Sim City

deconduo

KilOit wrote: »

Forget about it, that card could barely run minecraft

The 6450 is the lowest level dedicated card, but it still performs better than the HD4000 which runs the game on medium-low. It should be fine.

nesf

deconduo wrote: »

The 6450 is the lowest level dedicated card, but it still performs better than the HD4000 which runs the game on medium-low. It should be fine.

The 6450 benchmarks far below the HD4000. In fact it ranks lower than the HD3000.

cherryghost

6450 is simply not good enough I'm afraid. You might get away with lowest settings but it won't be enjoyable.

And yes, you can simply swap out the 6450. There's a plethora of cards from 60-80 euro that should bring the game up to playable standards but I dont know if you want to splash out for that just to play Sim City

Jonny7

Here's a comparison (a fairly old one at that)



It will just about play simcity..

BenEadir

Jonny7 wrote: »

It will just about play simcity..

I set the variables up on their lowest settings and he's playing away. I guess what he doesn't know he's missing he won't miss

Having said that I'd be interested in improving the graphics performance to extend the functioning life of the machine so if someone wants to point me in the direction of a simple to install card which is compatible with my setup and would give me the best bang for my (modest budget) buck I'd appreciate it.

Cheers all,

Ben

nesf

You need to look at what power supply is in the PC, preferably make and wattage. That'll give you the upper limit for what kind of card can go into it. With some luck Dell left a lot of headroom and you can fit a beefier card in there with no problems.

After that, it's just a matter of what your budget is and maximising the performance within that. Spending less than 60 Euro would be a bad idea but you don't need to be considering the cards over 200 Euro either unless you want to be very generous to your son!

Edit: It also depends on the kind of case you have. The 6450 is a half height card, you may have a small "all-in-one" case that can't fit full sized cards.

Do you have something like this: http://aio.lv/en/pc/desktops/dell-272004506/ ?

BenEadir

nesf wrote: »

Do you have something like this: http://aio.lv/en/pc/desktops/dell-272004506/ ?

No, it's more like this http://www.geek.com/chips/geek-deals-loaded-dell-inspiron-660-desktop-for-450-1534225/, in fact it looks identical to that both front and back.

Ben

nesf

Saw your make and model number.

Ok, it won't fit 12" cards (not a problem unless you want a high end card and you these aren't an option anyway) and 10" cards are a tight fit into the case. You've a 300W Power Supply, that seriously limits your options in terms of graphics cards.

I'm not familiar with the current lower end cards enough to recommend one and say with confidence that it'll be happy with 300W supply.

Jonny7

50 euros will get you this
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_6670/22.html

http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/12848020/art/vtx3d/radeon-hd-6670-v2-2-gb-gd.html


but personally I would hold off as the below is a much better buy, doesn't require you to have to plug a power cable into it and will run no hassle on that PSU
http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/13315884/art/sapphire-technology/radeon-hd-7750-2-gb-ddr3.html

It will be well able for any game, just not on ultra settings

Yup it's a little pricey if you are on a budget, but about 6 times faster than the current card

deconduo

nesf wrote: »

The 6450 benchmarks far below the HD4000. In fact it ranks lower than the HD3000.

I just double checked there; tomshardware's benches put it above the HD 4000, but anandtech's puts it below the HD 3000 like you said. I'm trying to dig up a few more reviews to see if there's any other information either way.

nesf

deconduo wrote: »

I just double checked there; tomshardware's benches put it above the HD 4000, but anandtech's puts it below the HD 3000 like you said. I'm trying to dig up a few more reviews to see if there's any other information either way.

Well, there are a lot of problems benchmarking integrated GPUs against discrete GPUs. Looking at the toms' ranking for the HD 4000 surprised me quite a bit given the performance reports I've been hearing anecdotally.

Edit: Oh, and the other problem being that the 6450 not really being considered as a gaming card by anybody means that it's actually quite tricky finding a good selection of benchmarks for it.

Mc Love

Played a bit last night and there has been a small improvement on traffic and fire engines - but 2.0 should make the game better

deconduo

nesf wrote: »

Well, there are a lot of problems benchmarking integrated GPUs against discrete GPUs. Looking at the toms' ranking for the HD 4000 surprised me quite a bit given the performance reports I've been hearing anecdotally.

Edit: Oh, and the other problem being that the 6450 not really being considered as a gaming card by anybody means that it's actually quite tricky finding a good selection of benchmarks for it.

Just to muddy the waters even more:

XBit puts them at neck and neck

Bit-tech puts the HD4000 ahead in 2 games, and behind in 1

TL:DR benchmark sites can't agree on anything :pac:

However, the 6450 should be able to run Sim City on low settings without much of a hitch, even at 1080p, given that there's plenty of people running it on the HD 4000.

nesf

deconduo wrote: »

Just to muddy the waters even more:

XBit puts them at neck and neck

Bit-tech puts the HD4000 ahead in 2 games, and behind in 1

TL:DR benchmark sites can't agree on anything :pac:

However, the 6450 should be able to run Sim City on low settings without much of a hitch, even at 1080p, given that there's plenty of people running it on the HD 4000.

Hmm, the Xbit one, the 6450 is behind in almost all the benchmarks but look at the difference in gap between synthetic and real world performance for the Intel offerings. Are we seeing driver problems there given how early the tech review was etc?

the_syco

Jernal wrote: »

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

Based on this thread I bought Anno 2070 instead of SC and despite not liking it too much for the first week I'm bordering on obsessed with it at the moment. Great game.

Ditto. Takes a while to get into it, but it's totally worth it.

Oh? May look into it again. Bought it a while back.

Wonda-Boy wrote: »

gets boring PLAYING WITH MYSELF!

:P

quarryman wrote: »

Version 2.0 incoming...

Mc Love wrote: »

Played a bit last night and there has been a small improvement on traffic and fire engines - but 2.0 should make the game better

Shall wait, and hope.

=-=

Also surprised none of the usual groups haven't released this from a wooden ship yet, with all the features that we want :P

Turtwig

^ ^ ^
Anno can be summed up as follows.
"I'll just have a short session.The game will advise me to take a break when I've been playing for two hours, I'll stop definitely then.
[later...]
F**k! Daylight! "

the_syco

Jernal wrote: »

^ ^ ^
Anno can be summed up as follows.
"I'll just have a short session.The game will advise me to take a break when I've been playing for two hours, I'll stop definitely then.
[later...]
F**k! Daylight! "

Hrm. Could be why I don't play it ^.^

BenEadir

Jonny7 wrote: »

personally I would hold off as the below is a much better buy, doesn't require you to have to plug a power cable into it and will run no hassle on that PSU
http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/13315884/art/sapphire-technology/radeon-hd-7750-2-gb-ddr3.html

It will be well able for any game, just not on ultra settings

Yup it's a little pricey if you are on a budget, but about 6 times faster than the current card

Hi Jonny,

So this is the card for me?? It doesn't require a separate power supply and I can literally unplug the old card and plug this one in? I'm sure there are driver etc to be installed but in terms of the physical process it's a simple swap?

Ben

KilOit

Jernal wrote: »

^ ^ ^
Anno can be summed up as follows.
"I'll just have a short session.The game will advise me to take a break when I've been playing for two hours, I'll stop definitely then.
[later...]
F**k! Daylight! "

I played a map for 50 odd hours and still didn't get to build everything, was kinda raging I picked easy mode with no pirates, will play it again on medium settings. Your comment couldn't be more true!

Shiminay

BenThere wrote: »

Hi Jonny,

So this is the card for me?? It doesn't require a separate power supply and I can literally unplug the old card and plug this one in? I'm sure there are driver etc to be installed but in terms of the physical process it's a simple swap?

Ben

Yea, the process to swap will be very straight forward. It's literally unplug the other and plug the new one in. You should update with the latest AMD Catalyst Control Centre and drivers before you install so when the new card goes in, everything should just fire up nicely and work.

For what it's worth, I have a 6450 in my machine in work and it does indeed run Sim City with all the details turned down. It's not a patch on the crossfire 6950's I have in my PC at home (which lets me turn everything up to 11), but it's certainly playable

Jonny7

BenThere wrote: »

Hi Jonny,

So this is the card for me?? It doesn't require a separate power supply and I can literally unplug the old card and plug this one in? I'm sure there are driver etc to be installed but in terms of the physical process it's a simple swap?

Ben

Yes, as the other poster said, it's a simple swap in, swap out - since it's an AMD card you should already have the drivers on your PC, although I do recommend updating to the latest catalyst drivers

Personally, I prefer dealing with amazon, no fuss returns and super saver delivery will probably mean you can find one (AMD 7750) for about the same price.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Asus-Graphics-Express-Eyefinity-Technology/dp/B007R1SQ1K/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1366109743&sr=8-3&keywords=hd+7750

and the review of the card
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/HD_7750/1.html

A card like that will give you access to all games (and is the gateway drug card to more powerful GPUs)

Once the kid tires of Simcity, get Steam and you can get games there for virtually nothing in the summer, winter and flash sales.

BenEadir

Thanks Shiminay and Jonny7, appreciate the help very much.

Of course now I'm thinking that instead of lashing €100 into a new graphics card I'd be better off buying a new PC all together which has a better processor than the humble i3, more storage than the 1tb I'm currently using and of course better built in graphics at least as good as the cards you've recommended. Decisions decisions

Ben

grizzly

BenThere wrote: »

Thanks Shiminay and Jonny7, appreciate the help very much.

Of course now I'm thinking that instead of lashing €100 into a new graphics card I'd be better off buying a new PC all together which has a better processor than the humble i3, more storage than the 1tb I'm currently using and of course better built in graphics at least as good as the cards you've recommended. Decisions decisions

Ben

If you're going to keep on gaming, it would be worth doing. Have you checked out building and upgrading?

Jonny7

My advice would be to stick with the current set up for the mo. The i3 is fine for gaming, and 100 euros will easily cover a good budget card like the 7750.

1tb is also more than enough and 4 gigs of ram is still absolutely grand.

All games will be perfectly playable on that setup. Later on down the line, when you want higher res and ultra graphics every time, then that's probably the time to invest.

If you do decide to go for a gaming PC, then around 700 to 800 Euros is the optimum price, after that you start getting diminishing returns on frames.. you also start the slippery slope towards this..

Mc Love

Has anyone been playing this lately? Twice now when playing, the screen went black and all you could see is the cursor. Then it brings you back to the main menu!

EDIT: Second time it went not responding tonight

Mc Love

if anyone is having trouble due to their city not being able to load - please post your problem here along with the following:
http://answers.ea.com/t5/Miscellaneous-Issues/Info-Request-Unable-to-Load-City-at-this-Time/m-p/1043566#M70320


Your Origin ID -
Your City Name -
The Region Name -
The Server Name -
How did you end your session last time you were playing the city -

Mc Love

Update is due Monday 1pm PST ( Tues 1am BST)

We have an update for you, Mayors. An update about our next Update, in fact – this Monday, April 22 starting at 1pm PST we’ll be releasing Update 2.0, which contains a number of top-requested bug fixes and improvements. Here’s the full list of changes included in the Update:

What’s New

• Mayors Mansion: Mayors will now drive their fancy cars to work. Mayors will take their helicopter, limo, or sports car if the modules are present.
• HUD: Now color-corrects when in a colorblind mode.
• Data map: Data maps show the filtered color when a color filter is enabled (unless in a colorblind mode)

Fixes and Updates

• Cities not Processing: Mitigates some of the issues that were causing cities not to process. We are continuing to work on and improve this issue.
• Region Filters: Now sorts regions with available cities to the top
• Invitations: Invitations to join a region should be sent and received more quickly.
• Tourism: Fixes for unexplained fluctuation of tourists. Tourists more smartly counted on transit.
- Cruise ships are now more effective at bringing medium and high wealth tourists in coastal cities.
- New tourists will now decide to come into a city once leaving tourists reach train stations, bus depots, or cruise ship docs instead of waiting for those tourists to go out to the region first.
- This change will reduce the downtime of tourist buildings.
• Casinos: Casinos tuned so that Gambling will be a more profitable specialty. Players can bulldoze and replace existing casinos to see effects of tuning.
- The larger casinos now invite more tourists into the city which helps keep them full.
- Note that existing casinos will need to be replaced to take advantage of this change.
• More Casinos: Raised module limit on Sci-Fi and Sleek Casinos to 6 modules.
• Region Play: Cash gifts can now be received in a bankrupt city.
• Education: Fixed school buses getting stuck at the high school. Existing Schools will fix themselves.
• Education: Fixed school buses picking up students at neighboring cities that didn’t have school bus stops.
• Education: Fix to more accurately track regional student population.
• Education: Fix where kids leaving the school bus stop would teleport to the nearest pedestrian path instead of walking directly into the school.
• Education: University wings now give the proper bonus.
• Recycling: Fix for the Recycling Center where it would sometimes stop working, recycling services will visit other cities.
• Air pollution: Fixed issue where air pollution would appear to come from nowhere. Fix issues where your regional air pollution would be reflected back into your box for a double penalty.
• Fire Service: Fire Trucks don’t clump, dispatch to fires more efficiently.
• Water: Water pumps are now capable of pumping water from rivers at a larger radius so they can take better advantage of the water table in a city.
• Disasters: Cooldown for random disasters: Some players were getting hit too frequently with random disasters, this introduces a cooldown where no random disasters will occur.
• Trade: Fix for trade ports that suddenly stop shipping.
• Transit: Street Cars and Buses go to high volume stops first.
• Transit: A city with residents and public transit will now provide the accurate amount of workers and shoppers to its neighbors.
• Transit: A transit vehicle stuck in a pick-up or drop off loop will now go back to a garage instead of trying to pick up more people.
- Transit vehicles should recover automatically after the update. If players want to force the recovery, turn off the stops that are having looping issues, wait a few game hours, then turn them back on.
• Transit: Neighbors buses will now come in lower numbers into the city and do a better job at picking up local passengers first.
• Residential Tuning: Residential-only cities have failure state.
- Buildings are prevented from going up in density when they don’t have power or water.
- The amount of happiness gained from low taxes, police, fire, and health outreach has been lowered.
- Fixed some cases where buildings would not go abandoned when they should have.
- Higher density residential buildings are no longer blocked from going abandoned due to not having enough money.
- Happiness from low taxes does not double up every time it is given.
- Losing happiness due to not having a job is more impactful.
• Budgets: Fixed bug that prevented systems like fire, abandonment, garbage, and sewage from turning on when they were supposed to.
• Audio: Fixes issue where audio will stop working after creating a large city or where phantom audio sounds play in a city.
• Demolish: Fixes issue that occurred when players demolished buildings that had service vehicles, delivery vehicles, or agents out in the city or region. Previously, the agents would be in a state of limbo and would not recover when new buildings of that type were placed. This will no longer happen.

Because this is our first significant Update, we wanted to inform you in advance that we’ll be taking down all servers for approximately two hours while changes are being issued. Choosing a time to issue a major Update is never easy, but after looking our peak player time, we’ve concluded 1pm PST is the best window for us to make these improvements. As you can see from the list above, the wait will be worth it.

The Clown Man

Mc Love wrote: »

Update is due Monday 1pm PST ( Tues 1am BST)

Will that not be 9pm BST? Right at peak?

Mc Love

yeah my bad wrong calculations!

the_syco

Fire Service: Fire Trucks don’t clump, dispatch to fires more efficiently.

About f**king time!

Disasters: Cooldown for random disasters: Some players were getting hit too frequently with random disasters, this introduces a cooldown where no random disasters will occur.

Godzilla a few hours after the meteorite shower was not the best

=-=

Hope these fix most of the issues.