New computer for the game.

MorganThePirate · 01-29-08, 05:52 PM

I am planning to buy a new computer next month. I would like to better the quality and experience of playing SHIV. Any suggestions? Thanks.........

AVGWarhawk · 01-29-08, 06:18 PM

spare no expense

01-29-08, 06:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

spare no expense

Nuff said

Bathrone · 01-29-08, 06:53 PM

To just run SHIV on a reasonable budget, I'd get:

ASUS or Gigabyte P35 Intel chipset motherboard
4GB of DDR2 RAM, I like the G Skill 4GB in 2x2GB stticks its got performance and value
Q6600 Quad Core Intel which overclocks very well
Thermalright Ultra120 extreme and 120mm fan of your choice (even for stock clocks less CPU heat is more reliability and longer life)
An enterprise grade SATA HDD (far better quality than consumer ones for not much more such as the samsung F1 spoin point raid edition 1TB drive)
A G92 Nvidia 8800 GTS 512 mb, or if the catalyst drivers work well when eventually released an Ati 3870HDX2 that was just released.
A good quality PSU, such as a corsair or Antec quattro

Run it on Vista x64. Apart from running SHIV well, this machine will run other games quite well and have room to move with Directx10 unlike XP. Another major benefit is the removal of 32bit memory addressing limitations. Unlike XP 64bit the driver support for x64 Vista is good.

Im looking at buying in the next month but I'm going to run tri sli so for my needs Im looking at a 780i based chipset motherboard and Im going for a Yorkfield CPU. Im sticking with DDR2 for performance vs price and 4GB is the sweet spot.

Torps · 01-29-08, 09:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MorganThePirate

I am planning to buy a new computer next month. I would like to better the quality and experience of playing SHIV. Any suggestions? Thanks.........

If you have the knowledge build your own, if money is no option. Get an Intel quad core processor, a mobo that supports both DDR2 and DDR3 and also supports processors FSB's of 800,1066,1333,1600 (future processors are supported(go to manufacturers website, you will not know otherwise). Wait till feb 15th to get the 9800GTX Nvidia card. Get 2 SATA II Hard drives, Creative X-FI soundcard, minimum 600 watt UPS. In my book those are the most important. I am estimating you can buy all those parts for about $1500 off of newegg/tigerdirect.

Just an idea.

Kapitan_Phillips · 01-29-08, 09:28 PM

I'm having a really good experience with my system:

2.9 GHz Intel Processor
1GB RAM (could do with more)
256MB NVidia 7300 GT

My resolution is 1024x768 (limits of my monitor), and the game runs fine

You'll probably want a bit more, though. Just hunt around.

Bathrone · 01-29-08, 10:18 PM

IMHO your better off getting a DDR2 only mobo. DDR3 wont be affordable anytime soon in 4GB. And besides, the mobos with both ddr2 and ddr3 typically dont have a dual channel memory configuration and you will loose out on memory bandwidth which does effect SHIV.

I also wouldnt get more than one SATA drive - you can get up to 1TB unformatted anyway these days. If you look at the research, the more drives you have the greater the risk of failure. RAID 1 is a waste of storage space and raid 5 requires a hardware xor engine for performance and above all its just more cost and complexity. RAID isnt a backup solution anyway so your still left with the problem of backups. HDDs are the most unreliable component of a PC.

The 9800GTX is delayed and wont be available until atleast late March. It will be paper launched in February but no channell availability until late March.

CaptainHaplo · 01-29-08, 10:37 PM

Morgan, there are lots of options - some of the expensive ones thrown out here right now. How bout giving us a baseline budget - that gives us more to work with regarding recommendations.

AkbarGulag · 01-29-08, 11:27 PM

Beware the Asus P5E motherboard....

Its a lemon ^^

Rockin Robbins · 01-30-08, 05:22 AM

For showing the difference between bragging and helping. And I'll wait for that info you requested before chiming in with any advice. Warning: I'm cheap and not impressed by numbers unless they mean something.

MorganThePirate · 01-31-08, 12:27 AM

My budget is around $2,500 more or less; I can build it; I did that with the actual computer. However, I am not a computer geek. Thank you very much for your input and ideas.....

AkbarGulag · 01-31-08, 01:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MorganThePirate

However, I am not a computer geek.

So glad we could live to see an age when that is no longer considered a negative

kiwi_2005 · 01-31-08, 01:43 AM

SH4 will run very well & looks great on a 3.2ghz Intel dual core, 2gigs ram, GF-7800GTX 256ram, winxp pro. Everything in graphics options enabled. So if you go higher in the specs you wont have any trouble about it running and looking great.

@AkbarGulag, love your sig!

Mackey · 01-31-08, 10:52 AM

I want to buy a desktop PC also but to be honest I am overwhelmed with all the information and figures.

Below are the recommended specs for 3 games I like the look of and each is different so naturally I am looking at a 2 / 3GHz Pentium 4, 500GB HD, 4GB RAM, 256MB DirectX 9c compliant Video Card.

What I really want to know is what Spec would give the best performance possible from the game without over kill, for example I know a 3Ghz machine would be better but would a 2Ghz machine perform with no noticeable difference and 256MB RAM Video card, would a 512 Card make a difference.

I just want a machine that will play Silent Hunter 4 at maximum resolution with maximum frame rate possible for the game with minimum crashes.

Dangerous Waters
Pentium II 550Mhz - 128 MB RAM
Direct 3D compliant Video Card with 64MB Video RAM
Desktop Resolution of 1024X768 @ 32 or 16-Bit.
850MB hard-drive space

Flight Simulator X Deluxe
1 GHz or faster
Hard Disk:
14 GB
Memory:
256 MB RAM for Windows XP with Service Pack 2
512 MB RAM for Windows Vista
Other:
32 MB DirectX 9 compatible Video card
DirectX 9 hardware compatible Sound Card and audio board with speakers and/or headphones

Silent Hunter 4
Processor: 2GHz Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon (4 3GHz Pentium or AMD Athlon recommended)
RAM: 1 GB (2 GB recommended)
Video Card: 128 MB RAM DirectX® 9–compliant, video card capable of rendering Pixel Shader 2.0 (256 MB RAM recommended) (see supported list*)
Sound Card: DirectX 9 –compliant sound card
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c or later (included)
Hard Drive Space: 6 GB
*Supported Video Cards: ATI® RADEON® 9600/9700/9800, X300 to X850, X1300 to X1800 NVIDIA® GeForce™ 6200/6600/6800/7800

jas39 · 01-31-08, 10:58 AM

How about this for FSX and SH4:

www.cyberpowerpc.com

http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/system/I..._Configurator/

$770.00

(before all applicable rebates)

CASE: ATX MEDIUM TOWER CASE 350 WATT (BLACK COLOR)
CPU: (Sckt775)Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E8400 CPU @ 3.00GHz 1333FSB 6MB L2 Cache 64-bit
MOTHERBOARD: MSI G31M-F Intel G31 Chipset LGA775 FSB1333 DDR2 Mainboard
MEMORY: (Req.DDR2 MainBoard)2GB (2x1GB) PC6400 DDR2/800 Dual Channel Memory (Corsair Value Select or Major Brand)
VIDEO CARD: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB 16X PCI Express (Major Brand Powered by NVIDIA)
VIDEO CARD 2: NONE
VIDEO CARD 3: NONE
LCD Monitor: NONE
HARD DRIVE: Single Hard Drive (160GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 8MB Cache 7200RPM HDD)
Data Hard Drive: NONE
Optical Drive: (Special Price) 20X DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW DRIVE DUAL LAYER (BLACK COLOR)
Optical Drive 2: NONE
SOUND: 3D WAVE ON-BOARD 5.1 SOUND CARD

01-29-08, 05:52 PM	#1
MorganThePirate Mate Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: On battle stations in sunny AZ Posts: 54 Downloads: 12 Uploads: 0	New computer for the game. I am planning to buy a new computer next month. I would like to better the quality and experience of playing SHIV. Any suggestions? Thanks.........

01-29-08, 06:18 PM	#2
AVGWarhawk Lucky Jack Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: In a 1954 Buick. Posts: 28,253 Downloads: 90 Uploads: 0	spare no expense __________________ “You're painfully alive in a drugged and dying culture.” ― Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road

01-29-08, 09:28 PM	#6
Kapitan_Phillips Silent Hunter Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Swansea Posts: 3,903 Downloads: 204 Uploads: 0	I'm having a really good experience with my system: 2.9 GHz Intel Processor 1GB RAM (could do with more) 256MB NVidia 7300 GT My resolution is 1024x768 (limits of my monitor), and the game runs fine You'll probably want a bit more, though. Just hunt around. __________________ Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into.

01-29-08, 10:37 PM	#8
CaptainHaplo Silent Hunter Join Date: Apr 2007 Posts: 4,404 Downloads: 29 Uploads: 0	Morgan, there are lots of options - some of the expensive ones thrown out here right now. How bout giving us a baseline budget - that gives us more to work with regarding recommendations. __________________ Good Hunting! Captain Haplo

01-29-08, 11:27 PM	#9
AkbarGulag Samurai Navy Join Date: May 2007 Location: cfgdatsimZOMGddstgasns Posts: 571 Downloads: 21 Uploads: 1	Beware the Asus P5E motherboard.... Its a lemon ^^ __________________ "6 days into his patrol, the first enemy ship was spotted... a trawler... ...It was at this point, Captain AkbarGulag realised how green his crew was..."

01-29-08, 06:53 PM	#4
Bathrone Ensign Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 234 Downloads: 82 Uploads: 0	To just run SHIV on a reasonable budget, I'd get: ASUS or Gigabyte P35 Intel chipset motherboard 4GB of DDR2 RAM, I like the G Skill 4GB in 2x2GB stticks its got performance and value Q6600 Quad Core Intel which overclocks very well Thermalright Ultra120 extreme and 120mm fan of your choice (even for stock clocks less CPU heat is more reliability and longer life) An enterprise grade SATA HDD (far better quality than consumer ones for not much more such as the samsung F1 spoin point raid edition 1TB drive) A G92 Nvidia 8800 GTS 512 mb, or if the catalyst drivers work well when eventually released an Ati 3870HDX2 that was just released. A good quality PSU, such as a corsair or Antec quattro Run it on Vista x64. Apart from running SHIV well, this machine will run other games quite well and have room to move with Directx10 unlike XP. Another major benefit is the removal of 32bit memory addressing limitations. Unlike XP 64bit the driver support for x64 Vista is good. Im looking at buying in the next month but I'm going to run tri sli so for my needs Im looking at a 780i based chipset motherboard and Im going for a Yorkfield CPU. Im sticking with DDR2 for performance vs price and 4GB is the sweet spot.

01-29-08, 10:18 PM	#7
Bathrone Ensign Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 234 Downloads: 82 Uploads: 0	IMHO your better off getting a DDR2 only mobo. DDR3 wont be affordable anytime soon in 4GB. And besides, the mobos with both ddr2 and ddr3 typically dont have a dual channel memory configuration and you will loose out on memory bandwidth which does effect SHIV. I also wouldnt get more than one SATA drive - you can get up to 1TB unformatted anyway these days. If you look at the research, the more drives you have the greater the risk of failure. RAID 1 is a waste of storage space and raid 5 requires a hardware xor engine for performance and above all its just more cost and complexity. RAID isnt a backup solution anyway so your still left with the problem of backups. HDDs are the most unreliable component of a PC. The 9800GTX is delayed and wont be available until atleast late March. It will be paper launched in February but no channell availability until late March.

01-30-08, 05:22 AM	#10
Rockin Robbins Navy Seal Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: DeLand, FL Posts: 8,900 Downloads: 135 Uploads: 52	thank you CaptainHaplo For showing the difference between bragging and helping. And I'll wait for that info you requested before chiming in with any advice. Warning: I'm cheap and not impressed by numbers unless they mean something. __________________ Sub Skipper's Bag of Tricks, Slightly Subnuclear Mk 14 & Cutie, Slightly Subnuclear Deck Gun, EZPlot 2.0, TMOPlot, TMOKeys, SH4CMS

01-31-08, 12:27 AM	#11
MorganThePirate Mate Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: On battle stations in sunny AZ Posts: 54 Downloads: 12 Uploads: 0	My budget My budget is around $2,500 more or less; I can build it; I did that with the actual computer. However, I am not a computer geek. Thank you very much for your input and ideas.....

01-31-08, 01:43 AM	#13
kiwi_2005 Eternal Patrol Join Date: May 2004 Location: Aeoteroa Posts: 7,382 Downloads: 223 Uploads: 1	SH4 will run very well & looks great on a 3.2ghz Intel dual core, 2gigs ram, GF-7800GTX 256ram, winxp pro. Everything in graphics options enabled. So if you go higher in the specs you wont have any trouble about it running and looking great. @AkbarGulag, love your sig! __________________ RIP kiwi_2005 Those who can't laugh at themselves leave the job to others.

01-31-08, 10:52 AM	#14
Mackey Swabbie Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: London, United Kingdom Posts: 13 Downloads: 3 Uploads: 0	I want to buy a desktop PC also but to be honest I am overwhelmed with all the information and figures. Below are the recommended specs for 3 games I like the look of and each is different so naturally I am looking at a 2 / 3GHz Pentium 4, 500GB HD, 4GB RAM, 256MB DirectX 9c compliant Video Card. What I really want to know is what Spec would give the best performance possible from the game without over kill, for example I know a 3Ghz machine would be better but would a 2Ghz machine perform with no noticeable difference and 256MB RAM Video card, would a 512 Card make a difference. I just want a machine that will play Silent Hunter 4 at maximum resolution with maximum frame rate possible for the game with minimum crashes. Dangerous Waters Pentium II 550Mhz - 128 MB RAM Direct 3D compliant Video Card with 64MB Video RAM Desktop Resolution of 1024X768 @ 32 or 16-Bit. 850MB hard-drive space Flight Simulator X Deluxe 1 GHz or faster Hard Disk: 14 GB Memory: 256 MB RAM for Windows XP with Service Pack 2 512 MB RAM for Windows Vista Other: 32 MB DirectX 9 compatible Video card DirectX 9 hardware compatible Sound Card and audio board with speakers and/or headphones Silent Hunter 4 Processor: 2GHz Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon (4 3GHz Pentium or AMD Athlon recommended) RAM: 1 GB (2 GB recommended) Video Card: 128 MB RAM DirectX® 9–compliant, video card capable of rendering Pixel Shader 2.0 (256 MB RAM recommended) (see supported list) Sound Card: DirectX 9 –compliant sound card DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c or later (included) Hard Drive Space: 6 GB Supported Video Cards: ATI® RADEON® 9600/9700/9800, X300 to X850, X1300 to X1800 NVIDIA® GeForce™ 6200/6600/6800/7800

01-31-08, 10:58 AM	#15
jas39 A-ganger Join Date: Aug 2006 Posts: 77 Downloads: 25 Uploads: 0	How about this for FSX and SH4: www.cyberpowerpc.com http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/system/I..._Configurator/ $770.00 (before all applicable rebates) CASE: ATX MEDIUM TOWER CASE 350 WATT (BLACK COLOR) CPU: (Sckt775)Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E8400 CPU @ 3.00GHz 1333FSB 6MB L2 Cache 64-bit MOTHERBOARD: MSI G31M-F Intel G31 Chipset LGA775 FSB1333 DDR2 Mainboard MEMORY: (Req.DDR2 MainBoard)2GB (2x1GB) PC6400 DDR2/800 Dual Channel Memory (Corsair Value Select or Major Brand) VIDEO CARD: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB 16X PCI Express (Major Brand Powered by NVIDIA) VIDEO CARD 2: NONE VIDEO CARD 3: NONE LCD Monitor: NONE HARD DRIVE: Single Hard Drive (160GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 8MB Cache 7200RPM HDD) Data Hard Drive: NONE Optical Drive: (Special Price) 20X DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW DRIVE DUAL LAYER (BLACK COLOR) Optical Drive 2: NONE SOUND: 3D WAVE ON-BOARD 5.1 SOUND CARD