Dead Winter
STAHP
The reason I'm getting a new PSU is because of the SSD, actually. I had an old 450 watt PSU that came with the PC and I just upgraded to a Corsair 650 watt so I would have plenty of power for the SSD whenever I get it.
Gaming Thread
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Talking Backwards
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Don't just decide on whether or not to get an SSD. I stalled for the longest time getting one, because my 7200 rpm (had 10k raptors before, but they were pretty loud) drives were "good enough", but hell...I was dumb. It might seem like an exaggeration, but after you get an SSD, you'll wonder why you waited so long. Also, I wouldn't recommend getting anything larger than 240gb right now, unless you can get a really good deal. Just keep most of your games on your larger drive, and only move a few over to the SSD that you play quite often, or are an open world type like TW3. If you don't like screwing around making multiple directories for Steam, you can use something called Steam Mover, which simply moves a game from your Steam drive to another drive, but keeps it so that when Steam looks for a game, it appears to still be in the initial folder/drive, even when it's not.
Also, having a higher resolution on a TV is actually less important than having it on a monitor most of the time, mainly because of how much closer a monitor typically is to you. There are a lot of games that actually look worse on a monitor due to aliasing being more noticeable. Personally, I go for min 60fps > Graphics.
Dead Winter
STAHP
Yeah, I'm the same way. I prefer performance. It doesn't have to be 60 fps but it needs to be up there.
My birthday is in September and I never want anything for it, but I think I'll tell Annalisa to get me an SSD. So you say nothing bigger than 240 gigs? Any reason why? Is it just not worth the money or is there a problem with performance the bigger you go?
My birthday is in September and I never want anything for it, but I think I'll tell Annalisa to get me an SSD. So you say nothing bigger than 240 gigs? Any reason why? Is it just not worth the money or is there a problem with performance the bigger you go?
Talking Backwards
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Oh, it's not due to performance reasons at all, and I'm not actually sure that going up to a larger size would affect performance. It actually increases performance on mechanical drives simply because as the platters become denser, they actually have to move a lot less while accessing. SSDs were extremely pricey per gb for a few years, and while they have still gone down, they aren't really a good choice yet for mass storage. Like right now, you can get a Samsung 850 Evo 250gb for $90. A 500gb costs $160, and a 1TB costs $300. Technically, it looks like the 500gb and 1TB are actually giving more now per dollar, but they are still really pricey if you don't actually need that much for gaming. Your OS shouldn't take more than 60gb tops, which includes all the updates over a few years.
By comparison, you can get a 7200 3TB HD for $100, and because of it being such a large capacity, it will actually be extremely fast for a mechanical drive.
By comparison, you can get a 7200 3TB HD for $100, and because of it being such a large capacity, it will actually be extremely fast for a mechanical drive.
Dead Winter
STAHP
I would be using it just for gaming, not installing my OS on it. I know it would boot up faster but I'm just gonna leave everything where it is and put certain games on it. Thanks for the info.
Talking Backwards
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It's not just boot time, it's every freaking application, and your OS is always seeking from the drive while playing games too. You were espousing the virtues of having more ram, but an SSD actually impacts performance much more after a certain point. Putting just games on it would give you a much smaller boost compared to putting your OS and games on it. 
I don't know how many drives you currently have right now, and if you have your OS on the same drive as everything else, but getting used to keeping the OS on its own drive has more benefits than simply faster overall performance. Sometimes you just need to nuke everything and start over with a fresh installation, and it's way easier if you keep it confined to its own drive, where you don't have to end up reinstalling all of your games or other important (but not everday, essential applications) programs.
Might seem like a strange analogy, but the difference between having your OS on an SSD is like the difference between playing a game that jumps around between 15fps - 45fps and one that sits at a constant 60fps.
I don't know how many drives you currently have right now, and if you have your OS on the same drive as everything else, but getting used to keeping the OS on its own drive has more benefits than simply faster overall performance. Sometimes you just need to nuke everything and start over with a fresh installation, and it's way easier if you keep it confined to its own drive, where you don't have to end up reinstalling all of your games or other important (but not everday, essential applications) programs.
Might seem like a strange analogy, but the difference between having your OS on an SSD is like the difference between playing a game that jumps around between 15fps - 45fps and one that sits at a constant 60fps.
Dead Winter
STAHP
I've only got one drive with two partitions: the OS on one with a few programs and games, music, and movies on the other.
Talking Backwards
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Please tell me you didn't already get the 970...
http://neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1265430
The GTX 1060 (6gb) is around a 20% improvement over the 970 in most games, draws less power and also has more memory. It's actually better than the 980, and is supposed to cost 289 EUR.
http://neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1265430
The GTX 1060 (6gb) is around a 20% improvement over the 970 in most games, draws less power and also has more memory. It's actually better than the 980, and is supposed to cost 289 EUR.
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Dead Winter
STAHP
Yeah I already got it, and I saw that literally the day after I ordered it. However, it's still difficult to find and there's a lot of price gouging. It's like a two-week wait just for them to arrive at the distributors. I was tempted to send my 970 back but it runs really smoothly and I'm happy with it. My system is pretty old; it's a second generation i7, so it's not like I'm expecting to have the best of the best. Also, sooner or later I'm going to have to upgrade to a better computer with a much better processor, and by the time that happens nVidia will be selling the 1070 much cheaper anyway.
For everything that I use it for, the 970 does what I need in spades. The Witcher 3 runs like butter, but it's heavy on the CPU in cities; in Novigrad it's running at about 50% CPU and 45% GPU with graphics all on high, and in any case the games aren't taxing the GPU at all. The 970 is very cool, very quiet, runs everything incredibly well and was rather cheap. I can always overclock it, although I don't think I will. I don't trust myself to experiment. I might have a friend help me out but we'll see.
I am definitely going to invest in an SSD, and I think anything beyond that at the moment will be just squeezing out what I can until I get a new PC. I'll install the OS on it as well, as it seems to do really well.
Also, I never buy newly-released hardware because it's just too iffy to know it's going to work with all my components. I'm sure the 1060 is fine, but releases are rarely exactly what they're advertised as even though it's got great reviews. I always overshoot on new PCs, and I always make sure I need the power. I think when Star Citizen finally gets released I'll need that extra power and it will be a good excuse for me to get a new PC. I'll give this one to my son when he's old enough to do more than pound on the fucking keyboard and ask me to start American Truck Simulator so he can see the vroom.
For everything that I use it for, the 970 does what I need in spades. The Witcher 3 runs like butter, but it's heavy on the CPU in cities; in Novigrad it's running at about 50% CPU and 45% GPU with graphics all on high, and in any case the games aren't taxing the GPU at all. The 970 is very cool, very quiet, runs everything incredibly well and was rather cheap. I can always overclock it, although I don't think I will. I don't trust myself to experiment. I might have a friend help me out but we'll see.
I am definitely going to invest in an SSD, and I think anything beyond that at the moment will be just squeezing out what I can until I get a new PC. I'll install the OS on it as well, as it seems to do really well.
Also, I never buy newly-released hardware because it's just too iffy to know it's going to work with all my components. I'm sure the 1060 is fine, but releases are rarely exactly what they're advertised as even though it's got great reviews. I always overshoot on new PCs, and I always make sure I need the power. I think when Star Citizen finally gets released I'll need that extra power and it will be a good excuse for me to get a new PC. I'll give this one to my son when he's old enough to do more than pound on the fucking keyboard and ask me to start American Truck Simulator so he can see the vroom.
Talking Backwards
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Around 50% is actually pretty much the average for that game, even on 2-3 year old midrange processors.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/d...it-finally-time-to-upgrade-your-core-i5-2500k
Dead Winter
STAHP
I've got an i7 2600. If I don't reach 60 fps I don't start throwing shit out the window or anything. In any case, I don't think I can overclock mine because it's not the "k" version.
Games just look so damn good these days even on medium settings that four year old PCs have much more life in them than four year old PCs did ten years ago.
Games just look so damn good these days even on medium settings that four year old PCs have much more life in them than four year old PCs did ten years ago.
Talking Backwards
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I agree, although sometimes the "quality" settings are a bit misleading. Quite often you'll get near identical image quality from "medium" as you will "high" or "ultra", and the main difference is level (and type) of AA, draw distance and shadow quality (some games are extremely unoptimized with shadows). The one thing that will usually make the starkest difference is if a game has two different texture levels; one for "low" through "medium" and another set for "high" and possibly another for "ultra" (doesn't happen that much). Most of the time though with modern games anymore, the "medium" setting has the highest level textures (which are the most noticeable on characters/NPCs) and the other settings just enhance the above listed features, and occasionally have stuff like Gameworks or TressFX (huge resource hog).
Totally random, for no reason other than to talk tech sidenote:
The old PC I built in 2009 is just using an i5-750@4ghz, and while it still blows away the current gen consoles, I mostly use it for last gen games, since I can max everything and still get 60fps. The PC I built at the end of 2013 can run pretty much everything at 1080p on either High or Ultra, and a whole lot of games at 1440p. Although in the case of TW3, with the GTX 780 that was previously in it (now in my older PC) it would drop to 48fps occasionally, while mostly staying between 55 - 60fps. That was with Hairworks OFF. I'm so anal about minimum FPS, that even though I couldn't actually tell that often without Fraps or RTSS showing the framerate, it bothered me. Mostly because I wanted to run the game with Hairworks, but knew that I couldn't then. I can now though, and I think it actually looks really cool. I used to do a complete system build every three to four years, but my older one is going on seven years already, and it still has a few more years left.
So anyway, I guess my main line of thinking with the above derailment is that yeah, with your current setup, you should still be good to go for another few years at medium settings with current gen games. Even longer if you don't mind playing at 30fps (IMO it's not that bad as long as you don't get any stuttering). Still need to get an SSD though.
Totally random, for no reason other than to talk tech sidenote:
The old PC I built in 2009 is just using an i5-750@4ghz, and while it still blows away the current gen consoles, I mostly use it for last gen games, since I can max everything and still get 60fps. The PC I built at the end of 2013 can run pretty much everything at 1080p on either High or Ultra, and a whole lot of games at 1440p. Although in the case of TW3, with the GTX 780 that was previously in it (now in my older PC) it would drop to 48fps occasionally, while mostly staying between 55 - 60fps. That was with Hairworks OFF. I'm so anal about minimum FPS, that even though I couldn't actually tell that often without Fraps or RTSS showing the framerate, it bothered me. Mostly because I wanted to run the game with Hairworks, but knew that I couldn't then. I can now though, and I think it actually looks really cool. I used to do a complete system build every three to four years, but my older one is going on seven years already, and it still has a few more years left.
So anyway, I guess my main line of thinking with the above derailment is that yeah, with your current setup, you should still be good to go for another few years at medium settings with current gen games. Even longer if you don't mind playing at 30fps (IMO it's not that bad as long as you don't get any stuttering). Still need to get an SSD though.
Dead Winter
STAHP
Yep, my thinking is the same. 30 fps isn't that bad to me, honestly. I think I'm getting about 50 or so in TW3 and I can't tell the difference if it's 50 or 60. That was my target.
It depends on the game and if it's good or not, though. I'm sure you remember that great PC games didn't always have 60 fps and it's only become a thing because we're inundated with fps count these days. As long as there's no stuttering, I'm honestly ok. You did convince me, however, about the SSD. It's such an easy upgrade that I know I'll kick myself for not doing it sooner.
It depends on the game and if it's good or not, though. I'm sure you remember that great PC games didn't always have 60 fps and it's only become a thing because we're inundated with fps count these days. As long as there's no stuttering, I'm honestly ok. You did convince me, however, about the SSD. It's such an easy upgrade that I know I'll kick myself for not doing it sooner.
Dead Winter
STAHP
I don't know why I got it stuck in my head, but for some reason I forgot that my HD is a Seagate Barracuda 7200 rpm. I was thinking that it's a little fast to be some shitty 5400 rpm hard drive. Still gonna get the SSD because I've had problems with Seagate for a long time. This is the first one that has lasted this long.
Talking Backwards
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Why stick with them if you've had problems with them for a long time? They used to offer pretty good consumer drives 10 - 15 years ago, but I thought most of their good modern drives were reserved for business class. I used to only deal with Western Digital for mechanical, but then switched (price) to both Samsung and Hitachi, and both of them have been going strong for about six years now. Both of my SSDs are Samsung, and I bought a 3TB HGST (owned by Hitachi) earlier this year.
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/175089-who-makes-the-most-reliable-hard-drives
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/175089-who-makes-the-most-reliable-hard-drives
Dead Winter
STAHP
HDD is the original that came with the PC. I used to deal only with Western Digital but then they lost a bunch of their merchandise due to a flood or something in Japan and ended up having to use Seagate. Shortly after I bought this PC (Asus) and haven't had any problems.
I think what I'll end up doing is getting the Samsung evo 750 500 gig drive. I think it runs about 130.
I think what I'll end up doing is getting the Samsung evo 750 500 gig drive. I think it runs about 130.
Talking Backwards
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Hmm. So I'm assuming you don't actually have a seperate OS disc then, and the only way to reinstall Windows would be to have your system reset everything to factory defaults? Or did you end up buying Windows 7/8 seperately after that?
Dead Winter
STAHP
No, 7 x64 came pre-installed. I just upgraded to Windows 10. I'm gonna leave this Windows on the HDD and just install another on the SSD and set my BIOS to boot from the SSD. Sure, I'll have to reinstall some stuff but it's no big deal. The biggest pain will be reinstalling DCS because 1.5 and 2.0 are two different installs of 35 gigs each, due to 2.0 being an alpha build and the Nellis map. My download speed is about 1500 kb/s so I'll just run it overnight.
Talking Backwards
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Since you were planning on getting Mankind Divided, here's a list of the options and what kind of performance impact they have on the GPU/CPU.
http://forums.eu.square-enix.com/showthread.php?t=190749
http://www.pcgamer.com/how-to-get-the-best-performance-out-of-deus-ex-mankind-divided/
Also, benchmarks on the "Ultra" setting:
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/Deus-.../Specials/Benchmarks-Test-DirectX-12-1204575/
http://forums.eu.square-enix.com/showthread.php?t=190749
http://www.pcgamer.com/how-to-get-the-best-performance-out-of-deus-ex-mankind-divided/
Also, benchmarks on the "Ultra" setting:
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/Deus-.../Specials/Benchmarks-Test-DirectX-12-1204575/
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Dead Winter
STAHP
I was reading that a while ago. I'm going to hold off for a bit and let people run it through its paces. It's getting pretty good reviews, but I have a feeling it's just Human Revolution part deux. I know that's actually what it is, but I'm going to hold off for a bit in any case. I'm replaying older games I never finished like Watch Dogs. You're right about the whole "Ultra" settings in new games; it's just more AA, and not worth it at all.
Wow, Eidos really did a good job explaining their recommendations for DE's settings. Most of us know what it all is due to playing PCs forever, but it can be tricky to find that sweet spot between graphics and performance in the beginning. It usually takes me the first hour of fiddling with my settings to find it because you don't have a clear idea how much it's going to impact your system. This actually sounds rather light.
Wow, Eidos really did a good job explaining their recommendations for DE's settings. Most of us know what it all is due to playing PCs forever, but it can be tricky to find that sweet spot between graphics and performance in the beginning. It usually takes me the first hour of fiddling with my settings to find it because you don't have a clear idea how much it's going to impact your system. This actually sounds rather light.
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