Building a new PC for GW2

Level 4 Member Posts: 628 Registered: 2009-03-22

So I was downloading the Tribes Ascend beta last week and after 5 hours of DLing I learned my computer couldn't handle the program. It got me thinking that I should probably have a new computer by gw2. Is there any update on required specs? All I've really seen is that they keep saying "We want a game with great artistic scenery that will still run on mid-range gaming PCs".

I have had my current PC for about 4 years now so I'm well over-due for a new rig. Steve, I know you are building a new computer as well so if you or anyone else sees any good deals on parts let me know. I'm checking Newegg almost every day now to get a feel for current prices of things. It's been a while since I was in the PC making game so I'm totally out of date on what video cards/CPUs/motherboards I should be looking into.

Administrator Posts: 3612 Registered: 2009-03-17

mrseasonsaltz wrote:

It got me thinking that I should probably have a new computer by gw2. Is there any update on required specs? All I've really seen is that they keep saying "We want a game with great artistic scenery that will still run on mid-range gaming PCs".

I have had my current PC for about 4 years now so I'm well over-due for a new rig. Steve, I know you are building a new computer as well so if you or anyone else sees any good deals on parts let me know. I'm checking Newegg almost every day now to get a feel for current prices of things. It's been a while since I was in the PC making game so I'm totally out of date on what video cards/CPUs/motherboards I should be looking into.

The Press Beta was actually the first time that GW2 was tested on various computer architecture (as all previous ANet tech show demos were ran on their setups). From what I've read, for the most part things ran smoothly. Some of the choppy footage from videos you see on the net are due to a big FPS loss from cappers running FRAPS. Also, as is par for the course, those with ATI/AMD videocards were having more issues than those with nVidia. (Gotta love those ATI/AMD drivers!)

GW2 is still planned to scale on a wide variety of hardware. I've seen Press Beta screenshots of low settings that look almost as bad as GW1's minimalistic settings, so it scales down pretty far. The default renderer for GW2 is still DirectX9 (with high-end options for DX10/DX11, I think) so that's a good sign for compatibility. I wouldn't put it on the same scale as GW1 performance-wise, however, by any means. Keep in mind that this is a more open world now (less instancing) and there is a hell of a lot more going on than in the average GW1 outpost, etc.. I've stated this before, but I think a good barometer for decent GW2 settings would be your average framerate in Kamadan, D1. That is just my theory, but how true it ends up being I'll never know as I won't have this computer around to test said theory.

I'd be willing to bet any decent multi-core processor + videocard setup will run GW2 just fine. A quality CPU is going to be key for this with all of the surrounding stuff going on around you in the open world.

The one thing I hope the ANet devs have taken into account is being able to run multiple accounts with one install. (AFAIK, WoW allows this.) GW2 is probably going to be many times the install size of GW1 so I'd hate to have to copy/paste the install folder for a version of GW2 multi-launcher.

I haven't fully decided on what I plan to build for my next PC yet, but I'm waiting for the new Intel processors to come out in April (Ivy Bridge) and if I have time (ie. GW2 doesn't come out before) the new nVidia 600 series videocards, which if rumors are to be believed are going to be significantly more powerful than the nVidia 500 series cards.

The main thing that should be kept in mind is that hard drives are still priced very high due to short supply from last fall's Thailand flood which slowed/stopped assembly lines in several HD manufacturing plants. Prices on those aren't expected to drop down to their old levels until the 2nd half of 2012 - at least (you know the free market - gouge if you can!) - so I wouldn't splurge on a new HD unless you absolutely have to.

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Administrator Posts: 3612 Registered: 2009-03-17

FWIW, the new Ivy Bridge CPUs aren't supposed to be drastically more powerful than the current Sandy Bridge chips. Something like only ~10% extra performance, but they will generate less heat and use less overall power. Sandy Bridge chips might get knocked down in price a bit with the Ivy Bridge release so if IBs aren't deemed must-buys by the tech geeks out there then I'll probably just go with a SB setup instead. Some Sandy Bridge motherboards are going to be forward-compatible with the new Ivy Bridges (pending new BIOS firmware), so that's something to keep in mind.

Don't go with anything less than 8GB of ram.

USB 2.0 is the current standard but USB 3.0 is starting to take over so keep that in mind for your motherboard purchase if you can. There are a lot of plug-n-play USB devices now (and in the future), so you're going to want that extra bandwidth if the price is right.

Also keep in mind that Windows 8 is on the way soon, but why, I don't know. (From this vantage point it looks like Microsoft's attempt to get their own app store in the home.) In the almost 2 years that I've had Windows 7, I've never had even ONE crash or blue screen, and I've never had to reformat even once. W8 may end up being worthwhile in the long-term, but I fear it will have a putrid early-adoption rate due to how rock solid W7 already is and also how exorbitant the general pricing for Windows is overall. (Should be much lower, like $50, IMO.)

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Level 4 Member Posts: 628 Registered: 2009-03-22

Yeah from what I've seen out of Windows 8 I'm not too excited about it. Being that I still run XP on my desktop I'm a traditionalist. Windows looks to be getting closer and closer to a Mac OS which is in my opinion a bad thing. I have W7 on my laptop so I've gotten a feel for it and I expect to be running it on my new desktop.

Administrator Posts: 3612 Registered: 2009-03-17

mrseasonsaltz wrote:

Good to hear your finally building your pc. Do you have all of your parts ordered?

I won't be building my PC for another 2-3 months. Intel's Ivy Bridge CPUs are due out on April 29th (5%-20% faster than Sandy ~~Vag~~ Bridge depending on the benchmarks at the same price), so I'm waiting for those + some leeway time for impressions and for any of the new motherboards to work out the driver kinks. nVidia is coming out with new 600 series GeForce cards soon but with the ATI 7000 series so overpriced those new nVidias will most likely be too. Basically, for now I'll have to go with a 500 series GeForce card (fuck ATI) and upgrade down the road.

Ideally I'd wait until mid-summer to build my new PC - especially since that's around the earliest we can expect to see GW2 released - but the high-end PC specs & prices won't change much from May-June to July-August, if at all, so no need to put it off for very much longer. Also, I don't think my old-ass PC in its current form will last more than 3-4 months anyways. Starting to have some issues over the past few weeks with it. Nothing that keeps me from using it, but definitely stuff that fits into the "well, why not just say fuck it and abandon ship now?" category.

Yeah, that Hard Reset game looks fucking awesome.

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Level 4 Member Posts: 628 Registered: 2009-03-22

TideSwayer wrote:

Also, I don't think my old-ass PC in its current form will last more than 3-4 months anyways. Starting to have some issues over the past few weeks with it. Nothing that keeps me from using it, but definitely stuff that fits into the "well, why not just say fuck it and abandon ship now?" category.

Lol you're not the only one. I started getting blue screens and random freezes on my desktop a few days ago. Now idk whats happening with it I tryed resetting all of my Bios settings to normal but I'm still getting freezes a few minutes after XP is loaded. It might be my video card but I doubt a video card failure would cause blue screens. I really haven't tinkered with it very much because I've been too busy with schoolwork the past few days but we'll see. Hopefully its not something catastrophic.

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Building a new PC for GW2

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