What would be the ideal CPU for this game?

[NogueiraA]

Short and fast answer: i9 9900K overclocked to 5Ghz + 16gb DDR 3600mhz + SSD + Z490 motherboard.

 

This game uses 2 cores of CPU at max, it has a terrible engine. It needs a very strong single core performance.

Some people here will say "hey I play FINE with my i3 from 10 years ago", but in reality they play at 15fps and thinks that's fine. Do not listen to those people in here.

Other people will say "I play at 100fps with my i7 4770k", that's another lie unless they stay at their ship 100% of the time.

 

Even with the most expensive computer this game can't keep 60fps+ inside warzone pvp.

[Tsillah]

Short and fast answer: i9 9900K overclocked to 5Ghz + 16gb DDR 3600mhz + SSD + Z490 motherboard.

 

This game uses 2 cores of CPU at max, it has a terrible engine. It needs a very strong single core performance.

Some people here will say "hey I play FINE with my i3 from 10 years ago", but in reality they play at 15fps and thinks that's fine. Do not listen to those people in here.

Other people will say "I play at 100fps with my i7 4770k", that's another lie unless they stay at their ship 100% of the time.

 

Even with the most expensive computer this game can't keep 60fps+ inside warzone pvp.

Well I do get 200 FPS with my i7 7700K but not in warzones. But also not only in my ship. I will get over 100 FPS in most places but, again, not in warzones.

[Raansu]

Well I do get 200 FPS with my i7 7700K but not in warzones. But also not only in my ship. I will get over 100 FPS in most places but, again, not in warzones.

 

That's pretty normal for everyone.

[Rion_Starkiller]

Pretty normal for CPU's in a laptop.

 

Well, not on my last laptop, but ok.

[Raansu]

Well, not on my last laptop, but ok.

 

Unless its a crazy massive laptop with heatpipes all over the place, CPU's hitting 90c is pretty normal since most brands try not to make their laptops sound like jet engines.

[ZionHalcyon]

Lol at the people all recommending the top end intel.

 

 

For perspective, I have an AMD Ryzen 3600x and a radeon 5700 xt, gaming on a 2k widescreen monitor, and my setup eats SWTOR for breakfast.

 

There's more to consider with SWTOR.

 

Are you gaming at 1080p resolution or higher? Anything more than a 1080p resolution NEEDS a beefy gfx card, for ANY game, even the cpu-locked ones like SWTOR. Anyone saying different is intellectually lazy and doesn't have the first-hand experience I do. However, if you are gaming on 1080p, the GFx card is indeed irrelevant for the most part.

 

Beyond that, you want to focus on 2 things: cpu AND your hard drive SWTOR is on. As I said, and echo others here, a later generation Ryzen is more than enough to get good performance.

 

But I also got an incredible boost from an unlikely source: moving to PCI-E 4.0 for my hard drives. Most tech nerds will only read the reviews and the white papers and then proclaim that 4.0 doesn't deliver much of a difference from 3.0 in terms of performance. However when I went with AMD for my current build, I picked up a recent x570 motherboard which has 4.0 pcie support built into it. Because of that I picked up two Sabrent Rocket pcie 4.0 hard drives. This was before I picked up the graphics card I mentioned before. I immediately noticed a huge uptick in performance.

 

It should be said that since I also game on steam, the performance boost was noticeable but not as drastic in other games. But there's something about SWTOR where it really loves faster hard drives and faster and more open communication lanes.

 

Some food for thought when considering your build.

[Rion_Starkiller]

...

 

That's interesting about the PCIE 4.0 drives. Imagine speeding up the reading and writing of game files could speed up your game

 

As for high resolution (2.5k, 4k) + graphics cards, I hope that goes without saying.

Edited August 24, 2020 by Rion_Starkiller

[ZionHalcyon]

That's interesting about the PCIE 4.0 drives. Imagine speeding up the reading and writing of game files could speed up your game

 

As for high resolution (2.5k, 4k) + graphics cards, I hope that goes without saying.

 

you would think so on the high resolution cards, but when I was in the process of upgrading my computer, you'd be shocked at how many people were trying to claim that because SWTOR was CPU locked that even playing at 2K and 4k resolutions you didn't need a super advanced graphics card. it's like they were so used to the argument that they were just vomiting it back out without actually knowing anything.

 

As far as the ssds making an impact, I think it's because the alpha version of the hero engine that BioWare used to make the game was still having horrible inefficiencies in things that impact the read write. And with pcie 4.0, you finally have a technology that's fast enough to compensate for those inefficiencies. In some ways that helped more than the processor...

[JediQuaker]

Lol at the people all recommending the top end intel.

The OP asked what would be the "ideal" CPU for SWTOR and the answer to that question is a "top of the line Intel".

However the difference from a high end (high speed) AMD or Intel CPU is not enough to worry about. There's not a whole lot of difference between PvP at 45 fps versus PvP at 42 fps. 🙂

 

It also turned out that the OP was already using an i7-8700K, so there's not much point to an upgrade - for him, for SWTOR.

Edited August 24, 2020 by JediQuaker

[JediQuaker]

you would think so on the high resolution cards, but when I was in the process of upgrading my computer, you'd be shocked at how many people were trying to claim that because SWTOR was CPU locked that even playing at 2K and 4k resolutions you didn't need a super advanced graphics card. it's like they were so used to the argument that they were just vomiting it back out without actually knowing anything.

 

As far as the ssds making an impact, I think it's because the alpha version of the hero engine that BioWare used to make the game was still having horrible inefficiencies in things that impact the read write. And with pcie 4.0, you finally have a technology that's fast enough to compensate for those inefficiencies. In some ways that helped more than the processor...

The base fps rate of SWTOR is determined by the CPU. Yes, if you want to run 4K at high detail, you'll need a good graphics card, but you'll still find that your fps in PvP will be limited by the CPU. Also, you DO need a good CPU for reasonable fps in PvP and OPs, but you can always turn down the graphics if you don't have a good enough GPU.

 

Installing SWTOR on an SSD only affects load times. This only comes into play during level loads and, briefly, when some additional textures need to be loaded. But it does not affect your overall fps.

[ZionHalcyon]

That's interesting about the PCIE 4.0 drives. Imagine speeding up the reading and writing of game files could speed up your game

 

As for high resolution (2.5k, 4k) + graphics cards, I hope that goes without saying.

 

Looking at the posts just above this one, See what I mean?

 

I would recommend going AMD because people have noticed smoother performance over even top end intel chips.

 

That's because while faster intel chips may hit a higher theoretical fps, the variance between top and bottom is too inconsistent, leading to massive fps swings.

 

AMDs Ryzen actually raised the floor fps, and their new technology evened out a lot of the wild swings in fps, leading to better performance in the game. And the recent AMD chips go toe to toe with Intel's best for cheaper.

 

There's a reason why Intel lost massive marketshare in the Asian markets...

[NogueiraA]

Lol at the people all recommending the top end intel.

 

 

For perspective, I have an AMD Ryzen 3600x and a radeon 5700 xt, gaming on a 2k widescreen monitor, and my setup eats SWTOR for breakfast.

 

There's more to consider with SWTOR.

 

Are you gaming at 1080p resolution or higher? Anything more than a 1080p resolution NEEDS a beefy gfx card, for ANY game, even the cpu-locked ones like SWTOR. Anyone saying different is intellectually lazy and doesn't have the first-hand experience I do. However, if you are gaming on 1080p, the GFx card is indeed irrelevant for the most part.

 

Beyond that, you want to focus on 2 things: cpu AND your hard drive SWTOR is on. As I said, and echo others here, a later generation Ryzen is more than enough to get good performance.

 

But I also got an incredible boost from an unlikely source: moving to PCI-E 4.0 for my hard drives. Most tech nerds will only read the reviews and the white papers and then proclaim that 4.0 doesn't deliver much of a difference from 3.0 in terms of performance. However when I went with AMD for my current build, I picked up a recent x570 motherboard which has 4.0 pcie support built into it. Because of that I picked up two Sabrent Rocket pcie 4.0 hard drives. This was before I picked up the graphics card I mentioned before. I immediately noticed a huge uptick in performance.

 

It should be said that since I also game on steam, the performance boost was noticeable but not as drastic in other games. But there's something about SWTOR where it really loves faster hard drives and faster and more open communication lanes.

 

Some food for thought when considering your build.

 

Ok, nice information.

But what is your game's fps in the middle of 16 players in level 75 warzone? What's the minimum fps?

Another question, how is moving your HDD to pci-e 4.0 related to Swtor performance? I'm not talking about loading time, but actually performance, did your fps increased because of pcie 4.0?

[ZionHalcyon]

Ok, nice information.

But what is your game's fps in the middle of 16 players in level 75 warzone? What's the minimum fps?

Another question, how is moving your HDD to pci-e 4.0 related to Swtor performance? I'm not talking about loading time, but actually performance, did your fps increased because of pcie 4.0?

 

I usually don't have the FPS counter turned on, but the last time I did, I was getting no less than 63 fps. Even in heavy pvp war zones.

 

As far as why pcie 4.0 seems to make a significant difference, I can only speculate, however for everyone who says that it just affects load times doesn't understand how it could potentially impact the game overall.

 

Typically what happens when you are live in an environment, the computer graphics card draws what you see and the textures are held in your RAM so as to quickly display.

 

However, with an MMO, there is potentially so many diverse textures and models that I suspect the slowdowns come from viewing a texture so fast that the game hasn't had a chance to load it into RAM from the hard drive yet. Thus what appears to be an FPS slow down may actually be a loading issue period two different causes that show the same symptoms.

 

Having the speed of pcie 4.0, those textures load just as fast as they would from ram or at least fast enough that it doesn't cause the familiar freezing.

 

A lot of this also would have to do with some real inefficiency by the engine on how it handles textures. In other words, if they were able to actually go back and fix a lot of what's wrong in the engine and how it handles loading textures, then pcie 4.0 might not even matter or make a difference.

 

Right now that is my working theory period no idea if it's correct or not but I thought about this and it does seem weird that the biggest performance bump came from moving to pcie 4.0.

 

In my theory makes as much sense as anything. Certainly more sense than the people who never had firsthand experience yet deny that it could have anything to do with the performance increase LOL.

[JediQuaker]

Loading textures off the HDD/SSD only causes a momentary 'stutter' which is usually only noticeable if you are using a hard drive. It does not affect the overall fps you get. My SWTOR is currently installed on a standard 2.5 inch SATA SSD (Samsung) and I don't notice any stuttering.

Which is to say, with an HDD you get (as example) 30 fps in an OP with the occasional stutter. With an SSD you get 30 fps without stutter.

 

And a final note about CPU vs GPU:

IF you want to play SWTOR smoothly, especially in PvP and OPs, you NEED a fast CPU.

Once you've got that, you can determine what sort of graphics quality you'd like. IF you want to play at 4K AND have detailed graphics settings, you, of course need a high-end GPU. However, you CAN play SWTOR at reduced graphics settings on a cheaper GPU.

 

The reverse is not true though. You can't have RTX-2080 at 4K combined with a Pentium CPU and expect anything but a slide show.

 

However, the bottom line is that any reasonable modern CPU should do OK, so the choice of CPU is not that important these days. These days, even a budget CPU such as an R3-3300X or an i3-10100 will work well enough (30+ fps) in PvP, etc.

Edited August 25, 2020 by JediQuaker

[ZionHalcyon]

Loading textures off the HDD/SSD only causes a momentary 'stutter' which is usually only noticeable if you are using a hard drive. It does not affect the overall fps you get. My SWTOR is currently installed on a standard 2.5 inch SATA SSD (Samsung) and I don't notice any stuttering.

Which is to say, with an HDD you get (as example) 30 fps in an OP with the occasional stutter. With an SSD you get 30 fps without stutter.

 

And a final note about CPU vs GPU:

IF you want to play SWTOR smoothly, especially in PvP and OPs, you NEED a fast CPU.

Once you've got that, you can determine what sort of graphics quality you'd like. IF you want to play at 4K AND have detailed graphics settings, you, of course need a high-end GPU. However, you CAN play SWTOR at reduced graphics settings on a cheaper GPU.

 

The reverse is not true though. You can't have RTX-2080 at 4K combined with a Pentium CPU and expect anything but a slide show.

 

However, the bottom line is that any reasonable modern CPU should do OK, so the choice of CPU is not that important these days. These days, even a budget CPU such as an R3-3300X or an i3-10100 will work well enough (30+ fps) in PvP, etc.

 

I play with all the bells and whistles turned on, Max ultra settings.

 

Ryzen 3600x

Rx 5700 xt graphics card

 

Gaming on a 2K monitor widescreen.

 

And as I said my experience is excellent with SWTOR.

 

There's zero need to overpay for an Intel processor.

[Rion_Starkiller]

I play with all the bells and whistles turned on, Max ultra settings.

 

Ryzen 3600x

Rx 5700 xt graphics card

 

Gaming on a 2K monitor widescreen.

 

And as I said my experience is excellent with SWTOR.

 

There's zero need to overpay for an Intel processor.

 

In my experience, you only need the high-end i5 processors, if you're going with Intel. For example, I run with an i5-8600k because most games don't utilize more than 4 cores/threads. So you don't need an i9-9900k for $500 to play this game (and many others) at max settings.

 

As for graphics cards, I think people forget that the graphics and textures of this game have been slowly improved over the years.

 

PS - It's funny -- I finally switched from AMD to Intel, then the Ryzens come out

Edited August 26, 2020 by Rion_Starkiller

[ZionHalcyon]

In my experience, you only need the high-end i5 processors, if you're going with Intel. For example, I run with an i5-8600k because most games don't utilize more than 4 cores/threads. So you don't need an i9-9900k for $500 to play this game (and many others) at max settings.

 

As for graphics cards, I think people forget that the graphics and textures of this game have been slowly improved over the years.

 

PS - It's funny -- I finally switched from AMD to Intel, then the Ryzens come out

 

Believe it or not that was my experience with the first generation Ryzen. I was curious because I had been reading a lot of good things about them, but my system went belly up the spring of the same year they came out but they didn't come out until that fall...

 

It wasn't until last year when I was in a position to give it another go with the latest version and the most current platform.

Edited August 27, 2020 by ZionHalcyon

[NogueiraA]

I usually don't have the FPS counter turned on, but the last time I did, I was getting no less than 63 fps. Even in heavy pvp war zones..

 

Ok so your minimum fps was 63 inside level 75 in the middle of all the players using skills.

Ok, I believe you that's very impressive results for this ****** 32bit engine.

 

I'll take a look at some pci 4.0 results because as far as I know HDD or the fastest SSD improves only loading times, not the raw performance fps. BUT if you're saying your game had fps increase from pcie 4.0 ok, i'll believe that.

[NogueiraA]

And as I said my experience is excellent with SWTOR.

 

Numbers please, saying that your experience is excellent means nothing because it's 100% subjective.

Some people can't even notice the difference between 15 and 60fps, then they say "my game runs fine".

What's your minimum fps inside a level 75 warzone in the middle of players using skills altogether?

What's your minimum fps while doing operations?

[ZionHalcyon]

Numbers please, saying that your experience is excellent means nothing because it's 100% subjective.

Some people can't even notice the difference between 15 and 60fps, then they say "my game runs fine".

What's your minimum fps inside a level 75 warzone in the middle of players using skills altogether?

What's your minimum fps while doing operations?

 

No.

 

I'm sharing my experience but I'm not going to turn my pastime into an internet pissing contest.

 

See I've seen how this game is played. I provide screenshots and then you claim some setting wasn't turned on. Then I shall prove the setting was turned on and you claim something else. And on and on and on.

 

I've said my peace and my experience. I am someone who builds his own computers from scratch and has done that since 1995. My livelihood is in IT. And my philosophy is that of a mercenary - I give no craps about the name on the piece of equipment: just give me the best and fastest.

 

So I assure you I know the difference between 15 frames per second and 60. I also have been around the internet enough to know your arguments are bull crap.

 

I've given my personal experience which is all it's meant to be.

 

If some people are rubbed at the wrong way and have an issue with me expressing my opinion and personal experience, then that's their own mental disorder and/or Fanboy issues.

 

And I don't waste time arguing with crazy people.

[NogueiraA]

No.

 

I'm sharing my experience but I'm not going to turn my pastime into an internet pissing contest.

 

See I've seen how this game is played. I provide screenshots and then you claim some setting wasn't turned on. Then I shall prove the setting was turned on and you claim something else. And on and on and on.

 

I've said my peace and my experience. I am someone who builds his own computers from scratch and has done that since 1995. My livelihood is in IT. And my philosophy is that of a mercenary - I give no craps about the name on the piece of equipment: just give me the best and fastest.

 

So I assure you I know the difference between 15 frames per second and 60. I also have been around the internet enough to know your arguments are bull crap.

 

I've given my personal experience which is all it's meant to be.

 

If some people are rubbed at the wrong way and have an issue with me expressing my opinion and personal experience, then that's their own mental disorder and/or Fanboy issues.

 

And I don't waste time arguing with crazy people.

 

You assume I'm crazy, you assume my arguments are bullcrap.

I don't know why you're so aggressive but if you build your PC's since 1995, you'd know that "I play fine" or "I'm having an excellent experience" doesn't matter when someone is asking for a CPU advice. That's why NUMBERS are the main factor here.

Also you have the FPS counter turned off, so your game may be running at 20 fps and you'd not know.. Imagine if the person trusts you and buy the CPU you told him to, then that person gonna run the game at 20 fps and have a horrible experience. Again, that's why I asked for numbers.

I made my point, since you said I'm "crazy". I think you overreacted.