Most optimal pc upgrade for x4?

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mim525
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Most optimal pc upgrade for x4?

Post by mim525 » Tue, 6. Oct 20, 21:06

Thinking of upgrading my pc for x4. Atm the game runs pretty mediocre with my setup, given the game is pretty intense on calculations etc what should I upgrade? rn i have a i7-8700 3.2ghz and a gtx 1060 3gb with 8gb ddr4 ram. To get the game running smoothly i suppose i just need to upgrade the ram to 16 or 32gb and the rest is fine? Perhaps a cpu & gpu upgrade is necessary or not? Loving the game btw 8)

Alan Phipps
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Re: Most optimal pc upgrade for x4?

Post by Alan Phipps » Tue, 6. Oct 20, 21:12

Hardware discussions and recommendations belong in Off Topic, so over we go.

You will find quite a few fairly recent X4 and general PC hardware recommendation threads already in there if you have a browse.
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BigBANGtheory
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Re: Most optimal pc upgrade for x4?

Post by BigBANGtheory » Tue, 6. Oct 20, 22:00

definitely the GPU imho, overclock the i7

Panos
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Re: Most optimal pc upgrade for x4?

Post by Panos » Tue, 6. Oct 20, 22:19

mim525 wrote:
Tue, 6. Oct 20, 21:06
Thinking of upgrading my pc for x4. Atm the game runs pretty mediocre with my setup, given the game is pretty intense on calculations etc what should I upgrade? rn i have a i7-8700 3.2ghz and a gtx 1060 3gb with 8gb ddr4 ram. To get the game running smoothly i suppose i just need to upgrade the ram to 16 or 32gb and the rest is fine? Perhaps a cpu & gpu upgrade is necessary or not? Loving the game btw 8)
Your issue is the GTX1060 3GB to boot. If you have good PSU get a Vega 56 Strix. Saw one going for £88 used in Ebay UK atm. Great value for money tbh especially if tweaked.
Otherwise you will find plenty of 5700XT (get 2-3 fan ones) going sub £200 which is amazing value considering the alternative 2nd hand from Nvidia goes over 50%

For the rest of the system assuming you have Z370/470 board yes? If you have 8700K and not the non K, overclock to 5Ghz and you should be OK. If not get a 9700K but do not spend more than £200 on it. Aint worth more than that.
Otherwise sell your combo and buy an AMD 3800X with cheap B550 board. If so get a 9700K/9900K, a 16GB 3600+ C16 RAM kit (replace the 8GB don't add up to it to avoid issues).

Job done for a loongggg time.

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Re: Most optimal pc upgrade for x4?

Post by Gavrushka » Tue, 6. Oct 20, 22:26

OP, your processor is a good one, the same as mine, and I've today upgraded my graphics card from a 1050 to a 1660. - The 1660 is great cos it'll run on almost any PSU (450 watt minimum) and I paid just over £240 (GBP)

But the thing is, there are circumstances where any CPU is gonna be very heavily taxed, and I get exactly the same framerate with my 1660 as I did with the 1050 in such circumstances, but I can up the resolution to Ultra. (On my shipyards, which taxes the CPU the most, I get *exactly* the same framerate all the way from low to ultra! LOL)
“Man, my poor head is battered,” Ed said.

“That explains its unusual shape,” Styanar said, grinning openly now. “Although it does little to illuminate just why your jowls are so flaccid or why you have quite so many chins.”

“I…” Had she just called him fat? “I am just a different species, that’s all.”

“Well nature sure does have a sense of humour then,” Styanar said. “Shall we go inside? It’d not be a good idea for me to be spotted by others.”

Imperial Good
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Re: Most optimal pc upgrade for x4?

Post by Imperial Good » Wed, 7. Oct 20, 00:59

Upgrade memory to 16 or 32 GB DDR4. If you are out of warrantee period get some 3600 MHz or faster kit, preferably dual rank as well. XMP should be fine but if you like to overclock then tuning the timings will give even more performance. This will remove any potential paging performance penalties as well as improve CPU performance from faster memory bandwidth and tighter timings.

All other suggestions in this thread will likely give trivial performance improvements as your CPU is using the same core design as current intel CPUs anyway and your GPU is likely not a bottleneck unless you are using a 4k or larger display.

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Re: Most optimal pc upgrade for x4?

Post by Gavrushka » Wed, 7. Oct 20, 10:07

Imperial Good wrote:
Wed, 7. Oct 20, 00:59
Upgrade memory to 16 or 32 GB DDR4. If you are out of warrantee period get some 3600 MHz or faster kit, preferably dual rank as well. XMP should be fine but if you like to overclock then tuning the timings will give even more performance. This will remove any potential paging performance penalties as well as improve CPU performance from faster memory bandwidth and tighter timings.

All other suggestions in this thread will likely give trivial performance improvements as your CPU is using the same core design as current intel CPUs anyway and your GPU is likely not a bottleneck unless you are using a 4k or larger display.
Thought this was the best place to ask, since it is about optimising. - Does enabling the new Windows feature 'hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling' in any way help performance? I see from its description it's only effective where the bottleneck is the CPU, which is very much the case with X4.

And does faster RAM make a noticeable difference? CBJ had mentioned something similar elsewhere.
“Man, my poor head is battered,” Ed said.

“That explains its unusual shape,” Styanar said, grinning openly now. “Although it does little to illuminate just why your jowls are so flaccid or why you have quite so many chins.”

“I…” Had she just called him fat? “I am just a different species, that’s all.”

“Well nature sure does have a sense of humour then,” Styanar said. “Shall we go inside? It’d not be a good idea for me to be spotted by others.”

Alan Phipps
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Re: Most optimal pc upgrade for x4?

Post by Alan Phipps » Wed, 7. Oct 20, 11:31

"And does faster RAM make a noticeable difference? CBJ had mentioned something similar elsewhere."

If it's the case I'm thinking of then CBJ was talking about previous advice from Imperial Good, who also posted it above.
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Gavrushka
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Re: Most optimal pc upgrade for x4?

Post by Gavrushka » Wed, 7. Oct 20, 11:37

Alan Phipps wrote:
Wed, 7. Oct 20, 11:31
"And does faster RAM make a noticeable difference? CBJ had mentioned something similar elsewhere."

If it's the case I'm thinking of then CBJ was talking about previous advice from Imperial Good, who also posted it above.
It probably is, and I should've realised all knowledge comes from the Omniscience that is Imperial God!
“Man, my poor head is battered,” Ed said.

“That explains its unusual shape,” Styanar said, grinning openly now. “Although it does little to illuminate just why your jowls are so flaccid or why you have quite so many chins.”

“I…” Had she just called him fat? “I am just a different species, that’s all.”

“Well nature sure does have a sense of humour then,” Styanar said. “Shall we go inside? It’d not be a good idea for me to be spotted by others.”

Imperial Good
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Re: Most optimal pc upgrade for x4?

Post by Imperial Good » Wed, 7. Oct 20, 13:05

Gavrushka wrote:
Wed, 7. Oct 20, 10:07
Does enabling the new Windows feature 'hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling' in any way help performance?
I do not recall people mentioning the results of trying it and I unfortunately cannot test it myself as the feature is not supported by my current GPU.

In theory it stands a good chance of improving performance. With X4 being CPU bottlenecked any sort of CPU off-load may make some difference. The feature also has been shown to improve performance in other Vulcan games. However since X4 is not that graphically heavy I would be conservative with any improvement estimates to only a couple of percent at best since there is not that much meaningful CPU performance potentially saved. Specifically it will be mostly from the freed up memory bandwidth and possibly higher boost clocks.

The feature should be enabled if supported by your GPU. The only reason it is not automatically selected is due to it being a new and highly experimental feature that could cause performance problems or regressions in edge cases. Although it offers a small saving to CPU overhead, it would seem the main purpose of the feature is for latency optimization. With the GPU being incharge of its own scheduling it can quickly begin executing submitted commands rather than having to wait for Windows to eventually get around to scheduling the command queues before the GPU can begin execution. I suspect Nvidia's recent latency optimization strategy depends heavily on features like hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling to help cut down end to end latency.

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Re: Most optimal pc upgrade for x4?

Post by jlehtone » Wed, 7. Oct 20, 13:40

Quick websearch hit: https://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/3599 ... benchmarks

Did not read through, but overall conclusions seemed to be "no change or worse". X4 could be the exception.
It seems that "hw offloaded GPU scheduling" is mainly to improve latency. How big part does latency play in the "lack of smoothness"?

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Re: Most optimal pc upgrade for x4?

Post by Gavrushka » Wed, 7. Oct 20, 13:43

Interesting article, although it is from July, a few weeks after release.

But the conclusion back then was 'meh.'
“Man, my poor head is battered,” Ed said.

“That explains its unusual shape,” Styanar said, grinning openly now. “Although it does little to illuminate just why your jowls are so flaccid or why you have quite so many chins.”

“I…” Had she just called him fat? “I am just a different species, that’s all.”

“Well nature sure does have a sense of humour then,” Styanar said. “Shall we go inside? It’d not be a good idea for me to be spotted by others.”

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