraps) is using resources.

At 1920x1080 resolution, High settings, & VSync on I got the following frame rates:

Waste Disposal: Min: 29 - Max: 62 Avg: 42.820
Supply Strike: Min: 7 - Max: 62 Avg: 33.637
Incursions: Min: 12 - Max: 62 Avg: 44.140
Factions: Min: 14 - Max: 37 Avg: 26.234

There was no point at which the game became a slide show, despite the 7 FPS minimum in Supply Strike which must have been very momentary.
As expected, Factions gave by far the lowest frame rates but was perfectly playable.
I had expected to have to reduce the detail settings in order to make the alpha playable, and/or to have to move to a lower resolution (my monitor has smart scale, so that's no problem) but didn't find it necessary.

 

[Squicker]

You have missed my point completely...

I am merely referring to your choice of a different car to I. If it's valid for you to choose one vehicle tech and me another, it is clearly valid for one person to choose one CPU vs another.

If you have another point you'd prefer us to focus on please make it again.

 

[Squicker]

To be fair, installing a motherboard and PSU is the only part of building a PC I'm a bit wary about. GPUs, HDD/SSDs, Optical drives, RAM and PCI/E cards are not a problem.

I wouldn't do it, because I am bloody lazy ;-) but it's not hard, everything is keyed and you cannot go wrong. You do need to take some anti static precautions but that's it.

Others here will be far more experienced than I in hands on IT and probably able to point you in the direction of guides.

 

[Squicker]

Interesting, thanks for posting that.

In terms of quality, what games do you think ED is on a par with? Is it a Skyrim, or is it a Far Cry 3?

Perhaps it's not feasible to make such a judgement?

So as a follow up to a previous post I installed the alpha on my old computer, which has a Core2 Duo E8400 CPU @ 3.3gHz (O/C), a GeForce GTX 460 (1Gb GDDR5), & 4Gb memory. I did a clean install of Windows 7 64-bit only a couple of days before installing the game, so nothing else (apart from AV & Fraps) is using resources.

At 1920x1080 resolution, High settings, & VSync on I got the following frame rates:

Waste Disposal: Min: 29 - Max: 62 Avg: 42.820
Supply Strike: Min: 7 - Max: 62 Avg: 33.637
Incursions: Min: 12 - Max: 62 Avg: 44.140
Factions: Min: 14 - Max: 37 Avg: 26.234

There was no point at which the game became a slide show, despite the 7 FPS minimum in Supply Strike which must have been very momentary.
As expected, Factions gave by far the lowest frame rates but was perfectly playable.
I had expected to have to reduce the detail settings in order to make the alpha playable, and/or to have to move to a lower resolution (my monitor has smart scale, so that's no problem) but didn't find it necessary.

 

[Faerie]

Interesting to know this in advance thanks... You should be able to get away with just a decent graphics card upgrade to make your system run better.

Actually, I did say it was my old machine - as in "before the one I use now".
My current machine isn't new but it does have an i5 2500K @ 4.3gHz & a GTX 660. It's a mid-range computer by current standards but it does run the game at very acceptable frame rates.

 

[Calebe]

To be fair, installing a motherboard and PSU is the only part of building a PC I'm a bit wary about.

I would say installing the power supply is the easiest part. 4 screws hold them in place. Motherboards have a 24 (older ones were 20) pin power connector slot, and the cable only goes in one way, and most either have a secondary 4 or 8 pin connector, again slotted. In fact all power leads from a power supply can't be put in backwards they only go on one way. Making it so easy to install. I would if the budget allow get a modular power supply so only connect the cables you need, makes for a lot neater build and less cables getting in the way. So a power supply will be easy.

As for a motherboard installing it is a breeze also, I used a Corsair 600T case and didn't need any stand offs, and in fact has a nub sticking up, place the hole in the board on that and it is lined up. Screw it down with the screws and done. Very simple. One thing to do first is install the connector plate in the case before mounting the motherboard. It slides in but a pain to do after the fact. Also as said above with the board out I always install the CPU, heat sink and fan and memory before putting it in the case. Just makes it a lot easier and as I used a Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo it was so much easier putting the board on it edge to line up the screws then doing it in the case.

The hardest part between a motherboard install or a power supply is neither, the hardest part is the CPU and getting the heat sink and fan on and secure. If using an after market cooler don't forget thermal paste, if none provided. If using the stock one that came with the thermal tape your good to go. An older build was an i7 950 chip and ran a prime 95 and saw the temperatures spike close to 100C ( I used the stock cooler on that build). I removed and reseated the heat sink and fan and the temps went to a more reasonable 85C (that was a hot running chip and prime 95 runs all cores at 100%). So you always want to run a program like prime95 and Real Temp or Core Temp or some program that came with the board to check cpu temps. Run it on prime 95 and be sure it runs at a reasonable temp if not reseat the heat sink and fan as it isn't making good contact.

Also as I said in a previous post if no speaker for the motherboard get one for a few dollars. The power on self test beeps if an issue. A single beep means everything is good. Well worth having.

Calebe

 

[Patrick_68000]

The best of the best is to buy a good thermal paste (arctic silver, noctua, cooler master, evercool ...). Unseal the Heat Spreader of the microprocessor. Apply thermal paste directly on the chip and reseal the Heat Spreader on the chip with silicone paste. Then put the thermal paste on the Heat Spreader and place the radiator / ventitaleur above. For the most motivated of course.

 

[Faerie]

Now things get really interesting. Further to my post http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?p=239363#post239363 regarding frame rates on my old computer, I lowered the settings to medium & played a few scenarios. Below are the results.

Waste Disposal: Avg: 53.071 - Min: 50 - Max: 55
Factions: Avg: 74.703 - Min: 3 - Max: 197
Factions: Avg: 47.489 - Min: 0 - Max: 149
Wolf Pack Tactics: Avg: 48.341 - Min: 1 - Max: 82

What is going on here ? Average frame rates have risen, & in Waste Disposal, where there are a lot of asteroids, my minimum frame rate rose, which is to be expected, but the max actually fell !
I included factions twice because of the wide variation in the average FPS, but note how low the min FPS became, likewise in Wolf Pack Tactics. I'm guessing a little, because it's hard to believe that lower quality settings would result in lower FPS, but I suspect that medium quality textures etc have not been optimised ? At least, I hope that's the reason.

 

[Memnoch]

Then put the thermal paste on the Heat Spreader and place the radiator / ventitaleur above.

Some fine examples there of how to do it well. And now for a few examples of how not to apply thermal paste:

 

[Squicker]

Now things get really interesting. Further to my post http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?p=239363#post239363 regarding frame rates on my old computer, I lowered the settings to medium & played a few scenarios. Below are the results.

Waste Disposal: Avg: 53.071 - Min: 50 - Max: 55
Factions: Avg: 74.703 - Min: 3 - Max: 197
Factions: Avg: 47.489 - Min: 0 - Max: 149
Wolf Pack Tactics: Avg: 48.341 - Min: 1 - Max: 82

What is going on here ? Average frame rates have risen, & in Waste Disposal, where there are a lot of asteroids, my minimum frame rate rose, which is to be expected, but the max actually fell !
I included factions twice because of the wide variation in the average FPS, but note how low the min FPS became, likewise in Wolf Pack Tactics. I'm guessing a little, because it's hard to believe that lower quality settings would result in lower FPS, but I suspect that medium quality textures etc have not been optimised ? At least, I hope that's the reason.

I am guessing your CPU was maxed out under this new config and the GPU under the previous?

EDIT: Looked at your figs now. So, in the one with the asteroids your CPU was not able to generate enough geometry to give to the GPU, now that the GPU was unleashed from the onerous task of rendering in high detail. Basically the lower res\detail you go the more CPU bound a game gets. I think you mentioned you have some form of legacy CPU in your old machine - a 6600?

Previously the CPU was not that active because the high-res meant the GPU was working over-time and therefore not accepting any geometry from the CPU. It shows up particularly in the asteroids scenario because there are of course lots of bits of geometry for the CPU to generate, but it's probably the same across the board.

What are usage stats for CPU and GPU in both detail settings please? What happens in lowest res, where CPU has to generate even more stuff?

 

[Zieman]

I think you mentioned you have some form of legacy CPU in your old machine - a 6600?

Hehe, in a post you self quoted a bit earlier: Core2Duo E8400

 

[Squicker]

Hehe, in a post you self quoted a bit earlier: Core2Duo E8400

Sorry! In bed with the iPad, can't be dealing with scrolling back and forth!

 

[Calebe]

When I installed my 212 Evo I just put a rice size dot in the middle of the CPU, put the heat sink down did wiggled it a bit, and locked it in place. The heat from using it does the rest. Here is a video from Asus showing how they do it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rn0BqMyXBM

It is basically how I did it on my last build. There are many methods, the line, X, and bead and a few others. Some use a credit card to spread it or a razor blade. I found the dot in the middle does it well.

Calebe

 

[Zieman]

Sorry! In bed with the iPad, can't be dealing with scrolling back and forth!

Aye..

 

[Branoic]

Hi guys,

I've got a 2010 iMac on which I have Windows 7 installed in BootCamp for the purposes of playing games. Don't worry, I'll be upgrading to a top of the line gaming PC a little later this year for Elite and Star Citizen.

However until then, I'm thinking I can't hold out any longer and I want to play the Alphas and Betas! Will I be able to run them do you think?

My specs are:

Intel i7 2.93 GHz (don't know the specific model, but as I say its from 2010)
8 GB DDR3
ATI Radeon HD 5750 1GB

Some games that's I'm able to run on high settings through Windows:

Skyrim,
XCOM
Crysis 2
Sleeping Dogs
Total War Shogun 2
Metro 2033
The Witcher 2

What type of performance do you think I'd likely get with Elite?

 

[Faerie]

I am guessing your CPU was maxed out under this new config and the GPU under the previous?

EDIT: Looked at your figs now. So, in the one with the asteroids your CPU was not able to generate enough geometry to give to the GPU, now that the GPU was unleashed from the onerous task of rendering in his res. Basically the lower res\detail you go the more CPU bound a game gets. I think you mentioned you have some form of legacy CPU in your old machine - a 6600?

Previously the CPU was not that active because the high-res meant the GPU was working over-time and therefore not accepting any geometry from the CPU. It shows up particularly in the asteroids scenario because there are of course lots of bits of geometry for the CPU to generate, but it's probably the same across the board.

Essentially, we might say the CPU is a little under-powered for the GPU in context of the medium resolution. This goes back to something I was saying a while back, we can't ignore the importance of the CPU, people tend to think that just putting an awesome GPU in will make everything fast, but really it just twiddle's its thumbs waiting for data.

Whilst the GPU is working at the coalface, it's at the mercy of a good CPU giving it things to work with.

That said, in your case, it sounds like in high-res, the CPU and GPU complement each other nicely. What are usage stats for CPU and GPU in both detail settings please? What happens in lowest res, where CPU has to generate even more stuff?

That looks like a plausible explanation, though I haven't yet measured CPU & GPU usage. The GTX 460 probably is overpowered for the CPU, & as we've seen in other threads & posts, it appears that the game benefits from having a good balance between those components.
Of course, I ran the test to see how well modest hardware can run the game & I while I'm quite pleased with the results, I think they demonstrate that you can't hope to have a good experience if you try to run it on an old tin box.

 

[KING5TON]

If anyone is doing a self build for the first time here's some tips to avoid disaster.

• Get rid of static by touching a metal part of a radiator or something similar.
  
• Try and only touch the edges of things rather than manhandling them and touching the printed circuits.
  
• Some things like the little cables that connect the case to the motherboard for various functions like power button, reset and hdd indicator are best to attach prior to putting the motherboard in the case or while it's in but nothing else is so you've got room. I've got massive spade like hands and trying to get them in last is a pain in the bum trust me.
  
• Put dividers between the case and the motherboard. These screw into the holes in the case and you line up the motherboard with the screw holes in the dividers.
• Do no screw the motherboard directly to the case as you'll ruin it.
  
• Be gentle, don't just ram stuff in but be firm enough to get things into slots.
• Be extra gentle with the CPU, out of most of the components these are quite expensive and easiest to break IMO if not careful.
  
• Make sure your heat sink is on tight (but not too tight) and properly locked into place. if it falls off you could do damage to the CPU (seen this happen).
  
• Make sure your GPU is screwed to the case, don't leave it hanging in the breeze.
  
• Once you're done and start using your PC download some monitoring software to monitor your CPU and GPU temps. If they get too high they can cause damage. A too high CPU could mean you need to take your heat sink off, reapply the thermal paste and reseat it. High GPU temps can mean dodgy fans on the card or there is a problem with airflow/case fans.

Other than that it's as easy as slightly complicated lego