I have sadly reached the point where I am just not able to enjoy Elite: Dangerous on a Bootcamp partition on my mid-2010 27" iMac (i7 quad 2.93Ghz, Radeon HD 5750 1Gb video card), because of the performance and the blurry graphics. (I cannot begin to run it at the display's native 2560x1440 resolution with any sort of smoothness with the 5750, so I've had to dial it down to 1600-wide resolution, which makes the graphics quality blurry ... and I also have to run without any anti-aliasing, and even then it still stutters too often to really be immersive or comfortable.)
So, I'm thinking about building up a gaming PC specifically for ED. However, I don't have desk space for a 2nd monitor, and I am not going to go to the expense and trouble of replacing my desk and adding a new display. Instead, my hope is to take advantage of the fact that my slightly older iMac happens to be one of the few iMac models that can also act as a monitor for another computer via the mini display port. This would allow me to just limit my expenses to building a PC barebone that could be hidden underneath my desk, while capitalizing on the same iMac display and fairly high-quality audio system that I have in place already.
My main question is: what PC video card (with a mini display port output, obviously) should I look at to drive an iMac's 2560x1440 display at its full resolution and with ED graphics at or near maximum? I am keeping in mind that, although Apple doesn't publish refresh rates for their displays, I imagine the iMac's refresh isn't as fast as that of a dedicated gaming monitor, so I am not expecting to be able to run at 100+ fps or anything here, and I don't want to spend top dollar on a video card that can deliver more performance than my iMac's display can even reproduce. I just want a smooth frame rate (hopefully approaching 60 fps) with all of the eye candy that ED has to offer.
Also, is there any significant in-game benefit to be had with an SSD drive vs. a fast conventional hard drive? I'm not concerned about initial game loading time ... just performance in-game once it has loaded. So I'd just as soon not incur the added expense of an SSD if the gaming experience isn't going to be significantly different.
(This system would be running Windows 8.1 64-bit, by the way ... I already have a retail disk thereof that I am currently using for my Bootcamp partition and which I would be moving to the gaming PC instead.)
Thanks for any input!
So, I'm thinking about building up a gaming PC specifically for ED. However, I don't have desk space for a 2nd monitor, and I am not going to go to the expense and trouble of replacing my desk and adding a new display. Instead, my hope is to take advantage of the fact that my slightly older iMac happens to be one of the few iMac models that can also act as a monitor for another computer via the mini display port. This would allow me to just limit my expenses to building a PC barebone that could be hidden underneath my desk, while capitalizing on the same iMac display and fairly high-quality audio system that I have in place already.
My main question is: what PC video card (with a mini display port output, obviously) should I look at to drive an iMac's 2560x1440 display at its full resolution and with ED graphics at or near maximum? I am keeping in mind that, although Apple doesn't publish refresh rates for their displays, I imagine the iMac's refresh isn't as fast as that of a dedicated gaming monitor, so I am not expecting to be able to run at 100+ fps or anything here, and I don't want to spend top dollar on a video card that can deliver more performance than my iMac's display can even reproduce. I just want a smooth frame rate (hopefully approaching 60 fps) with all of the eye candy that ED has to offer.
Also, is there any significant in-game benefit to be had with an SSD drive vs. a fast conventional hard drive? I'm not concerned about initial game loading time ... just performance in-game once it has loaded. So I'd just as soon not incur the added expense of an SSD if the gaming experience isn't going to be significantly different.
(This system would be running Windows 8.1 64-bit, by the way ... I already have a retail disk thereof that I am currently using for my Bootcamp partition and which I would be moving to the gaming PC instead.)
Thanks for any input!
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