Perfect PC System

[ironjaw 54]

Hi all,

I am planning to buy a new Dell PC solely to play SC4+RH after getting tired of the performance on my PB Mac G4 w 640MB Ram. I love SC4 too much and hate the thought of buying a pc but I believe that to get the full experience of SC4 i need a pc.

I did think about buying a Power Mac G5 Dual but reading all day thread after thread there are some issues still at that level. And I do not want to spend that much money on Power Mac and still have issues.

Can anyone suggest what type of pc specs would be best to play SC4?

Ironjaw

[SamFlash 0]

The two most important factors for SC4 seem to be CPU speed and amount of ram.  The fastest of the 1st and the most of the 2nd you can afford is the way to go.  Everything else seems to be secondary.  I know your looking for specific recommendations but I'll leave that for others.

Welcome to Simtropolis and enjoy your new computer, whatever it turns out to be.

[Praetorian Cohort 0]

I would stay away from Dell, as they only use Intel Processors. AMD are much better, imo, as they're normally cooler and faster than the Intel CPUs in their price range. I have an AMD Athlon 64 3700+ (San Diego core), 1GB DDR RAM, and a 7800GT that runs the game great, though it's cost me about $1,000 in the end.

Just make sure you get an AMD CPU and an nVidia GPU.

[exhausted mule 0]

i dont know about the maga huge cities but i just bought a new dell along with sc4 and this i can tell.

 

i have no problems with running the game. though... you will see some some mosaic when zooming in on a fully built city.

 

a better vid card and more ram (i assume) would help.

 

my stats are:

 

3.2 640 intel with HT.

1gig samson 533mghz ram.

x600 ati 256 pci-e video card.

soundblaster x-fi

160gig 7200 rpm hd

dvd rw drive.

 

as i said.. the only thing that seems to be outof place would be the processing of the lower texture into higher bit textures when zooming out from the full zoomed out view into the next few zoom distances.

 

the medium to close one there are no problems.

 

hope this helps.

 

[Adam4848 0]

Well I have a Dual core proccesor 2.80GHz Pentium D for Dual

Need at least 1 Gig RAM

 

Hard Drive I'd get 200GHz at least I have 250

 

video card well its how much of this game you love. I have a 6600 works just fine no skips, but a

6600GT, X800, 9800, 7800GT, 6800OS, just search for those and...

 

if you have any specific questions PM me...

 

Adam

[soldyne 111]

I think the best thing to concentrate on would be RAM and lots of it.  about 1GB should be good if you plan on downloading a lot of plugins.  The game has to load all your plugins into memory so the more memory you have the better.

 

the next thing you want is processor power and then graphics card.  I say this because even though there are alot of graphics in the game most of the power of SimCity is what is going on behind the scenes.  it has to do so many calculations about so many different things especially traffic, education, health, water, power, desirability, demand, it boggles the mind.

 

I just built my PC not too long ago and I have:

2GB RAM

3000+ AMD 64 processor (OCed to 2.0 GHz)

EVGA Nvidia 6800GT SLI graphics card (I also play City of Heroes and City of Villians, those games have a lot of graphics demand)

 

I play with the NAM, better pathfinding and all my settings on high with about 1GB of plugins.  it takes about two minutes to load the game but it plays really smooth.

 

even though graphics is not a priority DO NOT get an integrated video card with shared memory.  shared memory means that the graphics card will use some of you precious RAM as its own.  this is bad.  it is ok for PCs that are not game machines, but you need something better than that.

 

hope that helps.

 

<edit>  wow that is funny!  when I clicked to reply to this topic there were no replies.  when I submitted there were like 4 people ahead of me.  talk about timming </edit>

[Bookworm 1]

Well, my system's nothing special, but it runs SC4 really well. I have:
Dell Optiplex 170L
512 MB RAM
Intel Pentium 4 processor 3.0 GHZ
Windows XP Professional with SP1 and 2
Intel Extreme Graphics 2 (I've been meaning to switch to Nvidia, but haven't had a chance.
SC4 takes a bit to load, but runs really fast (I have 1.5GB of plugins).

My comp really isn't a game machine, and the other games I play aren't very recourse consuming. Hope this helps.

[Bones1 96]

Don't believe all this nonsense about getting the fastest CPU or expensive graphics card. SC4 is over two years old. It may have strained CPUs and graphics back in 2003, but today's new computers should have plenty of CPU and graphics power to handle SC4. (As long as you don't really cheap out, that is.)

The exception seems to be memory, especially if you use a lot of BATs. SC4 is a bit of a memory hog. Many low-end computers now still only come with 512MB. That's not enough. Get 1GB and you should be fine.

[mike5931 0]

I would agree with everyone.  My previous computer was a Dell.  It had a 3GHz Pentium 4 HT processor, 512MB of Ram, and ran very smooth.  But I also did not have many custom BATs, Modds, etc.  My new Dell notebook has the specs listed in my signature.  With 1GB RAM it runs very well.  But I know the graphics card isn't that great, so I lose that quality.  But the reputation of Dell I stand by.  I have always had good luck with them and they ship very quickly.  I would like to say good luck on your computer shopping and make sure you take the time no matter how impatient you are.  It will work out in the end, trust me!  Good Luck and have fun!

[Buggi 684]

Ideally it would include this monitor setup:
http://www.digitaltigers.com/zenview-arenahd.shtml

Or maybe

http://www.digitaltigers.com/zenview-atlas19s.shtml

 

My next system will be a 4 monitor system. I already have it spec'd out.

[andreharv 1,197]

uuum...ok you do that...

Anyway, I have:
athlon 2600 (thunderbird)
1gb pc2100 (266MHz) ram
BFG GeForce 6800gt oc
Soundblaster X-fi platinum
280gb hard drive space

The game does not perform too well on my system even after defragmentation and closing all unused programs. Because so many people say that 1gb or ram is ok, it would be wise to get pc3200 (400MHz) which is the average speed these days and make sure you have a better chip than a 2600 . As for video, you don't need anything fancy. Just as long as you have 128mb of vram (video ram). I would suggest the GeForce FX 5600 which was my previous card. The FX series is solid with the exception of the 5200 which does not have much game support. If you want to play other games that require a decent graphics card and you don't want to spend too much (by comparison) I would settle for a comp with an ati 9800 or geforce fx 5950.

[BtradI1 0]

I'm not sure what your religion is, but for christmas this year, I got a

aspire case (choose your color{red is actually burnt orange mettalic from experience} 2 fans 3 gauges in front of case lit by blue LEDs)

DEMON power box 480 watt ATX Switching Power Supply

Maxtor ULTRA SERIES 100GB, 7200 Rpm w/ 8mb Cache Hard Drive

ECS Elitegroup Motherboard 755-A2 SIS 755 K8HT 1600 754 support AMD Sempron Processor AGP 8x Serial ATA

AMD Sempron 3000+ Box 754 Semprom Box CPU w/ fan 128kb Cache, 3 year warranty SDA3000BABOX (4385835?)1.8 Ghz

CD Burner and Dvd Drive (Really all you need)(These are different drives)(2 drives)

Video Card - NVidia Geforce series AGP

Windows XP Home Edition OR Professional (once you have either, go to www.microsoft.com to install updates and install XP Service Pack 2 (Windows XP SP2)This is free!

I got my stuff for about $400 on EBay (Excluding Windows XP AND both CD/DVD Drives) This will be +/- of ... $550?

This is my exact setup and it will load a default large terrain in about 3-7 seconds. My established city will load in about 5-8 seconds. Only install Driver for the video card, NOT ANYTHING ELSE (From experience) Hope this helped!

 

<-- Isn't that a mean smily?!

 

P.S. Go to a post that says What should I name this terrain?. It's mine. Please reply to it!

 

Sorry about the 2 replies, computer LOADS INTERNET slow, HAVE SLOW CONNECTION!