SWTOR More processor dependant or graphics card?

[Neuromann]

My system is as follows:

Intel® Core 2 Quad processor Q8300 [2.5GHz, 4MB L2, 1333MHz FSB]

4GB DDR2 Ram

1GB NVIDIA GeForce GT 220

 

I'll be upgrading my ram to 8GB DDR2 as well as my graphics card to a GTX 550 Ti Fermi. I'm wondering if anyone can tell me how big of an FPS jump I'll see?

 

I'm mostly interested in warzones and Ilum as they are the zones I'd like to have increased the most. I currently get horrible FPS in Ilum at prime time (5-15 with both zergs on screen) and usually a steady ~30-40 fps in warzones except for Civil War which is slightly lower.

 

Also for some reason the Bonethrasher boss room gives me horrible FPS (roughly 10-15).

 

 

Can anyone tell me what kind of improvement I'll likely see? If I'll be bottlenecked by the processor I'll probably have to re-think my purchase plan. I haven't ordered these parts yet so I was curious what others thought...

Edited February 15, 2012 by Neuromann

[WonderLlama-Con]

On my machine, TOR seems to run heavier on my RAM than my processor, or my graphics accelerator.

[Jeffleigh]

The CPU and motherboard are major components when it comes to frame rate now

 

In a practical way - I run two pcs (and two accounts at the same time)

 

I do upgrade my computers as required

 

My lower end pc had a core 2 duo in it - I had a reasonable card and plenty of ram, but the improvement with a new motherboard and cpu ( an I5 in this case) gave me a frame rate from 15 originally to about 60 after the cpu and motherboard change.

 

My main pc had a replacement motherboard and I7 - due to the fact the older one blew ( it had a quad core 2 duo in it) - again the frame rate went from about 25 to over 60

 

Generally now it does seem that games are much more dependant on the CPU and the bus speed of the motherboard, but of course everything should be matched

[JonnyLoveMachine]

Even on high end systems it runs like trash. It is their crapola engine.. not your computer. Do not upgrade for this game.. It isn't worth your money.

 

P.S. This game lacks the ability to thread well. It is a programming problem.. not a pc problem.

[Neuromann]

Yea, I'm assuming Ilum involves a lot of loading players in and out of your screen so that may be more of the processor...but who really knows

[Azzras]

Even on high end systems it runs like trash. It is their crapola engine.. not your computer. Do not upgrade for this game.. It isn't worth your money.

 

P.S. This game lacks the ability to thread well. It is a programming problem.. not a pc problem.

 

Seems to run fine on my PC.

[yodimaster]

Even on high end systems it runs like trash. It is their crapola engine.. not your computer. Do not upgrade for this game.. It isn't worth your money.

 

P.S. This game lacks the ability to thread well. It is a programming problem.. not a pc problem.

 

I'm not having a problem on my end FPS wise i run 100 fps and in crowded places with alot of action going on like Wz's maybe 70ish FPS. this is still done on a 2 year old AMD Black edition i built myself!

 

P.S. most human eyes cant tell the difference past 60fps.

Edited February 16, 2012 by yodimaster

[grueber]

My system is as follows:

Intel® Core 2 Quad processor Q8300 [2.5GHz, 4MB L2, 1333MHz FSB]

4GB DDR2 Ram

1GB NVIDIA GeForce GT 220

 

I'll be upgrading my ram to 8GB DDR2 as well as my graphics card to a GTX 550 Ti Fermi. I'm wondering if anyone can tell me how big of an FPS jump I'll see?

 

I'm mostly interested in warzones and Ilum as they are the zones I'd like to have increased the most. I currently get horrible FPS in Ilum at prime time (5-15 with both zergs on screen) and usually a steady ~30-40 fps in warzones except for Civil War which is slightly lower.

 

Also for some reason the Bonethrasher boss room gives me horrible FPS (roughly 10-15).

 

 

Can anyone tell me what kind of improvement I'll likely see? If I'll be bottlenecked by the processor I'll probably have to re-think my purchase plan. I haven't ordered these parts yet so I was curious what others thought...

 

It's your gpu that is the bottleneck. By far.

 

Your processor is fine, especially if you buy an aftermarket cooler like a coolermaster hyper 212+ and overclock it. I guess you can buy more RAM but it's a dead-end upgrade and DDR3 RAM is actually cheaper.

Edited February 16, 2012 by grueber

[MaliceX]

Still seems random per person who plays no matter what PC they are using.

 

Seen some nice PC's who run like crap and some cheap-o ones who claim to run fine.

 

Mine runs OK.. should run this game alot better then it does, maybe one day it will all get straightened out.... one-day...

[yodimaster]

My system is as follows:

Intel® Core 2 Quad processor Q8300 [2.5GHz, 4MB L2, 1333MHz FSB]

4GB DDR2 Ram

1GB NVIDIA GeForce GT 220

 

I'll be upgrading my ram to 8GB DDR2 as well as my graphics card to a GTX 550 Ti Fermi. I'm wondering if anyone can tell me how big of an FPS jump I'll see?

 

I'm mostly interested in warzones and Ilum as they are the zones I'd like to have increased the most. I currently get horrible FPS in Ilum at prime time (5-15 with both zergs on screen) and usually a steady ~30-40 fps in warzones except for Civil War which is slightly lower.

 

Also for some reason the Bonethrasher boss room gives me horrible FPS (roughly 10-15).

 

 

Can anyone tell me what kind of improvement I'll likely see? If I'll be bottlenecked by the processor I'll probably have to re-think my purchase plan. I haven't ordered these parts yet so I was curious what others thought...

 

If your upgrading the GPU better look into a different PSU as that 550 may need more power than that 220!

[Inarai]

Even on high end systems it runs like trash. It is their crapola engine.. not your computer. Do not upgrade for this game.. It isn't worth your money.

 

P.S. This game lacks the ability to thread well. It is a programming problem.. not a pc problem.

 

.... You clearly haven't investigated its threading properly. Threads more and better across more cores than any other PC title I've come across.

 

In any case, those issues are more in the way of client issues not related to power, or interaction effects. It's not strictly the engine - and many people have very strong performance.

Edited February 16, 2012 by Inarai

[Eagle_Tarquinas]

Even on high end systems it runs like trash. It is their crapola engine.. not your computer. Do not upgrade for this game.. It isn't worth your money.

 

P.S. This game lacks the ability to thread well. It is a programming problem.. not a pc problem.

 

With all the settings on max, including anti-aliasing, with V-sync on, i get 60 FPS everywhere but Ilum during a major battle or the republic fleet (still around 30 FPS or more). On Ilum it usually dips down to 30 FPS with 20 or more people, and if there are more than 50 people it can drop down to 15 or so. But still, those circumstances are rather extreme and everywhere else i get good FPS.

[Eonz]

While I see this game being a ram hog from time to time it doesn't seem to be more or less dependent on either your GPU or CPU.

 

For example, I have never reached 100% GPU usage in TOR but consistently reach it in BF3 with CPU usage hanging around the 35-50% range and temps never exceeding 50c or 60c for the CPU and GPU respectively.

 

To say it's the Hero Engine and not your computer isn't entirely inaccurate, however, a low-end PC isn't going to cut it... and that is even for the best optimized games now-a-days.

[Xaeberain]

Let's not forget the massive memory leak that has yet to be mentioned or fixed or even noticed by BW.

I have to run memory cleaner just to keep the game from eating up my entire 8 gigs of ddr3. Even still it runs using roughly 85% of it. (before using memory cleaner it used 99%)

 

I'm running a HD6770 Radeon and it chugs when more than a half dozen people are nearby leaving me at around 20-25 fps. Out in a zone relativly alone I run at around 55-60

 

I don't know what's wrong with the programming but I'm fairly certain that a game with graphical quality like TOR shouldn't be tearing through resources like that.

[Inarai]

Let's not forget the massive memory leak that has yet to be mentioned or fixed or even noticed by BW.

I have to run memory cleaner just to keep the game from eating up my entire 8 gigs of ddr3. Even still it runs using roughly 85% of it. (before using memory cleaner it used 99%)

 

I'm running a HD6770 Radeon and it chugs when more than a half dozen people are nearby leaving me at around 20-25 fps. Out in a zone relativly alone I run at around 55-60

 

I don't know what's wrong with the programming but I'm fairly certain that a game with graphical quality like TOR shouldn't be tearing through resources like that.

 

First I'm hearing of that. Have a system monitor running on my second display pretty much always, too - memory usage stays relatively static for me. That's pretty strange.

[Akirator]

First I'm hearing of that. Have a system monitor running on my second display pretty much always, too - memory usage stays relatively static for me. That's pretty strange.

 

Same here. I have memory, cpu, and temp monitors runnign at all times and my memory always stays around 1GB and 1.5GB for the two processes, regardless of whether im playing for 30 minutes or 6 hours.

[Xaeberain]

First I'm hearing of that. Have a system monitor running on my second display pretty much always, too - memory usage stays relatively static for me. That's pretty strange.

 

It's been discussed many times in many threads in this forum. As a matter of fact one of those threads gave me the idea to run Memory Cleaner.The person who suggested it was having the same issues and was replying to others who also had that problem.

[Inarai]

It's been discussed many times in many threads in this forum. As a matter of fact one of those threads gave me the idea to run Memory Cleaner.The person who suggested it was having the same issues and was replying to others who also had that problem.

 

Gotta love the interaction effects, I guess.

[Neuromann]

If your upgrading the GPU better look into a different PSU as that 550 may need more power than that 220!

 

Yea...I have a 600w PSU that'll be coming if I order this GPU

[Lord_Itharius]

Your CPU is a little weak for SWTOR, which apparently is more system demanding than BF3 and Shogun II put together. I'd suggest at least an i5 processor.

[Vharna]

Seems to run fine on my PC.

 

What is considered fine?

 

This is my system.

 

i5-2500k running at 4.6GHZ, 8GB of Ram, dual 580GTXs at stock speed and SWTOR installed on a SSD. Like anyone who has invested this much into his/her PC I've done a ridiculous amount of testing and benchmarking and my system is incredibly stable (prime 95 all night long with zero issues).

 

I run the game at 1080p, max settings and I force AA (the in-game setting is terrible) and trAA through nvidia inspector. There is something very wrong with the way this game utilizes hardware. Game is barely multi-threading, ram usage is pretty minimal and although my SLI usage indicator is pretty on par with other games, performance and SLI usage goes to hell as soon as I enter the fleet, a Warzone or even any area with heavy vegetation like Alderaan. This is pretty ridiculous for a game with so many graphical shortcomings.

 

So yeah, I don't consider this fine at all.

 

EDIT: Also this game runs incredibly hot. BF3 on the most graphic intensive map barely hits 65c on GPU1/2. This game however sends it shooting to close to 75c just sitting on Alderaan with no one else around.

Edited February 16, 2012 by Vharna

[PjPablo]

I find it is more dependent on forgetting how other MMOs were and on patience.

[Paralassa]

Hi there!

 

There are existing discussion threads regarding computer hardware which you may find very helpful:

 

• Desktop Hardware Q&A
  
• Looking to build a machine?
  
• *Ultimate* Desktop PC Performance Guide
  
• Ultimate Guide to speeding up Win 7 on low/mid range systems
  
• [HOWTO - RAMDRIVE] Increasing SWTOR System Performance
  
• Official Bioware Guide to In-Game Performance Settings
  

 

You can also check out our General FAQs for information about minimum system specifications.

 

In the interest of consolidating discussion, we have closed this thread. Please use one of the topics linked above for further questions and discussion of hardware specifications. Thank you!