Hardware & Technical Computer Build to run Elite Dangerous

[Aleksej]

Well I've finally got the Single Player Combat installed, after buggering about getting Windows installed for about 4 hours. I hate Windows so very, very much.

Anyway, the game won't even load. Looks like my GT7300 circa 2004 won't do the job!

Good job my shiny new GTX 760 card turns up tomorrow then, isn't it

Will report back to see how it works with my Asus P5K, Q6600 and 6gb 800Mhz ram, circa 2008.

I'd say I'll be upgrading one component per month until the game is released at this rate. Or I might get lucky -we'll see.

GTX 760 will greatly improve your performance.

I would like to see how you upgrade your CPU/MB/RAM one component per month.

You have DDR2 RAM, right now all modern MB support DDR3. Also the new CPUs are not compatible with your MB and vice versa. This means that you have to upgrade all three of them together.

Could you specify your PSU as well? When did you buy it? How powerful is it?

 

[Si Waters]

GTX 760 will greatly improve your performance.

I would like to see how you upgrade your CPU/MB/RAM one component per month.

You have DDR2 RAM, right now all modern MB support DDR3. Also the new CPUs are not compatible with your MB and vice versa. This means that you have to upgrade all three of them together.

Could you specify your PSU as well? When did you buy it? How powerful is it?

I didn't say I'd be plugging them all in until I have them all

Bought the psu from Maplin maybe 4 years ago, 750W. Decent brand although I can't remember what it was now.

My upgrade plan is a i5 4670K with 16gb ram, and a new gigabyte board.

 

[Aleksej]

I didn't say I'd be plugging them all in until I have them all

Bought the psu from Maplin maybe 4 years ago, 750W. Decent brand although I can't remember what it was now.

My upgrade plan is a i5 4670K with 16gb ram, and a new gigabyte board.

Nice choice. However, I would recommend changing your CPU to i5 4690K (devil's canyon). Or even i7 4790K if your budget allows.

 

[NeilF]

Well I've finally got the Single Player Combat installed, after buggering about getting Windows installed for about 4 hours. I hate Windows so very, very much.

Anyway, the game won't even load. Looks like my GT7300 circa 2004 won't do the job!

Good job my shiny new GTX 760 card turns up tomorrow then, isn't it

Will report back to see how it works with my Asus P5K, Q6600 and 6gb 800Mhz ram, circa 2008.

I'd say I'll be upgrading one component per month until the game is released at this rate. Or I might get lucky -we'll see.

See my spec. It's similar to yours. The game runs at max details at a full 60fps (vsync'd) for me, except for in Factions - http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=25416

I'm hoping Factions is an unusual/rare example of a slow down in ED. ie: When the game comes out rarely will it encounter such a performance "hit". Fingers crossed!

I've not upgraded my machine simply because the new Intel platform is coming out next year (Skylake) along with DDR4 memory. I figured it might be wiser to jump onto the new technology, rather than the coat tales of the current one.

 

[Aleksej]

See my spec. It's similar to yours. The game runs at max details at a full 60fps (vsync'd) for me, except for in Factions - http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=25416

I'm hoping Factions is an unusual/rare example of a slow down in ED. ie: When the game comes out rarely will it encounter such a performance "hit". Fingers crossed!

I've not upgraded my machine simply because the new Intel platform is coming out next year (Skylake) along with DDR4 memory. I figured it might be wiser to jump onto the new technology, rather than the coat tales of the current one.

I am not expection Skylake until 2015. Unocked Broadwell are planned to be released in Q2, which leaves no time for Skylake release next year.

 

[NeilF]

I am not expection Skylake until 2015. Unocked Broadwell are planned to be released in Q2, which leaves no time for Skylake release next year.

But be it Broadwell, or Skylake, I'm happy to wait at the moment as long as my current machine runs games (eg: ED) well enough.

 

[Cyborg3000]

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.

I do not have the cash to fork out a full new pc at once either, but will be scraping together something decent, i7 etc... one component a month as well

In the meantime, my trusty old dual core from 2007 has to do the job:

AMD 64 x2 6000+ (3.1 Ghz)
4GB DDR2 Ram- 800Mhz
POV Nvidia 250 GTS 1GB DDR3

And I was surprised how well it handles the client.
I did have to turn off occlusion effects and shadow quality to low - those two measures made the beta playable in any kind of way. I did not notice much of a difference between 1680 and 1440 resolution.
I currently get between around 25 fps in stations and about 50 outside,in asteroid fields about 20. Other than that I have the eventual 1 second hiccup when approaching a planet with rings in SC (RAM to slow??).

All in all I am very happy to be able to play ELITE after waiting for so long and I can confirm that a good dual core will do the job if you are willing to sacrifice on effects.

I will be replacing the 250GTS with an AMD Radeon 6870 on monday or tuesday, and will post any improvement in performance.




....your bounty, give it to me now....

 

[dan_b]

Well well well. I took off the cooler and inspected the chip. There must have been a gallon of "thermal compound" applied to the die, it was literally everywhere. It was so thickly applied it was no doubt acting as an insulator. I have scrupulously cleaned it off and with a small dollop of Arctic Silver 5, running the game now sees GPU temperatures at 80C rather than north of 90C.
Still hot for sure, but that's a heck of a difference.

The CPU temps were stable at 60C.
The PC is a Shuttle, so it's a small case. Only room for 1 single-slot GPU. The Afox 7850 was the fastest GPU I can get into the case. I know AMD cards tend to run hot as it is.

I've just ordered some new thermal compound (Artic Silver 5) and will strip down the Afox cooling system and put some new stuff on just in case it's been badly applied in the factory.

Maybe I should run the PC with the lid off completely? There's not much room in the case, and I don't think I can get any other ventilation or case fans in there.

 

[Zieman]

Well well well. I took off the cooler and inspected the chip. There must have been a gallon of "thermal compound" applied to the die, it was literally everywhere. It was so thickly applied it was no doubt acting as an insulator. I have scrupulously cleaned it off and with a small dollop of Arctic Silver 5, running the game now sees GPU temperatures at 80C rather than north of 90C.
Still hot for sure, but that's a heck of a difference.

Oh man, what were they thinking!

Good you got decent stuff there now & applied it correctly, might get a couple of degrees lower temps once the AS5 has properly settled.

 

[simpilotblues]

Greetings

Having registered today, I posted this earlier in the introduction forum, but surely this is the appropriate place to get an opinion about my setup being or not able to run E : D decently:

"Hello,

I played the original Elite for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum back in my youth days, and I got to Elite rank back then.
It's a new century now and a cople of days ago I stumbled upon Elite Dangerous being in development.
I'm seriously considering joining the standard beta stage, but I fear my PC will struggle to run it.
I've checked the system requirements posted at the website, and maybe this is not the right forum to discuss this, but here is my setup:
- Core2Quad Q9450 @ 2.67 GHz;
- nVidia 9600GT 1 GB;
- 8 GB DDR2 1066;
- 256 GB SSD;
- 2x512 GB HDD;
- Win7 HP 64;
- Thrustmaster T.Flight Hotas X + Saitek ProFlight Yoke, Throttle Quadrant and Rudder Pedals.

It's tuned to run FSX decently (FSX is more CPU intensive) and I'm aware that the bottleneck for Elite is certainly the GPU, but if I pre-order the Standard Beta I certainly won't afford a graphics card upgrade anytime soon.

Anyway, congratulations to the development team and all the kickstarters and backers for the excelent space sim produced so far, and I anxiously await the opportunity to give it a try."

 

[Aleksej]

Your GPU does not satisfy the minimal requirements by miles. It is about two times slower than minimal requirements.

 

[Zieman]

Your GPU does not satisfy the minimal requirements by miles. It is about two times slower than minimal requirements.

True that.

 

[NeilF]

I'm seriously considering joining the standard beta stage, but I fear my PC will struggle to run it.
I've checked the system requirements posted at the website, and maybe this is not the right forum to discuss this, but here is my setup:
- Core2Quad Q9450 @ 2.67 GHz;
- nVidia 9600GT 1 GB;
- 8 GB DDR2 1066;
- 256 GB SSD;
- 2x512 GB HDD;
- Win7 HP 64;
- Thrustmaster T.Flight Hotas X + Saitek ProFlight Yoke, Throttle Quadrant and Rudder Pedals.

It's tuned to run FSX decently (FSX is more CPU intensive) and I'm aware that the bottleneck for Elite is certainly the GPU, but if I pre-order the Standard Beta I certainly won't afford a graphics card upgrade anytime soon.

Yes, as you yourself have said, the GPU is usually the bottleneck in ED, but the CPU can be the bottleneck at times - http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=25416#post542102

 

[Sid Emot]

Hi
Is anyone out there playing ED with a GTX 770 2GB @ 1440p? If so how does it perform?

I'm planning a new rig for ED and, would appreciate anyone's feedback on the hardware I've picked out:
Budgeted £1,500 (including monitor) but if I can shave off a few hundred (on items I may have over-specced) to get it closer to £1k that'd be good. I'm particularly unsure what power PSU to get - I don't think I'll be over-clocking much but will dabble. I want room to grow and potentially upgrade the GPU to support the consumer Oculus Rift. This will otherwise be a single monitor mATX setup and I'd like it to run quiet.

Monitor: AOC Q2770PQU - 2560x1440 ~ £356
GPU: Asus GTX 770 DCU II OC 2GB ~ £240
CPU: Intel Core i5-4690k ~ £168
Cooling: Corsair H80i ~ £75
RAM: 2x4GB Corsair Vengeance 1,600MHz DDR3 ~ £63
HDD: Crucial M500 240GB SSD ~ £85
Motherboard: Asus Maximus VII Gene ~ £149
Case: Fractal Design Arc Mini R2 ~ £59
Optical: LiteOn IHAS124-14 DVD RW ~ £12
PSU: Corsair CX600 ~ £50
OS: Windows 8.1 64-bit ~ £70
HOTAS: Saitek x52 pro ~ £112
Mouse: Gigabyte M6800 ~ £8
Keyboard: use existing ~ £0

Any advice would be appreciated.
Can't wait to try the Beta!

 

[Juniper]

I think the Corsair C600 is not going to be big enough to power your graphics card, motherboard, processor, and everything else. You should be looking at 750W at a bare minimum IMO. Remember that the Rift, the X52, etc are USB powered as well.

Also, and this is a personal thing, I would skimp a bit on the monitor and try and get a decent 1080p one (or 1920x1200) for around £120-£150 from eBuyer rather than what you've specced. That money can then be used for things like the PSU, maybe an i7 instead of an i5, another 8GB of RAM, etc.

Other than that, looks a good system.

 

[Dinosawer]

I think the Corsair C600 is not going to be big enough to power your graphics card, motherboard, processor, and everything else. You should be looking at 750W at a bare minimum IMO. Remember that the Rift, the X52, etc are USB powered as well.

Also, and this is a personal thing, I would skimp a bit on the monitor and try and get a decent 1080p one (or 1920x1200) for around £120-£150 from eBuyer rather than what you've specced. That money can then be used for things like the PSU, maybe an i7 instead of an i5, another 8GB of RAM, etc.

Other than that, looks a good system.

I'm running a 770 on a 620 watt PSU (a Seasonic S12II-620Bronze, to be exact) without any problem. The official recommended minimum wattage for a system with that card is 600 W, and those are always over-estimates.
AFAIK USB ports draw 5 W at max so that shouldn't be a problem, no?
I can be wrong of course.

 

[Aleksej]

I think the Corsair C600 is not going to be big enough to power your graphics card, motherboard, processor, and everything else. You should be looking at 750W at a bare minimum IMO. Remember that the Rift, the X52, etc are USB powered as well.

Also, and this is a personal thing, I would skimp a bit on the monitor and try and get a decent 1080p one (or 1920x1200) for around £120-£150 from eBuyer rather than what you've specced. That money can then be used for things like the PSU, maybe an i7 instead of an i5, another 8GB of RAM, etc.

Other than that, looks a good system.

In fact 600W should be enough. I had 850W powering 2 overclocked GTX Titans without problems.

If budget allows the CPU could be changed to i7 4790K as i7 appears to be better for ED as it is optimized quite good for multicore/multithread CPUs.

 

[Sid Emot]

I think the Corsair C600 is not going to be big enough to power your graphics card, motherboard, processor, and everything else. You should be looking at 750W at a bare minimum IMO. Remember that the Rift, the X52, etc are USB powered as well.

Thanks for the feedback.
I am considering the CX750 PSU - it only costs a little more - but I'd like to keep the system cool/quiet where possible and was thinking the higher wattage PSU would be hotter/noisier? Or does that depend on how much power you are drawing from it?

 

[Sid Emot]

In fact 600W should be enough. I had 850W powering 2 overclocked GTX Titans without problems.

If budget allows the CPU could be changed to i7 4790K as i7 appears to be better for ED as it is optimized quite good for multicore/multithread CPUs.

Ah so maybe 600W would be ok... It's hard to get solid info when specs vary so much.
If I were to spend more money (although I'm not inclined to unless I can save it elsewhere) then yeah, going from the i5 to an i7 would be my first choice. If the GTX 770 2GB can handle 1440p 'ok' then I'll wait for new GPUs to be released towards the end of the year and upgrade then to turn detail levels up and support Rift.

 

[Juniper]

Thanks for the feedback.
I am considering the CX750 PSU - it only costs a little more - but I'd like to keep the system cool/quiet where possible and was thinking the higher wattage PSU would be hotter/noisier? Or does that depend on how much power you are drawing from it?

You need to allow some headroom is all I'm thinking. Yes, 600W will "probably" power what you've specced, but your PSU will be working flat out all the time & therefore hotter & noisier. If you want your system to run cool & quiet, more is definitely better.

I've built enough systems in my time to know that PSU is the one thing you should never skimp on.