Build a PC for Rome 2 / Hardware Recommendations and Advice Thread

**alQamar** · August 30, 2013, 07:55 AM

Originally Posted by Manuel I Komnenos

Why 2 GTX 770s and not one GTX 780? I've heard there are some issues with SLI and in most sites I've been, people are recommending one powerful GPU, rather than two medium ones (if you could call GTX 770 medium anyway!).

Second that. Also saves energy Heat and noise

**A Barbarian** · August 30, 2013, 08:13 AM

Originally Posted by alQamar

Second that. Also saves energy Heat and noise

One correction: 2 cards putting out the same framerate as 1 card is actually more quiet than a single card because you can
- clock them lower
- each cards utilization is lower
- and 2 cards will have twice as many fans as a single card

I totally like my 2x7970 setup! It allows me to play Shogun 2 in 2560x1440 with 4xSSAA @ 40fps (with frame rate limiter) which not even an overclocked Titan could do (and a single Titan even costs more). It's also very quiet thanks to carefully selected cooling solutions and custom fan curve.

And for games which don't need that much GPU power, I simply switch off crossfire in their profile and the 2nd cards powers down almost completely even turning off it's fans.

When going for SLI/CF solution I would only recommend getting at least 3GB/4GB of VRAM if you want to use some higher anti-aliasing modes or SSAA (some people prefer 120/144Hz framerates with low or no AA and in that case not so much VRAM is required).

**AussieWolf** · August 30, 2013, 09:20 AM

Originally Posted by alQamar

Second that. Also saves energy Heat and noise

Thanks for the feedback on SLI - Actually I have found it to be really usefull. It allows my both cards to share the workload. As to heat and noise, there is no difference if you have a proper case, with the right cooling etc. Back on point though, what settings do you think I would be able to run Rome Total War 2. I have shogun 2 and can do that on max settings with max unit size etc. Will I be able to do the same you think ?

**Blackshroud** · August 30, 2013, 07:58 AM

What would you estimate I can get with the following.

Intel Core i7 950 @ 5Ghz
32Gb Ram
Samsung 840 Pro SSD
Nvidia GTX 480 (Slightly OC'ed)

**SPiiTFiiRE88** · August 30, 2013, 08:11 AM

Awesome, thanks

**Epic28** · August 30, 2013, 08:30 AM

The Titan is a waste of money, to me personally. The percentage benefits versus the cost aren't justifiable for the purchase.

**A Barbarian** · August 30, 2013, 08:39 AM

Originally Posted by Epic28

The Titan is a waste of money, to me personally. The percentage benefits versus the cost aren't justifiable for the purchase.

Yeah, the Titan is extremely bad price/performance wise. A 780 is already much better but still not great in that respect. The 'higher end' the card the worse the price/performance ratio. And that's a possible reason to get 2 middle/high tier GPUs rather than a single high-end card. Also, a high-end card looses value much faster than smaller cards so you can't even argue that it's much more future proof from the cost perspective.

There are still some problems with SLI/CF but my experience has actually been better than I expected. You should always check whether your favorite games have any problems with SLI/CF before going that way.

**Ramesses II The Great** · August 30, 2013, 08:42 AM

I just bought the AMD Radeon 7990. The ultimate graphic card. I fired up Napoleon total war to test and boy!!!! Holy Performance!!! It will certainly outperform GTX 780 and GTX Titan.

P.S: I am historically an Nvidia fan.

**A Barbarian** · August 30, 2013, 08:53 AM

@Ramesses II The Great
If you like anti-aliasing, make sure to try SSAA (you choose 4xMSAA in the game options and enable Super Sampling in AMD CCC software). Personally I find the quality of SSAA far superior to MSAA especially in Total War games due to the large amount of small details. With a 7990 you should have easily enough GPU power for that. A framerate limiter is also a great thing to have. It helps to keep GPU utilization (and power + noise) down and also smooths framerates. MSI-Afterburner or Radeon Pro have built-in framerate limiters for example.

**Ramesses II The Great** · August 30, 2013, 09:17 AM

Originally Posted by A Barbarian

@Ramesses II The Great
If you like anti-aliasing, make sure to try SSAA (you choose 4xMSAA in the game options and enable Super Sampling in AMD CCC software). Personally I find the quality of SSAA far superior to MSAA especially in Total War games due to the large amount of small details. With a 7990 you should have easily enough GPU power for that. A framerate limiter is also a great thing to have. It helps to keep GPU utilization (and power + noise) down and also smooths framerates. MSI-Afterburner or Radeon Pro have built-in framerate limiters for example.

WOw man thanks!! I hope I will know how to make those settings, i am not a computer wizz or anything, can you give me more detail on how to do these settings?

Maybe I didn't look enough but I didn't see super sampling in the AMD CCC Software

**lokomoko** · August 30, 2013, 09:09 AM

If anyone's willing to rate my current setup in regards to Rome 2, I'd be greatful.

GPU: GTX 550Ti Asus 1GB
CPU: AMD Phenom II x6 1055T 2.8gHz
RAM: 8GB Corsair

Aside from those everything compliments them fairly well.

**Ramesses II The Great** · August 30, 2013, 09:20 AM

Originally Posted by lokomoko

If anyone's willing to rate my current setup in regards to Rome 2, I'd be greatful.

GPU: GTX 550Ti Asus 1GB
CPU: AMD Phenom II x6 1055T 2.8gHz
RAM: 8GB Corsair

Aside from those everything compliments them fairly well.

I think your system is good. I don't think your 8BG Corsairs will matter since your GPU already has dedicated memory, but 8GB Corsairs are very good in general. Also, generally speaking, with graphic intensive games like Total War games you might just want a graphics card with atleast 2 GB of memory. THe one i bought yesterday has 6 GB so that should be sweet for the upcoming ROme II.

**lokomoko** · August 30, 2013, 08:56 PM

Originally Posted by Ramesses II The Great

I think your system is good. I don't think your 8BG Corsairs will matter since your GPU already has dedicated memory, but 8GB Corsairs are very good in general. Also, generally speaking, with graphic intensive games like Total War games you might just want a graphics card with atleast 2 GB of memory. THe one i bought yesterday has 6 GB so that should be sweet for the upcoming ROme II.

Yeah, the GPU is definitely the bottleneck for me in TW games, I'll be trying to upgrade that + PSU ASAP.

Anyways, thanks for the help!

**A Barbarian** · August 30, 2013, 09:24 AM

@Ramesses II The Great
First enable 4xMSAA (or 2xMSAA if you want higher framerates) in Shogun 2 graphical options. Then go to the CCC. The CCC is the 'Catalyst Control Center' and is the AMD software where you can make all kinds of adjustments for your graphics card. It has an icon in the tray icon bar. In the software itself, just select the 'Gaming' tab on the left and go to the 'System Settings'. There you can choose 'Supersampling' for the Anti-Aliasing Method:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

And regarding the framerate limiting I made a thread a while ago:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...urner-is-great

**Ramesses II The Great** · August 30, 2013, 09:27 AM

Originally Posted by A Barbarian

First enable 4xMSAA (or 2xMSAA if you want higher framerates) in Shogun 2 graphical options. Then go to the CCC. The CCC is the 'Catalyst Control Center' and is the AMD software where you can make all kinds of adjustments for your graphics card. It has an icon in the tray icon bar. In the software itself, just select the 'Gaming' tab on the left and go to the 'System Settings'. There you can choose 'Supersampling' for the Anti-Aliasing Method:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

And regarding the framerate limiting I made a thread a while ago:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...urner-is-great

Thank you Sir

Much Appreciated. +Rep to initial post.

**A Barbarian** · August 30, 2013, 09:33 AM

Originally Posted by AussieWolf

Thanks for the feedback on SLI - Actually I have found it to be really usefull. It allows my both cards to share the workload. As to heat and noise, there is no difference if you have a proper case, with the right cooling etc. Back on point though, what settings do you think I would be able to run Rome Total War 2. I have shogun 2 and can do that on max settings with max unit size etc. Will I be able to do the same you think ?

2x770s is great, especially with 4GB VRAM. I would recommend going ultra + 4xSSAA for Rome 2 since I expect the performance to be similar to Shogun 2. For enabling SSAA, choose 4xMSAA in the game settings and use Nvidia Inspector to enable SSAA. Only if you prefer framerates higher than 60fps over smoother images I would not use SSAA.

**ChumpChange** · August 30, 2013, 10:15 AM

Hello, I was wondering if someone could tell me if my PC can run Rome 2 on at least medium settings, and if I can upgrade so I can get better performance. Any help is appreciated.

GPU: Asus Nividia Gefore GTX 650 2GB GDDR5
CPU: AMD FX-4100 Quad Core 3.8GHz
RAM: 8GB
PSU: 500 watt

**xenthor** · August 30, 2013, 10:45 AM

Hi!! How i can run rome 2?

Motherboard: asus p8h61
Cpu: i5 2500 3.3ghz
Gpu: asus gtx 670 directui II
Ram: corsair vengeance 8gb 1600mhz
Psu: corsair gaming series 600W 80 plus

Thank you!

**alQamar** · August 30, 2013, 11:09 AM

Shogun would run on full ultra settings @1080p. We still do not have confirmations for the news I got yesterday but I think if they are not true ultra settings aswell.