Pc Setup

[McGuy]

Not sure if this is the correct area to be getting Help on a good pc setup so that i can run modpacks without any lag issues.


Right now Im running on a AMD Phenom(tm0 9600B Quad-Core Processor 2.30 Ghz with 4 GB's 64 bit.

What does it take to run FTB at a good speed without issues that isn't overpricer? Not sure what ftb needs for it to run great. Is it GB? If so whats a good amount to have. any additional information would be kindly appreciated.

 

[namiasdf]

That sounds good enough, unless you're like me and you have a billion machines running at once. Is what I do

 

[McGuy]

i cant even play new packs due to lagg

 

[CapturetheBomb]

Minecraft typically is CPU intensive, so the more Ghz, the better.

I would try a mod pack, press f3, and report the FPS to us. It should be around 30 to be okay.

Edit: I looked your specs up, and you are running on a 5 year old CPU. I would highly suggest a new computer if you can afford it.

 

[McGuy]

what do you suggest I upgrade other then a brand new pc.

 

[Omicron]

Lag can have many reasons. Make sure you investigate thoroughly before throwing money at a new computer.

If you could download this freeware tool called CPU-Z, make screenshots of the "CPU", "Mainboard", "Memory" and "Graphics" tabs and upload them somewhere for us to see, that would help a lot with judging how good your current setup is.

That said, if you can tell us a rough amount of money you'd be willing to spend, I'm sure that you'll receive many suggestions. Also mention if a new system should be built only for Minecraft or for other games too.

 

[RedBoss]

Get a decent graphics card and you'll be fine. My cpu is slightly better than yours and I have twice the RAM. I couldn't even play vanilla until I got a graphics card. I run the RR pack, which is quite a bit more intensive than most ftb packs, and I run at about 50 fps

 

[Darth Sith]

Upgrade your CPU if you can and can you provide info on your graphics card and the amount of RAM you have that will be very helpful information.

what do you suggest I upgrade other then a brand new pc.

 

[McGuy]

Graphics card I have is a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 TTI with 4096MB Ram If that helps any

 

[Omicron]

A 550 Ti is easily enough for Minecraft even at large resolutions. That one is not your bottleneck.

 

[McGuy]

Well I've got a hard drive coming in thats alot better then the outdated one that i have atm so maybe that will help a tad bit. not really sure what else could cause it.

 

[Omicron]

Unless you ordered a SSD, you will not see any improvement. All mechanical harddisks are extremely slow. It doesn't matter whether they are brand new or four years old... nowadays, mechanical disks are only interesting for mass storage, and not for performance.

However, Minecraft isn't terribly disk-dependant to begin with, unless you set you memory allocation wrong in a way that causes your system to constantly page to disk. Minecraft cares about stuff in this order:
1.) CPU speed
2.) JVM type and configuration
3.) Memory amount
4.) Video card speed
5.) Disk speed
6.) The color of your t-shirt

By the way, one free-of-charge way for you to try and improve your performance, if you have not already: Optifine. Sometimes it doesn't do anything, but sometimes it helps, so it's worth trying. Download Optifine Standard edition for the Minecraft version the modpack you play runs on, and then drop the zip file into both the <modpack>\instMods and <modpack>\minecraft\mods folders.

 

[schyman]

I don't think this is the right forum section, but w/e. I'm not that good with hardware so I might say something stupid now, but:
- What kind of "lag" are you suffering? Is the game stuttering, or do you have lag where you destroy a block and it reappears?
- What kind of graphic card do you have? Your processor and RAM should be fine unless you do a lot of other stuff at the same time as FTB, so it might be your video card.
- Have you changed any settings, for example allowing more RAM to be used by the game? This can be changed in the launcher under the "options" tab.
- Do you have the latest drivers for your video card (and everything else)?
EDIT: And what Java do you have? I think I accidentally tried playing with 32 bit java on my machine a while ago and had issues that could be described as "unplayable lag".

[DOUBLEPOST=1375573800][/DOUBLEPOST]I don't think the CPU is the limiter. I run with a dualcore 3.16/2.86 GHz and usually have at least 40+ fps. It should not cause stuttering so bad you can't play the game at least.

Personally it sounds either like something is actually _wrong_ or the video card is bad/old.

 

[Geometry]

In your case, its either the CPU or something else. I think its the CPU since it is surprisingly weak compared to others. I used to have an AMD Phenom 9950 BE @ 2.6ghz stock clock speed and it was terrible for FTB. The original Phenom's were never strong anyways, and even a simple dual core i3 would likely outperform it. I would suggest upgrading, if possible. I now have a 3570k and I get 150+ FPS.

 

[McGuy]

Cpu Usage usually bounces between 20-40% and as for lagg I dont really get reappearing blocks just when I walk and attack stuff its kinda like slow motion way if that helps any.

 

[schyman]

What version of Java do you have, and have you changed the settings to allow Minecraft to use more RAM?

 

[McGuy]

Says I have the latest java version and yes its set to 1GB which is what it was set to when I first downloaded Ftb. I have yet to lower it

 

[schyman]

Try increasing RAM to 2GB (but not higher than that). Have you tried optifine?

 

[McGuy]

I had it on ultimate but pack got updated or something which removed the mods I added. and It doesnt allow me to go up any higher then 1GB not sure why.

 

[Geometry]

I had it on ultimate but pack got updated or something which removed the mods I added. and It doesnt allow me to go up any higher then 1GB not sure why.

Change your Java to 64 bit, and it should allow you to drag the slider higher than 1gb.