a PC just for EB2

[cmlax999]

Hi. I'd like to solicit hardware recommendations for building a PC. But not just any PC.

I don't game anymore, I have no interest in it – except EB2. Unless there will ever be a EB3 (pending a complete ground-up build on Unity or something, I don't think so[?]), EB2 is probably the last computer game I'll play in life. I've been a EB fan since it first came out in beta for RTW, which must have been about ten years ago. I had a proper PC then and a sedentary life. But, since EB2 has come out, I've been moving almost constantly and only toting around macbooks to try to play it on (possible, not very enjoyable).

So, at some point in the near future, because I would like to play EB2 for years to come and get all the juice out of it, I'd like to build a PC to run it, and it alone. The particular thing about this PC will be that, I don't mind if it's a single-core, 32-bit system. As we all know, M2TW can only use a single core and can't use hyper-threading, and more than 4gb of RAM will not be usable. As far as GPU specs go, I'm not sure? I would even go so far as to just run a possibly airgapped Windows 7 system running whatever DirectX was contemporaneous with M2TW.

In a nutshell, I'm wondering what is the highest-tier kit that will be utilisable for the M2TW engine? I don't expect it should be very expensive. (For extra fun I'd probably just build it out of a dusty old Dell husk or something similar.)

Thanks in advance.

[bob124]

Well if you're looking for the absolute best single core performance, go for an i5 7600k and overclock it (most chips can reach 5 GHz). This will make a difference in late game turn times. Get a small solid state drive so loading times are quick and something like a GTX 1050 as that should be plenty of GPU power. If you want a more powerful GPU then that should work as well if you want to enable an unlimited number of troops during battles or turn the draw distance all the way up.

[z3n]

You might want to get a water-cooler for your CPU if you overclock.

[hlidskjalf]

my current laptop runs it flawlessly. stats are: NVME SSD, 16GB RAM, chipset is i7-4720HQ, dGpu is 960m 2gb. the NVME SSD is maybe the most impressive component for loading up EBII in seconds. i don't even have time to read the loading screen quotes anymore