A tutorial on how to build my own rig

[mthrockmor]

I want get ready for AH3 and build my own computer, two birds with one stone.

Would someone be kind enough to give me a list of parts I need to assemble to do it right? I know, tower, motherboard, power source, fan(s), video card, RAM, disc drive, etc.

What would be the sweet spot design?

Boo

[Bizman]

Still too early, if you're not desperately in need of a new computer. As far as I know even HiTech himself can't tell for sure any requirements. If your rig can run the current version of AH with ease, the new version should be playable, too.

If you're in a hurry, mikev built himself an uncompromised rig while MrRipley gave us an illustrated tutorial for a budget one. Both are documented on this forum.

[Drane]

Tom's Hardware is a good place to look for parts/cost comparisons.

http://www.tomshardware.com/

[Chalenge]

I would wait until the AH3 base requirements are established, but. . .

The best system I have for responsiveness and rapid reboots is a Z97 with the M.2 SSD PCIe setup as a cache between MB and HDD using the Intel Rapid Storage Technology. I would read up on that and when you go to get a GPU buy the fastest you can get. I think the 980 Ti is the top of the heap right now, but they are pricey. Don't skimp on PSU either. For a CPU I would suggest 3.6-4.0 GHz.

[ebfd11]

Another good place to find out what parts go together are https://pcpartpicker.com/

LawnDart

[Skuzzy]

Still too early, if you're not desperately in need of a new computer. As far as I know even HiTech himself can't tell for sure any requirements. If your rig can run the current version of AH with ease, the new version should be playable, too.

<snip>

Not quite accurate.  We know if you want to run with all the graphic options enabled, the video card will need a minimum of 1GB of video RAM.  That number might grow as we are hitting the 1GB threshold now, with all the eye candy enabled.

The faster the GPU, the better the new version will play, regardless of the eye candy settings.  The baseline performance video card is the NVidia 9800GTX.  Baseline means, it will run it, with all the eye candy disabled.

If the video card GPU is slower than the 9800GTX there is a good chance the new version will run poorly, regardless of the eye candy settings.  If the video card has less than 512MB of dedicated video RAM, it will not be able to run the new version with any degree of stability.

[katanaso]

I want get ready for AH3 and build my own computer, two birds with one stone.

Would someone be kind enough to give me a list of parts I need to assemble to do it right? I know, tower, motherboard, power source, fan(s), video card, RAM, disc drive, etc.

What would be the sweet spot design?

Boo

What do you want to spend?  You can build nearly anything you want, depending on how much you want to put into a PC.

[Bizman]

Not quite accurate.  We know if you want to run with all the graphic options enabled, the video card will need a minimum of 1GB of video RAM.  That number might grow as we are hitting the 1GB threshold now, with all the eye candy enabled.

The faster the GPU, the better the new version will play, regardless of the eye candy settings.  The baseline performance video card is the NVidia 9800GTX.  Baseline means, it will run it, with all the eye candy disabled.

If the video card GPU is slower than the 9800GTX there is a good chance the new version will run poorly, regardless of the eye candy settings.  If the video card has less than 512MB of dedicated video RAM, it will not be able to run the new version with any degree of stability.

Thanks for the update. IIRC you also mentioned somewhere that the processor speed should be somewhere around 3 GHz and up, but I can't remember if you mentioned anything about the number of cores. Any hints?

[Skuzzy]

Thanks for the update. IIRC you also mentioned somewhere that the processor speed should be somewhere around 3 GHz and up, but I can't remember if you mentioned anything about the number of cores. Any hints?

A CPU in the 3Ghz vicinity should be fine.  We may or may not expand the number of cores needed.  If there is no performance benefit, then there would be no reason to do so.  With the graphic load being removed from the CPU, the CPU has more available cycles for flight modeling and housekeeping, for the game.

But you never know.  This is why it is called Alpha.

[mikev]

Still too early, if you're not desperately in need of a new computer. As far as I know even HiTech himself can't tell for sure any requirements. If your rig can run the current version of AH with ease, the new version should be playable, too.

If you're in a hurry, mikev built himself an uncompromised rig while MrRipley gave us an illustrated tutorial for a budget one. Both are documented on this forum.

 here is the part list and cost of my rig , so far the only thing i seen to outmatch it would be adding a gtx titan video card instead of the 980 ti but that would add $400 to the cost.
https://pcpartpicker.com/user/MAVADAKIN/saved/#view=94rXsY

this thread " new tower" will give you full details of assembly along with pics.
http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,372743.0.html

[Gman]

Boo, wait a month or less. Skylake, the new Intel platform is starting to roll out the first few days in August so they're claiming, which means prices could go down on stuff available now, as well as the option to get the newest/better platform.  Their i7 and i5 "gaming" or "enthusiast" cpu/mbs are coming out first too, so we should know shortly how it stacks up so far as performance/$ ratio.  Typically prices do come down on the previous stuff.  So, if you're looking for a sub 1500 or even a 1000$-ish rig, you probably will be able to get a decent i5 4690k with a really decent GPU like a 970 or whatever for a grand-ish.  Or, you can choose the latest Skylake offering likely for around 1500$ for a decent system.

So far as building it, if that's your plan as well,  LinusTechTips channel and several other gaming/tech youtube channels provide excellent how-to videos on building a PC, right from taking the empty case out of its box and starting from scratch up to installing all the current drivers and optimizing your OS and other stuff.  Pick a couple good channels and watch those vids.

Also don't discount the importance of your monitor.  A good gaming LCD is a huge part of the experience - 144hz can be found in 1080p for 250$ or less, and that's the way to go IMO unless you have extra $$ to move into the IPS/144hz/1440p Asus stuff now available.  Having a 4k Acer Gsync I wouldn't recommend 4k...yet.

So, tl;dr, wait a few weeks, save some $, and then watch some instructional vids, and ask all the guys here for help if you want or need it.

[Bizman]

A CPU in the 3Ghz vicinity should be fine.  We may or may not expand the number of cores needed.  If there is no performance benefit, then there would be no reason to do so.  With the graphic load being removed from the CPU, the CPU has more available cycles for flight modeling and housekeeping, for the game.

But you never know.  This is why it is called Alpha.

Based on what you said in

The current release of AH2 uses two cores, natively.  The new version may use 3 cores, or may not.

am I understanding correctly, that at least two cores will be required? No single cores whatever their speed may be?

[Skuzzy]

Based on what you said in am I understanding correctly, that at least two cores will be required? No single cores whatever their speed may be?

No, we do not require multiple cores.  If they are there, they get used, if not we use whatever is available.  You have to be able to do that as you are sharing the CPU with Windows and whatever it needs to do, or any other application which could be running in the background.

Any application requiring multiple cores to be able to run, is not very well written.

[Bizman]

No, we do not require multiple cores.  If they are there, they get used, if not we use whatever is available.  You have to be able to do that as you are sharing the CPU with Windows and whatever it needs to do, or any other application which could be running in the background.

Any application requiring multiple cores to be able to run, is not very well written.

Is there anything else than the core speed to be taken into account? Counting out Windows, how much better would AH run on a dual core than a single core if other specs were identical? Where would the most potential bottlenecks be?

My idea behind this questioning is to get a rough understanding about how old a computer could be upgraded to run AH with a decent video card. I guess processors that can't be installed on a motherboard with a pci-e slot are definitely outdated.

[Skuzzy]

Let me just say this and hopefully it will over it.

HiTech's development system is based on a dual core Intel E8400 CPU, with an NVidia 660GTX video card.  It runs the new version just fine.

That CPU was released during the first quarter of 2008.