I recently built a computer. I'm having some problems with the motherboard, so I need to take apart the computer and switch out the MB. Since I'm doing that I figured it would be a good time to consider any upgrades since I'll be rebuilding it anyway.... The only thing I do on this computer (game wise) is play SWTOR. I'm a diehard PVPer and I'm always looking to crank up my settings and get the best FPS in warzones.

Here are my current specs:

i5 6600K process for at 3.5GHZ

16GB of RAM - DDR4

SSD Drive

Nvidia GTX 970

Monitor is a 2560 X1440 monitor.

Should I upgrade to an i7? Add more ram? Second GTX 970 video card? What would recommend? What will (if anything) will increase the performance of SWTOR?

Thank you in advance!

I run swtor and my other games on my laptop which is an i7 with a Nvidia gtx 980 and it runs everything on ultra, including other graphic demanding games like Witcher 3 etc.

My desktop which I am on now. Is AMD Based.

AMD FX 9590

with a R9 390x graphics card and the game runs amazing.

you shouldn't have any problems with your current spec.

Should I upgrade to an i7?

The main differences between an i5 and i7 is the hyperthreading. This benefits things like streaming, video encoding, or other heavily multithreaded applications. This will not benefit SWTOR. The i7 is also clocked by default a little higher than the i5 generally. This gap can be closed by overclocking your i5. I'd try that before spending money to upgrade from an i5 to an i7. I'd give this advice even if you hadn't already spent ~$200 on the i5. In many cases the extra ~$100 you spend getting an i7 isn't worth it.

Add more ram?

16GB is fine, going any higher won't help.

Second GTX 970 video card?

I've heard that SWTOR can actually perform worse with SLI graphics cards. Plus the 970 should be sufficient to play SWTOR on max/almost max settings, as long as you leave the shadow resolution at the default setting.

What would recommend? What will (if anything) will increase the performance of SWTOR?

Considering what you have already, not much will really improve your performance. Anything extra that might help would likely cost more than it's worth to swap out of an already working computer.

Round 2

Should I upgrade to an i7?

No point.

Add more ram?

No point.

Second GTX 970 video card?

TOR doesn't like SLI. A single 970 is more than good enough.

What would recommend? What will (if anything) will increase the performance of SWTOR?

Nothing, unless you're running Chokepoint brand mobos or something like that.

Should I upgrade to an i7?

No point.

 

Add more ram?

No point.

 

Second GTX 970 video card?

TOR doesn't like SLI. A single 970 is more than good enough.

 

What would recommend? What will (if anything) will increase the performance of SWTOR?

Nothing, unless you're running Chokepoint brand mobos or something like that.

Thanks for the input. I'm running an ASUS Z170 Pro Gaming MB. I guess I'll keep things as is.

Install Direct X 9.0C if you haven't already, that will help performance as well.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=34429

I had a custom gaming rig built for the launch of SWTOR and have upgraded components each year (new PSU's, new SSD's, new GPU's etc) to try and combat degrading game performance. It was getting just brutal - delays in PVP were terrible, even PVE in a not too busy zone would stutter.....

Last month I finally had it, went out and bought myself an off the shelf gaming machine (http://rog.asus.com/441502015/gaming-desktop-pcs/asus-announces-g11/) and let me tell you.....the lag issues were clearly not them (EA) it was me, though I wouldn't have believed it up until then.

I can now run everything, including PVP, on max settings/shadows etc. and not lag a stitch.

Two threads?

Yep, you already posted about this and got good advice, asking again won't change it.

I can now run everything, including PVP, on max settings/shadows etc. and not lag a stitch.

Have you benched it?

Different people perceive lag/stutter/frame rate drops differently...

I thought my main machine was smoother than it really is in warzones, I have no issues playing on it, it doesn't bother me, but I was shocked when I ran a 5 min FRAPS during a busy warzone, how often the FPS dropped below 20. Never for very long, but the overall average was less than I had expected.

That started me on a quest that got me benching multiple machines, which I've posted about in several threads here.

8v8 warzones chew CPU cycles like no one's business. Solo PvE doesn't seem to care nearly as much. GSF doesn't care either, it runs really well on lessor hardware.

It is also possible that the different user interface settings of people are having an impact, since the UI appears to be a huge frame rate killer. Turning it off makes the game amazingly smooth (but of course not really playable since you can't see what you're doing).

---

TL;DR - I am not convinced that ANY computer can play 8v8 WZ without ANY LAG, unless perhaps you're running overclocked to 6+GHz on nitrogen, then maybe. The engine just sucks. But that doesn't mean 8v8 WZ are not playable, they are, but you won't see 60fps out of them.

Have you benched it?

 

Different people perceive lag/stutter/frame rate drops differently...

 

I thought my main machine was smoother than it really is in warzones, I have no issues playing on it, it doesn't bother me, but I was shocked when I ran a 5 min FRAPS during a busy warzone, how often the FPS dropped below 20. Never for very long, but the overall average was less than I had expected.

 

That started me on a quest that got me benching multiple machines, which I've posted about in several threads here.

 

8v8 warzones chew CPU cycles like no one's business. Solo PvE doesn't seem to care nearly as much. GSF doesn't care either, it runs really well on lessor hardware.

 

It is also possible that the different user interface settings of people are having an impact, since the UI appears to be a huge frame rate killer. Turning it off makes the game amazingly smooth (but of course not really playable since you can't see what you're doing).

 

---

 

TL;DR - I am not convinced that ANY computer can play 8v8 WZ without ANY LAG, unless perhaps you're running overclocked to 6+GHz on nitrogen, then maybe. The engine just sucks. But that doesn't mean 8v8 WZ are not playable, they are, but you won't see 60fps out of them.

Actually, consistency of frame rate matters more than high FPS when it comes to perceived smoothness of gameplay. For example, if you are consistently 20-30 FPS in warzones it will feel quite smooth compared to where the frame rate runs between 30-60 FPS.

Oh and I forgot to add, don't compare FPS, look at frame time instead because getting a bunch of 16 ms frames followed by a string of 33 ms frames only to flip back again will result in judder and feel quite jarring.

I've got a 5 year old Alienware (leave the snide jokes about them till the end - I got it on clearance for half price) and I can still run the game with virtually no lag. And I run with most everything on High. I usually turn off shadows though, causes my GPU to run a bit warm - not so much that it's bad, but the fan is at my toes and they get cold

i7-2600 @3.4GHz

8GB Memory (Not sure of the speed)

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580

500GB Hybrid SSD

Have you benched it?

 

Different people perceive lag/stutter/frame rate drops differently...

 

I thought my main machine was smoother than it really is in warzones, I have no issues playing on it, it doesn't bother me, but I was shocked when I ran a 5 min FRAPS during a busy warzone, how often the FPS dropped below 20. Never for very long, but the overall average was less than I had expected.

 

That started me on a quest that got me benching multiple machines, which I've posted about in several threads here.

 

8v8 warzones chew CPU cycles like no one's business. Solo PvE doesn't seem to care nearly as much. GSF doesn't care either, it runs really well on lessor hardware.

 

It is also possible that the different user interface settings of people are having an impact, since the UI appears to be a huge frame rate killer. Turning it off makes the game amazingly smooth (but of course not really playable since you can't see what you're doing).

 

---

 

TL;DR - I am not convinced that ANY computer can play 8v8 WZ without ANY LAG, unless perhaps you're running overclocked to 6+GHz on nitrogen, then maybe. The engine just sucks. But that doesn't mean 8v8 WZ are not playable, they are, but you won't see 60fps out of them.

Of course I can bench it....I'm pumped from working the mouse.

I recently built a computer. I'm having some problems with the motherboard, so I need to take apart the computer and switch out the MB. Since I'm doing that I figured it would be a good time to consider any upgrades since I'll be rebuilding it anyway.... The only thing I do on this computer (game wise) is play SWTOR. I'm a diehard PVPer and I'm always looking to crank up my settings and get the best FPS in warzones.

 

Here are my current specs:

i5 6600K process for at 3.5GHZ

16GB of RAM - DDR4

SSD Drive

Nvidia GTX 970

Monitor is a 2560 X1440 monitor.

 

Should I upgrade to an i7? Add more ram? Second GTX 970 video card? What would recommend? What will (if anything) will increase the performance of SWTOR?

 

Thank you in advance!

Purchase a water cooling setup like the nzxt kraken x61, you will see much better gains from a good CPU overclock. Much better gains than a second gpu.

Actually, consistency of frame rate matters more than high FPS when it comes to perceived smoothness of gameplay. For example, if you are consistently 20-30 FPS in warzones it will feel quite smooth compared to where the frame rate runs between 30-60 FPS.

 

Oh and I forgot to add, don't compare FPS, look at frame time instead because getting a bunch of 16 ms frames followed by a string of 33 ms frames only to flip back again will result in judder and feel quite jarring.

I've done that and graphed it... 8v8 WZ are a mess of up and down... Highs of 60, lows in the teens and a bit of everything in the middle.

That being said, position lag remains an issue, I find that where my computer displays an enemy and where they actually are aren't always the same.

Not all the "lag" is your computer in a WZ, sometimes it is the server updating. As an example, I'll see someone running to my side, I'll toss a stun on them, and they "pop back" to in front of me. Other times I'll fire the "stun" and it won't go because they moved away from my forward angle before the server processed my input.

That isn't a computer performance issue, that is a server update issue. IMHO, the server updates too slowly, but that is probably an attempt to make the game playable on a wider range of hardware and Internet connections.

PvE generally doesn't have that problem of course.

Your rig is fine for this game.

Quite simply chuck on a decent AIO water cooler ( make sure it's all going to fit in your box before you buy - sometimes mounting the radiator can be a mission ).

From there push that CPU overclock - 4.5 is considered the average stable speed for that CPU but of course it does come down to silicone lottery as always. You might even be able to push 5.0

Either way you'll see a huge performance boost from 3.5

I've done that and graphed it... 8v8 WZ are a mess of up and down... Highs of 60, lows in the teens and a bit of everything in the middle.

 

That being said, position lag remains an issue, I find that where my computer displays an enemy and where they actually are aren't always the same.

 

Not all the "lag" is your computer in a WZ, sometimes it is the server updating. As an example, I'll see someone running to my side, I'll toss a stun on them, and they "pop back" to in front of me. Other times I'll fire the "stun" and it won't go because they moved away from my forward angle before the server processed my input.

 

That isn't a computer performance issue, that is a server update issue. IMHO, the server updates too slowly, but that is probably an attempt to make the game playable on a wider range of hardware and Internet connections.

 

PvE generally doesn't have that problem of course.

Yeah, if warzone frame time are bouncing that much, it might be worth running with a frame rate limit. Anything you can do to narrow the range will result in the game feeling smoother even though it might be running at a lower average fps. There's not much you can do about the high frame times except maybe lowering graphics, but with a fps limit you can avoid the low frame times so it doesn't feel so jarring.

As far as position lag goes, there's more to that than just server processing speed, there's also your internet connection and how stable it is. I usually get 25-30 ms ping with the server and fairly consistently and I really don't experience positional lag much unless NYC routers start getting overloaded. My signal has to pass through NYC, or go all the way into Canada to reach the East Coast servers. See if you aren't losing packets or getting ping spikes when you experience the rubberbanding and positional lag.

PvE doesn't have that issue because the mobs are entirely predictable therefore your client can predict their paths and actions perfectly. That doesn't apply to players though it tries, and when you see position lag and rubberbanding (like your stun example), it means your client wasn't receiving position information for whatever reason and relying on predicting the position of players based on their last actions. This is also why you sometimes see players fall through the map, the vast majority of the time it is not hacks just the client doing a poor job of predicting position when it's not receiving any information about that from the server.

i5 6600K process for at 3.5GHZ, 16GB of RAM - DDR4, Nvidia GTX 970. Monitor is a 2560 X1440 monitor.

The main limiting factor in PvP and OPs, is the CPU. You can't, at this time, get anything significantly better than the i5-6600K. An i7 would only add HyperThreading, which isn't useful in SWTOR, and a slight clock increase. A socket 2011 (Haswell-E) CPU would mostly just add more PCIe lanes.

The i5 already has enough PCIe lanes (x16) for one GPU and a slight overclock would erase the i7's speed advantage.

If the GTX-970 is giving you good fps in PvE there's no need to change it. It wouldn't be the limiting factor in PvP, but it would be the limiting factor in PvE at 2560x1440. A GTX-980 (or 980 Ti) or R9 Fury/X would get you better fps in PvE.

4Gigs is "enough" RAM. 8Gigs is comfortable. 16Gigs . . . .

If you decide to overclock the i5, be sure to get a better than stock cooler. A CM Hyper 212 is a good choice.

I wouldn't bother with overclocking the i5 - at best you'd only get about a 10-15% increase in clock speed, which translates, at best, to a 10-14% increase in fps.

My desktop which I am on now. Is AMD Based.

 

AMD FX 9590

with a R9 390x graphics card and the game runs amazing.

If you decide to overclock the i5, be sure to get a better than stock cooler. A CM Hyper 212 is a good choice.

I wouldn't bother with overclocking the i5 - at best you'd only get about a 10-15% increase in clock speed, which translates, at best, to a 10-14% increase in fps.

Intel stock coolers are brutally minimal, in my experience.

If you decide to overclock the i5, be sure to get a better than stock cooler. A CM Hyper 212 is a good choice.

I wouldn't bother with overclocking the i5 - at best you'd only get about a 10-15% increase in clock speed, which translates, at best, to a 10-14% increase in fps.

Just want to point out that on my 4690k I was able to overclock from 3.5GHz to 4.4GHz on the Hyper 212 EVO. That's a 25% clock increase.

Intel stock coolers are brutally minimal, in my experience.

They are, but they work fine if you run at stock speeds. But even Intel agrees with you, they no longer include a stock cooler with their K series CPUs, understanding that anyone buying a K CPU likely is (or should be) overclocking, and thus using better cooling.

Corsair Hydro Series H55 Quiet Edition Liquid CPU Cooler - $60

http://amzn.to/1SEXBYT

I have used that, it is quiet, works well, and keeps the CPU cool. I'm not a hard core overclocker, but my i7-4770k runs cool and quiet at 4.2GHz (base 3.5GHz to start with) at default voltage settings.

If the GTX-970 is giving you good fps in PvE there's no need to change it. It wouldn't be the limiting factor in PvP, but it would be the limiting factor in PvE at 2560x1440. A GTX-980 (or 980 Ti) or R9 Fury/X would get you better fps in PvE.

I honestly have to disagree here. On a single 1440p monitor, I don't think an upgrade from a GTX 970 will provide any benefit whatsoever.

Disclaimer: I haven't tested it yet, that is my gut feeling after having run benchmarks on multiple machines for this game with a wide variety of hardware. But I haven't yet taken a machine from GTX 970 to GTX 980 TI directly to test it.

4Gigs is "enough" RAM. 8Gigs is comfortable. 16Gigs . . . .

I used to think that as well, until I dived into Windows 10 more deeply. While it will run on 4GB of RAM (and even 2GB), it uses memory compression to do it and a lot of swap. I find that Windows 10 uses more RAM, the more you have, to a point at least.

8GB has thus become my default minimum RAM recommendation in 2016 and I no longer think 16GB is "out there" the way I did a year ago.

RAM has also gotten cheap:

8GB Kingston HyperFury X ($38)

http://amzn.to/1KZyIEx

16GB Kingston HyperFury X ($70)

http://amzn.to/1SEYPmE

So the price difference between 8GB and 16GB is now $32. That does not strike me as a major ask. If you're already putting in a $300 video card and $250 CPU, what is another $32? It buys you a lot of future headroom and there are in fact games out right now that REQUIRE 8GB:

http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri/requirements/fallout-4/12905/?p=r

Fallout 4 lists 8GB as the minimum requirements. Personally, I'd rather have more than the minimum.

There is no reason to go with only 4GB, the price difference isn't worth it. If you already have 4GB and need to add 4GB more:

4GB Kingston HyperFury X ($20)

http://amzn.to/1osPGku

$20 gets you a quality stick of 4GB of RAM.

There's not much you can do about the high frame times except maybe lowering graphics, but with a fps limit you can avoid the low frame times so it doesn't feel so jarring.

Sure there is! Get a better computer!

Keep in mind I was running those tests on a 9 year old machine. SWTOR was released in 2011, but it has been updated many times and the game that existed at launch isn't the game we're playing today.

I see people playing on machines that are older than the launch of the game (someone else in the other thread is running a AMD Phenom II X4 925, that CPU came out 1Q 2009, it is 7 years old. Expecting it to perform well in 2016 in an updated MMO is not very reasonable, IMHO. He appears to be happy with it, so more power to him, however it is what is keeping him from running smoother and faster. He doesn't PvP however so perhaps it doesn't matter to him.

http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K10/AMD-Phenom%20II%20X4%20925%20-%20HDX925WFK4DGI%20(HDX925WFGIBOX).html

As far as position lag goes, there's more to that than just server processing speed, there's also your internet connection and how stable it is. I usually get 25-30 ms ping with the server and fairly consistently and I really don't experience positional lag much unless NYC routers start getting overloaded. My signal has to pass through NYC, or go all the way into Canada to reach the East Coast servers. See if you aren't losing packets or getting ping spikes when you experience the rubberbanding and positional lag.

I'm in Dallas, TX sadly, far away from both sets of servers. My ping is pretty solid at around 50ms, give or take 5. I have fiber to the home (AT&T Gigafiber) and office (Verizon FIOS) and the hop time is low, but the distance is not and I can't change the physical distance between Texas and the servers. Electricity only moves so fast.

I used to think that as well, until I dived into Windows 10 more deeply. While it will run on 4GB of RAM (and even 2GB), it uses memory compression to do it and a lot of swap. I find that Windows 10 uses more RAM, the more you have, to a point at least.

 

8GB has thus become my default minimum RAM recommendation in 2016 and I no longer think 16GB is "out there" the way I did a year ago.

Gonna agree with TX here except to say 16GB is my floor and has been since Windows 7 64 bit was stable.

The old adage has been "your first upgrade to any pc is to add more memory".

SWTOR is a 32 bit application. It will NEVER address more than 2^32 bits (4GB) of memory. If your system is running only 4 GB of memory, you have to account for EVERYTHING that is running then tack on whatever else you want to run. This is assuming you are even running a 64 bit OS (it could happen). I can't say that I've ever seen it running more than 1.5-2GB at any given time that I've looked though. Granted I don't keep a monitor on it all the time.

Windows is sneaky though. It will use a swap file without ever telling you unless you've specifically set it not to (and doing so is generally a very very very bad idea). If you are running some preset limit (and only MS programmers seem to be able to divine what those limits are), then windows will dump bits of memory to your hard drive which is much slower.

In short, running at the "minimum required" is never a good idea if you can help it. You'll be bottle necked at every conceivable point and when you go to ask for help, the answer will be "get a better machine". More memory generally gets you farther than a stronger processor when working with anything in the last 3 years.