Upgrade Vid Card for Star Citizen

[ToySoldier]

I'm looking to upgrade(SLI?) my Video Card to play Star Citizen (Beta) [Cry Engine 4] when it comes out later this year. Any suggestions?

Operating System
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit SP1

CPU
Intel Core i7 920 @ 2.67GHz
Bloomfield 45nm Technology

RAM
6.00GB Triple-Channel DDR3 @ 668MHz (9-9-9-24)

Motherboard
Alienware 04VWF2 (CPU 1)

22" Monitor -
VX2250 SERIES (1920x1080 @60Hz)

Video Card
ATI Radeon HD 5870

Storage
931GB Western Digital WDC WD1000DHTZ-04N21V0 (SATA)

 

[Liquid_Static]

General consensus seems to be that the card to get at this point is an aftermarket R9 290 (although I'm no longer sure how true that is with the 14.4 WHQL drivers).

If you want to grab two cards, grab 2 GTX 780's and call it a day. Crossfire has always been a headache for me, and there are no R9 290's available with solid blower coolers.

 

[Gloomy]

General consensus seems to be that the card to get at this point is an aftermarket R9 290 (although I'm no longer sure how true that is with the 14.4 WHQL drivers).

If you want to grab two cards, grab 2 GTX 780's and call it a day. Crossfire has always been a headache for me, and there are no R9 290's available with solid blower coolers.

What's wrong with the WHQL?

 

[Subyman]

Wait. No need to upgrade for something thats not out yet.

 

[blackened23]

I suggest you ask this 2 years from now, since Chris Roberts just mentioned that the final release date is going to be "mid 2016" as an optimistic estimate.

https://forums.robertsspaceindustri...is-roberts-said-to-me-for-my-gamestar-article

By then, the 780ti and 290X will be a distant memory. So you shouldn't even bother to think about upgrading for a game that is 2 years away.

 

[Stuka87]

Upgrading now for a game that wont be out for ~2 years is beyond pointless.

Just wait, unless you really need to upgrade for some other reason.

 

[ToySoldier]

Since I bought the $275 RSI Constellation Pledge Package, I'm guaranteed access to the BETA version. According to Chris Roberts, BETA "might" be available to play by the end of this year or perhaps mid 2015.

But from what your saying, my system (CPU/Motherboard) can easily handle future video cards in the next year or so? Correct?

The power supply is 875w (0gm34r)

 

[3DVagabond]

Wait. No need to upgrade for something thats not out yet.

This. I'd wait until it was closer to the time. Or circumstances changed to push an upgrade now.

Since I bought the $275 RSI Constellation Pledge Package, I'm guaranteed access to the BETA version. According to Chris Roberts, BETA "might" be available to play by the end of this year or perhaps mid 2015.

But from what your saying, my system (CPU/Motherboard) can easily handle future video cards in the next year or so? Correct?

The power supply is 875w (0gm34r)

Your system is fairly old. Your CPU is going to be a bottleneck in some games. Star Citizen running in DX is likely to be one of them.

 

[Stuka87]

Yes you can put a new card in. Star Citizen is supposed to support Mantle, so an AMD card would help a lot with your CPU bottleneck.

But really, I would look into upgrading your whole system in the next year or so so you are read for the beta.

 

[ToySoldier]

Thanks for all the info. Maybe I'll just have my GF use this with a future 'Mantle' Vid card and build a new system around a 4K monitor just before the BETA starts.

 

[3DVagabond]

As much as you can, please inform us how the game development goes, please? I might actually have to put a system together myself designed around running this game. I'm really psyched up about it. It seems awesome!

 

[Silverforce11]

There's a lot of positive feedback from alpha players, graphically its going to blow every other MMO away so definitely a good GPU is a must.

Mantle is the wildcard for sure. However, like the good advice here, wait til you get into BETA first and see before deciding on a new rig.

 

[ToySoldier]

"AMD's *Mantle* will allow us to extract more performance from an AMD Radeon GPU than any other graphics API," said Chris Roberts, CEO, Cloud Imperium Games.

"Mantle is vitally important for a game like Star Citizen, which is being designed with the need for massive GPU horsepower. With Mantle, our team can spend more time achieving our perfect artistic vision, and less time worrying about whether or not today’s gaming hardware will be ready to deliver it."

http://www.amd.com/en-us/press-releases/Pages/amds-revolutionary-mantle-2013nov4.aspx

 

[ToySoldier]

As much as you can, please inform us how the game development goes, please? I might actually have to put a system together myself designed around running this game. I'm really psyched up about it. It seems awesome!

Sure no problem... I will within any limits of a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). I've never been involved in a BETA before.

Other than Galactic Civilizations III, I ONLY plan on playing Star Citizen for the next 4-5 years. Probably longer with MODs.

I whipped up an early 'Dream System' that will evolve. Of course I will be holding off until the BETA becomes available to me (Early 2015?). I dont have ALPHA access. I'm shooting for a $5K budget (monitor xtra)

27" or 32" 4K monitor (1.2a compliant). This will be my first time building a Gaming PC around a monitor.

Intel Core i7 (8 Core - Unlocked "Haswell-E" Processor)
Intel motherboard (w/x99 Wellsburg chipset)

512MB x2 'RAID 0' 1TB SSD configuration (1000 MB/s with M.2 support)
or
PCIe SSD

16GB (DDR4 RAM)

GTX 780 Ti x2 in SLI ???
or
Radeon R9 290X CrossFire ???

PC Power & Cooling Silencer Mk III Series 1200W

Everything will be water-cooled

The Nvidia’s GTX Titan Z looks REALLY sweet but the price will HAVE to drop A LOT.

The area I live in offers 1GB Internet Access too:

Co-Mo Connect announces GIGABIT pricing,

Internet at 1 gigabit per second will cost just $99.95 a month when it begins in March or April. This will be the first Gigabit Internet service in rural America.


.

 

[Silverforce11]

Well if you are aiming for 4K Star Citizen you will need a lot of GPU grunt.

CF R290X is a minimum. Current gen stuff, R290X scale better in CF and at 4K than 780ti. Especially under water, they fly.

But we won't know how Star Citizen behave, its an MMO FPS, the only other heavy graphics game that comes close to the complexity is BF4 in 64 MP.

http://hardocp.com/article/2014/04/08/amd_radeon_r9_295x2_video_card_review/3

"With all settings equal you can see the performance advantage the AMD R9 295X2 and AMD R9 290X CrossFire have over the GTX 780 Ti SLI. The new AMD Radeon R9 295X2 is 30% faster than the GeForce GTX 780 Ti SLI!"

Definitely you should wait for BETA and actually see how turns out before building this expensive rig of yours. So atm, its kinda premature to talk about builds. It could well be another 9 months before BETA is ready.

 

[OCGuy]

As others mentioned, hold on to your wallet.

 

[antihelten]

I whipped up an early 'Dream System' that will evolve. Of course I will be holding off until the BETA becomes available to me (Early 2015?). I dont have ALPHA access. I'm shooting for a $5K budget (monitor xtra)

Just so you know, even if you didn't get your hands on an alpha slot in time, you can still get access to the various modules during alpha by buying a module pass ($5). Although don't expect to get access right at release (the dogfighting module should hopefully be released in a couple of weeks), since they are doing a staggered release.

With regards to hardware, you might also want to consider if the Oculus Rift is something you're interested in, since Star Citizen is being made with it in mind. I'm guessing that the consumer version of the Rift will require about the same amount of grunt as a 4k monitor.

 

[SPBHM]

wait for the game, new (faster) VGAs will come, the current fastest GPU is like over 2 years old (gk110), this should mean a new high end gen is not far, and if you are only interested in this game and it's not ready yet, better to just wait.

 

[Arkadrel]

I'm looking to upgrade(SLI?) my Video Card to play Star Citizen (Beta) [Cry Engine 3] when it comes out later this year. Any suggestions?

MANTLE works with star citizen.

Where it ll matter the most, when theres lots of players around, haveing mantle will help alot.

So Id go with something like a 290.

 

[HurleyBird]

To be fair, Star Citizen will also support PhysX and judging from Roberts' mentality it will only be a matter of time until they support DX12. I'm not completely sure, but I'm pretty certain True Audio will be supported as well.

A 290X is probably the best product if you want to buy something now, but I'm going to throw my hat in with the crowd that says to wait a bit.

 

[ToySoldier]

I agree with waiting until Chris Roberts confirms a firm BETA date. I'm too busy to play computer games now with college until I finish my B.S. this December.

It is fun to 'evolve' my future build with the latest hardware until that happens.

4K (1.2a compliant) monitors will really smoke the console gamers. The 4K 'in game' graphics are just stunning for Star Citizen.

 

[moonbogg]

Go for the big Maxwell refresh. The 880 and 870's were good, 980/970 was amazing of course, but you may as well wait a few weeks for the refresh. It will be out only a couple weeks after the game releases and should give another 15-20% increase over the 980. Rumor has it they are calling it the GTX 985./975.

 

[Subyman]

I haven't kept abreast on the progress of Star Citizen. I strutted around the hanger last year and it looked pretty sweet. I'll probably be going to Oculus route instead of a 4k monitor for the game, but I may also have a 4K for when I'm mining/doing business.

Wait for that module to come out and then next day the best GPU you can afford from amazon

 

[ToySoldier]

I haven't kept abreast on the progress of Star Citizen. I strutted around the hanger last year and it looked pretty sweet. I'll probably be going to Oculus route instead of a 4k monitor for the game, but I may also have a 4K for when I'm mining/doing business.

Oculus is another wild card but now that they are flush with $2 Billion from Facebook, they are in awesome shape to make Oculus a viable option for Star Citizen. Chris Roberts says he supports Oculus despite the Facebook buyout. If I was the CEO of Oculus, I would refund all the Kickstarter backers. On that same note, Chris Roberts insists he will NOT be bought out for any amount.

I've never heard of Star Conflict before but it looks fun. For free... why not?

Star Conflict gets Oculus Rift support

Star Conflict, the free-to-play space combat MMO, just got a big update. If you’ve already got your hands on an Oculus Rift, you’ll be able to flit around the stars, getting in high speed chases, all without the distractions of the real world.


Gaijin Entertainment and Star Gem Inc. have also added Linux support on top of the Oculus Rift update, which means it now supports Windows, Mac and Linux.

 

[Headfoot]

Don't waste your time with SSD Raid0. It's complete snake oil and is SLOWER than simply buying a faster SSD in the first place. The RAID array adds latency which is one of the primary drivers of SSD's perceived performance. If you want faster SSDs then get a PCI-e based one on the latest controller when the time comes.