Hardware & Technical Computer Build to run Elite Dangerous

[Sir.Tj]

I've added your thread to this one. tons of great info here and check out this thread as well in the hardware section.

PC on a budget advice thread

 

[NeilF]

I'm getting the beta on 29th July. Upgrade in the works but I can't do the whole computer at once.

I've got a 6 year old rig

Q6600@3.1ghz
Asus p5k
6gig of 800mhz ddr2
Geforce 7600 (I know)

I use this as my Hackintosh and generally only do console gaming these days

So, I need first to upgrade the GPU to something that will run elite on max on a single HD screen (either my telly or monitor) but will also run it on the oculus rift.

Not gonna go multi monitor because I'll get a rift instead

I realise I'll get a bottleneck but I just need to run it while I wait for my i5 4670k and 16gb ram system later in the year.

Any thoughts? Need to stay nvidea so it works on OSX. Got my eye on gtx770 but its about 240 quid... Some 760s are about 170 which is better.

I'm not really an expert. I just want bang for buck. I'm likely to only ever play elite and skyrim on this rig.

Thanks in advance!

We have very similar setups (see my sig). I expect my machine to run ED well from what I've been reading from people's experiences.

I was planning on upgrading, but not a single game I play shows any signs of struggling, and given ED should hopefully follow suit, I'm happy to save my money, and my time/effort, and upgrade in the future...

ps: I'm also not keen to upgrade now as I really don't want to touch Windows 8. So I'm hoping I can upgrade next year when Windows 9 is out?

Really happy with the visuals - I have a GTX760 (with I7 and SSD).

As a side point I am amazed they can use the words "gaming computer" with that sort of spec.

That sounds very elitist! Note the machine I play with in my spec. That's my gaming computer which is very similar to the machine you've just poo-poo'd (except for the GFX card). Every game I play on it plays smoothly at high detail.

I could of course go out and upgrade for X hundreds of pounds but in reality I'd see no benefit?

I'll see how it copes with ED when the standard Beta is released, but I'm fully expecting a good experience.

 

[Jim Maddog]

What about OS.

I've built the PC - spec looks about right if I cut out some of the "anything less than 1Tb graphics cards a no no" stuff going on here. BUT - what OS? Win 7 comes in more flavours than Italian ice cream - I'm edging towards home premium but since this babies built for Elite only..... What are people using?

 

[Googol]

I've built the PC - spec looks about right if I cut out some of the "anything less than 1Tb graphics cards a no no" stuff going on here. BUT - what OS? Win 7 comes in more flavours than Italian ice cream - I'm edging towards home premium but since this babies built for Elite only..... What are people using?

I'm using Win 7 Professional 64-bit. The choice was mainly driven by the need to run some old software on the XP virtual PC that comes with the Pro package. I knew there were workarounds that allow you to install the XP Virtual PC on other flavours of 7, but the savings weren't sufficient to justify the effort.

 

[kilvenny]

@NeilF - Apologies if I sounded Elitist - That was not my intent. All I can say in my defence (if I have any) is my experience is not as good as yours. Even with the GTX760 on some games I am turning down the GFX settings to get a good experience.

 

[Aleksej]

@NeilF - Apologies if I sounded Elitist - That was not my intent. All I can say in my defence (if I have any) is my experience is not as good as yours. Even with the GTX760 on some games I am turning down the GFX settings to get a good experience.

Every person have different definitions of running good. Someone might be Ok with 30fps and lower graphics settings, the others like myself prefer to max graphics settings and 50+fps.

 

[NeilF]

@NeilF - Apologies if I sounded Elitist - That was not my intent. All I can say in my defence (if I have any) is my experience is not as good as yours. Even with the GTX760 on some games I am turning down the GFX settings to get a good experience.

Well then I'm doomed as from my understanding my XT7870 is similar to the GTX760.

However, I've seen a number of people suggesting with lesser CPU/GPU than I have they're running ED in high detail at good solid frame rates...

Guess I'll see later this month when the Beta is released.

 

[G.T]

Well then I'm doomed as from my understanding my XT7870 is similar to the GTX760.

However, I've seen a number of people suggesting with lesser CPU/GPU than I have they're running ED in high detail at good solid frame rates...

Guess I'll see later this month when the Beta is released.

Not doomed for Elite, that is more than good enough. If it is now, it'll be even better when further optimised.

I am ripping along with with 7950 in max detail. 7870XT is not at all far behind with the same Tahiti architecture underpinning the card.

 

[Bootsock]

@NeilF - Apologies if I sounded Elitist - That was not my intent. All I can say in my defence (if I have any) is my experience is not as good as yours. Even with the GTX760 on some games I am turning down the GFX settings to get a good experience.

Personally, I found the game was great on the 760 I had previously, typically giving 60FPS (v-sync on) on max detail. And that was before the recent optimisation.

It's a great card for this game, especially for the price.

I can run ED on a three year old laptop, so it's not got the ridiculous specification requirements of some titles.

 

[NeilF]

Personally, I found the game was great on the 760 I had previously, typically giving 60FPS (v-sync on) on max detail. And that was before the recent optimisation.

It's a great card for this game, especially for the price.

I can run ED on a three year old laptop, so it's not got the ridiculous specification requirements of some titles.

That's good to hear. I believe the GTX760 and AMD 7870XT are pretty close in performance...

 

[Firestarter]

Upgrading experience

In January 2012 my PC went bang, I had very little money and needed something quickly to finish my OU computing degree. I bought an MSI Z68S-G43 1155 motherboard, intel G840 (dual core 2.8Ghz £70) and a PointOfView nVidia GT430 (1GB SDDR3 £50).

The above specification is way below the requirements for ED so I knew I'd have to upgrade. But is it playable?

Well I tried playing the single player missions and the short answer is no. At my monitor's native resolution (1680x1050) it's like riding a donkey with hiccups. A jerky ride that reponds slowly and very uncomfortable. I did manage to complete the first two missions by dropping the resolution to 800x600 but the text messages were almost unreadable.

So I ordered a new GPU and CPU. First to arrive was the GPU. Prices had dropped so an MSI twin FROZR GTX760 at £180 was just in my price range. Swapped it over and got a massive difference in game play. Smooth at 1680x1050 and all setting on high. Played the solo missions down to 'Hunter and Prey' with no problems.

A couple of days later the CPU arrived. An i5-3570 (4 core 3.4GHz) at £150. Swapped it over and replayed the misions I'd done before. And errr.. I can't detect any difference.

Conclusion: I was surprised how well the system performed with the old G840 and I hope I haven't wasted £150. I suspect in multiplayer it will be more demanding on the CPU as it processes information from other player ships but I'm not going to swap it back to compare.

Advise: If your system is well below spec' just upgrade your graphics card and see how it goes.

Technical: The windows rating rose from 6.7 to 7.5 for the CPU and 5.0 to 7.9 for the GPU.

 

[NeilF]

In January 2012 my PC went bang, I had very little money and needed something quickly to finish my OU computing degree. I bought an MSI Z68S-G43 1155 motherboard, intel G840 (dual core 2.8Ghz £70) and a PointOfView nVidia GT430 (1GB SDDR3 £50).

The above specification is way below the requirements for ED so I knew I'd have to upgrade. But is it playable?

Well I tried playing the single player missions and the short answer is no. At my monitor's native resolution (1680x1050) it's like riding a donkey with hiccups. A jerky ride that reponds slowly and very uncomfortable. I did manage to complete the first two missions by dropping the resolution to 800x600 but the text messages were almost unreadable.

So I ordered a new GPU and CPU. First to arrive was the GPU. Prices had dropped so an MSI twin FROZR GTX760 at £180 was just in my price range. Swapped it over and got a massive difference in game play. Smooth at 1680x1050 and all setting on high. Played the solo missions down to 'Hunter and Prey' with no problems.

A couple of days later the CPU arrived. An i5-3570 (4 core 3.4GHz) at £150. Swapped it over and replayed the misions I'd done before. And errr.. I can't detect any difference.

Conclusion: I was surprised how well the system performed with the old G840 and I hope I haven't wasted £150. I suspect in multiplayer it will be more demanding on the CPU as it processes information from other player ships but I'm not going to swap it back to compare.

Advise: If your system is well below spec' just upgrade your graphics card and see how it goes.

Technical: The windows rating rose from 6.7 to 7.5 for the CPU and 5.0 to 7.9 for the GPU.

Very useful post! So at least with a low resolution (eg: 1680x1050) the bottleneck is seemingly mostly on the GPU. So with a reasonable graphics card, an old G840 (dual core 2.8Ghz £70) is no less adequate than a i5-3570 (4 core 3.4GHz)!!! TBH I doubt this would change much with higher resolutions either.

What sort of frame rates are you getting (high/low)?

 

[kilvenny]

Please note I said other (emphasis other) games. Elite currently is fine, but on other stuff I have still had problems.

 

[sirvigh]

Honestly, I have been lazy and have not read the 100+ pages of this thread, but I'd be really interested if at least a couple people comments the rig I have recently built for ... well, not specifically for ED, rather for the recent games including ED, StarCitizen and whatever greatness comes along.
Here is the details of my rig:

Core system:
Case: Corsair Carbide Series 500R
Mobo: ASUS Maximus VI Extreme - C2
Mobo cooling: EK-FB ASUS M6E - Acetal+Nickel (Original CSQ) block
CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K (3.50GHz / 8MB)
CPU cooling: Corsair Hydro Series H100i with SP120 AIR SERIES FAN
Memory: Dominator® Platinum 16GB Dual Channel DDR3 Memory Kit (CMD16GX3M2A1600C9)
Memory cooling: Dominator Airflow Cooling Fan
PSU: Corsair AX860i

VGA:
2x Sapphire Radeon R9 290X - 4GB in AMD CrossFire config

Cooling system:
I have built a custom liquid cooling system with mainly Phobya parts which cools the Mobo and the two VGA.
The two VGA blocks are: Aquacomputer kryographics Hawaii for Radeon R9 290X acrylic glas
The Backlate: Aquacomputer Back plate for kryographics Hawaii R9 290X/290

There are two radiators, one Bundle Alphacool NexXxoS XT45 Full Copper 120mm and Phobya G-Changer Xtreme NOVA 1080 Radiator 60mm Full Copper, and the liquid is driven by two Phobya DC12-400 (one in the case, one built on the NOVA)
The cooling is mainly controlled by Alphacool Heatmaster II, and supplied by its own PSU.

The system also Monitored by Corsair Link.

Storage:
For system: OCZ RevoDrive3 120Gb - PCIe 4x enabled
RAID0 (games): 2x OCZ Vector150 - SATA3
RAID5: 3x 1TB WD disks - SATA3

Input:
TrackIR 5 with Vector for head movements
Razer Naga Epic wireless mouse
Logitech wireless keyboard
X-55 Rhino H.O.T.A.S. for flight control

Output:
2x LG - 32LN5406 - LED TV
1x LG - 32lg5700 - LCD TV
Genius 5.1 Surround Home Theater

They configured in an arc shape, enveloping the player.

Network:
ASUS RT-AC68U - 60/6 cable Internet connection.

So, I know it will be enough for the released game (I'm playing with the Premium Beta now ... when its not crashing). I hope anyway...

Note: I forgot: I'm running Win7 64bit SP1, and 5760*1080 resolution full screen...

Note2: thanks Zieman for noticing the RAM typo...

 

[Zieman]

Looks like a beast of a PC.

That RAM amount has to be typo, 2 GB... :S

 

[dalek501]

Hi Guys,

Bit of a newbie to PC gaming. Not really done much gaming since the older Tomb Raider games on PS2 and 3! So a bit unfamiliar with what's needed! Anyway I'm a standard beta backer so I've just got the single player build!

I have a Sony Vaio laptop with these specs:

i7 CPU Q740 @1.73GHz
8GB RAM
64 bit
Windows 7 Home Premium
GeForce GT425M

Is that enough info?

I have literally booted the game up for five minutes (as I was at work) and perhaps rather naively assumed I'd got a good spec and I'd be able to run at 1920x1080 as thats the screen res for this laptop. But it was very jerky. I had to lower to get a decent rate.

Is that what you would expect with these specs or have I done something wrong? Will later builds (when I get then) run better?

 

[kilvenny]

GT425M is your problem, M stands for Mobile. If you glance at the previous threads you will see an X in the Nvidia card name. eg GTX760. There is a world of difference between Nvidia cards with an X in them and ones without. Best thing to do is look at one of the video benchmark sites and you will see the difference.

 

[dalek501]

Ah ok ta.

I tried again with as much turned off as poss and it was better. So maybe the later builds will improve things with the card?

 

[NeilF]

OK, now having access to the Combat Demo (which is supposedly using the latest engine with all the optimisations) my old machine (see spec below), running at 1920x1080 at max detail, runs all the missions at a constant 60fps.... EXCEPT for "Factions" which seems to be running at about 30fps.

It's a shame Factions reduces down to 30fps, but it's still perfectly playable, and maybe future optimisations will raise that too.


Can anyone recall their FPS when they first played "Factions" in the Combat Demo 1.0? If you try it now (using the new optimised engine), has it improved?

 

[Sir.Tj]

OK, now having access to the Combat Demo (which is supposedly using the latest engine with all the optimisations) my old machine (see spec below), running at 1920x1080 at max detail, runs all the missions at a constant 60fps.... EXCEPT for "Factions" which seems to be running at about 30fps.

It's a shame Factions reduces down to 30fps, but it's still perfectly playable, and maybe future optimisations will raise that too.


Can anyone recall their FPS when they first played "Factions" in the Combat Demo 1.0? If you try it now, has it improved?

I can remember on missions like factions when it got busy there was slowdown. But as you said optimisation of the code hopefully will improve things, the last round certainly did.