What should I upgrade?

[Draegast]

Well I decided to buy Farcry 3 and finally my aging pc seems to not be able to keep up with games (I know it's ported awfully especially for crossfire but still). Basically I honestly don't know what's bottlenecking my cards or my cpu (I think a little of both) but I'm having trouble with smoothness even on the lowest settings of Farcry. I've come here to ask what would you upgrade.

My specs:

CPU: Lynnfield i5 oced @ 3.3 ghz stable
GPU: x2 hd 5770s
Ram: 8 gigs DDR3

So yeah I don't really have the money to buy both a cpu and a new gpu unless theres some sort of amazing deal, another issue is I've never changed a cpu so I'm leaning towards upgrading my cards as crossfire seems to never be fully optimized for the first 4 months of a game. But I'm worried my cpu is bottlenecking also so idk I'm kinda just confused on what I should do.

Any input?

 

[Commandermadi]

Your CPU is good for gaming actually. Your GPUs are pretty old so I'd suggest you upgrade your GPU. What is your budget?

 

[Draegast]

I'm not sure of my budget yet. But I was really looking into this one http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125418 mainly because I know I can get about 60 bucks back fromt he farcry code to a friend. But realistically I don't know much about g cards

 

[hytecgowthaman]

No upgrade needed.oc processor and gpus.
Update windows .Automatically detect and install latest best driver and fix all issues.
Update bios.
Update hdd/ssd firmware.
Full Scan system with "SUPERANTISPYWARE" Freeware.
Gpu set up look like this. 1x gpu=x16; 2x gpu=x16+x16=(x32); 3x gpu=x16+x8+x8=(x32); 4x gpu=x16+x8+x4+x4=(x32). so 2xgpu=4xgpu.
So check u r gpus are inserted in x16slots.if inserted in x8 or x4 slots u r not get full speed of gpus.
Ram 8Gb is enough.

 

[Commandermadi]

I'm not sure of my budget yet. But I was really looking into this one http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125418 mainly because I know I can get about 60 bucks back fromt he farcry code to a friend. But realistically I don't know much about g cards

The card you were looking at is a very good card and it will be an awesome setup on your current specs.

 

[Draegast]

you lost me at the gpu part how do i check for this?

 

[iam2thecrowe]

No upgrade needed.oc processor and gpus.
Update windows .Automatically detect and install latest best driver and fix all issues.
Update bios.
Update hdd/ssd firmware.
Full Scan system with "SUPERANTISPYWARE" Freeware.
Gpu set up look like this. 1x gpu=x16; 2x gpu=x16+x16=(x32); 3x gpu=x16+x8+x8=(x32); 4x gpu=x16+x8+x4+x4=(x32). so 2xgpu=4xgpu.
So check u r gpus are inserted in x16slots.if inserted in x8 or x4 slots u r not get full speed of gpus.
Ram 8Gb is enough.

WFT, this is all rubbish.

 

[Commandermadi]

you lost me at the gpu part how do i check for this?

What do you mean check for this?

 

[iam2thecrowe]

Well I decided to buy Farcry 3 and finally my aging pc seems to not be able to keep up with games (I know it's ported awfully especially for crossfire but still). Basically I honestly don't know what's bottlenecking my cards or my cpu (I think a little of both) but I'm having trouble with smoothness even on the lowest settings of Farcry. I've come here to ask what would you upgrade.

My specs:

CPU: Lynnfield i5 oced @ 3.3 ghz stable
GPU: x2 hd 5770s
Ram: 8 gigs DDR3

So yeah I don't really have the money to buy both a cpu and a new gpu unless theres some sort of amazing deal, another issue is I've never changed a cpu so I'm leaning towards upgrading my cards as crossfire seems to never be fully optimized for the first 4 months of a game. But I'm worried my cpu is bottlenecking also so idk I'm kinda just confused on what I should do.

Any input?

for farcry3 you should upgrade the GPU. see if you can sell your 5770's on ebay to give you a few more $ to spend. 2x5770's are about = to a 6850 or 6870 or 7770. so you want to aim higher than that. depending on your budget a 7850 or 7870 or gtx660 would be an upgrade and give a noticeable performance increase. Look into overclocking the CPU as that wiull give you a nice little boost too. And yes, crossfire is rubbsh, it might give higher fps than a single card but it does not provide smooth gameplay with FPS often dipping and frames dropping. I am selling my crossfire 6850s'due to that, have already sold one of them.

 

[quilciri]

What do you mean check for this?

He was replying to the crap form the spambot, hytecgowthaman .

 

[Draegast]

another thing will hard drive affect frames at all? Because my harddrive is quite old and it's by far the worst part of my system but I always just assumed that just meant longer load times which I'm ok with

 

[deepblue08]

No upgrade needed.oc processor and gpus.
Update windows .Automatically detect and install latest best driver and fix all issues.
Update bios.
Update hdd/ssd firmware.
Full Scan system with "SUPERANTISPYWARE" Freeware.
Gpu set up look like this. 1x gpu=x16; 2x gpu=x16+x16=(x32); 3x gpu=x16+x8+x8=(x32); 4x gpu=x16+x8+x4+x4=(x32). so 2xgpu=4xgpu.
So check u r gpus are inserted in x16slots.if inserted in x8 or x4 slots u r not get full speed of gpus.
Ram 8Gb is enough.

He might get a 1-2% more performance doing this...He needs to change those cards, FarCry3 is fairly demanding. 7870 is a good choice, I would also consider 660Ti.

 

[quilciri]

If crossfire is fully supported, a pair of 5770's is roughly equivalent to a single 7850. I would suspect poor xfire support in the game right now.

 

[swifty_morgan]

the card you chose is okay but FC3 will still slaughter it. the game even slaughters bigger cards so don't sweat it.

if you played FC2 and think 3 is going to play like it you'll be very disappointed. it looks like console gamers made the game and it's very PC'er unfriendly as far as setting up your controls the way you want. but if you're one of those little pukes that use xbox controllers you might make out better with it.

 

[Draegast]

If crossfire is fully supported, a pair of 5770's is roughly equivalent to a single 7850. I would suspect poor xfire support in the game right now.

Yeah it seems to be very poor because I'm pulling 60-70 fps on bf3 lowish settings on most maps and i dont see how farcry can plummit to 20-30

 

[Draegast]

the card you chose is okay but FC3 will still slaughter it. the game even slaughters bigger cards so don't sweat it.

if you played FC2 and think 3 is going to play like it you'll be very disappointed. it looks like console gamers made the game and it's very PC'er unfriendly as far as setting up your controls the way you want. but if you're one of those little pukes that use xbox controllers you might make out better with it.

if i could get 60 frames on low settings I would be happy.. I'm just getting a headache from the frame spikes going from 30-10

 

[swifty_morgan]

you using an xbox controller? I can't play the game because I can't map my keys the way I want. even have to revert back to stock just to use the knife.( space bar) who thought this crap up and decided to ruin a game?

the card you picked should do that.........even on medium settings.

 

[Draegast]

you using an xbox controller? I can't play the game because I can't map my keys the way I want. even have to revert back to stock just to use the knife.( space bar) who thought this crap up and decided to ruin a game?

the card you picked should do that.........even on medium settings.

well thankfully I use a g13 and remap all the keys to the games stock settings so that never really bothered me but yeah one of the best games with the worse ports ever.