Got Assassin's Creed Odyssey running on System #6. The results have been... pleasing to say the least.
While the system meets the system requirements for RAM easily because it has 16 gigs, and the GPU is actually listed as the exact bare minimum GPU, the CPU is still kind of a wild card.
The requirements call for a second generation i5, the i5-2500 in fact, and yes, the Core i3-4130 is a couple of generations newer, but it still is an i3.
According to Passmark, while the single thread performance of the Core i3-4130 is actually slightly better than that of the Core i5-2500, it's multithread performance is noticably slower. You can view that data here for the Core i5-2500 (outside link) and for the Core i3-4130 here: (outside link).
I find that the best way to gauge the performance of a game on your system is by, well, the #1 is looking for a Youtube video to see if someone has already posted a performance benchmark on the hardware you have, but the #2 best thing is to look at the required CPU/GPU and then compare them side by side on Passmark to see how they stack against each other.
Even then, it's often that the true minimum requirements are a little, if not much, lower than what they officially say.
That is, if you're sometimes willing to play in sub-1080p resolutions with FPS sometimes hitting in the 20s at worst cases.
That depends a lot on the game you're playing, some games you can handle that, some games not. The worst ones are twitchy shooters and hard games that require precision timing. Consistent frametime is also very important, which can be a huge problem if you have an underpowered CPU.
I find that I can tolerate framerates as low as mid 20s when playing on a gamepad, but on a mouse, I cringe if it's under around 80. So console ports and third person games, and something like turn based strategy are playable with way lesser framerates, generally. For me, at least.
Another thing that comes to mind, is that sometimes I have run into hard limits, where the CPU they require really IS the minimum, or the GPU is the minimum that's actually playable.
In the cases of the CPU hard limit, it's that the game requires an instruction set that the CPU you're trying to run it on, just doesn't support. The most prominent thing is for example, the AMD Phenom II I have in System #1 doesn't support SSE4.1 or 4.2, which many newer games make us of. In that case, running a game that requires it, requires extremely hacky workarounds that 1. Might not even exist and 2. are, frankly, just not worth it, because your performance will be sub 20 or even sub 10 fps.
With GPUs, these days, it usually comes down to lack of adequate amount of VRAM. In those cases, your game just might not even launch, or if it does, it will most likely either be a glitchy and/or laggy mess. In those cases too, it's just not worth it. The other thing I will talk about down below.
The last case is OS limits. I find that many games that say that they require Windows 10, work just fine in Windows 7. Other times, they don't. It's very much a hit or miss, a binary coin toss.
With that in mind, I was pleasantly surprised by the performance in AC: Odyssey. I set the graphics to everything the lowest possible, 1366x768 (native resolution of monitor #3), 100% resolution scale, with world textures set to medium and character textures set to high.
With that, I'm getting 30-45 FPS, with incredibly consistent frametimes. There are no lag spikes to speak of, I was actually surprised. Even when I'm playing off of a 2007 mid-range HDD!
I also have to say, the game looks drop dead gorgeous, even on the lowest settings. Ahh my Ancient Greece simulator... sunshine, olive oil and the wrath of Zeus, could life be any better?
All in all: Wonderful! If I was just planning on playing AC Odyssey, I would be happy with that... But, however...
Another game in my backlog is Horizon Zero Dawn. Now when it comes to that game, System #6 doesn't meet the minimum requirements in either the CPU, nor the GPU.
What's worse, it doesn't meet the VRAM requirement. The GTX 660 has 2 gigs of VRAM, the game wants 3 GB. But the bigger problem is actually that the game runs in DirectX 12.
Now, this is an interesting one. Check it out at Techpowerup: (outside link, archive.ph) The DirectX support level is defined as 12 (11_0). Huh?
From my understanding it means that, it only partially supports DX12. In practice, this makes running DirectX12 games kind of a gamble. They might have glitches.
In the case of Horizon Zero Dawn: It does have glitches. Significant glitches.
Not only is the framerate low on minimum settings due to the card being underpowered and lacking VRAM, but more importantly, everything in the world geometry is flickering. Constantly. To quote AVGN: "It's like it's trying to exist, but can't." (Episode 118: Big Rigs - Over The Road Racing)
With that in mind, and the fact that I really want to try out some other games too. I decided to take a look at the used market for GPUs.
Everything new is either criminally overpriced for cards that are on paper, less powerful than the GTX 660, and/or way too overpowered to be worth it. I'm already running into a CPU bottleneck, it would make no sense to pay 150+€ for a GPU that I know will be gimped.
(Yes, I know that the RX 580 in System #1 is gimped too. And I bought that brand new. Look, sometimes you just want something that works with a guarantee and you want it fast with no hassle. My previous GPU died and I wanted a new one asap. People make decisions, that's life.)
Anyway, how funny - I was looking at the used market and the situation definitely seems to have improved since the cryptoscalper & pandemic days!
Decent older cards could be found as low as 20€. I was looking at GTX 960, R9 290, 1050 Ti, all for around 30 to 40-ish €. Pretty good!
I would have gotten the R9 290 maybe, but it's just too long to fit in the case. The same fate befall the GTX 960s that were available.
Then I saw an RX 570 8 GB for 50€...
It will be arriving in the mail soon.
It's funny, I didn't intend for it but I now have an RX 580 and an RX 570.
It was just the best bang for the buck! Still! In 2024 :D
Way more powerful than the 1050 Ti they were asking 40€ for.
What a legendary series of cards.
Hold on, you say, why not just take the RX 580 out of System #1 and stick the GTX 660 in there?
A valid point, but it's just... a real hassle. First of all, I have System #1 set up perfectly as I want it, all the games are installed there, on multiple hard drives, and I pray that the Windows 7 install will keep working as it for the end of time basically, I'm kind of afraid to touch it I admit.
Secondly, as I have mentioned previously, the case of System #6 is weird. It doesn't appear to have a way to put more hard drives in, without some weird sort of caddies, that I don't know if they're standard or custom made for this case or not.
I mean, I could technically switch the motherboards around, yada yada yada...
Sometimes, you throw money at things to make things easier for you. Even someone as frugal as me. People do it all the time. Heck, people buy entirely new computers for a lot of money, because they can't be bothered to learn basic computer maintenance.
I mean, it's not I have anything to prove to anyone, this is my blog and I'm just explaining my line of thinking and telling stories :D
Anyway, here's to hoping that the RX 570 arrives soon, is in working condition and then I can game on without worries ^_^
Now you can see why I say part 1 of "1". I mean, I still have a CPU bottleneck and my CPU will not meet the minimum requirements for various games I'll be trying to run...
So maybe there will be a post about "running games on a CPU below minimum requirements" or something, who knows lmao
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