Considering an upgrade...

[ConureGuy_411]

I've been considering upgrading my current PC for some time now because I bought it in March of 2013 and it still has the original configuration. The ONLY things that really need upgrading are the graphics card (which may also mean PSU as well) and perhaps the processor. Though from what I understand a new PSU would likely mean a new motherboard given the age of my PC. I'm approaching the limit on compatibility for my GPU as even the newer games that are least graphics intensive are requiring 2gb graphics for 'minimum' and 4gb for recommended. Here is my current configuration:

Windows 7 Pro, Intel i7 3700 - 3.4g, 24gb DDR3 ram, AMD Radeon HD 7870-2gb, 2tb HDD, 256g SSD.

Amazon, Dell, Walmart and Newegg are all running great deals on electronics. However, with the deals I've found, the cost of upgrading my graphics card and PSU would easily be 1/2 the price of a brand new computer with the same exact (or better) configurations as my upgrades. My question is this: Is it worth upgrading to a new PC at this point or can/should I wait til next holiday season? Primarily, I'm interested in if it will make a significant difference with CS. I have about 1500 assets and 70 mods after my recent 'cleanup'. My CS game however only gives me between 10 and 30 fps in a city with less than 5k. I DO know that its the assets and mods that do this and I've already cut back as much as I care to on assets.

How would a new PC with a top CPU (i7 8700) and a GPU Nvidia 1060 (6gb) and 16gb of DDR4 ram affect CS gameplay? Would it make a big enough difference to warrant getting one now? The ONLY other games that I play on my PC that are more or equally graphics intense are Planet Coaster, ATS and ETS2. But I have no issues with those, only CS has the lag and from what I've read here, even people with top of the line rigs are experiencing significant lag.

I'd like input from people who are familiar with the mechanics of CS and how PC configuration affects gameplay. Perhaps some of you will have suggestions that I can consider, preferably people who have a lot of workshop content since that's the biggest factor. IF it weren't for CS lag, I'd wait til next Christmas. My MAJOR reason for upgrading at this point is for CS.

Also of note, the new PC WOULD have an SSD and CS would be going on that. Currently, I have CS on my regular HD and NOT my SSD because of how my configs were when I first installed it. My SSD that I have now is 256gb but its the one that came with this PC when I got it in 2013 and I hesitate to move CS onto it out of fear or wearing it down.

So I'd also like to know peoples impressions of the difference of CS on an SSD vs a standard HDD. How much does it really help? I have read so many conflicting opinions on CS and SSD, PSU intense vs GPU intense vs RAM intense. I don't mean to sound rude, but please don't comment your opinion if you aren't knowledgeable enough to know which factors are in fact the right ones and can back it up with facts.

Thanks so very much!

[Goraxium]

First of all, don't get an 8700k if your sole purpose is to play CS. A Ryzen 2600 will work fine, and it's significantly cheaper to buy, which means you'll have extra cash for the other components. A GTX 1060 / RX580 will run the game fine. The 16GB of RAM is spot on though (8GB is not recommended). I'd also recommended forcing Windows to use a preferably fixed sized pagefile (~8GB) on your HDD instead of your SSD to prolong the life of your SSD (although it shouldn't matter if you're upgrading every few years). The fixed size stops Windows resizing it all the time, which should improve performance a bit.

Also, airflow through your case is imortant, especially if you're trying to avoid any thermal throttling which will affect performance. If your case isn't up to the task, it might be worth upgrading it too. You can get some cheap ones with plenty of mounting points for fans if you don't mind the somewhat basic look. Dust filters don't come on cheap cases though, so that's something to keep in mind.

Regarding performance, I get 20-30 FPS average in a city with 250K people in it on a 2600X with an RX580 at max settings at 1080p (the game won't let me change to 4K for some stupid reason). In any case, that's a huge bump up from 30 FPS for 5K people...

As for the SSD / HDD thing, all you'll do is cut down on loading and saving times. If you've got auto saves enabled, it will certainly help, but you will still have some slight lag spikes even on an SSD every time it saves (for 1-2 seconds at most with a large city). Ideally saving should have been programmed into another thread so it doesn't affect the game quite so much, so you can chalk that up as a programming feature / mistake.

As for whether or not it's a good time to buy, I'd say yes and no... Yes, because RAM prices have come down a bit, and GPUs are a lot cheaper than they used to be (especially around the mid tier). And no, because AMD is set to release new hardware CPUs and GPUs next year, which should shake prices up again. It's up to you.

[ConureGuy_411]

Originally posted by Goraxium:

First of all, don't get an 8700k if your sole purpose is to play CS. A Ryzen 2600 will work fine, and it's significantly cheaper to buy, which means you'll have extra cash for the other components. A GTX 1060 / RX580 will run the game fine. The 16GB of RAM is spot on though (8GB is not recommended). I'd also recommended forcing Windows to use a preferably fixed sized pagefile (~8GB) on your HDD instead of your SSD to prolong the life of your SSD (although it shouldn't matter if you're upgrading every few years). The fixed size stops Windows resizing it all the time, which should improve performance a bit.

Also, airflow through your case is imortant, especially if you're trying to avoid any thermal throttling which will affect performance. If your case isn't up to the task, it might be worth upgrading it too. You can get some cheap ones with plenty of mounting points for fans if you don't mind the somewhat basic look. Dust filters don't come on cheap cases though, so that's something to keep in mind.

Regarding performance, I get 20-30 FPS average in a city with 250K people in it on a 2600X with an RX580 at max settings at 1080p (the game won't let me change to 4K for some stupid reason). In any case, that's a huge bump up from 30 FPS for 5K people...

As for the SSD / HDD thing, all you'll do is cut down on loading and saving times. If you've got auto saves enabled, it will certainly help, but you will still have some slight lag spikes even on an SSD every time it saves (for 1-2 seconds at most with a large city). Ideally saving should have been programmed into another thread so it doesn't affect the game quite so much, so you can chalk that up as a programming feature / mistake.

As for whether or not it's a good time to buy, I'd say yes and no... Yes, because RAM prices have come down a bit, and GPUs are a lot cheaper than they used to be (especially around the mid tier). And no, because AMD is set to release new hardware CPUs and GPUs next year, which should shake prices up again. It's up to you.

Thanks so very much for all your input. Its VERY helpful! I actually didn't know AMD is set to release new hardware next year! Then I can price the new ones to see if they are worth it or go with a current one (that'll likely be reduced in price).

As for the RAM, I actually have 24gb on this current rig. I haven't been able to find a gaming pc with a 24g option. The most I've seen are 16 with a few ridiculously priced rigs at 32gb ram.

My SSD is from 2013 and still works fantastic BUT I don't have anything on it other than Windows 7 (my startup from power button to desktop maxes out at 13sec) and essential programs, utilities and drivers etc. ALL my other stuff is on my internal 2tb HDD or external drives.

I had a feeling that the lag was more due to poor engine optimization on the developers part. But there are just so many contradictory posts on it that I wanted to judge for myself with current stats.

I don't think I'll ever have a city of 250k. I know a lot of people play for the simulation effect and the idea of managing a city and policies but I'm more of a city builder/painter than a simulation player. I don't think the simulation aspect has reached a realistic enough level for me to get into that aspect of it. I get my joy from actually designing and making the city. Just like with my The Sims games, I like building and designing the homes. I play Tropico if I want to go the 'management' route.

Thanks again

[ConureGuy_411]

Originally posted by ..:

Due to poor optimization of the game's Unity Engine and it's use of an older API of DX11 instead of DX12/Vulkan, there is a general performance limitation. You can have the fastest supercomputer in the world, and you'll still be relegated to around average 30 FPS.

If you do decide to upgrade, an 8-core Ryzen 2700X is a good option, as this game can utilize 8-cores which can help with "Simulation/Computation Speed" such as traffic and time cycles, not necessarily with FPS. As for the GPU, an RX 580 or GTX 1060 are excellent options, as they both have similar performance, however the 580 is less expensive, has Freesync, and comes with 2 free games due to AMD's special bundle promo. See below video showing a Ryzen 8-core providing better simulation speed over a 4-core intel, as well as showing how a high-end GPU is not really necessary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHT5QK0m9C0

I'm gonna have to look deeper into the CPUs. I have an i7 3700 right now that I love and when I got if 5yrs ago it was top of the line at the time (at least as far as I could find).

I found a thread by grapplehook that explained ram limits with assets and I use the LSM for managing that. Think I'm gonna have to get even more restrictive with my assets. I have them all divided up into collections based on asset. I may have to set up new collections for specific cities and go that route. I'm gonna check out that YT link.

Thanks for the info!

[MarkJohnson]

Yeah, your computer doesn't need upgrading for this game. It is designed to have low fps as it's a simulator type game that is CPU intensive, therefore there is no point in wasting valuable CPU time drawing pictures then you can have better simulation contentment instead.

The only thing I see helping is your RAM. Not sure if you want to invest in more RAM, but it will afford more assets.

But you'll be better off optimizing your assets. Likely you are only using a few hundred assets in your game anyway. The rest just sit in RAM consuming your RAM.

If you favorite the assets you think you may use, then it will free up RAM as they won't be loaded in RAM, then you can search your favorite when you need to use them. 12GB of assets is a lot for this game. But favorite them before unsubbing.

[ConureGuy_411]

Well I currently have 24gb of ram and I'm pretty sure that the max my PC can handle is 32, I'll look into it cause buying another 8gb of ddr3 ram shouldn't be too much considering ddr4 is out now. Though I've read mixed reviews of the ddr4 as far as games go.

I just checked my workshop folder and the size for the CS workshop is 5.6gb. Given that they are compressed, even if I triple that size for decompression, I'm only at about 17gb and I have 24gb of ram.

I was considering creating collections for assets to go with individual saves, but I like your idea better cause it may be quicker though I have to look into the organization figures.

I really appreciate all the feedback. I'm gonna try to cut down even more on assets by subbing per city and see how that goes. One thing I hadn't considered (at least not recently) is looking into the mesh info to unsub from old, unoptimized assets.

I am going to look into that ram upgrade in case I can get a great deal, might as well. But I'll hold off on the graphics card upgrade til I need it to play newer games (or it dies).

I had thought of buying a gaming laptop but I'm torn on those as I've heard they aren't ideal for gaming, at least not when considering durability and battery. I have a Samsung tablet with a 13hr battery and I can get a good 5-6hrs out of it if I'm just gaming. Plus I can still use it while it charges.

[MarkJohnson]

Originally posted by ConureGuy_411:

Well I currently have 24gb of ram and I'm pretty sure that the max my PC can handle is 32, I'll look into it cause buying another 8gb of ddr3 ram shouldn't be too much considering ddr4 is out now. Though I've read mixed reviews of the ddr4 as far as games go.

Actually DDR3 prices will go up as there is less demand, so they have to raise prices to make up the difference in lost of quantity.

I just checked my workshop folder and the size for the CS workshop is 5.6gb. Given that they are compressed, even if I triple that size for decompression, I'm only at about 17gb and I have 24gb of ram.

I was considering creating collections for assets to go with individual saves, but I like your idea better cause it may be quicker though I have to look into the organization figures.

Compression can be over 20x. So, they can go even higher. Also, since you are near your RAM limit as it is, then it is probably using your virtual memory (pagefile)

But you can save money on favorite or collections as then you won't be exceeding your RAM limits. 24GB should be plenty.

I had thought of buying a gaming laptop but I'm torn on those as I've heard they aren't ideal for gaming, at least not when considering durability and battery. I have a Samsung tablet with a 13hr battery and I can get a good 5-6hrs out of it if I'm just gaming. Plus I can still use it while it charges.

Laptops are a great options, but you need a very good one, and they aren't cheap. But your gaming time on batteries won't be but an hour or so typically speaking.

My gaming laptop (desktop replacement) would drain faster than it could charge. I think I could get a few hours before I had to quit gaming as the battery was under 50%. lol

The newer ones are more efficient, so they should do better. The good ones have dual coolers ( 1 for GPU, the other for the CPU.) They are usually an inch thick or more and weigh a ton. lol

[ConureGuy_411]

I actually hadn't thought of that re: ddr3 ram. I did find some on Amazon that seem rather pricey since I can't find the memory at my current speed and don't want to do the mix & match even though its possible, I'd have to buy 32g ram outright which wouldn't be cheap. I'm gonna check Newegg on the ram.

As for the compression- is there any way to tell the decompressed size of an individual asset? To my knowledge the LSM doesn't list that particular detail but rather the total ram instead.

[MarkJohnson]

your best bet is eBay. Used memory should be fine and you should be able to get an exact match.

[Alien]

Ever heard of Razer Cortex Gamebooster? Can't run CS worth s### on my PC, takes forever to load with >20 mods only pull 11 fps (Which is acceptable becuase this is a simulation game but still not amazing), Try it before you drop $800 on a new PC.

[MarkJohnson]

Originally posted by tjmccaust:

Ever heard of Razer Cortex Gamebooster? Can't run CS worth s### on my PC, takes forever to load with >20 mods only pull 11 fps (Which is acceptable becuase this is a simulation game but still not amazing), Try it before you drop $800 on a new PC.

That program is just snake oil. All it does is disable services and clean files up. You can do all of this manually with a little searching. It's really only works on systems well below system requirements. The OP is significantly over recommended requirements.

[MaskMcgee]

Originally posted by ConureGuy_411:

Well I currently have 24gb of ram

You shouldn't, it should either be 1, 2, 4 ,8, 16 or 32GB, and other number and your RAM is in an inefficent setup.

[ConureGuy_411]

Originally posted by bomberswarm2:

Originally posted by ConureGuy_411:

Well I currently have 24gb of ram

You shouldn't, it should either be 1, 2, 4 ,8, 16 or 32GB, and other number and your RAM is in an inefficent setup.

Well that's interesting to know! I bought the PC with 24gb of RAM directly from Dell and they never told me this. I got this PC back in 2013 and it runs ddr3 ram on Windows 7. Could you provide me with information to verify this?

The ram I have is 8gb x 3 and I have four slots.

[ConureGuy_411]

Also, I went to Walmart today and saw this laptop for $829...

HP Pavilion 15-cx0058wm 15.6" Gaming Notebook - Intel Core i5-8300H (2.3gHz), NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 4GB GPU, 8GB RAM, 16 GB Intel Optane + 1TB HDD Storage, Windows 10

Is this a good price? Value for the money? I'm considering getting this in the meantime for other games that exceed my current gpu as well as for portability, obviously, lol.

[MarkJohnson]

I have not heard any good news on any Walmart computer yet. They are usually reduced feature systems.

That seems to have a lot of good components. But the CPU worries me as they rate them much lower than they are. i.e. 4.0 GHz turbo mode. They throttle by heat, so I worry about it overheating quickly.

Here's a YouTube video. Looks okay, but gets hot under load, but it has a dual exhaust ports for cooling, which is good.

I would check on Newegg, they have great systems. MSI seems top of the line right now, and run the coolest.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&IsNodeId=1&N=100167732%20601303722%204814%20600488336

These are the 6-core versions, so they'll have more power than the 4-core Walmart specials.

Search the model numbers of laptop with disassembly on YouTube to see the coolers inside. Look for large copper pipes, and multi pipes.

But I see a few slightly cheaper than the Walmart version, and much better.

This is a nice one for the price:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DY5fDY4Pbg

This one has like 8-copper cooling pipes. It's the budget one, so it won't be the coolest. But you can undervolt the system to make run cooler, then it will overclock itself and run faster.

They always over volt all system as not all CPUs/GPUs are created equally, so they volt for worst case scenario. So you can overclock a bit and have it run cooler, plus run faster as turbo is based on temperatures.

MSI GF63 8RD-NE1050Ti: i7-8750H, 8GB RAM, GTX 1050 Ti (The video had 1060). 16GB Optane drive (more for cache memory than actual SSD) & 1TB HDD. on sale for $799 plus a $100 rebate ($699 final)

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834154939&ignorebbr=1

As with all laptops, never use them on your lap. They need to be supported with a tray, preferably one with vents, or better yet, a fan.

[ConureGuy_411]

Thanks for the link, I found on the very first page an MSI laptop that has all the features the Walmart one has except it has a better processor and is $30 cheaper. I bought a new tablet today, may just stick with that for the time being and continue to research and make a final decision on upgrade hardware vs buy new desktop vs buy laptop.