joneb Posted January 7, 2012 Share Posted January 7, 2012 (edited) So I'm looking to upgrade my PC's video card. But my PSU is rated at 350W. I understand manufacturers overrate their cards in terms on power required. What i'm wondering is there a card that will be alright with a PSU that low? I'm trying to spend as little money as possible really. 170$ at most. That's why i was trying to just buy a video card. But nothing these days is rated that low that's good. If you have any advice, please use http://www.directcanada.com. As I'm Canadian. Dont skimp on your power supply and dont take it for granted a video card psu requirement is over rated. Your budget will mean nothing if its burned out. Edited January 7, 2012 by joneb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eclipsedjedi Posted January 7, 2012 Share Posted January 7, 2012 i'm looking to buy a graphics card in the near future... my max is $250 but cheaper is always preferred. here are my specs. what would you suggest? AMD Phenom II X4 945 Deneb 3.0GHz Socket AM3 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor G.SKILL Sniper 8GB (2 x 4GB) GIGABYTE GA-78LMT-S2P AM3+ AMD 760G Micro ATX AMD Motherboard Also with the GPU i would also need to know what PSU to get or at least the required wattage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ninahaza Posted January 7, 2012 Share Posted January 7, 2012 ill go with a bigger power supply about 650w why do you say that? not to sound ungrateful here [because i appreciate the reply]i'm new to pc building so more specific answers would be appreciated. i thought a 450w would more than handle my build, i am now up to a 585w however after your post hehe [and the few changes i made] also i made a few changes around to accomodate a optical drive into my budget CPU: Intel Core i3-2100 3.1GHz Dual-Core $99.99 CPU Cooler: Rosewill RCX-Z90-CP 62.5 CFM Sleeve Bearing $12.99 Motherboard: ASRock H61M-VS Micro ATX LGA1155 $59.99 Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1333 $32.00 Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar Blue 250GB 3.5" 7200RPM $43.98 Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 6770 1GB $106.97 Case: Xion XON-CBX01-RD ATX Mid Tower $39.99 [59.99 before mail in rebate] Power Supply: HEC 585W ATX12V $31.98 alright guys, before you rip me apart, please remember my conditions again ---its a under $550 budget gaming pc set up. ---No plans of overclocking, at least not the cpu. MAYBE the gpu, maybe ---this will be strictly a MMORPGS gaming pc, not being built for crysis, skyrim, battlefield bad company etc etc. More like its being built to deliver good fps at HIGH TO MAX settings on games like SWTOR, Guild wars 2. ---The maximum res i will be playing on my current monitor is 1600x900 anyways, i think this rig should be perfect for my current situation right? ---BUDGET . i would love to upgrade to a better mobo, i5-2500k, radeon HD 6950 etc etc but i am on a very tight budget. but wouldnt all those be overkill for a rig being used for just MMORPGS anyways? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skuggan Posted January 7, 2012 Share Posted January 7, 2012 Can someone explain to me please, how can my loading times be so long? I load up Photoshop CS5.1 in less than 1 second with the corsair ssd's, but SWTOR to change from one map to another takes ages in comparison, whats wrong with SWTOR?? Asus Rampage IV Formula, I7 3930k @ 3.8GHZ (Turbo only), Nvidia GTX 590, 16GB RAM, 2x Corsair Force GT 120GB (Raid 0, OS and SWTOR), 2x Kingston V+ 64GB (Raid 0), Razer Death Adder 3200dpi, Eizo Coloredge 24", Corsair 650D Case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_Stronzo_ Posted January 7, 2012 Share Posted January 7, 2012 Ok guys need some help here. I originally had no problems playing the first part of the game. Then when I got to the Imperial Fleet my PC locks up and I constantly get booted to the desktop. I have all graphic settings on low to help. I think its because I dont have enough Ram, but tell me what you think I know the PC is old AMD Athlon 64 FX-60 2gig ram pc3200 Evga Geforce 8800GTX Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cliu Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 (edited) I could really go for some advice on whats happening to my computer, its way pass the minimum requirement for SW:TOR on this site but I still go around 8-16 fps on republic fleet and don't get me started on my fps in warzones! Like 3-8 fps in civil war which gets me frustrated because I can barely heal my friends properly without seeing my health bar disappear and enemies warping around me. This is what it says on this site: Minimum: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 4000+ or better, Intel Core 2 Duo Processor 2.0 GHz or better You Have: Intel® Core2 Quad CPU @ 2.40GHz CPU Speed Minimum: Info You Have: 2.4 GHz RAM Minimum: Windows XP: 1.5 GB, Windows Vista and Windows 7: 2GB, PCs using a built-in graphic chipset: 2 GB You Have: 4.5 GB OS Minimum: Windows XP, Vista, 7 You Have: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium Edition Service Pack 2 (build 6002), 32-bit Video Card Minimum: 256 MB of on-board RAM and Shader model 3.0 or better support (ATI Radeon X1800 or better, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 or better, Intel 4100 Integrated Graphics or better). You Have: AMD Radeon HD 6700 Series If you need me to post anything else just ask, I'm pretty new to these computer hardware stuff but I'll learn Edited January 9, 2012 by Cliu Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrrandell Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Time to update, AMD is currently King in the fastest single GPU market ala 7970 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dizzyMongoose Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 (edited) why do you say that? not to sound ungrateful here [because i appreciate the reply]i'm new to pc building so more specific answers would be appreciated. i thought a 450w would more than handle my build, i am now up to a 585w however after your post hehe [and the few changes i made] also i made a few changes around to accomodate a optical drive into my budget CPU: Intel Core i3-2100 3.1GHz Dual-Core $99.99 CPU Cooler: Rosewill RCX-Z90-CP 62.5 CFM Sleeve Bearing $12.99 Motherboard: ASRock H61M-VS Micro ATX LGA1155 $59.99 Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1333 $32.00 Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar Blue 250GB 3.5" 7200RPM $43.98 Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 6770 1GB $106.97 Case: Xion XON-CBX01-RD ATX Mid Tower $39.99 [59.99 before mail in rebate] Power Supply: HEC 585W ATX12V $31.98 alright guys, before you rip me apart, please remember my conditions again ---its a under $550 budget gaming pc set up. ---No plans of overclocking, at least not the cpu. MAYBE the gpu, maybe ---this will be strictly a MMORPGS gaming pc, not being built for crysis, skyrim, battlefield bad company etc etc. More like its being built to deliver good fps at HIGH TO MAX settings on games like SWTOR, Guild wars 2. ---The maximum res i will be playing on my current monitor is 1600x900 anyways, i think this rig should be perfect for my current situation right? ---BUDGET . i would love to upgrade to a better mobo, i5-2500k, radeon HD 6950 etc etc but i am on a very tight budget. but wouldnt all those be overkill for a rig being used for just MMORPGS anyways? The one suggestion I'd have is to look at a Radeon 6790 or 6850 for the video card. They're both in the same ballpark price as the 6770 but are significantly more powerful. In fact, Newegg has some 6790s for the same price as the 6770 you listed once you count the rebate. Tom's Hardware keeps up-to-date listings of good buys at different price ranges, if you want to do some more research: Best Graphics Cards for the Money: January 2012 2011 Entry-Level Graphics Benchmarks Edited January 9, 2012 by dizzyMongoose Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ninahaza Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 (edited) The one suggestion I'd have is to look at a Radeon 6790 or 6850 for the video card. They're both in the same ballpark price as the 6770 but are significantly more powerful. In fact, Newegg has some 6790s for the same price as the 6770 you listed once you count the rebate. Tom's Hardware keeps up-to-date listings of good buys at different price ranges, if you want to do some more research: Best Graphics Cards for the Money: January 2012 2011 Entry-Level Graphics Benchmarks ahh alright, thanks. i did go ahead and squeeze the wallet just a bit so i can upgrade to the Radeon HD 6850 from the originally planned HD 6770. although i've already placed all parts on order now, i cant help but wonder if i would have been able to achieve my goal of maxing out the settings on this game anyways with a radeon HD 6770. the reason why i choose it in the first place was because i read posts of people claiming to be playing the game on ALL settings maxed out and everything with a HD 6770 Edited January 9, 2012 by Ninahaza Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zingas Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 (edited) 4gig RAM is inadequate unless you like waiting at 5 minute loading screens. Edited January 9, 2012 by Zingas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cliu Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 (edited) 4gig RAM is inadequate unless you like waiting at 5 minute loading screens. Don't really like waiting a long time on loading screen but it does quite get annoying since the only way to fix it is to sit in my ship if I want to play pvp a lot which shortens the time to like 15-25 seconds or less Edited January 9, 2012 by Cliu Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sprigum Posted January 10, 2012 Author Share Posted January 10, 2012 (edited) 4gig RAM is inadequate unless you like waiting at 5 minute loading screens. Try running windows in "Basic" mode. This will reduce RAM usage and allow 4GB to stretch a bit further. Ensuring that all background applications are also closed is also a given. My SSD also seems to give me a nice 5-10 second lead on others with physical hard drives. i'm looking to buy a graphics card in the near future... my max is $250 but cheaper is always preferred. here are my specs. what would you suggest? AMD Phenom II X4 945 Deneb 3.0GHz Socket AM3 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor G.SKILL Sniper 8GB (2 x 4GB) GIGABYTE GA-78LMT-S2P AM3+ AMD 760G Micro ATX AMD Motherboard Also with the GPU i would also need to know what PSU to get or at least the required wattage. You'll need to provide us with PSU information for us to answer your question. Most high end cards over about $100 are going to require 6-pin PCI-E connectors, some require multiple connectors and are also going to require a 500-650W, high 12V amperage PSU. Popping open the side of the case and giving us the model number is a good place to start. Can someone explain to me please, how can my loading times be so long? I load up Photoshop CS5.1 in less than 1 second with the corsair ssd's, but SWTOR to change from one map to another takes ages in comparison, whats wrong with SWTOR?? Asus Rampage IV Formula, I7 3930k @ 3.8GHZ (Turbo only), Nvidia GTX 590, 16GB RAM, 2x Corsair Force GT 120GB (Raid 0, OS and SWTOR), 2x Kingston V+ 64GB (Raid 0), Razer Death Adder 3200dpi, Eizo Coloredge 24", Corsair 650D Case. I play on an SSD as well and while I don't consider the loading screens to pass quickly, you should see how long it takes on a physical hard drive. The loading screens in this game are some of the worst I've seen. Ok guys need some help here. I originally had no problems playing the first part of the game. Then when I got to the Imperial Fleet my PC locks up and I constantly get booted to the desktop. I have all graphic settings on low to help. I think its because I dont have enough Ram, but tell me what you think I know the PC is old AMD Athlon 64 FX-60 2gig ram pc3200 Evga Geforce 8800GTX Fleet is just a lag pit, virtually no matter what you do, but you probably shouldn't be crashing. Run task manager and see if your RAM usage is capping out while in the fleet. That could indeed be part of the problem. GeForce 560 ti Phenom II x4 @ 3.4 ghz 8 gigs DDR3 RAM I get 20 fps in Warzones and operations, 8 to 15 fps in Imperial Fleet, 80 to 110 fps everywhere else. Bioware, acknowledge this problem and post a fix ETA in the next two weeks or I'm unsubbing :-( This is a common issue that I've seen. For Radeon cards disabling and enabling certain features in Catalyst really made a huge difference for me, but from my current understanding Nvidia's drivers are really too friendly with SW:TOR. Disabling Shadows yields the greatest performance increase over pretty much anything else. Try that and you make yet make the game playable, if not as pretty as you'd like. Hard Drive : Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 6770 1GB $106.97 Case: Azza Orion 202 EVO ATX Mid Tower $28.99 Power Supply: Apevia 500W ATX Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (64-bit) $99.99 Breakdown can be seen here http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3wrH Total after mail in rebate and all that: $548.....$2 to spare haha so what do you think? again all advice/input greatly appreciated, help a major newb out man Get yourself a decent corsair/silverstone/ocz PSU around 500W and you'll be golden. Do not cheap out on the PSU. Time to update, AMD is currently King in the fastest single GPU market ala 7970 Yes, this is indeed the case. I'm hoping to update the post once the rest of the line-up is available for bench marking and such so I can place them on the list. For now, the 7970 is a very stalwart card and does indeed usurp the GTX 580 as the fastest single GPU. If you want the best of the best, look no further. Good luck finding them in stock though. Edited January 10, 2012 by Sprigum Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sprigum Posted January 10, 2012 Author Share Posted January 10, 2012 I'd like to apologize for taking a holiday from the desktop thread. I've just been playing a lot of SW:TOR lately and playing with some new watercooling components for my personal computer. I'd like to thank everyone who has tried to support the other SW:TOR members in this thread and hopefully I will be around more and more throughout the next month. The post is going to get another revision sometime in the next week or two to assess the HD 7000 line by AMD. For now, just know the the 7970 is the fastest single GPU on the market and I expect the 7950 to be very similar to a 580 GTX. I've spent a lot of time in game and out of game playing with graphics and the like and I'd like to pass on a few things to AMD/ATI/Radeon card users. I'll make this a simple "To Do" list for people using these cards. Please post back if this helps! - Download "12.1 Preview Drivers" - Uninstall old drivers FIRST, then Reboot, then install the drivers you just downloaded. Nothing fancy, just use add/remove programs and select "Express Uninstall all AMD software" when prompted trying to uninstall the drivers. - Once new drivers are installed, reboot, and then upon hitting the desktop pull up Catalyst control center (CCC). - Go to "Gaming" then to "3D Application settings" Now here is where we're going to do the magic. - Uncheck "Use application settings" under the "Anti-Aliasing" section. Select 2x AA (stick with 2x initially, even with 2 heavily overclocked cards I have to stay at 4x), make sure the Morphological AA remains unchecked. - Uncheck "Use application settings" under the "Aniosotrophic Filter" tab and take your "Per-pixel samples" to either 4x or 8x. 16x is overly taxing and the visual difference is insignificant. - Catalyst A.I. - set this to "High Quality" leave Surface Format Optimization checked. - Mipmap Detail level - set this to high quality! This makes such a huge difference in the texture qualities in the environments in the game. Big big visual boost! - Set Vysnc to "Off" - If you experience screen tearing you can enable this feature in game. - Anti-Aliasing Mode: Set this to either "Multi-Sample" or "Adaptive Multi-sample AA" the later is more demanding, but looks better. DO NOT USE SUPER SAMPLING AA. It brings my system to its knees even at 2x AA, with 2x 5850's heavily overclocked (the equivalent of an overclocked 580 GTX in relative power). - Make sure to "APPLY" The settings in the bottom right before closing the window and opening the game. - If you computer is capable moving everything to "HIGH" is advisable, except for "Anisoptrophic filtering" which should be set to "LOW" (you're forcing this through drivers already!) - Any frame rate issues are best resolved by tweaking the: - Shadow Quality in the game if you can't stand "jaggies" - Anti-Aliasing settings in CCC (turning it off will increase performance) or using Multi Sample instead of adaptive multi sample AA. - Using 2x Aniosotrohpic filtering instead of 4x or 8x. If your computer is still having performance issues with an AMD card, post below after you've tried this with system specifications and we'll try to work something out! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chikai Posted January 10, 2012 Share Posted January 10, 2012 (edited) I've fixed a lot of issues by upgrading my DDR3 from 4gb to 8gb (1333Mhz, BSOD with factory 1600Mhz on my AM3 motherboard, who knows...), loading times are faster, everything works smoother with SWTOR, apparent memory leaks don't affect so much now. Very comprehensive guide, good job! Edited January 10, 2012 by Chikai Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnotherJedi Posted January 10, 2012 Share Posted January 10, 2012 (edited) To thous that have lagging issues with their ATI Radeon HD 5700 with the game you maybe able to fix buy using the Catalyst Control Center under Gaming 3D Application Settings... I had alot of lag with everything turn down and off and i mean everything in the games preferences until I went to the CCC to alter stuff like the SmoothVision HD: Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering... I set them to allow the game to decide settings and I turned everything to quality and now I have no lag except for some FPS spikes but the game plays sweet and runs smooth enough. And I have everything turned up all the way and on. I mean I couldn't even play the space shooter at all now no lag at all in there... Thank You to everybody in the tread that was closed that i started about this issue for your help... Edited January 10, 2012 by AnotherJedi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sprigum Posted January 11, 2012 Author Share Posted January 11, 2012 I've fixed a lot of issues by upgrading my DDR3 from 4gb to 8gb (1333Mhz, BSOD with factory 1600Mhz on my AM3 motherboard, who knows...), loading times are faster, everything works smoother with SWTOR, apparent memory leaks don't affect so much now. Very comprehensive guide, good job! I added some new RAM myself, for other reasons as well such as BF3, and the game does run better. The client will run right up to the 4GB cap. To thous that have lagging issues with their ATI Radeon HD 5700 with the game you maybe able to fix buy using the Catalyst Control Center under Gaming 3D Application Settings... I had alot of lag with everything turn down and off and i mean everything in the games preferences until I went to the CCC to alter stuff like the SmoothVision HD: Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering... I set them to allow the game to decide settings and I turned everything to quality and now I have no lag except for some FPS spikes but the game plays sweet and runs smooth enough. And I have everything turned up all the way and on. I mean I couldn't even play the space shooter at all now no lag at all in there... Thank You to everybody in the tread that was closed that i started about this issue for your help... Yes. Most people complaining about graphical performance issues (at least on the ATI side) haven't spent a lot of time tweaking their CCC settings, which is something you'll just have to learn to do if you want to game seriously on a PC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dethtoki Posted January 11, 2012 Share Posted January 11, 2012 posted to bump Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grunnd Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 (edited) Just as a question, what should I do to improve my performance? (Hopefully not a case of the weird FPS lag) Phenom IIX4@3.4 GHz 4 GB RAM GTX 260 Can only really run the game on low-medium settings and still get 60 FPS, this is expected. However when I enter a warzone my FPS drops down to 10-15 and turns into a near slideshow, pretty detrimental to a melee. I am planning to make an upgrade to the GTX 560 and upgrade to 8 GB of RAM in the near future anyway, but is my system really behind in the specs to make it chug in warzones like this? Disabled shadows, desktop themes/animations, running basic mode, etc. Pretty much everything I could think of to improve. Some of them did help in the fleet and in some larger battles, but warzones are still nearly unplayable. Edited January 12, 2012 by Grunnd Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobBarnsen Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 Sprigum, thank you very much for the effort you put into this thread!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sprigum Posted January 13, 2012 Author Share Posted January 13, 2012 Just as a question, what should I do to improve my performance? (Hopefully not a case of the weird FPS lag) Phenom IIX4@3.4 GHz 4 GB RAM GTX 260 Can only really run the game on low-medium settings and still get 60 FPS, this is expected. However when I enter a warzone my FPS drops down to 10-15 and turns into a near slideshow, pretty detrimental to a melee. I am planning to make an upgrade to the GTX 560 and upgrade to 8 GB of RAM in the near future anyway, but is my system really behind in the specs to make it chug in warzones like this? Disabled shadows, desktop themes/animations, running basic mode, etc. Pretty much everything I could think of to improve. Some of them did help in the fleet and in some larger battles, but warzones are still nearly unplayable. Don't feel two bad, there are definitely some performance issues, especially in warzones when a lot of action is going down. I have 2x 5850's overclocked and I even experience sub-30 FPS in Alderaan from time to time during a large brawl. The 560 and additional RAM should be a nice performance boost over the 260. You might consider the 6950 as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allmightyprom Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 You all need to step your game up, and get something like what i have. Check my sig. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheClouding Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 You all need to step your game up, and get something like what i have. Check my sig. Seems decent, the monitor is a little small. Still not good enough to run high resolution textures though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sprigum Posted January 13, 2012 Author Share Posted January 13, 2012 Seems decent, the monitor is a little small. Still not good enough to run high resolution textures though. What High resolution textures? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheClouding Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 What High resolution textures? You know, the ones they disabled because they are too demanding for high end gaming pcs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
four_fun Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 shuush... they are watching... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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