Total war and General Gaming, mostly Total war - In order of importance

**Voodo chile** · August 13, 2012, 04:55 AM

When you upgrade different aspects of your computer eg ram, graphics card etc. What exactly benefits from it and what does it allow you do to?

Eg say i was running Napoleon total war. I upgraded my ram, would specifically would that mean for me?

If i wanted to be able to field several 40 stack armies on huge scale, what would do allow me to do so without getting 2fps?
If i wanted to have eye candy on higher settings what upgrades are needed?

**Bolkonsky** · August 13, 2012, 09:25 AM

Fill this out and post the results here:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...0#post11844540

Then we'll be able to tell you.

**Voodo chile** · August 13, 2012, 04:34 PM

k. Not necessarily thinking of upgrading my computer within the next 5 years.
I am however upgrading from 2GB to 4GB of Ram

Why are you upgrading?
Gaming Performance

What is your budget?
Very little at the current moment. Not intending on upgrading much

Where do you live?
New Zealand

Can you build this computer yourself, or do you need to buy prebuilt?
Pretty

. Little experience. Prebuild

What are you current system specs?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

What screen resolution will you be using?
1280x1024

What websites/stores can you purchase parts from?
Dragon PC -http://www.dragonpc.co.nz/c.aspx However this store has moved locations. PCU was another contender http://www.pcu.co.nz/

Do you need to purchase peripherals?
DVD and USB should be essential

Do you already own mice, keyboards, monitors, operating system, etc.
Yep

**Crazyeyesreaper** · August 13, 2012, 04:50 PM

CPU and GPU are extremely weak extra system memory wont fix that, that system is borderline entry level and in most cases is to weak for some of todays games to even install and run.

**Bolkonsky** · August 13, 2012, 05:54 PM

Well I'd shoot for at least 4GB of RAM and a mid-entry level card like a 640, 550ti or a 7750, depending on your budget. That will bump your eye candy up a little bit, compared to what you have now anyways.

Replacing a graphics card is very simple and definitely something that you can do. The problem is New Zealand prices are insanely high.

**Voodo chile** · August 14, 2012, 02:55 AM

It doesn't help that i'm not up in Auckland. I heard they get cheaper prices.
This rig, i got from 'dragon pc' in 2010 for around $750.00 just the 'box'. Cheaper than most other places. Not much competition for gaming pc's round here. Even with this rig i was always the hard-out pc guy. Or the dude who actually had a dedicated graphics card

So does graphics card play an effect on fps? Is is directly linked to just that or is the fps a combination of other things?

**Freddie** · August 15, 2012, 12:10 PM

Originally Posted by Voodo chile

It doesn't help that i'm not up in Auckland. I heard they get cheaper prices.
This rig, i got from 'dragon pc' in 2010 for around $750.00 just the 'box'. Cheaper than most other places. Not much competition for gaming pc's round here. Even with this rig i was always the hard-out pc guy. Or the dude who actually had a dedicated graphics card

So does graphics card play an effect on fps? Is is directly linked to just that or is the fps a combination of other things?

These days your video card is the primary driver in determining gaming performance, the CPU has been playing 2nd fiddle to the video card for a number of years now but it's still important to keep a balance as there's not point in getting the fastest and most powerful video card and pairing it with a budget CPU because you will hold your video card back (bottlenecking) but you don't have to worry about this.

4Gb of is the minimum these days and if I were building/buying(NEVER) new I wouldn't want anything less then 8Gb (not much benefit over 4Gb but ram is cheap and future proofs your PC in the ram department).

You really do need to upgrade your video card though, a GT220.........yikes a hamster on wheel would give you more FPS, then again your only playing at 1280x1024. If you can I would look at getting a AMD Radeon HD7750, DX11, would give you great performance at that res and requires no extra power plugs so won't have to upgrade your PSU with a card like this.

**Crazyeyesreaper** · August 14, 2012, 06:25 AM

graphics card hands graphics, essentially its responsible for everything you see on screen and much like like an engine in a car, the bigger and more powerful it is the better the performance, bigger and better GPUs let you increase graphics settings so games look better while also improving frame rates.

**Voodo chile** · August 15, 2012, 11:28 PM

K thats awesome. Yea i'll have to get a job and pay off loans before any of that stuff ay. Hopefully by then this stuff will be dirt cheap

**~~HanSomPa~~** · August 16, 2012, 08:16 PM

Yeah man. A lot of the stuff has got to be upgraded. Strategy games in general benefit greatly from CPU power. I'd go for a an i5 or an x4 phenom at least. Also, I think that GPU VRAM is extremely important for total war. You have a lot of heavy things like trees and grass... far more taxing than units. That said, go for AMD cards, they offer more VRAM than Nvidia in general. for a low res screen like yours, a 7850 would be awesome. It'd be overkill, but there's no kill like overkill.

**Goofy** · August 18, 2012, 12:13 PM

Originally Posted by Voodo chile

Can you build this computer yourself, or do you need to buy prebuilt?
Pretty

. Little experience. Prebuild

Basically anyone can build a machine with a proper (motherboard) installation guide, at least if you handle the basic terminology and such (and can use a screwdriver

). I know that because I built my own PC some two weeks ago for the very first time, although it took me six hours (and now, I guess, I could do it in half that time) and a little consultation from a more knowledgeable person. Also, considering that you're from the New Zealand the guide languages shouldn't be much of a problem to you, either.

I'd recommend trying to build the system yourself especially since you're stating that you're having a low budget for this - it won't save your nerves, but money it does. That said I'd also recommend some relatively affordable ASUS graphics card. I have GeForce GTS 450 myself (it cost me 120€ in the spring 2011) and it has not been a disappointment, especially considering how "cheap" it was. I'm playing FotS with medium unit scale (on accident actually, I didn't remember to set it correctly before starting the game) and high graphics settings (not maximum though) at ~30 FPS (which means practically no lag), and I have overclocked nothing. The other components of my system include 8 GB of DDR3 RAM and AMD Phenom II CPU (quad core). The system can't run S2 with maximum settings and huge unit scale though, as I said, but I'm not sure if that is because TW hasn't full support for 4xCPUs. And also I'm quite sure my system couldn't make it with a couple of 40-unit stacks (that's quite a lot), or so I think, but the overall performance is rather good.

So, what I'm trying to say is that give a shot to picking the components and building the system yourself, as it will save you a lot of money as well as effort in future. On the other hand prebuilt machines usually give you bad components at a high price, so at least choose the components yourself.

**Voodo chile** · August 21, 2012, 04:37 PM

Installed the ram. I'm running 4GB.
Noticed a very smooth game. When you scroll round its like someone had applied oil to the camera bearings! Getting about 20-28fps zoomed up close. Will see overall performance later on

Zoomed out from mid to far its a solid 30fps.
Animations look 'faster'

Its not major. The settings are still pretty much of medium/custom but its good enough for me

**Bolkonsky** · August 21, 2012, 05:30 PM

Great to hear dude!

**Crazyeyesreaper** · August 21, 2012, 05:45 PM

wow i fail totally missed the part where he said 2GB and was upping to 4GB...... for some reason i was reading that as 4gb to 8gb..... anyway glad its working better for you.