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Should i upgrade my graphics card or cpu?


darthinity

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I'm not quite sure on how the Ati cards perform as I'm more of an nvidia guy. However, I can most certainly imagine your CPU @ 2.8 Ghz being the bottleneck in TOR. Ingame press ctrl+shift+f and see what color the FPS indicator becomes in the bottom left corner of the screen.

 

Greetings All,

 

So the actual explanation of the FPS display colors:

 

Red = Rendering bound/Video Card

Green = Simulation bound/CPU

Yellow = Mix of both

Current FPS (Lowest FPS over the last 10 seconds or so)

 

@nrazen_nl: some things just don't get into the patchnotes.

 

Thank you for playing Star Wars: The Old Republic

 

In other words, if it slows down but remains green, upgrade the CPU for SWTOR. If it becomes red when it slows down in busy fights, upgrade the GPU.

 

If you're not just optimizing for MMO's or DirectX 9 games but want to optimize for regular games, games making use of DirectX 11, then most certainly upgrade the graphics card.

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I'm not quite sure on how the Ati cards perform as I'm more of an nvidia guy. However, I can most certainly imagine your CPU @ 2.8 Ghz being the bottleneck in TOR. Ingame press ctrl+shift+f and see what color the FPS indicator becomes in the bottom left corner of the screen.

 

 

 

In other words, if it slows down but remains green, upgrade the CPU for SWTOR. If it becomes red when it slows down in busy fights, upgrade the GPU.

 

If you're not just optimizing for MMO's or DirectX 9 games but want to optimize for regular games, games making use of DirectX 11, then most certainly upgrade the graphics card.

Thank you did not know that. But it seems I get a mix between CPU and GPU bottleneck.

 

When adaptive vsync kicks in at 60 fps my GPU is the bottleneck and I get a drops in FPS. (GPU bound)

When outdoors and I can see lots of stuff but hardly any players I get drop in FPS. (GPU bound)

When in fleet and I see LOTS of people I it is blinking green and red and I have drops in FPS. Especially when turning (GPU+CPU bound).

When turning OFF the UI I get a boost in fps with around 5 fps. Still blinking. (GPU+CPU bound)

 

So without a doubt this game takes more cpu and gpu power than most other games I have tried in my entire life.

 

Lowered the quality of the screenshot so it does not take that long to load. Only 715KB (for those of you with slow connection)

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/7114232/SWTOR/Screenshot_2013-01-02_17_32_43_549597.jpg

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Thank you did not know that. But it seems I get a mix between CPU and GPU bottleneck.

 

When adaptive vsync kicks in at 60 fps my GPU is the bottleneck and I get a drops in FPS. (GPU bound)

When outdoors and I can see lots of stuff but hardly any players I get drop in FPS. (GPU bound)

When in fleet and I see LOTS of people I it is blinking green and red and I have drops in FPS. Especially when turning (GPU+CPU bound).

When turning OFF the UI I get a boost in fps with around 5 fps. Still blinking. (GPU+CPU bound)

 

So without a doubt this game takes more cpu and gpu power than most other games I have tried in my entire life.

 

Lowered the quality of the screenshot so it does not take that long to load. Only 715KB (for those of you with slow connection)

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/7114232/SWTOR/Screenshot_2013-01-02_17_32_43_549597.jpg

 

The game actually takes less CPU and GPU power than most other current day games, and that's part of the problem of its performance. CPU wise for example it maximizes one core for me, and uses a secondary core partially. The rest is not used at all.

 

That one core being used, that's without a doubt the rendering aspect of DirectX 9.0c at work for you. DirectX 9.0c doesn't yet have multicore support, so it's limited in speed due to that already. Beyond that, the interaction between game and GPU with DirectX 9.0c for many things works in the following fashion:

 

Game -> CPU -> GPU, where the CPU is a needless middle-man, simply passing along the message.

DirectX 11 for a lot more things simply works like game -> GPU, skipping the middle-man CPU.

 

This also makes it hard to truly optimize hardware for the game, and judging by the screenshot you post with an FPS of around 60, you're going to need to keep in mind that a minimal performance gain might be noticed with a single hardware upgrade now. I'm not sure if that's your lowest measurement?

 

For better benefit of current day hardware we can only hope that BioWare will one day still implement DirectX 11 support.

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The game seems to utilize only one cpu core fully, uses quite a bit of graphics ram, Crossfire and SLI have too many problems, no DX11 and is not very efficient. It may even have a memory leak.

 

This is usually the set of recommendations I give folks.

 

CPU speed is most important. Amount of cores above 2 less so. Try to keep core speed above 3 Ghz. I7 or FX processor recommended.

 

Anything below an AMD 6850 or Nvidia GTX460 is not wise. I would recommend the very bottom at a 6870 2GB or GTX560 2GB, both with GDDR5. Some folks have reported throttling problems with 7850/7870 cards, so just be aware of that, perhaps aim above that point if you want AMD. AMD drivers do not support the game as well as Nvidia drivers.

 

Windows XP SP3 will seriously hinder performance due mainly to the 4GB ram restriction (unless it is 64 bit naturally)...minimum should be Windows 7 64 bit with at least 6GB of ram, would suggest 8 and also would suggest it be DDR3 1600 or higher.

 

An SSD is highly recommended. You can also try SWTOR unleashed to improve performance with normal drives.

Edited by LordArtemis
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Interestingly I just discovered that my FPS plument during the usual "loading screen stall".

 

Which isn't surprising, as what basically happens during such load screen stalls is that a game is having difficulty retrieving a file from your drive. In the meantime it's stuck there till the file is loaded in and it is allowed to cycle through. So if you need to load in an 800 MB data file for example with a 5400 RPM HDD with an avg read speed of 70 MB / sec you will face a 12 sec stall.

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Yeah my FPS when not in combat is around 40-60 flashing green and red. but as soon as combat starts thats when i have problems and its just red. Any suggestions on a video card with the similar cost/preformance as radeon 6850 but you think would be better for swtor?

 

I also have 8g of ram so i think i am good their

Edited by darthinity
forgot to add something in
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My cpu is an Intel Core i7 860 2.80GHZ

Graphics card is ATI Radeon HD 5700 series

 

I know nothing about computers really but the game extremely laggy in combat. Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

Graphics card. I'm going to be a little biased here, ditch ATI for NVidia. Much better in terms of particle and physics effects in games that have features like realistic cloth movement. PhysX anyone?

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Yeah my FPS when not in combat is around 40-60 flashing green and red. but as soon as combat starts thats when i have problems and its just red. Any suggestions on a video card with the similar cost/preformance as radeon 6850 but you think would be better for swtor?

 

I also have 8g of ram so i think i am good their

 

NVidia is a much better choice. I think that the GT560 and higher would be a good fit for your system with this game. Please understand that this is a lower end choice. There are NVidia cards much, much stronger than the 560, but I am running SWTOR with a GT520 and have ZERO issues with everything maxed out.

 

As far as you RAM goes, 8gb of RAM may NOT be enough. I have two questions for you:

 

1. Are you running Windows 7? Windows 8?

 

2. Are you running an integrated Radeon 6850? Remember that an integrated 6850 and a dedicated 6850 have two different performance levels.

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560ti and I've nevr had any lag issues in this game in combat, out of combat, sitting on fleet staring at 200 people etc.

 

long load times are because you boot from a ****** mechanical drive, get with the times and get an ssd, they're cheaper than hdd's in alot of cases nowadays. I don't think I've ever had a load time longer than 6-8'ish seconds.

 

would be even faster if u boot from a ramdisk partition

 

 

I would also check your ram amount before u start blaming your gpu, if you have less than 8gb, should upgrade that first. and like someone else said - win 7 64 bit

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NVidia is a much better choice. I think that the GT560 and higher would be a good fit for your system with this game. Please understand that this is a lower end choice. There are NVidia cards much, much stronger than the 560, but I am running SWTOR with a GT520 and have ZERO issues with everything maxed out.

 

I would strongly advise against the Nvidia 560 Ti in most circumstances, as for a generation older card which tends to sell for roughly 250 ~ 260 Eur it's only about 20 Eur cheaper than the Nvidia 660 Ti here.

 

@ OP: In case the x60 Ti would be your desired card, be sure to check on the price difference for your local hardware shack. Performance of the 660 Ti is roughly 50% - 100% better with the average modern game, so if it's any less than 50 Eur of a price difference I'd personally say take that 660 Ti instead.

Edited by Fornix
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560ti and I've nevr had any lag issues in this game in combat, out of combat, sitting on fleet staring at 200 people etc.

 

long load times are because you boot from a ****** mechanical drive, get with the times and get an ssd, they're cheaper than hdd's in alot of cases nowadays. I don't think I've ever had a load time longer than 6-8'ish seconds.

 

would be even faster if u boot from a ramdisk partition

 

 

I would also check your ram amount before u start blaming your gpu, if you have less than 8gb, should upgrade that first. and like someone else said - win 7 64 bit

 

SSD are in no way cheaper then HDD. Sure you can get a 64 gb SSD cheaper then a terabyte HDD, but thats not exactly a fair comparison.

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The game actually takes less CPU and GPU power than most other current day games, and that's part of the problem of its performance. CPU wise for example it maximizes one core for me, and uses a secondary core partially. The rest is not used at all.

 

That one core being used, that's without a doubt the rendering aspect of DirectX 9.0c at work for you. DirectX 9.0c doesn't yet have multicore support, so it's limited in speed due to that already. Beyond that, the interaction between game and GPU with DirectX 9.0c for many things works in the following fashion:

 

Game -> CPU -> GPU, where the CPU is a needless middle-man, simply passing along the message.

DirectX 11 for a lot more things simply works like game -> GPU, skipping the middle-man CPU.

 

This also makes it hard to truly optimize hardware for the game, and judging by the screenshot you post with an FPS of around 60, you're going to need to keep in mind that a minimal performance gain might be noticed with a single hardware upgrade now. I'm not sure if that's your lowest measurement?

 

For better benefit of current day hardware we can only hope that BioWare will one day still implement DirectX 11 support.

Yeah but I have a high end computer and I hit get lots of drops when playing the game. And like I said earlier it is both CPU and GPU bottleneck.

 

The screenshot was just a lucky thing. Was lots of people on the fleet when I joined the server and seconds later when I planed to take a screenshot of the blinking everyone had gone away so I got this 60 fps screenshot. But normally when there is more people around I get drops down to 40.

 

Yeah same for me that a single thread gets maxed out.

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I would strongly advise against the Nvidia 560 Ti in most circumstances, as for a generation older card which tends to sell for roughly 250 ~ 260 Eur it's only about 20 Eur cheaper than the Nvidia 660 Ti here.

 

@ OP: In case the x60 Ti would be your desired card, be sure to check on the price difference for your local hardware shack. Performance of the 660 Ti is roughly 50% - 100% better with the average modern game, so if it's any less than 50 Eur of a price difference I'd personally say take that 660 Ti instead.

 

600 series wasnt out when I built my rig, nor ivy bridge, also i use p67 board so no real benefit to upgrade to 600 series right now without doing a full overhaul

 

either way your advice is bad, 560ti is overkill for swtor and pretty much any other game I've played

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SSD are in no way cheaper then HDD. Sure you can get a 64 gb SSD cheaper then a terabyte HDD, but thats not exactly a fair comparison.

 

well I just looked at prices, seems they've come down a bit - havent' really been keeping up on it. In any case ssd isnt meant for storage drive and if you're buying a hdd that is optimized for boot device like for example wd black drive you're gonna pay roughly the same as a 120gb ssd - which is plenty of space to put like 4 games on, then just transfer over to storage when done on like a wd green or something which is much much much cheaper.

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600 series wasnt out when I built my rig, nor ivy bridge, also i use p67 board so no real benefit to upgrade to 600 series right now without doing a full overhaul

 

either way your advice is bad, 560ti is overkill for swtor and pretty much any other game I've played

Why would a p67 board prevent you from getting a GPU upgrade?

 

And why would a GTX 560Ti be overkill for games at all? Unless you are playing farmville on facebook or solitare in Windows. But in general the GTX 560Ti is a mid segment card that performs OK in newer games but you are going to need much more GPU power to play games with high settings.

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umm because 600 series utilizes pci-e 3.0 and sandy bridge and p67 does not, why would I buy a gpu that I can't fully utilize without a chipset and cpu upgrade?

 

as for performance I've played through alot of intense fps games at max setting with no problems - deus ex human revolution which is a game they advertise as being optimized for amd cards I never got under 50fps on max settings, that's a pretty graphic intensive game

 

it's funny you think newer games are the ones that need alot of gpu power, but in all honestly some of the older games are the highest gpu intense games to date - metro 2033, crysis, etc. all quite old games and top the charts in terms of gpu usage.

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