Hardware & Technical fallen at the first post

clippo

C
Hi Folks - first post here so you'll have to excuse me for novice questions. I suspect this may be something that's been gone over and over but I've had a quick scan and can't see anything jumping out at me. I've read a few oldish posts on the subject but nothing gives a definitive answer [if there is anything definitive please direct me that way!]

As a bit of background, I'm completely new to Elite... although I did actually get Elite status on the BBC version back in the day ;-)

I'm totally new to PC gaming also.... you have been warned!

I've struggled for days to download the combat training demo. My broadband is playing up at the moment and it downloaded at 0.04mb/s.... I'm in the process of upgrading to fibre broadband as we speak so hopefully that will allow me to download the full game in a reasonable time.

In the week or so it takes to get fibre sorted, I thought I'd just practice with the demo. Maybe pick up a hotas shortly too.

I'm having trouble though. In the tutorials, pressing ctrl-f shows me it is running at a frame rate of about 40fps when the target practice demo starts but it then drops steadily to about 6fps no matter what quality setting I'm on. After a few minutes playing, the whole lot crashes to a black screen and locks me out (I can still hear it playing though). I have to restart my machine.

My PC spec is:

HP P6 2060uk
64bit
i5 - 2400 @ 3.1 ghz quad core
Geforce GT530 (latest driver 361.75 downloaded today)
6GB RAM
1680x1050 monitor

I know the spec isn't great and I was prepared for it to be a bit choppy but it seems excessively poor, strangely unstable and of course, completely crashes.

I've downloaded a CPU/GPU monitoring program but not really sure what I'm looking at. I see talk of underclocking my card, power supplies, high temperatures in a few other threads.... but do I really need (or want) to know all this crap just to play the game!? :-D
 

Cmdr Delmonte[VR]

Cmdr Delmonte[VR]
I think your overheating you GPU. Down load a GPU temperature monitor to check. If so. When we had this issue I took the gpu apart and put new heatsink compound on and fitted a cheep extra cooling fan from maplin.
 

Porina

Porina
If some part of the PC is over heating, then it will protect itself by slowing down. Gaming does exercise both the CPU and video card much more than typical desktop use. What is the monitoring program you have downloaded? If it reports the maximum CPU and GPU/video card temperatures, what does it say for that? You will need to run the game a bit for it to warm up then go back out and have a look.

Given the PC probably is many years old going by the spec, have you tried opened it up and give it a dusting?

You might also try turning down the game quality settings a bit, depending on what it is on now...
 

clippo

C
cheers both :)

After posting, I tried it again and I noticed that the frame rate was dropping in quite a uniform manner. I did a bit of research and had a look at the case... as suggested above, it did need a 'bit of a clean'!

I took the cover off and gave it a good dusting... and lo and behold I'm not getting the crashing anymore! :)

The frame rate still isn't great... averages about 12fps when travelling full speed through the asteroid belt with the planet in view on low settings. I'm quite happy with that though to be honest. Its smooth enough for me to be able to take out the enemy. Definitely fancy a hotas now though!

I'm considering upgrading the hardware too. Probably look to get a 1080 monitor and a new graphics card. Anyone think that's a good way to proceed? Will I need to upgrade the CPU also? I'd love to get horizons maybe later in the year.... and then maybe one day I'll be able to get the occulus :)
 

Porina

Porina
Don't worry about the CPU for now. While a bit old, it still has a decent amount of performance behind it and you're not going to get much faster without a lot more cost and effort. A new video card will certainly help. The main concern there will be the power supply in the PC. Any idea what rating it is? In a search I see it might be 300W. Does it come with a PCIe power connector (6 pins in 2x3 arrangement)? That may limit your update potential unless you upgrade power supply also.
 

Cmdr Delmonte[VR]

Cmdr Delmonte[VR]
Grab a card and power supply from Maplin, couple hundred quid tops.
Not hard to change out a PSU and swop the card.

IF it does not work then re pack the card and PSU and return to Maplin, they are pretty good with returns
Did this myself with a Lenovo machine. in the end bought a new gaming rig, as the Lenovo graphics card could not be upgraded due
to the BIOS being locked down.

EDIT.... Is the NVIDIA GeForce GT 530 an OEM card !!! If so you may not be able to upgrade
 
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