Looking to upgrade my computer

I can't stand playing on only minimum settings. I would like to play on at least medium or possibly even ultra but I'm unsure of what to upgrade and was seeking help. Here are my diagnostics.

---System information gathered by CoH Helper version 0.2.0.2---

DxDiag gathered at March 14, 2011 06:00 (-04:00)
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (6.1, Build 7600) (7600.win7_gdr.101026-1503)
System Manufacturer: eMachines
System Model: ET1831
BIOS: Default System BIOS
Central Processor: Pentium(R) Dual-Core CPU E5400 @ 2.70GHz (2 CPUs), ~2.7GHz
Memory: 4096MB
.Net Memory Report: 2396MB out of 3839MB available
Page File: 6161MB (1515MB currently in use)
C Drive: (ST375052 8AS SCSI Disk Device) 593573MB out of 701989MB (84%) free
J Drive: (DTSoftBusCd00) zero-size drive
D Drive: (ATAPI DVD A DH16AASH SCSI CdRom Device) zero-size drive
Windows directory location: C:\Windows
DirectX: DirectX 11
DirectX Diag version: 6.01.7600.16385 (64-bit version)

Display Notes: No problems found.
Sound Notes: No problems found.

No problems found.
Input Notes: No problems found.

Monitor:
Monitor's Max Resolution: (blank)
Video Device Name: NVIDIA GeForce 7050 / NVIDIA nForce 620i
Manufacturer / Chip: NVIDIA / GeForce 7050 / nForce 620i
Video Memory: 1912 MB
Driver Version: 8.17.12.5721
Driver Date: 6/7/2010 7:58:00 PM
Driver Language: English

Sound Device Description: Speakers (Realtek High Definition Audio)
Driver File: RTKVHD64.sys
Driver Version: 6.00.0001.5898
Driver Date: 7/20/2009 6:52:38 AM

Sound Device Description: Realtek Digital Output (Realtek High Definition Audio)
Driver File: RTKVHD64.sys
Driver Version: 6.00.0001.5898
Driver Date: 7/20/2009 6:52:38 AM


WMI Information
Motherboard Manufacturer: eMachines
Motherboard Model: (empty)
Motherboard Product: EMCP73VT-PM
Motherboard Version:
BIOS Manufacturer: AMI
BIOS Name: Default System BIOS
BIOS Version: ACRSYS - 20090914
BIOS Release: 20090914000000.000000+000


Registry Information for Current User
Resolution: 1280x1024
3D Resolution: 1280x1024 (Not using renderscale)
Full Screen: Yes
Maximized: No
Screen Position: 0, 0
Refresh Rate: 60Hz
Vertical Sync Enabled: Yes


Physics Quality: None
Maximum Particles: 50000
Max Particle Fill? 10.000
Physics Card Enabled: No


Anti-aliasing: Off
Anisotropic Filtering: 4x
Texture LOD Bias: Smooth
Water Effects: None
Bloom: 1.000 (turned off)
Depth of Field Enabled: No
Desaturation Effects (Sepia) Enabled: Yes
Shader Detail: Unknown (5)


World Texture Level: Low
Character Texture Level: High
World Detail Level (Vis_Scale): 0.800
Entity Detail Level: 1.000
Shadows Enabled: No
Shadow Mode: Stencil shadows
Shadow Map Shader: Unknown (0)
Environmental Reflections: Disabled
Advanced Occlusion Settings: No
Ambient Occlusion: Off
Occlusion Strength: Off
Blur: Bilateral
Ambient Resolution: Performance


Gamma Correction: 1.000
Geometry Buffers (VBOs) Enabled: Yes
Suppression of FX When Camera Close Enabled: Yes
Close Suppression Range: 3.000
Show Advertisements: Yes

Audio Mode: Compatiblity
3D Audio: No
FX Sound Volume: 1.000
Music Sound Volume: 0.600

Show Advanced Graphics Options: No
Overall Graphics Quality: 0.250
Reverse Mouse Buttons: No
Save Login Username: Yes
Transfer Rate: 270184 bytes/second
Current Game Version: 1950.201102230015.1
Installation Directory: C:\Program Files (x86)\City of Heroes

Mod files in the Data directory
No modifications found

Upgrading your graphics card (and possibly) powersupply would be the 1st one I would be looking at.

How much have you got available to spend?

A graphics card upgrade as Gangrel said, depending on what you have for power. Before my upgrade, I was gaming on a low end AMD 4400 2.4, I had oc'd a bit, and a GTX 260 216 core, oc'd, at mostly med-high settings with good frame rates, 25ish. Ambient Occ settings off and shadows turned down to medium and near.

Ultra mode plays different in different zones. Pratoria and areas in Grandville cause the most slowdowns, with most of the main blue side "older" zones playing just fine allowing a lil higher settings.

whats a powersupply? and i can spend whatever i'm just very unsure of computer stuff.. what would be a good graphics card to buy?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_S...nit_(Computer)

and a similiar discussion on a that system regarding upgrades at,

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...4073344AATplla

and more,

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&s...1+power+supply

You can find lots of videos on youtube on how to change one but sounds like you might need some technical assistance. Maybe there is a computer service store near?

Okay it took a bit of looking around on specs for the machine outside as verification.

Processor is a Pentium Dual Core 2.7ghz (Not Core 2 Duo).

Also, the power supply is quite literally no more powerful than it absolutely has to be. So throwing a more powerful video card in there is a BIG no-no until you upgrade.

Luckily you DO have clearance in there for a better (and usually slightly deeper) power supply.

One nasty thing is that you may wind up impinging on your SATA ports.

Here's a pic of the interior of the case from the ZDNet site.



If for some reason you don't see the image you can go here. It's the bottom-most image.

You're pretty much not going to be able to upgrade the processor at this point.

IIRC you're already maxed on how much RAM the board will take.

And due to the age of the CPU, any gains you'll get from truly powerful GPUs is going to be offset by the fact that your CPU may not be able to keep it fed with data.

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

Have to agree with Hyper here; while you could squeeze a bit more performance by upgrading your video card and PSU you're essentially throwing money at a basic platform that's out dated enough to be marginal at best. Although with that low resolution monitor you aren't asking for a lot out of the system.

If it were me I'd give serious consideration to a new machine instead of trying to put band-aids on your old one. You're looking at ~$60 for a decent PSU (assuming you aren't getting a monster vid card) and probably roughly $90 for a lower end video card. Yes, you would see improved performance; but the question is how much. Ultra mode is pretty much out of the question with that machine; you could get a powerful enough video card and enough PSU to run it but I don't think the rest of the hardware is up to the task.

Some of the more hardware savvy people may have a different thought but at a guess you'd probably get ~30-40fps out of a decent vid card at that (pretty low) resolution your monitor is showing with mid level (non-ultra) settings. What's your budget look like, we may be able to suggest something.

From your earlier questions I take it you're not comfortable with replacing components yourself so you may have to add in the cost of a shop doing the upgrades for you. This shouldn't be a huge issue; replacing a PSU and vid card takes about 5-10 minutes and it really IS pretty idiot proof... that's part of the beauty of a computer, anyone with some patience and the ability to use a screwdriver can build one from scratch.

Thanks for all the help so far. Basically what I'm reading is that i shouldn't throw away money on this system lol it's actually my girl's computer and i just use it to play so it's not like she needs it upgraded for anything. I'm actually playing on my 37" tv as the monitor though but what i guess i should do is build my own computer.. The thing is i can take apart my computer and figure out how to remove or add anything to it i just have no clue what anything means. I don't know what a good or bad graphics card is by just reading it or anything like that so a lot of the stuff i'm reading is like right over my head. If i was going to just build my own computer where would i start or what would be the best stuff i could buy to start off with that isn't too expensive but will still run at least medium graphics?

Pretty much *any* semi recent gfx card will get the game to run at medium gfx settings.

You wouldnt even need to spend more than $100 for it.

The most important question is: How much have you got to spend for something like this.

I believe Father_Xmas has a few links in his sig where he goes through various PC costs...

One that *some* people tend to forget to add on is the Operating System... and that can be another $100 or so added on top (shop bought PC's though tend to include at least the basic version of Windows in the cost...

Hiroko,

My own recent experience for asking a similar question on these boards led to them talking me into a DIY (Do It Yourself) build.

If you don't want to spend weeks to learn all the computer parts (okay, it may not take weeks, I'm a slow learner) in order to make an informed decision, walk into a B&M physical store and ask a clerk there to help you buy a new pre-built computer to fit your needs.



If you want to go the education route, there are two preliminary steps:

1) First, read Father_Xmas's guide to picking computer components. Bookmark it, you'll be referring to it a lot.

2) Then copy/paste Hyperstrike's questions into a post in this thread and fill out the answers as completely as possible.



Good luck!
~Yydr

1) What will you primarily be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Mostly gaming.



2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
none really. i'm not looking for the best of the best just a decent computer for a cheap/fair price.



3) Where do you live? This is important as it affects what vendors you may buy from and how much shipping costs might be.
usa. florida.



4) Are you planning to buy or build?
build



5) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need. If you're unsure what exactly you need, say so.
i'm unsure i want to say everything lol.



6) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
i'm not



7) Will you be overclocking?
unsure of what that means



8) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
i use my 37 inch lcd tv



9) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
no real time now or later if i have to save some money



10) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? etc.
unsure



11) Any specific must-have features? Must be able to max out Ultra-Mode? Must have 6+GB of RAM? Must have an SSD? etc.
would be nice to play on ultra mode without it being laggy



12) Are there any vendors/brands you'd specifically prefer to use?
nope



13) Are there any vendors/brands you'd specifically prefer to avoid?
nope



14) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit? (Note: If your current OS came with your computer, odds are that it is NOT transferable.)
nope

i will try to explain it the best i can. right now i play on minimum and if i bump the graphics up one notch i cant even walk. what i would ideally like is to play on ultra and to be able to farm/run in super seed and so forth without the game being totally slow. i want to run in ultra smoothly basically. as for money i mean i cant say a price because if i say my budget is 700 you will post a 700$ computer but will that get me what i want? i don't know.. so i guess ideally i would like a computer that can play ultra smooth for the cheapest possible but it to also be a computer where if i want to spend more in the future i can put more into it to make it much better? and again ideally i would like to start off spending under 1k but once again i have no bills so if i don't have enough to buy what i want this week i just wait untill next week lol sorry this is so long i just care more about playing ultra then money.. i can make more money but i would hate to spend money whether it be 700 or 1500 and still not be able to play ultra lol

Oh you can get "Ultra mode" fairly cheaply...

But then you have issues of "just scraping by" or "going to last another 4-5 years with the new games that come out".

That is generally the difference between a $500, $700 and $1500 PC.

As a rough idea...

Father Xmas's $725 machine will run Ultra Mode fairly well (might have to turn down a few details.)

His $1350 Rig (actually less than $1200 now) will blow away the previous machine, and be able to run more modern games at far higher quality.

This is why we asked for "how much do you have to spend".

Hell, we could upgrade your daughters machine for about $130 so that it can play "ultra mode", but that would be pushing it in terms of upgrading without the processor/PSU starting to exert their own limitations on the machine.

The PC is one of the *few* things out there, where you honestly do get what you pay for. Not factoring in PC failure, the more you spend the better you get.

As a *rough* idea...

I upgraded my *old* PC with just a $150 gfx card and its able to run ultra mode... my other halfs PC got upgraded at christmas with my old old gfx card (8800GT, now roughly 4-5 years old) and its able to run Ultra mode (again, have to turn down *some* details, but ultra mode is enabled).

I actually think my *current* PC set up (motherboard/ram/processor/gfx card) is worth about £300, but I already had a PSU suitable, a new OS available for transfer, and spare hard drives that i had picked up over the years, so the whole machine is more expensive, but the *core* package is worth about £300.

(Extras for the machine... 4 external drives, couple extra internals... have around 6TB of storage total... 3TB of that is portable. Probably spent close to £400 over the years on that lot alone)

ok so my question is obviously i would rather spend 725$ then 1350$ so if i went ahead and bought the 725$ computer could i over time switch this out with that... upgrade this... basically just slowly spend money on it so i have a the really good 1350$ computer some day but in the mean time have a decent computer that i can play coh on in ultra? i guess what im looking for (the 725$ computer might be it idk) is a computer with the capability to run coh on ultra mode and have the capability to greatly upgrade it to one day have a computer that has more power then i will ever need lol

Let me chime in here for a moment.

My $750 rig uses an AMD CPU because AMD uses the same socket for their entire line of consumer CPUs from a very cheap single core up through their premium quad and hex cores. Great for upgrading however the fastest AMD CPU is still mid range when compared to what Intel offers.

My $1350 rig is on it's last legs because Intel really wants to kill Socket 1156 and replace the whole line with Socket 1155 Sandy Bridge series of CPUs. However due to a little mishap with the motherboard chipset, everyone pulled the Socket 1155 product until Intel fixed it. Those fixed motherboards are finally starting to come to market but it'll probably take another couple weeks until all the various motherboard models that were out before the problem are reliably back in stock with the fixed chipset.

Good point Dissolution.

From a price for performance perspective, AMD and Intel are pretty well matched. However the most expensive quad core AMD (at NewEgg) lists at $190 which is about where Intel's Socket 1155 quad core starts while the cheapest Socket 1156 quad core is $210. In general performance the AMD and Intel's Socket 1156 $200 CPUs are pretty well matched. However the performance of the new Sandy Bridge CPUs are faster than the old Socket 1156 i5-760 for a similar price.

Now Intel's quad CPUs start at around $200 but go up to $1000. AMD's start at $100. Intel's hex cores start at $595 and go up to $1000. AMD's hex core line, which again are priced appropriately for their performance in heavily multithreaded tasks like video compression or 3D rendering, range from $180 to $230. Intel's $1000 hex core is only 50% faster than AMD's $230 hex core in those tasks so the question becomes is saving 1/3rd of the time worth four times the cost?

Now in games, unless you are driving multiple high end video cards or running games at resolutions and settings that don't challenge a single GPU based video card, at some point additional CPU performance isn't necessary. Tom's Hardware for instance generally dismisses CPUs costing more than $200-250 for gaming.

Let's just hope AMD has a cleaner release than Intel this summer... ish.