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Best Computer for CM?


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This is a double post, since i posted the same question in FI. But i think there is more visitors here, that´s why

So, copy/paste from CMFI

Hello my CM friends

I'm about to buy a new computer. But what matters most when I'm playing CM?

current computer: Core I7 950 3,06 Ghz (Turbo 3,2) 4c 8t. 18Gb 1600mHz RAM. GeForce 970, and only HDD´s. No SSD, Win 10.

I´m about to buy a brand new computer. But for CM games, what is most important? I like to play big Battles, Battalion+ Vs Battalion+. About 1000-2000 soldiers on each side Vs the Ai. So i guess quite CPU intensive? But what matters most in that case? 4,6 or 8 cores? or high Clock, like the 4 Core I7 7700K? And what about GPU and HDD/SSD?

Any tip from CM players that have changed their hardware is welcome

Regards Richard

Edited by Armorgunner
What the hell, Richard is my real name
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Armorgunner,

Am no computer expert, and I'm a Mac guy, too, but I still have a morsel which may help you. BFC has said there is no multicore capability in the games and that implementing same would be a lot of work for an unknown level of improvement. Consequently, it would seem cores, for CM play, at least, would be irrelevant. They would, of course, be a very big deal in the super processing intensive current and future FPS games and such.

Regards,

John Kettler

 

 

 

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6 minutes ago, John Kettler said:

Armorgunner,

Am no computer expert, and I'm a Mac guy, too, but I still have a morsel which may help you. BFC has said there is no multicore capability in the games and that implementing same would be a lot of work for an unknown level of improvement. Consequently, it would seem cores, for CM play, at least, would be irrelevant. They would, of course, be a very big deal in the super processing intensive current and future FPS games and such.

Regards,

John Kettler

 

 

 

Yeah i was told the same in the FI thread. But what about the rest of the computer? Fast RAM, does it matter? GPU, GF1060 6Gb or 1070 8Gb. Will i notice any difference? HDD or SSD? I will surely buy an SSD for the C:. But i wonder if an SSD will make a difference as a game disk to?

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9 minutes ago, Armorgunner said:

Yeah i was told the same in the FI thread. But what about the rest of the computer? Fast RAM, does it matter? GPU, GF1060 6Gb or 1070 8Gb. Will i notice any difference? HDD or SSD? I will surely buy an SSD for the C:. But i wonder if an SSD will make a difference as a game disk to?

All of that and choose an NVidia GPU. The Open GL support in their drivers have been better than the drivers from AMD for all the time I have been playing this game.

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39 minutes ago, IanL said:

All of that and choose an NVidia GPU. The Open GL support in their drivers have been better than the drivers from AMD for all the time I have been playing this game.

Hmm got quite expensive on my end here. If i have to prioritize? What is best 2 out of 3: Fast RAM 2133Mhz - 3200Mhz. Fast GPU 1060 6Gb - 1070 8 Gb. Fast game disk: HDD - SSD Samsung Pro/Evo? I´m not interested in general gaming/working performance, just CM gaming performance!

Edited by Armorgunner
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1 hour ago, Erwin said:

Am no expert, but when I did my research for new machines it seemed that fast GPU and SSD were more important than fast RAM.  (More RAM was better.)

Do you think that a 1070 will benefit more over a 1060 6Gb, Than Fast RAM. It will be 16Gb in any of the speeds.

Regards

Richard

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3 hours ago, Armorgunner said:

Hmm got quite expensive on my end here. If i have to prioritize? What is best 2 out of 3: Fast RAM 2133Mhz - 3200Mhz. Fast GPU 1060 6Gb - 1070 8 Gb. Fast game disk: HDD - SSD Samsung Pro/Evo? I´m not interested in general gaming/working performance, just CM gaming performance!

I have no idea what effect memory speed will have on CM. I agree with @HerrTom that the SSD will likely only effect load times.

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I would guess CPU is for computing turn results, GPU is for rendering, which is where all the really cool stuff happens. Disk? Meh, once the game is loaded, that's kind of a moot point, but SSD is nice all around.

Who cares if it takes another 2 seconds to compute the results of a turn. What you want is nice replay. Put your money where your eyes are.

My 2 cents (yeah, I know, I still run a GeForce GTX 660 Ti, 2GB, but my desired upgrade path is over $1k, so it's gotta wait).

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I've gone from CM on my OS SSD to having it on data Hard Drive (a spinner). I have not noticed any load time changes. But, I did not time the loads, so this is purely subjective. However, since swapping my 90+GB CM installation off my SSD, I have not felt any desire to put it back. FWIW.

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I literally just upgraded from a 1Tb HD to a 1Tb SSD two days ago.  In CMBS, load times are 20% faster.  Also, the micro-stuttering I used to get as I moved the view around the map has disappeared.  Turns don't seem to process any faster, but anything that had any form of disk access is a lot faster and smoother.

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The i7 950 is still a good processor for being (first generation?) so old. 

The ultimate limitation would have to be the games engine. As others have vouched for (and not) a ssd could help in some aspects. If I had your setup I would probably get a couple 480gb ssd's and throw them in raid 0 for your games.

I have an i5 2500k and I see no need to upgrade for a very long time.

I would also like to add there is no best pc for anything ;-)

Cheers! Save your cash!

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36 minutes ago, Artkin said:

The i7 950 is still a good processor for being (first generation?) so old. 

The ultimate limitation would have to be the games engine. As others have vouched for (and not) a ssd could help in some aspects. If I had your setup I would probably get a couple 480gb ssd's and throw them in raid 0 for your games.

I have an i5 2500k and I see no need to upgrade for a very long time.

I would also like to add there is no best pc for anything ;-)

Cheers! Save your cash!

Yes it is first gen I7. And its not getting thrown away. Its just going from the office, to the livingroom. To be the mediacenter there. There is a new tax on all electronics starting the first or last of july (dont remember now). So after that date, it will be much more expensive to buy a new computer. Otherwise i had probably waited another year or so.

And The only other game than CM i play right now, is Arma 3. And according to techreport i will probably double my fps there, with a 7700k and fast RAM.

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Ontario setup a fee on all electronic goods purchased to fund proper recycling facilities. Now we have places were we can drop off used / broken electronic goods for free instead of sneaking them into the land fill because no one wanted to pay to properly recycle them.

For us it was not a large $ amount and it probably didn't change anyone's purchasing plans very much.

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3 hours ago, Armorgunner said:

Yes it is first gen I7. And its not getting thrown away. Its just going from the office, to the livingroom. To be the mediacenter there. There is a new tax on all electronics starting the first or last of july (dont remember now). So after that date, it will be much more expensive to buy a new computer. Otherwise i had probably waited another year or so.

And The only other game than CM i play right now, is Arma 3. And according to techreport i will probably double my fps there, with a 7700k and fast RAM.

The 7700k is a great processor, im going to get one too in the near future. You will find things speeding up in CM too. As others have said here, the single biggest factor for CM perfomance is cpu, and as CM only uses a single core thats all thats needed. So one core of 4,2GHz will be quite comfortable, ie boosting your experience a lot. When i went from a 3.2Core2duo to a i5 with 3,4 it almost doubled up turn processing. Loading times get a little faster with ssd, not as much as i had hoped. Though its still noticeable. Im not so sure about fast RAM. I might be wrong, but i feel that all those different RAMs are more or less unnoticeable when playing and built because people will pay more if there is some kind of boost associated with it. I played around with an old pc a while back, and setting different RAM timings, using higher memory bandwidth etc did not change much gamewise( not talking about CM here). Id still go for dual channel RAM, ie 2*8GB. Re the gpu, both the 1060 and the 1070 will play CM at highest setting, no problem. They are totally overpowered for the CM engine, and will probably die bored... :)

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52 minutes ago, SlowLarry said:

The 7700k is a great processor, im going to get one too in the near future. You will find things speeding up in CM too. As others have said here, the single biggest factor for CM perfomance is cpu, and as CM only uses a single core thats all thats needed. So one core of 4,2GHz will be quite comfortable, ie boosting your experience a lot. When i went from a 3.2Core2duo to a i5 with 3,4 it almost doubled up turn processing. Loading times get a little faster with ssd, not as much as i had hoped. Though its still noticeable. Im not so sure about fast RAM. I might be wrong, but i feel that all those different RAMs are more or less unnoticeable when playing and built because people will pay more if there is some kind of boost associated with it. I played around with an old pc a while back, and setting different RAM timings, using higher memory bandwidth etc did not change much gamewise( not talking about CM here). Id still go for dual channel RAM, ie 2*8GB. Re the gpu, both the 1060 and the 1070 will play CM at highest setting, no problem. They are totally overpowered for the CM engine, and will probably die bored... :)

I think there are only a very few games, that benefit from fast RAM. But Arma 3 is one of them

http://techreport.com/review/31179/intel-core-i7-7700k-kaby-lake-cpu-reviewed/11

And in most games the Bloomfield first gen I7 is as fast as a Skylake

http://www.pcgamer.com/bloomfield-takes-on-skylake/

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For CM you need the best single-core performance. Sadly.

Get i5 that ends with K (save money, don't get i7 which is exactly the same thing + hyperthreading which doesn't help with gaming), get good cooling, overclock i5 (recent ones can go up to 5 GHz per core if you are lucky) and enjoy.

As for storage... I've tried running heavily modded (meaning more stuff to load) CMBS from HDD and SSD (850 EVO which is quite good) and didn't notice any difference. It still took quite a bit to load. Something else might be the bottleneck when it comes to loading.

Edited by kraze
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