Desktop PC Spec for FoG II Etc?

[Bombax]

Hi folks, my old desktop has finally given up the ghost, and I was wondering if anyone on here can suggest what spec I need to go for to -

i) Run FoG II at a reasonable speed. It was taking forever on my old PC, which didn't have a dedicated graphics card or a powerful processor. As FoG II is more or less the only PC game I play now it's the one I'd like to get running at maximum efficiency (so AFAIK I don't need anything that runs more resource heavy games).

ii) Run basic common PC tasks - word processing, photo editing, browsing etc.

I'm hoping to get some idea of what spec I might need, as I'm really flummoxed by all the options available.

I'm also hoping to stick to the cheaper end of the market, i.e. a maximum of around £1,000 or $1,000, - and hopefully less!

Thanks in advance for any help you can give to this confused old codger!

[lapdog666]

GRAPHICS CARD: https://www.amazon.com/Gigabyte-GeForce ... JR0VNRADBP

PROCESSOR: https://www.amazon.com/Intel-i5-9600K-D ... B07HHLX1R8

RAM : https://tinyurl.com/y66nvexy (amazon,shortened link , was too long)

MOTHERBOARD: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07HM6ZC9D/?tag=pcpapi-20

HDD: https://www.amazon.com/Red-2TB-NAS-Hard ... r=1-3&th=1

PSU: https://www.amazon.com/CORSAIR-RM750x-C ... le_ce?th=1

CASE: https://www.amazon.com/Thermaltake-Temp ... =pc&sr=1-3

TOTAL : 1135 USD or 860 British Pounds
SHIPPING NOT INCLUDED

edit: if you want to OC your CPU (which you should) , buy some After market cpu cooler for 30 to 50 usd

This build is for gaming , its a mid ranged balanced no nonsense build


Its made to run latest games on 1080p 60 to 144 fps (depending on the game)
Fog 2 is a low system requirement game which doesnt need this kind of PC , but one thing is certain , you can never have too many FPS or too good of a PC

something tells me you dont have a 1080p monitor. that ll cost you another 200 bucks for a decent TN pannel

[lapdog666]

i have a gtx 970 , i5 4690k and 8gb of ram. (significantly weaker pc than the one i presented above) fog 2 is struggling ,but its not my PC its fog 2. When i zoom into heavily forested regions i drop to 50 fps or 40 fps (on 1920x1080 or 1080p)

on 4k res it goes from 25 to 60 fps depending on the region

the pc that i proposed here should be able to run it at 4k 60 fps anytime anywhere, but i wouldnt bet on it. you can throw 5k euros on a pc and it would still be a queston if fog 2 would run at 60 fps on huge battles with heavy forests

[MVP7]

FoG2 should run fairly smoothly at 1080p resolution with less expensive machine as well. If you are just playing FoG2 then 1000£ is a bit overkill.

If you still want fairly powerful machine, you could replace the suggested graphics card with GTX 1050 Ti (around 120£). I would definitely not recommend HDD for your only hard drive since it will make the general use far slower than SSD. Instead you should get 500GB SSD for about 60£ or 1TB for about 130£ (this will make loading Windows and opening games several times faster than using HDD).

If you are used to playing without dedicated GPU then you would probably be fine with even less expensive machine. If you are planning to get a pre-built machine then try to find one that has i5 processor and nvidia GTX series graphics card and SSD. Then there should not be any major bottlenecks in the build.

[lapdog666]

mvp7 is right, you dont need (and i would never buy this kind of pc just for fog2) this pc for fog2. the only reason i gave you these parts is because they are maximizing performance for money and they are working well in symphony

for a fog2 only pc (and other low system requirement games) i wouldnt give more than 500 pounds

if you want a cheaper variant that works and is cost efficient let me know

on other hand if you for example one day find out theres a game called Imperator:rome (grand strategy game on world map ) which is set in same time frame as fog2 vanilla , you might find yourself lacking the proper PC
also if u want to play fog2 in 4k, you would want a more powerful pc (you can use nvidia DSR feature to produce almost 4k quality picture on your 1080p panel)

[Mord]

If I was you I'd get something fairly decent if you are going to do it, you never know what you are going to end up liking later on. You might as well be half way modernized if you are gonna spend some money. I like this guy's videos and he's incredibly informative in his reviews and how-tos. You can use him as a base.

800 dollar build
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1I1MpAanovU

1000 dollar build
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmzNjAn8oIA

700 vs 1000
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRLjKr939RM


Mord.

[Bombax]

Thanks ever so much for all the helpful info - I really appeciate it!

[Patrick Ward]

The graphics were developed with an old (going on for 10+ years) i7 950 quad core @ 3.07Ghz on Windows 10 with 24Gb RAM (32 but its Windows Home) and now an GTX 1060 3GB . It was started on a considerably less powerful GPU but I was having difficulty running Metro and IL-2 at max specs so upgraded. I get no slow downs at 2560x1440 unless I also happen to be running Max or Substance Painter. Then it chugs a bit but its not alone in doing that. The Nvidia card is one of the early 3Gb and when it uses anything about 2Gb it can start to bottle neck.

[Bombax]

Thanks Patrick

[Bombax]

As a follow-up question, are there any manufacturers you guys would either recommend - or recommend avoiding - when it comes to buying a ready-made base unit?

[lapdog666]

As a follow-up question, are there any manufacturers you guys would either recommend - or recommend avoiding - when it comes to buying a ready-made base unit?

yes , all of them


to be avoided naturally

[Mord]

Bombax, check your PMs, I sent you a message.

And I concur, prebuilts are mostly crap and they start with the PSUs they stick in them.

EDITED: I built my dream comp back in 2017 and I will NEVER buy a store or internet built computer again. Even if I couldn't spend a lot of money I'd still
do it myself picking my own parts.

EDITED: Removed my specs 'cause it looked like I was bragging. Which I was...LOL.

Mord.

[MVP7]

As a follow-up question, are there any manufacturers you guys would either recommend - or recommend avoiding - when it comes to buying a ready-made base unit?

Many computer manufacturers add a lot of unnecessary bloatware programs to their builds so that should be avoided unless you can find a 'clean' or 'pure' or whatever they call a clean Windows install with no manufacturer extras.

When looking at package computers the manufacturers tend to make them really unbalanced. There might be a decent CPU or GPU that they advertise but at the same time some other components are so weak that they will bottleneck any benefit you could get from the good part.

If you don't want to build the computer yourself you could always search for local companies that sell components and pre-assembled computers, they usually don't have any bloatware on their devices and it should be easy to change some components in the build.

[Mord]

Or buy all the parts and see if a local shop would put it all together for you.

Mord.

[Bombax]

Thanks MVP7 and Mord! Sorry I missed your PM Mord, I'll take a look shortly - cheers for that!
Best wishes,
Jay.

[uneducated]

FOGII was released in Q4, 2017, so you can assume that the game would run well on whatever was the latest hardware at that time. (The game must have been developed using hardware that came before this date.)

At that time, Intel's i7 and i5 CPUs were i7-8700k and i5-8600k.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_I ... processors


Nvidia had the GTX 1070 out then:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_10_series

You can get the game to run well on much older hardware though, from 2013. When you are considering buying something, like a computer, also have in mind something else that you would like to buy, like a projector or something, so that savings you might be able to make in the purchase have some real meaning to you.

I wish you many hours of entertainment and learning!