Question Been out of the PC game a while

[pappy72]

So both my sons who are grown and moved away have gotten into pc gaming and want me to join in. I used to many years ago when they where younger but now not so much. They want me to play Call of Duty Modern Warfare with them, but I know my pc as is will not support it. I've done some looking and testing and my system is close, I think. I have run the detection app from Can You Run It, I am falling short on the CPU (which I already knew) but I don't know if my MB is upgradeable to run COD MW. I've attached the results from the scan below, and would appreciate if someone could tell me if I can upgrade my hw or if I would just have to scrap it and replace it. thanks again

System Type x64-based PC
System SKU LENOVO_PN_90B00000US
Processor AMD A10-7850K Radeon R7, 12 Compute Cores 4C+8G, 3700 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s)

BaseBoard Manufacturer LENOVO
BaseBoard Product Bantry CRB
BaseBoard Version 31900058 STD

Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 12.0 GB
Total Physical Memory 10.9 GB
Available Physical Memory 6.88 GB
Total Virtual Memory 12.6 GB
Available Virtual Memory 7.33 GB


Name AMD Radeon R7 200 Series
Adapter Type AMD Radeon Graphics Processor (0x6658), Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. compatible

 

[jay32267]

Your CPU actually does meet the minimum requirements for Modern Warfare (2019).
From what I'm seeing....your weak point is your Radeon graphics.
I think if you got something like a GTX 1050 or a GTX 1050 Ti GPU......you should be able to play.....at least on lower settings.

 

[tennis2]

So you have a Lenovo X315 - A8-7850K, R9-260(?), 12GB RAM, what wattage PSU? (on the side of the PSU there should be a sticker, what's the Amps rating for the +12V output?)

RX570 4GB is ~40% faster than a GTX1050Ti and typically costs the same or less ($120-$130). Jay recommended the 1050Ti because it only requires 75W. Looks like the R9-260 is an 85W card that requires a 6-pin power cable directly from the power supply. Can you confirm?

What country are you in?
What would be your budget for upgrading? For replacing?
Assuming some sort of pre-built machine? Or are you comfortable with assembling all the parts yourself?

 

[pappy72]

I don't really have a budget, all my kids are grown. That being said I don't want to buy a whole new machine either if this one can be scaled up to play it. Playing on the minimum settings would be fine with me since it isn't something i'd be spending a lot of time on. What is a PSU upgrade, and will my system support it.

 

[pappy72]

Thank you I will look into upgrading the video, and memory.

 

[jay32267]

Not really sure where you are getting that 40% number.

https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=Radeon+RX+570&id=3741

https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=GeForce+GTX+1050+Ti&id=3595

 

[pappy72]

So you have a Lenovo X315 - A8-7850K, R9-260(?), 12GB RAM, what wattage PSU? (on the side of the PSU there should be a sticker, what's the Amps rating for the +12V output?)

RX570 4GB is ~40% faster than a GTX1050Ti and typically costs the same or less ($120-$130). Jay recommended the 1050Ti because it only requires 75W. Looks like the R9-260 is an 85W card that requires a 6-pin power cable directly from the power supply. Can you confirm?

What country are you in?
What would be your budget for upgrading? For replacing?
Assuming some sort of pre-built machine? Or are you comfortable with assembling all the parts yourself?

Sorry I didn't answer all your questions.

I'm in the States, as for the budget just whatever I need to do (until the wife realizes what I'm doing). If I have to do a deep dive I'd probably just go buy a new machine, if its swapping video cards and cpu's i'm good with that. I haven't built a machine since around 2000, back when you still had to set jumpers.

 

[tennis2]

I look at actual review benchmarks...not synthetics

If the current GPU has a 6 pin power cable going to it, you could get a GTX1650 for $130 after MIR and promo code. That's at least a better value than a GTX1050Ti. Wait till next week to see if better deals pop up from Black Friday sales.

 

[pappy72]

Had to take the panel off to check the PSU, its a 450 watts.

 

[DSzymborski]

Had to take the panel off to check the PSU, its a 450 watts.

That's not enough info for anyone to work on; it's always important to provide the specific power supply. There are good 450W PSUs and dreadful ones and just knowing that it's a 450W can't tell anybody which category you have.

 

[pappy72]

Thank you for your help. I'll wait till cyber Monday and see what comes up. Will I need to upgrade my power supply as well.

 

[tennis2]

Dont wait that long. Cyber Monday is the same recycled Black Friday deals, except lots of things are sold out.

Are you able to see the sticker on the PSU I was talking about earlier?

 

[stonecarver]

https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16883266612 so is this your model?

https://www.amazon.in/Lenovo-Desktop-90B00000US-Discontinued-Manufacturer/dp/B00MCJQERU

 

[pappy72]

https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16883266612 so is this your model?

https://www.amazon.in/Lenovo-Desktop-90B00000US-Discontinued-Manufacturer/dp/B00MCJQERU

Hi, just checked back, that is pretty much the one I have. Buying the video card today.

 

[pappy72]

ok, been I while since I checked in about this. I came to the conclusion my machine would not run it so I upgraded. basically a whole new build except my dvd and hd, couldn't even use the old tower. Have the new machine up and running with COD MW installed, all the latest and greatest software for everything. Played COD in campaign mode for a while and it ran great everything nice and smooth. Didn't have the resolution turned up, actually had everything on minimum setting and planned to slowly increase and see how well the machine handled it. While playing, the game just locked up and had to kill it through task manager. Relaunched and did the same thing, this time it locked up while loading the resume point. Killed and relaunched with same result, rebooted machine and same thing again. I can get into the game but when I try to resume it starts to load then just locks up. I eventually get a message that it was unable to write to my HD because it was full. I have a 2T drive with just over 500 G of data on it. anyone else have this problem. At this point I have uninstalled the game and am still downloading it to reinstall. Below are the SPECCY readings of my machine. Would appreciate it if someone could have a look and see if their is anything obvious I've missed. Its not a top line machine, but its well within the specs for this game. Well I may have just answered my own question. My Ram is showing as DDR# @ 803MHZ when it should be 1866. Guess that is probably my problem.

Operating System
Windows 10 Home 64-bit
CPU
AMD FX-6300 30 °C
Vishera 32nm Technology
RAM
16.0GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 803MHz (9-9-9-24)
Motherboard
Gigabyte Technology Co. Ltd. 970A-DS3P (CPU 1) 35 °C
Graphics
C32JG5x (2560x1440@60Hz)
C32JG5x (2560x1440@144Hz)
8192MB ATI Radeon RX 580 Series (Unknown) 47 °C
Storage
1863GB Seagate ST2000DX001-1CM164 (SATA ) 33 °C
Optical Drives
HL-DT-ST DVD-RAM GHC0N
Audio
Realtek High Definition Audio

 

[pappy72]

So I just checked the package the memory came in, it is Viper Gaming by Patriot, package says pc3-15000 1866MHZ. I do not have mixed mem installed, it is the 2 sticks of 8G DDR3 at supposedly 1866MHZ. Would my motherboard for some reason throttle it down to the 803mhz or did I receive the wrong hardware. Cant pull it out to look at the label on it yet since i'm still downloading a fresh instaLL of COD.

 

[DSzymborski]

What were all the parts you upgraded? We never resolved the power supply issue, for one.

DDR stands for double data rate, so it's running at 1600, not 800. You'll likely need to adjust the settings in your motherboard's BIOS, but making sure everything's working before worrying about getting 1866 instead of 1600.

Hopefully you got a very good idea, because even making a budget rig, it's hard to justify an AM3+ build that's a complete dead-end when entry-level Ryzen builds are so inexpensive.

 

[pappy72]

I wound up with a whole new build. The only thing coming from my old machine was the hd and DVD drive, didn't even get to save on the tower. I upgraded the ps to a 750w, basically went to fries and said give me the biggest ps you have in stock, and they did. I dont run a lot of extras, basically only a printer so I didnt bother adding up the requirements figured it should be plenty. The radeon rx580 I think is pulling 450w alone if I read it and remember right. Anyway, after reading some forums on memory I think I resolved the problem yesterday through the bios. Made a change so now it is showing 933mhz freq would give me the full 1866mhz freq. I didn't get to really stress the machine since I was out of time by then, but I did launch the game and run it as far as its previous crash and it was fine from there and didnt seem to have any stability problems, which I was worried about when making that change. Hopefully I will have time thus week to stress it and I'll update with the results. Thanks for checking back with me.

 

[Nemesia]

I wound up with a whole new build. The only thing coming from my old machine was the hd and DVD drive, didn't even get to save on the tower. I upgraded the ps to a 750w, basically went to fries and said give me the biggest ps you have in stock, and they did. I dont run a lot of extras, basically only a printer so I didnt bother adding up the requirements figured it should be plenty. The radeon rx580 I think is pulling 450w alone if I read it and remember right. Anyway, after reading some forums on memory I think I resolved the problem yesterday through the bios. Made a change so now it is showing 933mhz freq would give me the full 1866mhz freq. I didn't get to really stress the machine since I was out of time by then, but I did launch the game and run it as far as its previous crash and it was fine from there and didnt seem to have any stability problems, which I was worried about when making that change. Hopefully I will have time thus week to stress it and I'll update with the results. Thanks for checking back with me.

The RX580 PSU requirement is a 500 Watts. That's for the GPU and the system. I doubt it is pulling 450 Watts alone. A good 500 Watts.

What you should have asked the guy at the store was "Give me a good quality PSU" and not just "the biggest".

What is that 750 Watts you bought?

 

[pappy72]

So my build was an
AMD Vishera 6 core at 3.5G with a 4.1 turbo boost, riding a gigabyte motherboard.
16gigs Patriot Viper DDR3 at 1866MHZ.
Radeon Sapphire rx580 video card with 8gig of mem, with 2 32inch curved monitors.
powered by a kratos m1-750W ps.
Sound wasn't to important to me since I've lost a lost of range in my hearing so using the on-board sound. Didn't go with an high dollar case, as had other things needing monetary attention besides my toys. Not a true power house machine but it more than meets my needs. Got home from the road tonight and no one was home so was able to get on and put a load on it for a while, and it worked great.

What were all the parts you upgraded? We never resolved the power supply issue, for one.

DDR stands for double data rate, so it's running at 1600, not 800. You'll likely need to adjust the settings in your motherboard's BIOS, but making sure everything's working before worrying about getting 1866 instead of 1600.

Hopefully you got a very good idea, because even making a budget rig, it's hard to justify an AM3+ build that's a complete dead-end when entry-level Ryzen builds are so inexpensive.

Thanks for the response and the information. I was able to make it all work and made the necessary changes in my bio's to get the 1866 freq I needed. I've been out of this type of environment for a long time now, so basically I looked at the requirements of the game and built from there. I'm happy with the outcome, and it wasn't very expensive. Now that I have been looking at more up to date components i'm thinking next year a new build that is fully up to date. But, that will have to wait.

 

[pappy72]

I think I just replied to myself ... The last time I did a build you still had to set jumpers on the motherboard, so that should say something in itself. This one was so easy I actually had fun doing it. Now i'm looking forward to doing another one that is more up to date.

 

[Nemesia]

I think I just replied to myself ... The last time I did a build you still had to set jumpers on the motherboard, so that should say something in itself. This one was so easy I actually had fun doing it. Now i'm looking forward to doing another one that is more up to date.

What? You don't miss unstable OS, 2 hours formatting a system, IRQ fights, coding your own config.sys and autoexec.bat to free up conventional memory to start a game, doing the step by step booting to DOS?

It was such a pain compared to today. The cables spaghetti. The low speed of a floppy drive. I'm happy it's not that anymore.