New computer - Got it working, but another new question

[FrankU]

Hi,

Now that Windows 7 will be available within some moths I am considering to buy a new computer.
I'd like to configure my machine for optimal SC4 performance. For all other applications the machine I already have is quick enough, so the upgrade will in fact only be for SC4.

My questions are about what is the best configuration for a new computer.
The quicker the the better, of course but:
- In some forums I have read remarks about double and quad cores; that they are not useful. What kind of core would be the best choice then?
- Intel or AMD?
- Is there a recommendation for the graphics card? A quick one with lots of memory, I guess? Is there some special feature that I neet to look for?
- Good amout of RAM? How much is useful?
- Reccomendation for motherboard?

I am thinking about spending around € 500,-- ($ 650?).

Does anyone have a clue?

And as last a general question: what is the advantage of Windos 7 compared to Win XP. Is it quicker? Does it work easier? Or is it just more beautiful? Does it support more and newer hardware? Do I need it for the newest motherboards and/or cores?

Somehow I always get the feeling that a new OS needs a quicker computer to work at the same speed as the old OS on the old computer. The graphic quality of the interface does not really interest me. If it would be quicker I'd be perfectly happy to work with an interface that looks like Win 3.1.

[Nardo69]

About the hardware, well, I am not "The Right Expert" for your answers.

About Windows 7, well Windows 7 RC is faster than XP on my old machine on almost all aspects. And it is the first Windows ever and the second commercial OS since OS/2 that completely convinced me.

Does that answer your question which OS is best?

[WC_EEND]

your amount of RAM depends greatly on the kind of OS you want (32 or 64 bit) on a 32 bit system, the max amount of RAM is limited to 4GB, on 64bit systems it's unlimited I think, however most programs are written for 32 bit systems so 64bit is not very interesting in that perspective. The general rule concerning RAM is: the more, the better.

Concering CPU's nowdays you can't have fast, powerful systems without dual/quadcores, so you'll have to hove one of them. One other thing: are you planning on building it yourself, or are you going to buy a readymade one?

[SC4BOY]

Good news is that this is probably the best time in 10 years for "bang for the dollar".

The new architecture core-I7 intel 920 is mucho fine, costs about $200 and is very overclockable. Unfortunately the LGA 1366 cpu mount motherboards are rather expensive at 250-400 each! For going for excellent value for the dollar I'd get a decent core2 duo or quad core intel (excellent values as they are just out of date and the LGA 775 motherboards can be had very reasonably.. decent one for about $100-175).

In terms of memory.. this is probably your best-spent money on a new board..  Even DDR3 (the new standard for memory) is "reasonably" prices, but DDR2 is nearly a steal. I'd say straigtout go I7 if it weren't for the mobo issue. I'd go with 6-8Gig of memory.. DDR2 is unbelievably cheap.. around $32/G and go with the LGA 775 boards.

In terms of video both nVidia and ATI offer very fine value cards in the $100-150 range. You should be able to build a fine pc for your 650 ..though you'll push it pretty hard.. For op system I'd definitely go Windows 7 in 64 bit

I'm hoping you have case, keybd, mouse etc already. If you have an old mouse the new LASER (not optical, laser ) mice are significant improvements and similarly priced. You may or may not need a new powersupply. I'd recommend maybe an Antec "earth watts" or whatever its called at about $75 and 500+watt.. its efficient, reasonably priced, good quality and would support any hd's or addons easily

So in summary to meet your 650 goal you'd go say Core2 duo or quad (they are remarkably similarly priced since the I7 came out) I'd go quad if it were me, but hey... For the mobo go with LGA775 and DDR 2 memory with a MINIMUM of 4G, a very nice video card,  Windows 7 64bit OS

In terms of HD's you can get whatever you think you need.. they're unbelievably cheap.. a terrabit (1000G) is under $100 now 

[Jonathan]

Windows 7, no question about it.

When I got Windows 7 RC I decided to go for 64-bit, (from Vista 32-bit) and I've had no problems, but I know there some problems with 32-bit software not working on 64-bit OSes, but they seem quite specific and advanced(well for me at least). 64-bit is going to be the future, and so I'd go with that unless you for some reason you need to be on 32-bit. Also Windows 7 comes with a 32-bit disc and a 64-bit install disc, so I guess if 64-bit didn't work out for you you could reinstall Windows 7 32-bit for no extra cost.
Also I know in the UK PCWorld (the shop) is running a preorder offer for Windows 7 until the 9th August, where you can buy Home Premium for £49.99 and Professional for £99.99(the RRP is about £220). I'm not sure if there's a similar offer in the Netherlands. But if you buying the PC ready made the the 32-bit and price of the OS will pretty much be decided already.

Jonathan

[sithlrd98]

I agree with Jonathan...Win7 is far better all around then Vista. I bought my computer with Vista64 pre-installed...I dual boot win7 and have not switched over to Vista since. No driver issues and almost any app that I've tried work fine.
As far as CPU...I am running a quad AMD processor and 8 gigs ram...no problems with speed!

Jayson

[Andreas]

Since you're looking for a computer that should provide a good performance for SimCity 4, here are a few general hints:

- Quite a lot of people reported graphics issues with their ATI cards, so maybe nVidia is the better way to go. There were also people complaining about their GeForce cards, and older cards/drivers seemed to work even better, so you really don't need to invest that much money into a graphics card, since SC4 is not that graphics-intensive after all. If you don't play other games, a mainboard with built-in GeForce chip might be more than enough. Personally, I prefer ASUS mainboards, as they are reliable, and they also provide lots of options, in case you might want to try overclocking and such.

- Again, quite a lot of people were reporting that the game crashes randomly with their dual or quad core CPUs, esp. from Intel. I also read reports that it runs fine on AMD CPUs with multiple cores. Since I'm a bit of an AMD fan, I recommend one of the new AMD Phenom II models, which have a great performance for a reasonable amount of money. And if you still encounter problems with your multiple cores, restricting SC4 to one core might do the trick, and that single core should provide a good performance if you pick a fast CPU. SC4 does support multiple CPUs, and if it crashes, it's most likely the CPU driver that doesn't work properly - apparently, AMD did a better job here.

- RAM is pretty cheap these days indeed, so get 4 GB RAM, which should be enough for most applications. SC4 won't need more, and I doubt it can handle more, even if you have a large plugins folder. The Windows 7 64 bit edition is probably the way to go indeed, I haven't tried it myself so far, but I heard a lot of positive comments from other users. Buy a 2x 2 GB kit, so you can run the RAM in dual-channel mode. The RAM speed should match your bus speed of the mainboard, faster RAM will allow some overclocking experiments.

- Since the models/textures are loaded after every every zoom or rotation change, your harddisk quickly becomes the limiting factor in your system. Buy a fast HD, or even build a RAID-0 system. A DATpacked plugins folder will boost the performance greatly, since the handful of large files can be read from two HDs at the same time, definitely speeding up the loading process a lot. Of course, the risk of HD failure is a bit higher since one damaged HD will result in a complete loss of data, but regular backups are a must anyway.

- Solid State Disks might provide a very fast read access to large data files (such as a DATpacked plugins folder), but unfortunately, they are still very pricy, esp. when they use the faster SLC chips (they are about twice as fast as MLC chips). I do wonder if it would be viable to buy a small SSD and put only your plugins folder on it, though. Alternatively, one could buy a lot of RAM and use it for a RAM disk, where one could place the plugins folder. I assume this would speed up the loading times a lot, but someone who has such a thing should do some performance tests first.

I am considering to build a new computer myself within the next few months, since my current one is about 4 1/2 years now. It's still running fine, but for "advanced" stuff, like handling large amounts of RAW files, you can see the limits. If I can sell the old one for a reasonable price, upgrading won't be that expensive, and I don't plan to spend more than some 500,- € on the parts as well. In this price range, you should get the most for your money, and maybe one can save a few bucks, i. e. with the built-in VGA chip - and if the performance turns out less than stellar, you can still buy a dedicated card afterwards.

[Jonathan]

Just thought I'd add, my PC has a Intel dual core CPU, my mums PC has a Intel quad core, and my dad's laptop has a Intel dual core. All of them have SC4 on and I have never had any problems with crashing randomly. I didn't change any settings, just installed the game and plugins and it worked from the word go. So I don't think there is a problem with all Intel CPUs.

Jonathan

[io_bg]

Hmm, I also have Intel dual core, but the game crashes a lot!

[SC4BOY]

When the game crashes it crashes.. No one actually understands this phenomona.. It's been investigated ad nausium by some very bright folk, but nada.. and it has crashed from the FIRST ISSUE to NOW .. on a relatively unpredictable basis. But whatever it is it IS NOT processor related unless you have a dualprocessor AMD without the dual processor optimizer installed. I have a dual core AMD and in the last two months its started CTD's on a regular basis.. on the other hand I have a plugins file in the many gigabytes (4+) and I expect that is far more likely the problem than the processor or the video card (mine is ATI and I've had no problem .. its 4.5 yrs old now and only lately started the CTD's so clearly not ATI related either.

In regard to my advice above, my advice assumed you have applications in mind far beyond SC4 including media over networking, games of various sorts, the occasional drab work activity, etc. If SC4 is all you're interested in, add more memory and don't upgrade at all.

WRT to comments on HD's most new drives are quite capable. I'm operating on a 3 disc RAID 5 setup with various auxilliary and backup drives. At todays current prices, plus the fact that almost all modern motherboards come with relatively sophisticated software RAID, I'd buy (at about $40 each) 4 or 5 100G to 320G drives and stack them in a RAID 5 array. (of course as mentioned you can use fancy 15K rpm fast access drives or SolidState Drives (SSD's) but either one of those is getting heavily into about the price of what you want to pay for the entire pc..

[FrankU]

Thanks a lot, all of you.

Apparently Win 7 did something right that we all wanted form the start, so I am convinced in that respect.

Andreas told something I was really curious about.
The real question I had was: what parts of the computer are most vital concerning gamespeed in SC4.
I thought SC4 is a game that requests a lot from the graphics card, because at every move the whole image moust be built up anew. This is also the aspect of the game that causes the most slowliness in my case. So I guessed that I'd need a real fast graphics card.
Andreas told me the HD is crucial. I already thought of making a RAM disk. I just don't know ho to do it... But I am sure I can find someone to help me with that.
So maybe I can upgrade my computer, because in fact not-too-quick-SC4 performance is the only reason I am considering a new machine.

Thanks guys!

[Andreas]

Regarding the RAMDisk, please read this: http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/05/27/free-ramdisk-for-windows-vista-xp-2000-and-2003-server/

[FrankU]

Andreas,
Thanks for the link. I read the article and I could try this. I have 3GB of RAM in my computer. You think that I could set the RAM disk to 1,5GB? For my pluginsfolder is that size....

[Andreas]

Yes, that should be possible. It would be even more interesting if you could install the entire game (needs some 1.2 GB, I think) in the RAMDisk, and then open one of your older cities with lots of Maxis content (if you have some) and check the performance regarding zooming and rotating.

[FrankU]

Yes, sure...
Maybe I can try that also. Don't know if I manage to check this tonight at home...

[FrankU]

Yesterday I edited my former post and added the text underneath the dotted line.

Does an edited post show up in the "Show new replies to your posts" listing? I never found out, but as I expected an answer by Andreas (who is on the site very often and usually answers a question very quickly), but did not get it, I fear it does not and so I decided to make it a double post.

Now is my new question: how many rules of the site have I broken by this action?
Hopefully I won't be banned now....

-------------------------------------
So I did install Ramdisk. It worked ok. I filled up my RAM disk with all plugins an regions and fired up te game.
What happened? The machine was slower than ever. And I could have thought that out before.
Because:
- When I bought my computer it contained 1GB of RAM. Last year I added 2 and now I have 2,5GB (), so my computer tells me. There must be something rotten there, but that is not the subject now.
- So I have 2,5GB and I directed 2GB to the RAM disk, because my Plugins and my regions together are about 1,8GB.
- Firing up the game made my computer read all SC4 data from HD and all region and plugins from RAMdisk. But then, as it went quite slow, I realised that the computer was probably reading these data into the RAM, which was only 0,5GB, so the rest went onto the virtual memory on HD..... Hence the slowliness in reading.

So I guess that a RAM disk will be usefull if the remaining RAM is large enough to hold: the OS, SC4 data and all plugins. Which would mean at least 3GB. Plus 2GB RAM disk makes 5GB. But with XP I can have only 4GB, isn't it?

Is there something wrong in my conclusions? Please tell me.
Anyway, I uninstalled RAM disk, because the game was slower than ever.

[Andreas]

Yeah, edited postings don't show up in the "new replies" list, unfortunately - but don't worry, a follow-up posting is not a double posting.

Anyway, thanks for the testing; with "only" 2.5 GB RAM it's probably not that useful to dedicate some 2 GB to the RAM disk since the game alone needs some 500 MB RAM at least, not counting Windows itself and possible background programs. I'd leave at least 1 GB RAM for Windows XP and SC4, with Vista, you probably need even 1.5 GB in order to prevent performance problems. In case you still have a city that doesn't use as many plugins, maybe you could test with a reduced plugins folder and a RAM disk of only 1.0 or 1.5 GB - or someone else who has more free RAM (3 GB and more) could give it a try.

[FrankU]

Yeah, edited postings don't show up in the "new replies" list, unfortunately - but don't worry, a follow-up posting is not a double posting.

Well, phewwww...., now I dare to breathe again.

Anyway: is it indeed so that the plugins are stored in RAM before gameplay begins? Or are they read from HD each time they are needed?

[choco]

best CPU for the money?

AMD XII Calisto core.....less than $120, unlocked multiplier, 6MB L3 cache.....and as a bonus, get a motherboard with the AMD750SB southbridge and get 2 free cores!  the AMD750SB has a feature to turn on the 2 disabled cores in the Calisto, which is really a Deneb core downgraded to meet a price point.  Intel can't comete with the Calisto at that price point.....and the motherboards are alot cheaper (AM3 socket) compared to the LGA's

all the other stuff is more preference.  but the most important thing about building a rig:

do NOT be cheap with the power supply and RAM. 



edit: XP only supports 3GB RAM.....x64 bit is needed for anything more.

[Andreas]

I think the in-game stuff and the whole plugins folder is read from the HD during the startup of the game, in order to create an index of all IDs that are used - together with the actualy game (simulator and stuff), this probably needs 100 or 200 megabytes, depending on the size of your plugins folder. Whenever you rotate or zoom the game, it will load the models and textures for this view (which you can easily see, as the game is "building" the new view, starting from the center of your screen, spreading to all sides, adding more items, while your HD is working hard until everything has been loaded. Scrolling is a lot smoother once this has been done, and the whole process will start again once you change the zoom or rotation again.

So that's why I assume that the game would be a lot faster if the models (both in-game and plugins) are kept in a RAM disk, since your RAM is a lot faster than your HD. But then again, maybe the background loader is programmed in a way that it won't read the files that fast. Depending on the amount of stuff that you have in your city, the RAM usage of SC4 will go up to 500 MB at least. There is a command line parameter called "-BackgroundLoader:on/off". The description says

Enables or disables the background model loading system. Normally, when you switch the view zoom or rotation the application loads only the visible objects first and makes a background task of loading the additional models. This allows the game to be more responsive during view changes, but it has the side effect of slowing down the game for the next few seconds or minutes.

I figure that if the background loader is switched off, all models are loaded as fast as they can be read - now if you have ample amounts of RAM and a large RAM disk, you might get a huge performance boost, since everything is basically loaded within a split second. Needless to say, this is only a theory, I wouldn't test that with less than 8 GB RAM or so. But even with activated background loader, the loading process will be a lot faster for sure. IIRC, you can adjust the loading speed in the game options as well, setting them to "fast" will definitely help (and setting them to "slow" might help if you have a slow system, making the whole process even longer, but leaving more resources for the actual game).