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Advice on computer upgrade :P
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Palandri
Omnivores of Mediocrity
Omnivores
#1 - 2012-06-11 19:50:38 UTC
Hello out there.

Currently i'm thinking of upgrading my computer to handle better EVE (duh!).

Atm my specs is:

AMD Phenom Ii 955 X4 @3200Mhz
Asus M4A88T-V EVO
12Gb Kingston 667Mhz (2+2+4+4) DDR3
ATI Radeon HD 5830
Western Digital Green Caviar 1TB
LG E2241 (22") Full HD
Windows 7 Professional SP1 64 bits

Currently, i play with everything at max with no problem (50-60 fps steady, sometimes some fps drops) when doing simple tasks (flying around, ratting) with Brackets showing on.

But the problem starts when gang/fleet fights start... if there is more than 40 ships on grid, lag-fest kicks.

To round this problem, when i know a fight will occur, i just set everything to minimum and i'm good to go. With everything on minimum and brackets on, i can manage about 200+ ships on grid, more than this i need to turn brackets off.

I just don't know where is the bottleneck of my system. There is videos of people record with Fraps with everything on, on maximum, Full HD and no lag at all...

Thanks in advance, and sorry about the English (non-native speaker here).
Lithalnas
Dirt 'n' Glitter
Local Is Primary
#2 - 2012-06-11 20:48:34 UTC
I might be able to save you some money if you want to get a rig which plays eve on the cheap.

Try an AMD A8 - 3850 and combine the CPU and video card into one (llano processors have GPU on chip, I use it and get a little lag but if you turn down the detail a little bit it is good on medium at 40 fps when loaded). Second, go from 12 gb to only 8 GB to save a few bucks. Your hard drive may limit some performance being only a 5400 rpm drive, you could short stroke the drive but i doubt it would be worth it. I would go for a normal wd blue or black 7400 rpm drive. If you are a student, talk to your university computer engineering department if they give you a copy of win 7 for free if you join the club for $20.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.951809

https://www.facebook.com/RipSeanVileRatSmith shoot at blue for Vile Rat http://community.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&nbid=73406
Caleidascope
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#3 - 2012-06-11 20:57:14 UTC
The bottleneck is the CCP server. That is why you can not fix your comp., there is nothing for you to fix.

Life is short and dinner time is chancy

Eat dessert first!
Shameless Avenger
Can Preachers of Kador
#4 - 2012-06-11 21:01:18 UTC
IBKA (In Before Akita)

I'm not sure about the CPU. It might be enough IMHO. I have slightly faster rig (AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition). Ram is fine too... graphics, well.... could use a new GPU.

"This is the Ninja. He will scan you down; he will salvage your wrecks and there shall be no aggro"
Palandri
Omnivores of Mediocrity
Omnivores
#5 - 2012-06-11 21:12:07 UTC
Lithalnas wrote:
I might be able to save you some money if you want to get a rig which plays eve on the cheap.

Try an AMD A8 - 3850 and combine the CPU and video card into one (llano processors have GPU on chip, I use it and get a little lag but if you turn down the detail a little bit it is good on medium at 40 fps when loaded). Second, go from 12 gb to only 8 GB to save a few bucks. Your hard drive may limit some performance being only a 5400 rpm drive, you could short stroke the drive but i doubt it would be worth it. I would go for a normal wd blue or black 7400 rpm drive. If you are a student, talk to your university computer engineering department if they give you a copy of win 7 for free if you join the club for $20.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.951809

Thanks for the advice, but the rig I showed is my actual rig... I'm looking for improvement :D

Caleidascope wrote:
The bottleneck is the CCP server. That is why you can not fix your comp., there is nothing for you to fix.

So there is nothing i can do? Maybe move closer to CCP server lol

Shameless Avenger wrote:
IBKA (In Before Akita)

I'm not sure about the CPU. It might be enough IMHO. I have slightly faster rig (AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition). Ram is fine too... graphics, well.... could use a new GPU.

Yes, the GPU is a bottleneck, but i was thinking of getting a SSD and upgrading to 8Gb Corsair Dominator, but i don't know if this will be the difference between smooth game or lag-fest (honestly, i don't think so... well, maybe the SSD)

Please, keep the advices coming :D
Agaetis Byrjun Endalaust
#6 - 2012-06-11 21:16:32 UTC
SSD should come first, GPU 2nd. If I'm not wrong your mobo should support Sata 3 which is what you want to have a Sata3 SSD (crucial m4 128 is a good one). CPU is no problem, you could also overclock it a bit at least up to 3.4 GHz easily.

If you play on a single monitor your GPU could be enough and the lag mostly due to CCP server or your internet provider.
Btw, your budget?

__________________________ just because you're paranoid it doesn't mean they're not after you
Shameless Avenger
Can Preachers of Kador
#7 - 2012-06-11 21:22:42 UTC
OP: You can download/run HD Tune and post a screenshot of the hard drive stats so we could compare.

"This is the Ninja. He will scan you down; he will salvage your wrecks and there shall be no aggro"
Robin Sparrow
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#8 - 2012-06-11 22:44:03 UTC
Palandri wrote:
Yes, the GPU is a bottleneck, but i was thinking of getting a SSD and upgrading to 8Gb Corsair Dominator, but i don't know if this will be the difference between smooth game or lag-fest (honestly, i don't think so... well, maybe the SSD)


It shouldn't. If the SSD will make a difference, that means your game has to keep swapping data between HDD and RAM, in which case you have bigger issues than a slow hard disk drive. Most of the game should be in RAM, and you seem to have an adequate amount of it.

Heck, are you even sure it's a problem with your PC (as opposed to, say, your internet connection or your connection to the CCP servers)? This shouldn't be so hard to find out: put all graphics as low as possible, enter another one of those fleet battles (or whatever it is you do) that causes your PC to lag. If it's still lagging, it's most likely not your computer (unless something *very* strange is going on; dark magic!). If it no longer does, then at least we know where the problem is.
Palandri
Omnivores of Mediocrity
Omnivores
#9 - 2012-06-11 23:06:15 UTC  |  Edited by: Palandri
Robin Sparrow wrote:
Palandri wrote:
Yes, the GPU is a bottleneck, but i was thinking of getting a SSD and upgrading to 8Gb Corsair Dominator, but i don't know if this will be the difference between smooth game or lag-fest (honestly, i don't think so... well, maybe the SSD)


It shouldn't. If the SSD will make a difference, that means your game has to keep swapping data between HDD and RAM, in which case you have bigger issues than a slow hard disk drive. Most of the game should be in RAM, and you seem to have an adequate amount of it.

Heck, are you even sure it's a problem with your PC (as opposed to, say, your internet connection or your connection to the CCP servers)? This shouldn't be so hard to find out: put all graphics as low as possible, enter another one of those fleet battles (or whatever it is you do) that causes your PC to lag. If it's still lagging, it's most likely not your computer (unless something *very* strange is going on; dark magic!). If it no longer does, then at least we know where the problem is.

As i described, with everything on minimum i have a smooth gameplay, no problems at all..

I think i'll format my computer and sees what happens :D


Agaetis Byrjun Endalaust wrote:
SSD should come first, GPU 2nd. If I'm not wrong your mobo should support Sata 3 which is what you want to have a Sata3 SSD (crucial m4 128 is a good one). CPU is no problem, you could also overclock it a bit at least up to 3.4 GHz easily.

If you play on a single monitor your GPU could be enough and the lag mostly due to CCP server or your internet provider.
Btw, your budget?

Let's say, US$300,00?
Copine Callmeknau
Dirty Vagrants
Intergalactic Space Hobos
#10 - 2012-06-11 23:08:52 UTC
Palandri wrote:
Hello out there.

Currently i'm thinking of upgrading my computer to handle better EVE (duh!).

Atm my specs is:

AMD Phenom Ii 955 X4 @3200Mhz
Asus M4A88T-V EVO
12Gb Kingston 667Mhz (2+2+4+4) DDR3
ATI Radeon HD 5830
Western Digital Green Caviar 1TB
LG E2241 (22") Full HD
Windows 7 Professional SP1 64 bits

Currently, i play with everything at max with no problem (50-60 fps steady, sometimes some fps drops) when doing simple tasks (flying around, ratting) with Brackets showing on.

But the problem starts when gang/fleet fights start... if there is more than 40 ships on grid, lag-fest kicks.

To round this problem, when i know a fight will occur, i just set everything to minimum and i'm good to go. With everything on minimum and brackets on, i can manage about 200+ ships on grid, more than this i need to turn brackets off.

I just don't know where is the bottleneck of my system. There is videos of people record with Fraps with everything on, on maximum, Full HD and no lag at all...

Thanks in advance, and sorry about the English (non-native speaker here).

At first glance I'd say your in-game bottleneck is the gfx card. The 5830 isn't a particularly stellar performer, and as we know EVE is optimised for nVidia (not that I get into ATI v nVidia, but fact is that CCP is in collaboration with nVidia and if you want best performance in EVE well.. you know which card to get)

A GTX470 is an affordable replacement for the card you have, I'm running the Palit version myself and it has no problems running multiple clients on max.

For frapsing your drive is a definite bottleneck, do not even attempt it with a cav green. Consider that ~3min of fullHD fraps is ~3.5GB, you'll need a drive capable of a fairly high write speed.

There should be a rather awesome pic here
Palandri
Omnivores of Mediocrity
Omnivores
#11 - 2012-06-11 23:14:42 UTC
Shameless Avenger wrote:
OP: You can download/run HD Tune and post a screenshot of the hard drive stats so we could compare.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/utzfkpc517k2y0k/HDTune.png

Here it goes :D
Palandri
Omnivores of Mediocrity
Omnivores
#12 - 2012-06-11 23:18:20 UTC
Copine Callmeknau wrote:
Palandri wrote:
Hello out there.

Currently i'm thinking of upgrading my computer to handle better EVE (duh!).

Atm my specs is:

AMD Phenom Ii 955 X4 @3200Mhz
Asus M4A88T-V EVO
12Gb Kingston 667Mhz (2+2+4+4) DDR3
ATI Radeon HD 5830
Western Digital Green Caviar 1TB
LG E2241 (22") Full HD
Windows 7 Professional SP1 64 bits

Currently, i play with everything at max with no problem (50-60 fps steady, sometimes some fps drops) when doing simple tasks (flying around, ratting) with Brackets showing on.

But the problem starts when gang/fleet fights start... if there is more than 40 ships on grid, lag-fest kicks.

To round this problem, when i know a fight will occur, i just set everything to minimum and i'm good to go. With everything on minimum and brackets on, i can manage about 200+ ships on grid, more than this i need to turn brackets off.

I just don't know where is the bottleneck of my system. There is videos of people record with Fraps with everything on, on maximum, Full HD and no lag at all...

Thanks in advance, and sorry about the English (non-native speaker here).

At first glance I'd say your in-game bottleneck is the gfx card. The 5830 isn't a particularly stellar performer, and as we know EVE is optimised for nVidia (not that I get into ATI v nVidia, but fact is that CCP is in collaboration with nVidia and if you want best performance in EVE well.. you know which card to get)

A GTX470 is an affordable replacement for the card you have, I'm running the Palit version myself and it has no problems running multiple clients on max.

For frapsing your drive is a definite bottleneck, do not even attempt it with a cav green. Consider that ~3min of fullHD fraps is ~3.5GB, you'll need a drive capable of a fairly high write speed.

Indeed. I think i'll upgrade to an SSD. About the GPU, i didn't know about the nVidia preference on EVE... Interesting :D
Copine Callmeknau
Dirty Vagrants
Intergalactic Space Hobos
#13 - 2012-06-11 23:37:21 UTC  |  Edited by: Copine Callmeknau
Palandri wrote:
Shameless Avenger wrote:
OP: You can download/run HD Tune and post a screenshot of the hard drive stats so we could compare.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/utzfkpc517k2y0k/HDTune.png

Here it goes :D

http://go-dl1.eve-files.com/media/corp/Copine/HDTune_Benchmark_Intel___Raid_0_Volume.png


That's SSD's, but running on SATA2 instead of the SATA3 they should be

There should be a rather awesome pic here
Palandri
Omnivores of Mediocrity
Omnivores
#14 - 2012-06-11 23:42:30 UTC
Copine Callmeknau wrote:
Palandri wrote:
Shameless Avenger wrote:
OP: You can download/run HD Tune and post a screenshot of the hard drive stats so we could compare.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/utzfkpc517k2y0k/HDTune.png

Here it goes :D

http://go-dl1.eve-files.com/media/corp/Copine/HDTune_Benchmark_Intel___Raid_0_Volume.png


That's SSD's, but running on SATA2 instead of the SATA3 they should be

This is beatiful :D
Copine Callmeknau
Dirty Vagrants
Intergalactic Space Hobos
#15 - 2012-06-12 00:05:27 UTC
Palandri wrote:
Copine Callmeknau wrote:
Palandri wrote:
Shameless Avenger wrote:
OP: You can download/run HD Tune and post a screenshot of the hard drive stats so we could compare.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/utzfkpc517k2y0k/HDTune.png

Here it goes :D

http://go-dl1.eve-files.com/media/corp/Copine/HDTune_Benchmark_Intel___Raid_0_Volume.png


That's SSD's, but running on SATA2 instead of the SATA3 they should be

This is beatiful :D

ahhh not really, the transfer rates are 35-40% of what I was expecting. Don't really know why tbh, being on the slower interface explains some but not all of it

There should be a rather awesome pic here
Lithalnas
Dirt 'n' Glitter
Local Is Primary
#16 - 2012-06-12 01:31:31 UTC
you could mess with your firmware versions but if i remember correctly the intel drives sometimes brick when you update them.

Alternatively you could try useing them on SCSI mode or whatever that mode is that lets you emulate the drive interface.

lastly, try using the on CPU controller for raid instead of the qualcom or whatever secondary controller. ie use the ports for sata 3.

https://www.facebook.com/RipSeanVileRatSmith shoot at blue for Vile Rat http://community.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&nbid=73406
Copine Callmeknau
Dirty Vagrants
Intergalactic Space Hobos
#17 - 2012-06-12 04:11:49 UTC
Lithalnas wrote:
you could mess with your firmware versions but if i remember correctly the intel drives sometimes brick when you update them.

Alternatively you could try useing them on SCSI mode or whatever that mode is that lets you emulate the drive interface.

lastly, try using the on CPU controller for raid instead of the qualcom or whatever secondary controller. ie use the ports for sata 3.

Unfortunately I only have 2x SATA3 ports, but 3x SSD drives, I'd need to buy a RAID controller card to get the slots and they're fairly pricy.

They show as intel drives because they are controlled by the intel chipset on my X58, they're actually 3x corsair f3 120's

I must confess I know little about the technical side of drive controllers and SCSI and sich

There should be a rather awesome pic here
Sin Pew
Ministry of War
Amarr Empire
#18 - 2012-06-12 07:23:13 UTC
Before you invest tons of bucks on tiny SSD drives, ask around for overview settings, crappy brackets settings can put a computer on its knees.
See if turning off anti-aliasing only can help or play the game fullscreen instead of windowed if it's not already the case.

Your graphic card is a low-cost model, with all the corners cut to fit a price range and was rated below NVidia's GTX 275/285 which were alreagy low-end graphic cards for video games, the rest of the computer isn't that . But SSD drives still have a prohibitive $$/Gb ratio for casual users IMO. If you play more than one game, with today's games footprint, along with windows 7, you might run short of disk space quickly. Yes the performance is impressive on disk access, but if your computer is swapping that much, you have another problem.

[i]"haiku are easy, But sometimes they don't make sense, Refrigerator."[/i]
Nirnias Stirrum
UberWTFBBQ and Battle Technologies
#19 - 2012-06-12 08:15:25 UTC
The trick is to turn brackets off when in large fleets. that is standard practice for any large fleet engagement.

The current build you have is enough for eve imo. But upgrading is always fun :D
Palandri
Omnivores of Mediocrity
Omnivores
#20 - 2012-06-12 12:16:11 UTC
Nirnias Stirrum wrote:
The trick is to turn brackets off when in large fleets. that is standard practice for any large fleet engagement.

The current build you have is enough for eve imo. But upgrading is always fun :D

I agree :D

Sin Pew wrote:
Before you invest tons of bucks on tiny SSD drives, ask around for overview settings, crappy brackets settings can put a computer on its knees.
See if turning off anti-aliasing only can help or play the game fullscreen instead of windowed if it's not already the case.

Your graphic card is a low-cost model, with all the corners cut to fit a price range and was rated below NVidia's GTX 275/285 which were alreagy low-end graphic cards for video games, the rest of the computer isn't that . But SSD drives still have a prohibitive $$/Gb ratio for casual users IMO. If you play more than one game, with today's games footprint, along with windows 7, you might run short of disk space quickly. Yes the performance is impressive on disk access, but if your computer is swapping that much, you have another problem.

As mentioned above, i'll format my computer to see if it runs better. Tbh, it's tooking a looong time to boot up. Maybe i messed up with Windows :D
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