What caliber of system will run this game well?

[JazzyDevil]

Hi all, happy holidays. I have a few questions and was hoping to get some opinions and such.

 

Relatively new to Swtor, began playing over the summer when a RL friend showed the game to me. Not really new to the MMO style, I played and enjoyed WoW from around beginning of Wrath till the beginning of Cata then some other priorities took me away from gaming.

 

I played WoW on an Asus G60vx, 2.16 gh, 4gig, GTX 260M, for which I got a pretty good deal back in 2010 and it's served me well throughout. It didn't run WoW at max settings but I did get consistent performance on Mid to the point that I could take part in battlegrounds and 25 mans with no problem whatsoever.

 

I've been having a lot of fun with this game, questing, experiencing the storylines, and what not and especially in WZ but it does seem to choke my system a lot at certain points. Even at the lowest of settings, the stuttering in WZ is unbearable, dipping to 5-10 frames per sec.

 

Cutting to the chase, the laptop was damaged about a week ago and probably isn't worth fixing. Even back when I bought it I was considering building a desktop and started reading up and researching. This incident is giving me that itch again and I want to try my hand at building a nice system, and with the plethora of info and resources, the idea of it doesn't really intimidate me.

 

With all of the issues post 3.0 that many people are having and then other people who say they aren't having those issues, and folks saying they have top notch systems which can't tame this game and others saying their game runs constantly at tons of frames per second at all times, I have no idea what I need to run this game effectively.

 

If I base my build off of I5 4690k processor with a GTX 970, with adequate RAM, power supply, good cooling, and throw the game on a SSD, will that be enough to run this game with consistent performance? Should I go I7?

 

I want to be sure before I buy the components. I'm probably going to start buying in January.

 

My budget is going to be about $1000, give or take. If anyone has any other recommendations too I'm open

 

Thank you, best regards and happy holidays

Edited December 24, 2014 by JazzyDevil

[Wahala]

Though I run an I-7 at 3.4 ghz with 16 gb ram and a cheepo amd 7750 vid card (no xtra power cables required) on a walmart computer ... I think I-5 would be fine as the game is not a cpu hog anyway. My computer is 3 or 4 years old and I get 40 - 60 fps most of the time (all on high, at 1080p (1920 x 1080 px) ... except shadows (which seem to really take a lot to run on high and are kind of useless to me anyway).

 

I have seen a lot of posts about lag ... but personally think it is their internet path or connection or something related as I live in FL and have about 40 to 50 ms latency most all the time like today. I could never stand playing games on a laptop unless I had a bigger monitor and a regular keyboard and mouse ... then it really isn't a laptop is it ... lol

 

The movement in the game is a tiny bit jerky but I think that is just the game.

 

Anyway good luck with your upgrade.

Edited December 24, 2014 by Wahala

[renegadeimp]

That system is overkill for this game, but will run pretty much any game on the market right now at near ultra settings.

[Heat-Wave]

A Core i5 would be just fine and makes a nice choice for gaming... the i7 doesn't really do that much for most games and the extra $100 would be better put into the GPU.

 

You don't say what monitor you're going to use or what resolution you're going to run, it does make a difference.

 

A GTX 970 would be just fine for anything up to 1600p on a single monitor, or 3x 1080p monitors. At 4k it probably would be fine as well for this game, but I haven't personally tested the 4k monitors yet so I can't speak to that.

[Daewan]

Any good gaming machine will be able to run the game decently. The issues people are talking about now are actually from the servers and the connection, not the game itself. Graphics-wise, you need a mid-range video card for the best performance, but turning off shadows will give you a better boost than buying an expensive card.

 

For reference: I am currently playing on a three year old gaming laptop. I am not having many of the currently reported issues. I did have a horrible time about six months ago when something similar happened and pockets of people just couldn't get a stable connection. But it wasn't my machine that was the issue, it was most definitely their servers. Once they got their DNS stuff all straightened out, all my problems magically disappeared.

 

So of course, if you buy an awesome computer, the game will run better. But it is not required.

[SkyCakeLight]

I miss my Asus!! Haha

 

I'm playing on a alienware laptop, now. Hate it! I run the game on the lowest setting with at max 15 FPS. That's for solo PvE content. In level 30+ PvP WZs, I get like 5-7 FPS. I'm used to it, though. So, it doesn't bother me that much. I know my rotations, so even though I didn't see my flame burst proc from the rail shot, I know it did! Just start mashing the FB hotkey a few times, and move on to the next skill in the rotation. Haha.

 

Pretty much sucks at running any game. I could play WoW on it (before the graphics update, I dont know about now) on like Medium settings with like 30-40 FPS. But, I think Blizzard spends more of their budget on servers/optimization than EA/BW can spend on the their entire game of SWTOR. Stupid rich company... Haha.

 

I might be able to start buying PC parts, soon! So, I will be referring to this thread as I go. Thank you computer smart people for posting replies!

 

Edit: Also, though! Maybe it's because I'm already at the low end of the performance spectrum, but I have not experienced any of the "unplayable" issues like other have posted. I've pretty much always received the same performance since I got this laptop several years ago.

Edited December 24, 2014 by SkyCakeLight

[Elracor]

I miss my Asus!! Haha

 

I'm playing on a alienware laptop, now. Hate it! I run the game on the lowest setting with at max 15 FPS. That's for solo PvE content. In level 30+ PvP WZs, I get like 5-7 FPS. I'm used to it, though. So, it doesn't bother me that much. I know my rotations, so even though I didn't see my flame burst proc from the rail shot, I know it did! Just start mashing the FB hotkey a few times, and move on to the next skill in the rotation. Haha.

 

Pretty much sucks at running any game. I could play WoW on it (before the graphics update, I dont know about now) on like Medium settings with like 30-40 FPS. But, I think Blizzard spends more of their budget on servers/optimization than EA/BW can spend on the their entire game of SWTOR. Stupid rich company... Haha.

 

I might be able to start buying PC parts, soon! So, I will be referring to this thread as I go. Thank you computer smart people for posting replies!

 

Edit: Also, though! Maybe it's because I'm already at the low end of the performance spectrum, but I have not experienced any of the "unplayable" issues like other have posted. I've pretty much always received the same performance since I got this laptop several years ago.

 

I'm fairly sure that's the kind of FPS drops others are referring to when they talk about 'unplayable'.

 

OP: The setup you're considering looks good for any game.

[JazzyDevil]

Thank you for the replies.

 

If I needed or wanted to scale something back due to budget, would the GPU specs be the choice? I'd like to keep the option open if I decide to try other games out there but as of now I don't play much of anything else. Probably add a RTS or something.

 

I'm not so familiar with how Nvidia classifies their generations of cards and how they all compare to one another. I see a lot of systems sold with 760, 770 and 780 and then ones with 8xx every once in a while. Some of the cards with lower numbers seem to be a lot more money, but I suppose they offer more configuration.

 

Does the 970 give the best bang for the buck right now?

 

Thanks again

Bill

[Magira]

I use an AMD A-3500 and a Radeon HD 6570 and everything is going very well. Ram 8 GB. An absolute energy saving system with 65 W.

Screen resolution is 1366x768. At higher resolutions that would certainly not work anymore. For me it is the best, my monitor is huge and 3 meters away, since a higher resolution would be suboptimal.

[SkyCakeLight]

I'm fairly sure that's the kind of FPS drops others are referring to when they talk about 'unplayable'.

 

OP: The setup you're considering looks good for any game.

 

Always thought it might be! Haha. But, I'm still playing and doing well. I could see if someone was used to getting good FPS, and then it dropped to what I play at, they might be less inclined to play. Still playable, just not as enjoyable to people. Guess it depends on that person's tolerance! Haha.

 

Whenever I do manage to get a decent PC to replace this laptop, It'll probably feel like a new game to me! I've seen videos of people that play on max setting and get great FPS. The game is actually really pretty!

 

You should post your experience after setting up your new PC, TC! I want to know what it's like from playing with lower FPS on lower setting to max setting and high FPS.

[Heat-Wave]

If I needed or wanted to scale something back due to budget, would the GPU specs be the choice? I'd like to keep the option open if I decide to try other games out there but as of now I don't play much of anything else. Probably add a RTS or something.

 

Does the 970 give the best bang for the buck right now?

 

Thanks again

Bill

 

Bill, you haven't said what your monitor/resolution situation is, it makes a difference.

 

The AMD 285 is a nice deal right now, about a hundred less than the 970. Not as fast, but fast enough for most uses.

 

If you're running a single monitor at 1080p, then it is all you need, the 970 is a bit overkill. At 1600p, I'd go with the 970 to give yourself some room, but the 285 will work as well.

 

I wouldn't go with anything nVidia below the 970 right now, the older cards are... older, last gen tech and they use more power. The 285 and 970 would be my $230/$330 price point cards right now.

[teclado]

50 cal should do the trick.

[JazzyDevil]

Bill, you haven't said what your monitor/resolution situation is, it makes a difference.

 

The AMD 285 is a nice deal right now, about a hundred less than the 970. Not as fast, but fast enough for most uses.

 

If you're running a single monitor at 1080p, then it is all you need, the 970 is a bit overkill. At 1600p, I'd go with the 970 to give yourself some room, but the 285 will work as well.

 

I wouldn't go with anything nVidia below the 970 right now, the older cards are... older, last gen tech and they use more power. The 285 and 970 would be my $230/$330 price point cards right now.

 

Thanks for the advice. Admittedly, I failed to take monitors into account but I will need to pick one up. My budget's not extremely high but I'm also not working with a whole lot of space either, although I may decide to switch the setup around in my apartment. For the time being, 24-27" is prob the max size I can do for now. I can't really go much above $200. It'll be used for SWTOR and ultimately, maybe a few other games down the line,movies and other everyday computer crap. I'd like to run the games at a higher resolution while keeping the performance. If I can save a few bucks on the GPU if the 970 is overkill for the visual setup I'm going I don't mind that.

 

This is, incidentally where my knowledge starts to get weaker, ie the actual visual output details and terms, resolutions 1080p, 1440p and what not. I'll prob take a look at a few monitors to get an idea of what's what.

 

I was reading somewhere that if I'm foing as large as 27" I want a 1440p monitor and if I'm staying w/ 1080, smaller is the way to go...Not sure what to go with.

Edited December 24, 2014 by JazzyDevil
additional thoughts

[JazzyDevil]

So after starting to gather parts the past couple months, I finally bit the bullet and finished picking up the rest of what I needed this past weekend from Micro Center and completing my build.

 

Micro Center has great deals on motherboard and CPU combos so I went with the i5 4690K and an Asus Z97-AR board....I'm not a HUGE gamer so I didn't need a ton of bells and whistles on the board.

 

8 gigs of G.Skill Sniper Dual Channel Memory, 240 gig OCZ SSD for the OS and a few choice games and audio software, WD Black 1 TB of storage for my iTunes library and Steam(ok maybe a little bit of a gamer)

 

Corsair C70 case, EVGA G1 650 watt modular power supply

 

I decided to go with the Asus Strix GTX 970 after all....I did a ton of research and talked to a ton of people, and even with the 3.5 gig/.5 gig slower RAM issue w/ the 970, it was the best one for me. Running everything on an Asus VX238h 23'' monitor.

 

SWTOR looks and runs fabulously on Ultra, in fact it looks like a completely different game from my laptop...

 

Just transferred my 198 gig music collection from the external drive and synced w/ iTunes and I'm up and running.

 

Everything's running like a dream so far!!

Edited February 10, 2015 by JazzyDevil

[MillionsKNives]

So after starting to gather parts the past couple months, I finally bit the bullet and finished picking up the rest of what I needed this past weekend from Micro Center and completing my build.

 

Micro Center has great deals on motherboard and CPU combos so I went with the i5 4690K and an Asus Z97-AR board....I'm not a HUGE gamer so I didn't need a ton of bells and whistles on the board.

 

8 gigs of G.Skill Sniper Dual Channel Memory, 240 gig OCZ SSD for the OS and a few choice games and audio software, WD Black 1 TB of storage for my iTunes library and Steam(ok maybe a little bit of a gamer)

 

Corsair C70 case, EVGA G1 650 watt modular power supply

 

I decided to go with the Asus Strix GTX 970 after all....I did a ton of research and talked to a ton of people, and even with the 3.5 gig/.5 gig slower RAM issue w/ the 970, it was the best one for me. Running everything on an Asus VX238h 23'' monitor.

 

SWTOR looks and runs fabulously on Ultra, in fact it looks like a completely different game from my laptop...

 

Just transferred my 198 gig music collection from the external drive and synced w/ iTunes and I'm up and running.

 

Everything's running like a dream so far!!

 

Glad to hear everything turned out good for you. My system is very close to yours and I couldn't be happier.

[IBJammin]

Great little system. I wish there wasn't such jump between the 960 and 970 preformance wise. I want to pick up an Nvidia card to stream to my Shield tablet but really the R9 280 is hitting the video card sweet spot right now.

[patriciaharris]

i had a amd processor running 2.5ghz and a 2gb of ram with a brand new radeon hd 6800 series graphics card and my computer was crap. i load screens took forever my lag was ridiculous forever i was screaming it was the game.

so i finally pulled my computer out and realized it was me not the game lol. i upgraded the processor to a dual core 3.2 ghz, and replaced the ram to 4gb. now its like playing a new game i was able to turn up my graphics and i can use my speeder on the fleet with rubber banding or stopping every few inches.

 

so sorry for the rambling but the game is a cpu and ram hog.

 

as long as your cpu runs at 3.2 or faster and a must is 4gb of ram bare minimum. the game uses almost 2gb of ram when running so thats why it lags and load screens suck.

oh and your internet connection should be at minimum 25bps on the download side, that can cause some problems as well.

[Heat-Wave]

i had a amd processor running 2.5ghz and a 2gb of ram with a brand new radeon hd 6800 series graphics card and my computer was crap. i load screens took forever my lag was ridiculous forever i was screaming it was the game.

so i finally pulled my computer out and realized it was me not the game lol. i upgraded the processor to a dual core 3.2 ghz, and replaced the ram to 4gb. now its like playing a new game i was able to turn up my graphics and i can use my speeder on the fleet with rubber banding or stopping every few inches.

 

so sorry for the rambling but the game is a cpu and ram hog.

 

as long as your cpu runs at 3.2 or faster and a must is 4gb of ram bare minimum. the game uses almost 2gb of ram when running so thats why it lags and load screens suck.

oh and your internet connection should be at minimum 25bps on the download side, that can cause some problems as well.

 

There are several bits if incorrect information here, just want to give you and others a heads up.

 

Clock speed isn't everything, a Pentium 4 would run at 3.2 GHz, but it won't run this game. Clock speed is just the number of times per second the chip does work, it isn't a measure of how much work per cycle it does. This is why a modern Intel chip at 3 GHz can outrun a modern AMD chip at 3.5 GHz, it is doing more work per clock cycle.

 

The Internet connection speed isn't really a big issue, the game does not transfer that much data. What you need is a low latency connection. A good 30ms ping time on a 3 gigabit connection is going to be much more playable than a 100ms ping time on a 10 megabit connection. Being on wi-if is generally terrible for gaming, you need a wired connection for the best low latency possible.

[Heat-Wave]

Thanks for the advice. Admittedly, I failed to take monitors into account but I will need to pick one up. My budget's not extremely high but I'm also not working with a whole lot of space either, although I may decide to switch the setup around in my apartment. For the time being, 24-27" is prob the max size I can do for now. I can't really go much above $200. It'll be used for SWTOR and ultimately, maybe a few other games down the line,movies and other everyday computer crap. I'd like to run the games at a higher resolution while keeping the performance. If I can save a few bucks on the GPU if the 970 is overkill for the visual setup I'm going I don't mind that.

 

This is, incidentally where my knowledge starts to get weaker, ie the actual visual output details and terms, resolutions 1080p, 1440p and what not. I'll prob take a look at a few monitors to get an idea of what's what.

 

I was reading somewhere that if I'm foing as large as 27" I want a 1440p monitor and if I'm staying w/ 1080, smaller is the way to go...Not sure what to go with.

 

You're welcome. What did you end up going with?

 

For many people, 1080p is just fine and they March along happy, and that is great. I've been using 1600p panels since 2007 and can't stand anything less, but that is because I'm used to it. They have gotten cheaper, but they are being bypassed now by the 4k panels.

 

There are some very reasonable priced 27" panels at 1440p these days, the cheaper ones are TN, the better looking panels are IPS. TN has a faster response and less ghosting for gaming, and better blacks due to lack of backlight bleed, but you can't beat the beautiful imagine of a true IPS panel.

[MillionsKNives]

The Internet connection speed isn't really a big issue, the game does not transfer that much data. What you need is a low latency connection. A good 30ms ping time on a 3 gigabit connection is going to be much more playable than a 100ms ping time on a 10 megabit connection. Being on wi-if is generally terrible for gaming, you need a wired connection for the best low latency possible.

 

A more clear explanation would be that the advertised internet "speed" isn't really the speed of your internet, it's your rate. So getting a "faster" internet won't make the connection faster, you'll still have the same latency, you'll just be able to transmit more packets at a time.

 

Also, wi-fi can work just fine for gaming, but you just have to be aware of the potential downsides. If you can get a stable connection through walls and such, and don't have interference from neighbors it's perfectly viable.

[TiekoSora]

My current rig is only a year or so old, great APU and motherboard, good RAM. My old system, a five year old eMachine with a low end GeForce card, runs this game fine, though with settings turned down to about half, no shadows.