Appropriate computer for NS2

Tbolg · July 2012

What could be the minimum requirements for a computer to be able to play ns2 with a playable FPS . Im building my own gaming pc with the following specs and was wondering if this resonable.

-CPU: Intel Core i3-2120 Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz LGA 1155 65W Dual-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 2000
-GPU: EVGA 01G-P3-1556-KR GeForce GTX 550 Ti (Fermi) FPB 1GB 192-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
-Mobo: BIOSTAR B75MU3+ LGA 1155 Intel B75 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
-RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL9D-4GBRL
Game case: Rosewill CHALLENGER-U3 Black Gaming ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
Power supply: COOLMAX ZX Series ZX-500 500W ATX12V v2.2 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply
-Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda ST500DM002 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
-DVD drive: SONY Black SATA DVD-ROM Drive - OEM

Any advice or help with my build and how it could relate to NS2 play i would be very appreciative . im on a $550 budget and this is at $542 before shipping and my reason for building this setup is so i can get back to playing natural selection seeing that i loved playing NS1.

Locklear · July 2012

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Tbolg @ Jul 6 2012, 09:53 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1949414"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>What could be the minimum requirements for a computer to be able to play ns2 with a playable FPS . Im building my own gaming pc with the following specs and was wondering if this resonable.

-CPU: Intel Core i3-2120 Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz LGA 1155 65W Dual-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 2000
-GPU: EVGA 01G-P3-1556-KR GeForce GTX 550 Ti (Fermi) FPB 1GB 192-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
-Mobo: BIOSTAR B75MU3+ LGA 1155 Intel B75 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
-RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL9D-4GBRL
Game case: Rosewill CHALLENGER-U3 Black Gaming ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
Power supply: COOLMAX ZX Series ZX-500 500W ATX12V v2.2 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply
-Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda ST500DM002 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
-DVD drive: SONY Black SATA DVD-ROM Drive - OEM

Any advice or help with my build and how it could relate to NS2 play i would be very appreciative . im on a $550 budget and this is at $542 before shipping and my reason for building this setup is so i can get back to playing natural selection seeing that i loved playing NS1.</div>

This should be fine for NS2 1.0.. but during the beta you'll want a faster CPU. But don't bother upgrading any more than this. This will run the game great on release.

Tbolg · July 2012

So with that setup it wouldnt play the beta version on low settings even ? And when is the release of NS2 1.0 expected ?

player · July 2012

The graphics-card despite being a cheaper variant isn't half bad, and should work well at medium-ish settings. The problem is the CPU-clock. As it stands, NS2 needs insane amounts of CPU-cycles (single-threaded, that is to say it can only effectively use 1 core). 3.3GHz will not yield you a pleasant experience (think 20-40FPS average, it could drop below 10 in bad situations, it's hard to quantify). As to how NS2 v1.0 will be, noone knows at this point. Could be anywhere from smooth to god-awful. It's only about 2 months away, maybe wait and read the experiences others have with the release-version.

ScardyBob · July 2012

That should eventually be able to play NS2 well (i.e. >30fps), but you'll have issues in the current beta in the later part of the game.

Also, I'm a bit more fond of this setup (if you're willing to go with AMD): <a href="http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/339754-28-gaming-2012" target="_blank">http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/339754-28-gaming-2012</a>

Namely, the CPU and GPU are slightly better than what you've posted and the FX-4100 allows for future overclocking, if desired.

Tbolg · July 2012

ScardyBob - So i literally looked up pretty much that exact build on new egg and it was approx. $10 cheaper than the original build i was planning which is awesome . But the question is pretty much the same . would that be capable of running the beta version ... im really wanting to try out the new gameplay . Oh and thank you all for the responses .

Player- much appreciated explanation of what is to be expected from the 550ti . What would you suggest would be a minimum cpu that can hold a reasonablly playable FPS rate start of a round til finish .

ScardyBob · July 2012

Unfourtunately, anything that isn't OCed to at least 4.0GHz isn't going to get decent framerate over the entire match in the current beta. What that rig will do will give you enough fps to play for most of the game (i.e. it'll only drop into the terrible sub 10 fps range during late or long games) and it'll allow you to OC in the future should you desire.

For comparison I have a 2500k OC to 4.5GHz and an HD 6950 and I average 40 fps, dropping only to less than 20fps in the late game.

Tbolg · July 2012

So if i were to use the suggested AMD setup mentioned above, will having this <a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819106009" target="_blank">AMD FX-4170 4.0Ghz</a> cpu run the game properly vs just the fx-4100 ???

Im getting really close to having the money for this build ($529/$570) so i will be needing a solid computer to play ns2 while still maintaining a
budget build seeing as a more expensive build is a little unreasonable for me.
so if the fx-4170 is suffiecient im going to go with this ...

CPU- AMD FX-4170 Zambezi 4.2GHz (4.3GHz Turbo) Socket AM3+ 125W Quad-Core Desktop Processor
GPU- SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6850 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity ...
mobo- ASUS M5A78L-M LX PLUS AM3+ AMD 760G Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
PSU - COOLMAX ZX Series ZX-500 500W ATX12V v2.2 / EPS12V v2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply
RAM- G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory
case - Rosewill CHALLENGER Black Gaming ATX Mid Tower Computer Case, comes with Three Fans
HDD- Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
Driver- LITE-ON Black SATA DVD-ROM Drive

ScardyBob · July 2012

If you can afford the FX-4170, then I'd go for that. There are no guarantees that setup will run NS2 smoothly, but its the best setup I could think at that budget that would do so.

deathmonger · July 2012

I had my old 1090T (now my wife's) OCed to 3.9GHz and I still got ###### frame rates. The fact of the matter is that even at the same clock speed the AMD chips don't give you as much performance. Now I used to be a big AMD fan boy, so don't take it as I'm an Intel nut swinger...I'm very saddened by how AMD has gone down the ######. Here's a little benchmark comparison for you: <a href="http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+FX-4170+Quad-Core" target="_blank">http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AM...-4170+Quad-Core</a>

I'm currently rocking the i5-2500k @ 4.5GHz and I have no issues at all running NS2. I've maybe seen 45 of 50 FPS at the lowest. Sure, it costs a little more but it's worth spending extra on. If you shop the combo deals on Newegg you can shave a lot of money off: <a href="http://www.newegg.com/Special/Combo.aspx?Type=combo&name=Combo-Deals" target="_blank">http://www.newegg.com/Special/Combo.aspx?T...ame=Combo-Deals</a>

Here's the build I just completed for reference:

ASRock Z77 Extreme4
Intel Core i5-2500K
EVGA GeForce GTX 570
CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX750
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866
Intel 330 Series Maple Crest 120GB SATA III SSD
Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB
CORSAIR H100
COOLER MASTER HAF 932 Advanced

Dghelneshi · July 2012

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (deathmonger87 @ Jul 31 2012, 05:31 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1955238"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>I had my old 1090T (now my wife's) OCed to 3.9GHz and I still got ###### frame rates. The fact of the matter is that even at the same clock speed the AMD chips don't give you as much performance. Now I used to be a big AMD fan boy, so don't take it as I'm an Intel nut swinger...I'm very saddened by how AMD has gone down the ######. Here's a little benchmark comparison for you: <a href="http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+FX-4170+Quad-Core" target="_blank">http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AM...-4170+Quad-Core</a></div>
So, this CPU has the second best performance per price in that (synthetic and practically irrelevant) benchmark comparison. Way to own yourself. If you take a look at the whole table, all the AMD CPUs are way ahead in terms of perf/price.

I'm not voicing my opinion here, I just wanted to point out the "evidence" you posted actually contradicts what you are saying (and is also virtually irrelevant due to the synthetic nature of the benchmark).

deathmonger · July 2012

What's the benefit of cost/performance if it still doesn't hit the performance mark you need? Seriously. I have a 1090T @ 3.9GHz and it only gets 33FPS average in NS2. I've never heard of anyone claiming a Bulldozer chip is better than the 1090T either. Bulldozer is a proven flop that just loves to devour power. The 1090T might be a viable option over Intel if you could get it past 4.4GHz (and you'll only hit that if you're lucky).

Cico · August 2012

Despite what i've read here, i think that ns2 already supports multicore CPUs.

I did some test some time ago and i found out that it took advantage of up to three cores.

In a starting game situation, in the middle of the starting base, i got ~ 25 fps with 1 core, ~40 with 2 cores, ~60 with three and nothing more with 4 (Phenom II @ 3.4 Ghz)

Maybe you should do some tests too and see if it's important to have at least 3 cores

Tbolg · August 2012

Sooo the verdict is finally in . I bought my computer hardware... installed everything and finally was able to afford NS2 . Got the game up and running andddddddd here are my specs for this bld:

GIGABYTE Ultra Durable VGA Series GV-R685OC-1GD Radeon HD 6850 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity

$149.99

GIGABYTE GA-B75M-D3V LGA 1155 Intel B75 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard

$69.99

Western Digital Caviar Blue WD5000AAKX 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive - OEM

$64.99

Rosewill CHALLENGER Black Gaming ATX Mid Tower Computer Case, comes with Three Fans-1x Front Blue LED 120mm Fan, 1x Top 140mm Fan, 1x Rear 120mm Fan, option Fans-2x Side 120mm Fan

$49.99

COOLMAX ZX Series ZX-500 500W ATX12V v2.2 / EPS12V v2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply

$39.99

PNY Optima 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model MD8192KD3-1333

$38.99

LITE-ON Black 18X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM SATA DVD-ROM Drive

$19.99

DISCOUNT FOR AUTOADD #49460

$-49.99

Subtotal:

$433.93
Shipping and Handling:

$13.99

Total Amount:

$447.92

And im getting playable performance that is very enjoyable . I have heard time and time again that this setup wont be able to perform later on in games at a playable frame rate but here i am having very little slow down. What command do i use to be able to see FPS in game. I havent figured that out but i still know from expiernce that this is a playable setup for me . Love the new game other than a few changes theyv'e made that differs so heavily from NS1. I miss the old classic but this game is a waaaaay more up to date version of NS. =)

ScardyBob · August 2012

Glad to hear it working for you. The command to show fps is r_stats in console.

Tbolg · August 2012

Thank you scardy bob . im going to play some and check my FPS and get back with yall as to how its doing beginning,mid, and later game . Thanks again =)

Appropriate computer for NS2

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