How can I make this PC Sota-ready?

Hi all,

My wife is showing some interest in SotA, but her PC is just way too old for it. I'm no PC-expert, but I can fiddle here and there to upgrade a few things, but I'd like some advice first.

Here's what she has:
-i5-2500 @ 3.3Gig
-6 Gig RAM
-Radeon HD 6800
-Windows 10 64-bit

I know, scary, right?

Now, is this worth salvaging at all? Is there just one item I can upgrade to make SotA playable? Maybe I can keep the proc and just upgrade the RAM and vid card?

We don't need to play at Ultra/Beautiful, Fastest is fine.

TIA for any tips.

PS: If this PC is a wash, anyone have any good DIY PC building video links?

 

that's a lot better with what I'm using now...

for vid card... a dev told me to get at least a GTX 1050 or a RX 560...

 

I'm not familiar with amd video cards but you definitely need more ram. Also something not on your list: a ssd really speeds scene loads.

 

today... I went out and bought a GTX 1050 for $200... there was also a GTX 1050ti but I was short in cash...

I guess it's better than my GT 730 and I hope it's good enough for SotA...

 

MUCH better than a 730. Was a smart, cost effective upgrade and you will certainly see improvements.

 

FYI - GeForce Experience is your best friend. Low mem thumb-print and great way to keep you drivers updated. Also is fantastic for helping configuring games if you allow it to scan your gaming folders and identify titles it has profiles for.

 

The bare minimum RAM needed is 8GByte, if possible upgrade her system to 16GByte or more.
A SSD would improve the experience, also a small (and cheap one) would do. If you plan to but the pagefile.sys to the SSD also, seek for one with a high write IOPS. (Low Budget suggestion: Intenso 3813430)

 

A RAM upgrade and ssd would do wonders, but if you don't want to do that, here's a few tips:

fastest video settings of course.
specialize in ranged combat and fight from a distance. spell effects will bog you down, so fighting with a bow and avoiding up-close encounters with mages will help.
make sure there are no other programs running in the background when running SotA that aren't completely essential.

I run SotA all the time on one of my laptops that only has 6gb RAM. It's pretty much enough, until you get surrounded by mobs that produce spell effects.

 

And once you go SSD you will never go back. Got my first SSD last year and went through the process over the past few months of finally retiring my other old HDD spinners. Just unreal (and surreal) how accustomed I had become to the sound that was shockingly and noticeably absent when my last old HDD was put to rest.

 

I've decided to write a guide to help maximize performance for lower spec machines. It can be found here.

 

How is the 1050 TI better than a 1050? What makes it better?

Would you get a 1050 TI over a 1060?

 

http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-GTX-1050-Ti-vs-Nvidia-GTX-1050/3649vs3650

GTX 1060 is significantly better than GTX 1050TI.

http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-GTX-1050-Ti-vs-Nvidia-GTX-1060-6GB/3649vs3639

Regarding the OP, as others have said upgrading ram to 16gb and using a SSD would help the most.

 

I would think ultimately you will want a faster computer. The recommended ram is 12gigs of system memory I believe. As others have mentioned an SSD will make the game and scene changes load up faster. The two main things to upgrade would definitely be the RAM and GPU. If you do decide to build a computer, here is a good place to do comparison shopping and also you can put together your computer piece by piece...

PC Part Picker

It also has lots of filtering options; low price to high, memory/storage capacity, ratings,etc. If you need help putting together a new computer there are tons of videos on YouTube to help you along. Good Luck!

 

I'm using an RX480, and aside from the issues that everyone, regardless of GPU maker, seems to have, my card runs fine. It may not be as fast/good as a Nvidia, but it is way cheaper(or at least it was before crypto-miners took a shine to them.)

 

It's possible there was a update that fixed the issue, there were a number of people that were having problems while using AMD products. Now that I think about it, I can't remember if it was AMD CPUs or GPUs.

 

The login crash bug that was affecting AMD users has long been patched out. I have two PCs with AMD and they both run it fine these days. Haven't heard anything else about Unity and AMD having issues since then.

 

I think I do remember reading about an issue with certain AMD CPU's(not all of them) If I remember correctly I think it was something like the AMD A8's.