[SOLVED] Can my computer handle Unreal Engine or do I need an entirely new system?

[Axl Rose]

Specs:
Windows 7
i5 3570 3.40 GHz
Gigabyte GA-B75M-D3H Motherboard
SeaSonic Focus Gold Plus 550W
32GB DDR RAM
4 SSD's
Fractal Define Mini C computer case

Basically I'd like to know if I can just buy a really good GPU that is compatible with my system or Do I need to buy a whole new setup?

 

[cdrkf]

Specs:
Windows 7
i5 3570 3.40 GHz
Gigabyte GA-B75M-D3H Motherboard
32GB DDR RAM
4 SSD's

Basically I'd like to know if I can just buy a really good GPU that is compatible with my system or Do I need to buy a whole new setup?

Can you add a new GPU to that system to play Unreal engine based games.... yes. It does somewhat depend on what games, what resolution and settings you are wanting to play at. If you are thinking 1080p, 60hz High - Ultra settings your machine should be fine. If you are looking for high frame refresh rates though (i.e. 144hz+) the CPU is going to hold you back.

I would also say that the 4 thread i5's are a bit weak in a lot of modern titles, you would probably also want to look at getting a compatible i7 (e.g. 3770) as the extra threads on the i7's really help in recent titles.

Graphics cards wise, there's not much point going too high end with a machine that age as you won't get much benefit (unless you want to get a really good card now and upgrade the rest of the platform later, which is something I often do if budget is limited). In terms of what would be good to pair with your machine - an RX 580 8gb card would be a good option (provided you have a decent PSU) also the nVidia GTX 1650 Super is a great card that doesn't cost a silly amount and can handle all current games at 1080p no problems.

If you are looking for a good card to keep longer term (but being aware your machine will hold it back in some titles) then the RTX 2060 or RX 5700 series cards are probably the way to go for best 'bang for buck'. As I said though you would need to upgrade the rest of the system to get the most out of either of those cards.

 

[Axl Rose]

Thanks a lot for giving me a run down! I did actually mean to say that I'd like to develop on the Unreal Engine. Would it be any different from that aspect?

 

[cdrkf]

Thanks a lot for giving me a run down! I did actually mean to say that I'd like to develop on the Unreal Engine. Would it be any different from that aspect?

I wouldn't think it would be an issue - I mean how graphically demanding the game is would be down to you (actually might be quite a good thing to work on modest hardware as you know your games will run well on lots of systems, whereas if you only develop on a 5ghz overclocked 9900K machine you could wind up with games that won't run for most gamers).

I'm not a game developer though so I can't say if the development environment is significantly more demanding to run than the game itself.

 

[Axl Rose]

I wouldn't think it would be an issue - I mean how graphically demanding the game is would be down to you (actually might be quite a good thing to work on modest hardware as you know your games will run well on lots of systems, whereas if you only develop on a 5ghz overclocked 9900K machine you could wind up with games that won't run for most gamers).

I'm not a game developer though so I can't say if the development environment is significantly more demanding to run than the game itself.

I'm not sure either. Google isn't much of a help right now. If anyone has experience on the matter. Please feel free to chime in.
All I could find was this.

If it really is as easy as buying one of those GPUs you recommended then I'm all in!

 

[Axl Rose]

Can you add a new GPU to that system to play Unreal engine based games.... yes. It does somewhat depend on what games, what resolution and settings you are wanting to play at. If you are thinking 1080p, 60hz High - Ultra settings your machine should be fine. If you are looking for high frame refresh rates though (i.e. 144hz+) the CPU is going to hold you back.

I would also say that the 4 thread i5's are a bit weak in a lot of modern titles, you would probably also want to look at getting a compatible i7 (e.g. 3770) as the extra threads on the i7's really help in recent titles.

Graphics cards wise, there's not much point going too high end with a machine that age as you won't get much benefit (unless you want to get a really good card now and upgrade the rest of the platform later, which is something I often do if budget is limited). In terms of what would be good to pair with your machine - an RX 580 8gb card would be a good option (provided you have a decent PSU) also the nVidia GTX 1650 Super is a great card that doesn't cost a silly amount and can handle all current games at 1080p no problems.

If you are looking for a good card to keep longer term (but being aware your machine will hold it back in some titles) then the RTX 2060 or RX 5700 series cards are probably the way to go for best 'bang for buck'. As I said though you would need to upgrade the rest of the system to get the most out of either of those cards.

Thanks for showing me these cards. Sorry about being so fussy. I just wanted to make sure I was making the right decision. From what I've seen, I'm confident that I'd like to get the GTX 1650 Super. But there seems to be 12 different versions. Some dual fan, some single fan. I have 550W GoldPlus for my power supply and an MATX mini tower. Can you help me narrow down the choices?

::EDIT::
The Amazon reviews for the Gigabyte single fan version say that it's a bit loud. Is that a recurring theme with single fans?

:EDIT::
According to the Fractal website, my case's Max GPU length is 315 mm with front fans mounted(which there are).

 

[cdrkf]

Thanks for showing me these cards. Sorry about being so fussy. I just wanted to make sure I was making the right decision. From what I've seen, I'm confident that I'd like to get the GTX 1650 Super. But there seems to be 12 different versions. Some dual fan, some single fan. I have 550W GoldPlus for my power supply and an MATX mini tower. Can you help me narrow down the choices?

::EDIT::
The Amazon reviews for the Gigabyte single fan version say that it's a bit loud. Is that a recurring theme with single fans?

:EDIT::
According to the Fractal website, my case's Max GPU length is 315 mm with front fans mounted(which there are).

I would say it's just a case of looking at reviews of the specific cards. You probably don't have to worry too much with a 1650 super though, it's a really efficient card so doesn't need massive amounts of cooling. That PSU will handle a card like that no problem.

I would suggest looking at the Hardware Unboxed youtube channel for their 1650 super reviews- they tend to review a lot of different custom cards so you are likely to find the cards you are looking at on there. As I say I don't think you can go too far wrong with a 1650 super though.

 

[Axl Rose]

I would say it's just a case of looking at reviews of the specific cards. You probably don't have to worry too much with a 1650 super though, it's a really efficient card so doesn't need massive amounts of cooling. That PSU will handle a card like that no problem.

I would suggest looking at the Hardware Unboxed youtube channel for their 1650 super reviews- they tend to review a lot of different custom cards so you are likely to find the cards you are looking at on there. As I say I don't think you can go too far wrong with a 1650 super though.

Thanks man. I've been researching all night and day haha. I was looking at the 1660 Super OC by Gigabyte. Do you think that would cause my CPU to bottleneck or would I still be in safe territory?

Also, even tho a GPU can be overclocked, does my motherboard need to support overclocking or is that just for CPUs?

 

[cdrkf]

Thanks man. I've been researching all night and day haha. I was looking at the 1660 Super OC by Gigabyte. Do you think that would cause my CPU to bottleneck or would I still be in safe territory?

Also, even tho a GPU can be overclocked, does my motherboard need to support overclocking or is that just for CPUs?

Firstly on the 'bottleneck' point- keep in mind there is always a bottleneck in every system. In games usually you are looking for the bottleneck to be the GPU (that way you are getting maximum fps performance) but much of it depends on the game. For example I'm an RTS fan and Starcraft 2 is always cpu bottlenecked, even with a 5ghz 9900K cpu. That is due to the really old game engine it's based on that can only leverage a single cpu core. More modern software (like Unreal engine) are better coded and will use the cpu more effectively and therefore push the load back onto the GPU. It does somewhat depend what you are doing though - I mean in the case your cpu does become the bottleneck that doesn't mean that the software will run badly. It just means you might only get 80fps where you could have gotten 90 with the same card with a more powerful cpu.

As for gpu overclocking - this is totally separate from the cpu and doesn't need motherboard support. The key for gpu overclocking is a good power supply and plenty of case ventilation. You can also improve headroom by upgrading the gpu coolers (or buying a card with an overkill cooler to start with). That said in situations where you are cpu limited overclocking the gpu won't improve performance.

 

[Axl Rose]

Firstly on the 'bottleneck' point- keep in mind there is always a bottleneck in every system. In games usually you are looking for the bottleneck to be the GPU (that way you are getting maximum fps performance) but much of it depends on the game. For example I'm an RTS fan and Starcraft 2 is always cpu bottlenecked, even with a 5ghz 9900K cpu. That is due to the really old game engine it's based on that can only leverage a single cpu core. More modern software (like Unreal engine) are better coded and will use the cpu more effectively and therefore push the load back onto the GPU. It does somewhat depend what you are doing though - I mean in the case your cpu does become the bottleneck that doesn't mean that the software will run badly. It just means you might only get 80fps where you could have gotten 90 with the same card with a more powerful cpu.

As for gpu overclocking - this is totally separate from the cpu and doesn't need motherboard support. The key for gpu overclocking is a good power supply and plenty of case ventilation. You can also improve headroom by upgrading the gpu coolers (or buying a card with an overkill cooler to start with). That said in situations where you are cpu limited overclocking the gpu won't improve performance.

So I bought the 1660 Super. My computer has restarted on me twice now over the course of a few days. Windows is saying it's a Blue Screen error. Do you know what could be the problem?

Could it be the power consumption? The card calls for 450 W and my PSU is 550. But I also have an air cooler in my case. So I'm not really sure.

 

[King_V]

Thanks man. I've been researching all night and day haha. I was looking at the 1660 Super OC by Gigabyte. Do you think that would cause my CPU to bottleneck or would I still be in safe territory?

Also, even tho a GPU can be overclocked, does my motherboard need to support overclocking or is that just for CPUs?

Don't worry about bottleneck. Also, what's your monitor's resolution and refresh rate? Does your monitor have GSync, FreeSync, or neither?

All that said, are you in the US? Reason I ask is that the prices here are a little weird. For example, in this sorted-by-price list of the RX 580, RX 590, GTX 1650 Super, GTX 1660, and GTX 1660 Super, and GTX 1660 Ti:
https://pcpartpicker.com/products/video-card/#c=476,439,450,438,391,431&sort=price&page=1

There is the EVGA Gaming Black GTX 1660 Super at $203.98 (after $10 mail-in rebate).

That's cheaper than any GTX 1660 non-super, and competitive with some of the RX 580 and GTX 1650 Super cards, while handily outperforming them. Price/performance, that particular 1660 Super at that price cannot be beat.

 

[Axl Rose]

Don't worry about bottleneck. Also, what's your monitor's resolution and refresh rate? Does your monitor have GSync, FreeSync, or neither?

All that said, are you in the US? Reason I ask is that the prices here are a little weird. For example, in this sorted-by-price list of the RX 580, RX 590, GTX 1650 Super, GTX 1660, and GTX 1660 Super, and GTX 1660 Ti:
https://pcpartpicker.com/products/video-card/#c=476,439,450,438,391,431&sort=price&page=1

There is the EVGA Gaming Black GTX 1660 Super at $203.98 (after $10 mail-in rebate).

That's cheaper than any GTX 1660 non-super, and competitive with some of the RX 580 and GTX 1650 Super cards, while handily outperforming them. Price/performance, that particular 1660 Super at that price cannot be beat.

Thanks for looking that up. I already bought my card tho. I wanted something with at least 2 fans So I bought the Gigabyte GTX 1660 Super OC. But like I said above, there seems to be an issue arising after putting it into system.

 

[King_V]

Well, you have a very good quality PSU, and the 1660 Super doesn't demand a huge amount of power. Maybe make sure the PCIe power connectors are snugged down correctly (pull them off and push them back on, just to be sure).

The only thing I can think of in terms of making sure there's no driver messiness issues is to do the following (keep in mind, I tend to be paranoid/overly-cautious):

1. Download the latest version of DDU (display driver uninstaller) from Guru3D
2. Download the latest Nvidia drivers
3. Reboot the computer into Safe Mode
4. Run DDU to completely remove any drivers. If you had an AMD card before, then you might have to run it twice (do NOT choose run-and-reboot if you need to run twice) to first remove any AMD driver residue, then the second time to remove any Nvidia driver residue. Then reboot.
5. Install the drivers you downloaded in step 2

At that point, everything SHOULD be fine.

 

[Axl Rose]

Well, you have a very good quality PSU, and the 1660 Super doesn't demand a huge amount of power. Maybe make sure the PCIe power connectors are snugged down correctly (pull them off and push them back on, just to be sure).

The only thing I can think of in terms of making sure there's no driver messiness issues is to do the following (keep in mind, I tend to be paranoid/overly-cautious):

1. Download the latest version of DDU (display driver uninstaller) from Guru3D
2. Download the latest Nvidia drivers
3. Reboot the computer into Safe Mode
4. Run DDU to completely remove any drivers. If you had an AMD card before, then you might have to run it twice (do NOT choose run-and-reboot if you need to run twice) to first remove any AMD driver residue, then the second time to remove any Nvidia driver residue. Then reboot.
5. Install the drivers you downloaded in step 2

At that point, everything SHOULD be fine.

Sweet, I followed all the steps. I didn't uninstall the Aorus Engine tho. It's a gigabyte app that coincides with the graphics card.

Hopefully this settles it tho. Thanks for swooping in for the rescue.

 

[King_V]

You're welcome - let us know if it all goes smoothly...

 

[cdrkf]

Sweet, I followed all the steps. I didn't uninstall the Aorus Engine tho. It's a gigabyte app that coincides with the graphics card.

Hopefully this settles it tho. Thanks for swooping in for the rescue.

Sorry I missed your reply - hopefully King_V's advice should have you sorted on the stability side of things... out of interest how are you finding the performance?

 

[Axl Rose]

You're welcome - let us know if it all goes smoothly...

I wanted to give it some time. But my computer restarted again. Here's what it said:

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: BlueScreen
OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.48
Locale ID: 1033

Additional information about the problem:
BCCode: 3b
BCP1: 00000000C0000017
BCP2: FFFFF800032AFD8C
BCP3: FFFFF8800A308FD0
BCP4: 0000000000000000
OS Version: 6_1_7601
Service Pack: 1_0
Product: 256_1
Files that help describe the problem:
C:\Windows\Minidump\033120-7690-01.dmp
C:\Users\Osmosis Jones\AppData\Local\Temp\WER-1145265-0.sysdata.xml

Read our privacy statement online:

Windows 7 Privacy Statement

go.microsoft.com

If the online privacy statement is not available, please read our privacy statement offline:
C:\Windows\system32\en-US\erofflps.txt


What could be the issue?

 

[Axl Rose]

Sorry I missed your reply - hopefully King_V's advice should have you sorted on the stability side of things... out of interest how are you finding the performance?

Aside from the resetting every 24 hours, it's pretty good. I've only had 2 graphics cards in my experience. But everything seems to be running well. I only had the opportunity to try it on one game(SKATER XL), but that went flawlessly. My system is still pretty quite too. The video card turns off its fans if it's not being stressed. It was originally strictly a DAW PC.

 

[King_V]

Well, the first question I have is: do you need to stay with Windows 7, or is Windows 10 a possibility for you? If so, and if your Windows 7 is the OEM version of Windows 7, then a clean-install of Windows 10, skipping the part where you enter the license key, should, in theory, automatically associate your motherboard with a Windows 10 license (whereas now your MB is associated with the Windows 7 license). It worked for me on one old motherboard, but I can't promise it would work every time.

That aside, I did find this tidbit about the 3b error:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...ccode-3b/c316d605-eb3b-4300-9e0f-019538b8cf40

While it's well worth reading and following those steps, it also linked to this:
http://www.faultwire.com/solutions-fatal_error/SYSTEM-SERVICE-EXCEPTION-0x0000003B-*1074.html

which seems to strongly suggest the video driver. That seems a bit implausible, but, could be. When you downloaded, you downloaded the latest version for Windows 7, rather than Windows 10, correct? Also, given the large amount of RAM you have, you MUST have the 64-bit version of Windows, and thus loaded the 64-bit version of the drivers, yes?


Generally, though, I have to say that blue screens or reset issues are generally NOT my strong suit... I'm hoping someone else can chime in. Or, maybe it's worthwhile to post this bug as a separate thread. You've already got the answers to the original question, and the subject line wouldn't necessarily lead anyone to look here to help with blue screen or reboot issues.

 

[Axl Rose]

I'm pretty set on being a Windows 7 user for awhile. I still have the NVIDA driver in my download folder and it says its win7 64-bit.
I should note that it doesn't actually blue screen. It just restarts and I'm back at the Windows log-in screen.

I'm gonna bring this issue to another thread like you suggested.

Thank You cdrkf and King_V for all your help!