Community Event / Creation Elite: Dangerous on a 6 year old computer

RAMpack · Jul 15, 2014

Hello, I'm new to ED but have played a billion hours of Frontier. I'm open to advice.

I considered that this may interest anyone trying to decide if they should buy Elite now, or wait until they have bought a brand new computer.
The video shows that at least on my old computer, the beta plays well. Crashes (not shown) are frequent, but not unplayably frequent.

http://youtu.be/x16-vodSPIM
Video description:
A peaceful trade and a decent frame rate. My 2nd day of playing.
Game graphics - Low detail, 720p, No AA or AF, 60Hz Vsync on.
Low Quality, High Performance settings in Catalyst Control Center.
* Your mileage will vary. *
Intel i5 Quad-core 2.8GHz
4GB RAM
ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 (2GB)
Control scheme: 360 gamepad and TrackIR 5.

"Elite: Dangerous on a 6 year old computer" was created using assets and imagery from Elite: Dangerous, with the permission of Frontier Developments plc, for non-commercial purposes. It is not endorsed by nor reflects the views or opinions of Frontier Developments and no employee of Frontier Developments was involved in the making of it.

Frontier Developments: http://frontier.co.uk

Cosmos · Jul 15, 2014

I'd guess your GPU is the prob, if you have one.

But during Alpha I ran the game on a very low end system. Quad core is a requirement for CPU.

I even ran the game using an 8800gt on low settings and at the time it worked fine for the most part.

RAMpack · Jul 15, 2014

Thanks for your response. I'm very out of touch with modern PC hardware. Are you saying that my GPUs are the bottleneck, or the CPU?

Zireael · Jul 23, 2014

I've read the above post and I can't decide

Rog · Jul 23, 2014

E: D's requirements can be surprisingly low.

Currently playing on a 2.4Ghz Intel I3 laptop with Intel HD4000 integrated graphics. (@720, no AA/shadows, medium textures). That's only about a third as powerful as RAMpack's GPU.

Not stupendous (obviously), but entirely playable until I build something better.

Zireael · Jul 23, 2014

Rog said:
E: D's requirements can be surprisingly low.

Currently playing on a 2.4Ghz Intel I3 laptop with Intel HD4000 integrated graphics. (@720, no AA/shadows, medium textures). That's only about a third as powerful as RAMpack's GPU.

Not stupendous (obviously), but entirely playable until I build something better.

It's playable

? I have an Intel HD4000/Radeon 6630 2.6 Ghz dual-core i7 laptop and someone told me in a different thread that the GPU's 3 times below the minimums...

Because if it were, I'd consider shelling out the money when the game actually gets out.

Rog · Jul 23, 2014

Zireael said:
It's playable ? I have an Intel HD4000/Radeon 6630 2.6 Ghz dual-core i7 laptop and someone told me in a different thread that the GPU's 3 times below the minimums...

Because if it were, I'd consider shelling out the money when the game actually gets out.

What can I say?

I've got a 2 year old Dell i3, and that's what I'm running it on at the moment. It's currently acceptable to me at reduced resolution and fidelity. There are *occasional* frame rate drops, but not many. I strongly doubt if it would be up to playing E: D in the future with the planned expansions though.

People demanding 60+fps, FSAA, and all the bells and whistles might be apalled, but there you go.

I *will* be building a new machine later this year with a decent GPU, but until then, it's certainly OK. The worst thing for me is the front of the laptop becomes too hot to touch playing the game.

The HD400 I use scores a passmark of 456, the 6630M scores 572.

Zireael · Jul 23, 2014

I love you man, my machine is also a 2 year old Dell. So it seems E

is something I might consider whenever it comes out.

EDIT: And my laptop's front also gets hot when used for longer periods of time/playing Oolite or anything. Seems like these Dells just work like this

Stoo · Jul 23, 2014

Turn off VSync...

Rog · Jul 23, 2014

Zireael said:
I love you man, my machine is also a 2 year old Dell. So it seems E is something I might consider whenever it comes out.

EDIT: And my laptop's front also gets hot when used for longer periods of time/playing Oolite or anything. Seems like these Dells just work like this

Glad to help!

Like I said though, you'd almost certainly want to play it on something beefier in the future.

Stoo said:
Turn off VSync...

Absolutely.

Space · Jul 23, 2014

The combat missions work on a dual core 2010 mac book pro!

NeilF · Jul 23, 2014

RAMpack said:
Hello, I'm new to ED but have played a billion hours of Frontier. I'm open to advice.

I considered that this may interest anyone trying to decide if they should buy Elite now, or wait until they have bought a brand new computer.
The video shows that at least on my old computer, the beta plays well. Crashes (not shown) are frequent, but not unplayably frequent.

http://youtu.be/x16-vodSPIM
Video description:
A peaceful trade and a decent frame rate. My 2nd day of playing.
Game graphics - Low detail, 720p, No AA or AF, 60Hz Vsync on.
Low Quality, High Performance settings in Catalyst Control Center.
* Your mileage will vary. *
Intel i5 Quad-core 2.8GHz
4GB RAM
ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 (2GB)
Control scheme: 360 gamepad and TrackIR 5.

"Elite: Dangerous on a 6 year old computer" was created using assets and imagery from Elite: Dangerous, with the permission of Frontier Developments plc, for non-commercial purposes. It is not endorsed by nor reflects the views or opinions of Frontier Developments and no employee of Frontier Developments was involved in the making of it.

Frontier Developments: http://frontier.co.uk

Hey! My CPU is even older - See sig!

Although my GPU is newer! I'm slowing down to about 35fps in "Factions" (combat demo) at full detail in HD.

RAMpack · Jul 23, 2014

I suppose the official minimum spec is in regard to what the game will become, not what it is now, so perhaps these lower spec computers will struggle in a few weeks / months.

I hate screen tearing, so it's well worth putting vsync on in my opinion.

I should add that since I settled on 720p and low detail across the board, ED rarely crashes.
Also note the clouds of that planet look like oil slicks.

SzaryWilk · Jul 23, 2014

I play on a 3 year old computer.

If you want to change the computer just wait for the final version of the Elite Dangerous.

Splendour · Jul 24, 2014

That CPU is the same as the one I'm using to fly with graphics cranked up to the max. Admittedly I have £350 of graphics card doing all the hard work....

JohnStabler · Jul 24, 2014

Zireael said:
It's playable ? I have an Intel HD4000/Radeon 6630 2.6 Ghz dual-core i7 laptop and someone told me in a different thread that the GPU's 3 times below the minimums...

Because if it were, I'd consider shelling out the money when the game actually gets out.

I accidentally plugged in to my integrated graphics (Intel HD4600) and got around 12-15 fps in busy combat scenarios and near the station (running at 720p with low settings). Couldn't play it myself, although I guess people must be able to cope with <30fps given that Frontier: Elite II ran between 15 and 20fps on an Amiga

I had a GT640 card for a while and it could at least achieve more than 30fps, but I had to upgrade to a GTX670 before I could run at 1080p with all settings on high.

SzaryWilk · Jul 24, 2014

I have:
Core I3 2100T 2.5 GHz
4GB RAM DDR3
GeForce GTS 450 512MB DDR5

and I fly on the high settings. Sometimes there are problems with look round only in the center station.

RAMpack · Jul 24, 2014

JohnStabler said:
Frontier: Elite II ran between 15 and 20fps on an Amiga

Upgraded my Amiga with a FPU about 10 years ago, helped a bit. I've always been behind the times

Zireael · Jul 25, 2014

JohnStabler, SzaryWilk, thanks a lot for the replies.

Looks like I'll keep an eye out on the game when it comes out for good!

hawkenfox · Jul 25, 2014

From my personal experience it's the harddisk that plays a big role in computer bottleneck. Also the video ram and ram. Vram depends on how big your screen resolution you want to play on. Obviously GPU has to be decent to run high graphics mode if you want it all turned on. CPU isn't that important, that's from my experience , 3d games uses mostly GPU power for rendering real time pixel on screen. I have the Asus COG8580 with GTX680 on board 3G vram. 16G physical Ram. SSD for C drive and 10k RPM for games and programmes. Works fine for most games. The cpu is i7Quad 3.6Mhz if not mistaken with hyperthread so there are 8 core registered on the task manager. I am absolutely crazy about modding afterwards ... so my ASUS COG system case allow me to add more to the system as I deem fit in future. If you are willing to spend good money go for the ASUS COG they are pretty solid.