Jul
1st
2020
Surviving Mars postponed... · 10:44pm Jul 1st, 2020
... because GOG didn't list system requirements when I bought it.
And no, none of my machines can run it.
So tonight it's KSP, and tomorrow I take apart my main computer to make sure I know what size card slot my current ATI Radeon 4800 graphics card uses. (My processor and RAM meet requirements.)
https://twitch.tv/redneckgaijin
In tangentally related news, does anyone have a particular graphics card they'd recommend?
Also, sometime this month I'll be pausing the streams for a trip to help someone move- I'll be away for about a week, I expect. After that, I'll likely to a string of Surviving Mars plays to make up for it.
ATI Radeon 4800... That's a name I haven't heard in some time. That should be pci Express, only the 4600s were agp.
That being said, almost any modem card at all price points should run rings around that 4800 lol
5298911 AMD 4X 3.mumbletysomething, 16 GB RAM.
5298923
Any chance you can get the exact specs on your system? I kinda think you might need more than a new GPU.
Anyhow, for a new GPU I'd recommend a Radeon RX 580. Pretty cheap, still available new, and mind bogglingly fast compared to your old 4800.
I’m selling my old 6700k cpu including motherboard and 16gb of ram I’d happy to give a good discount on so it goes to a good home.
5298923
What 5298936 said. Windows+R dxdiag, then once it finishes processing, hit the Save All Information button and cut-paste the System Information section from the resulting text file.
Radeon 48XX use PCIe slots - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radeon_HD_4000_series
Above posters have good ways to get what sort of motherboard you have.
Yeah. MOBO/CPU upgrade sounds way past due there. Mostly pointless to do just the GPU. That's a decade plus old. You can get a good Ryzen and Ryzen mobo for ~$200 and at least 8GB of RAM for around $50 or so and a acceptable GPU for all pretty cheap right now. Can reuse the rest of your components. Though when you have more funds a M.2 SSD and such would be one of the first upgrades to do.
https://www.microcenter.com/site/content/custom-pc-builder.aspx?load=3b10084a-84c7-4d12-ae88-349fb0ca1365 Something like that perhaps assuming you can reuse the rest of your case/psu which is likely. Though i'd suggest an RTX video card if you have a budget. Assume you do not though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lfcschg9uwU some alternative build info there, though they're a tad out of date.
If you just do the video card your performance will be much reduced in speed 4 times or more, if you don't upgrade your motherboard. Best to do an integrated graphics on a newer piece of silicon then not upgrade your CPU and motherboard now in my opinion if you can't afford the cpu/mobo/gpu right now.
5299079 A MOBO upgrade is just not happening. This was a free machine and, given the current situation, laying out big bucks to essentially replace everything in my computer except the hard drives and tower and then hiring someone to reinstall everything on the computer to get BIOS and OS happy again, is not in the cards.
5299132
Hiring? No need. And also not big bucks. Less then $300. A acceptable video card alone is going to cost you at least $150. Bios/windows installs now are basically foolproof. And will mostly set themselves up. You can do that all yourself. You can watch full PC builds in first person POV from the same channel I linked in my comment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7MYOpFONCU it's easy. If you have a screw driver, and some time to learn and educate yourself you're good to go.
5299135 The last time I tried fixing a BIOS issue myself, I ended up reinstalling Windows, almost bricking the machine, losing two weeks of time, handing the hard drive off to a computer tech who charged me $200 to make it readable again, and eventually replacing the machine itself with a pawn shop laptop of similar but not identical make.
You'll need to do nothing in the bios anymore with todays stuff nearly every time unless you want to overclock. Literally all you'll check there is everything auto detected ok. Then you'll stick Windows 10 in on a USB flash drive and it'll install nearly all your drivers from over the internet itself. It will also take care not to overwrite your old Windows install unless you tell it to. As to documents you're working on back them up for free to Google Drive/Docs and the like. And that's solved too. There's really not much to fear.
PC enthusiasts always get excited when ppl are shopping for computer parts lol. We want ppl to feel how much fun it is to build this stuff on their own.
Sounds like an AMD Phenom X4 family of CPUs. Which should mean a 700 series chipset. Now those had PCI Express 2.0, and while most modern cards use 3.0, they are backwards compatible. The RX 580/590 is what's most reliable for the least amount of cash as some have suggested above. At higher price points the recommended model changes and switches between amd and nvidia, but your cpu would severely hold back anything above a...I'd say a 1660 or an RX 5500.
Beyond that, a premade from a company with a warranty and service, such as CyberpowerPC, is your next best bet, but I don't know your situation.
The only thing to watch out for at this time is electronics shortages due to the 'rona.
Unfortunately I don't have any suggestions on the graphics card situation. Everyone else apparently knows more about that than I do.
Once you do get the game running though I would suggest checking out the in game radio stations. They are good enough that I never turn them off. In particular The Official Mars Channel from the base game and Quantum Sonics from the deluxe upgrade are all sorts of wonderful. The latter I surprisingly consider well worth the cost of the deluxe upgrade DLC when it is on sale for $5, like now.
5298964 What appears to be the important bits:
------------------
System Information
------------------
Time of this report: 7/2/2020, 10:42:37
Operating System: Windows 10 Home 64-bit (10.0, Build 18363) (18362.19h1_release.190318-1202)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
BIOS: BIOS Date: 09/11/14 11:03:28 Ver: 20.01 (type: BIOS)
Processor: AMD Phenom(tm) II X4 965 Processor (4 CPUs), ~3.4GHz
Memory: 16384MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 16382MB RAM
Page File: 4119MB used, 14694MB available
Windows Dir: C:\Windows
DirectX Version: DirectX 12
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
User DPI Setting: 96 DPI (100 percent)
System DPI Setting: 96 DPI (100 percent)
---------------
Display Devices
---------------
Card name: ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series
Manufacturer: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
Chip type: ATI display adapter (0x9440)
DAC type: Internal DAC(400MHz)
Device Type: Full Device (POST)
Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9440&SUBSYS_05021002&REV_00
Device Status: 0180200A [DN_DRIVER_LOADED|DN_STARTED|DN_DISABLEABLE|DN_NT_ENUMERATOR|DN_NT_DRIVER]
Device Problem Code: No Problem
Driver Problem Code: Unknown
Display Memory: 8429 MB
Dedicated Memory: 493 MB
Shared Memory: 7936 MB
Current Mode: 1920 x 1200 (32 bit) (59Hz)
Monitor Name: HP w2558hc Wide LCD Monitor
Monitor Model: HP w2558hc
5299218 Since this will be recorded for streaming and YouTube, I'll have to turn the radio off.
If all you want to do is a video card and you have a budget a Rtx 2060 or 2070 should be your first choices. If those are too off budget find a 1650 or 1660 that fits in your budget. I wouldn't really consider AMD cards at present. Just make sure your power supply, which you didn't mention the voltage of, is beefy enough. Likely is and should have the same connectors as on your current card. Though do make sure it has the correct connections and you don't need adapters or its somehow missing them.
Again you will be drastically cutting speed down with the slower pcie you're sticking it into and you'll be much better off not investing in a video card now but doing a full new system and sticking with integrated graphics on the AM4 socket and upgrading as money becomes available though. Can get pre-built systems that'll serve your needs for barely more with that upgrade potential.
5299313 Last year I bought a gaming laptop for the purpose of streaming. It cost $800 and proved inadequate (the same model showed up at Walmart for half the price two weeks after I bought mine elsewhere). The cheapest gaming/streaming prebuilt I spotted when shopping around was over $2,000... and that was a year ago, before COVID-19 brought world trade to a crawl.
5299321
https://www.microcenter.com/product/624824/powerspec-g163-gaming-computer $800 and good to go. A bit slower then option two below though for only $200 more. Hard to beat Dell's economy of scale. Even if you build yourself.
https://tinyurl.com/ydauuz6l Can get you nearly 20 percent off that with a coupon if you're interested. Can finance it too for over a year with 0 interest. About $1000 minus that coupon I can get you. Not my favorite choice, but that's where I can get a coupon from thanks to work. This will get you to AAA title gaming at nearly max settings with streaming easily doable right now. Would probably add an M.2 drive along with the regular, double the RAM, and do a couple other changes to top it off though.
https://tinyurl.com/ydo6qwtb $550 and acceptable.
https://tinyurl.com/urtdbua $750 and acceptable.
I can keep going. You'd save a substantial amount of cost with just building your own with some of the cheaper components. And you really should try to get a Ryzen 7 3700x really, but cost isn't that that high especially considering age of what you're replacing.
As to video cards themselves:
https://www.amazon.com/MSI-GTX-1650-OC-4GT/dp/B07ZTXYVMN/ is probably fine. Again, check your power supply and sizing. $160.
https://www.amazon.com/MSI-GeForce-RTX-2060-VENTUS/dp/B07PBLD2MX $340. Much better card.
But both of those are again probably not worth sticking into a decade plus year old computer. But up to you ultimately. I'd strongly consider using your money to upgrade to a much newer chipset and do upgrades as you can rather then investing in the video card. You'll need to upgrade the desktop itself the second you want to move onto anything especially if you want to make Twitch more a thing.
I don't mention AMD/ATI graphics cards because I've never been a fan going back decades. I don't much like their CPUs either. But the Ryzen's are clearly better then Intel in every way especially price which matters most right here. I don't trust them as I've had a ton of reliability problems whenever I dabbled into them, but other experts say they're far better now so I'll bow to their more experience.
1920 x 1200 monitor? I miss 16:10 aspect ratio
Also that's a pretty high end machine from back in the day, very nice.
And now that AMD is bringing in the big bucks from their very successful Ryzen cpus, they do seem to be putting more in to make their video drivers be good.
5299409 The machine was assembled from spare parts by someone who does it as a hobby who had to dump a lot of his spare parts in a hurry due to his house lease running out. The resulting machine was a major improvement over all my previous machines, including the $800 lappy I'd had for less than six months at that point. What I'm saying is, what I have didn't come from a factory assembled the way I have it now.
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5299079
5298964
5299187
The more I research this, the more two things become clear: (1) I will, indeed, need both the GPU and CPU replaced, and (2) I'm not competent to do it. I spent half an hour trying, and failing, to figure out whether or not XYZ graphics card would even be compatible with the power leads I have on the current one, and couldn't find that info. That pretty much guarantees that anything I buy on my own is going to end up being something that doesn't fit.
The thing is, I could maybe justify spending $150 on a new GPU, but only if I knew it would work. I can't really justify buying both a GPU and a CPU when I can't even verify either my ability to swap them out on the motherboard or that they would fit the motherboard at all.
And, as deeply in debt as I am and the more it looks like I'll be without convention income until 2021 earliest, I absolutely can't justify $1000+ on a replacement machine- not when I overspent for the lappy.
So the odds are I'm just going to set up a 1T external hard drive, USB-connected, to hold recordings, tweak the laptop's casting software, and try it with that. On paper the laptop can run Surviving Mars, but its built-in HD is too small to hold more than a couple of 720i stream recordings... and when I used it to stream XCOM Chimera Squad, it wasn't really capable of running that and the streaming software at the same time.
I might just have to be more careful to pick indy or retro games in the future and steer clear of AAA overloaded crap.
5299602
https://www.guru3d.com/index.php?ct=articles&action=file&id=56183 shown there. I assume your PSU has one. And it won't even be a problem whatsoever more then likely. A 6 or 8 pin connection will fit either way. I was worried about the voltage spike of the new card, but after more research the 1650 only uses about 100 watts of power, and the card you're replacing used 110 watts chances are you're more then fine.
Either way since you're on the fence just go to Best Buy. Buy https://tinyurl.com/y8y5hw6r that it's only a few more bucks then Amazons, I assume you have a Best Buy near you, and see if it works. If it does great. If it isn't the upgrade you're hoping for and doesn't get you to where you wanted oh well. Worth the try. And if it doesn't work at all no issue. You have a 14 day return window and you lose nothing but the gas and time in the effort.
But eventually yeah, you're really going to need the whole new computer at this point. Can easily use the video card then when finances allow the full PC build. Though the 3000 series NVIDIA GPUs are a comin'. So that will bring the 2000 series down in price a lot. But as always with that, you need something NOW so worrying about the future doesn't matter that much.
5299612 First, I'm not entirely sure what part of that image I'm supposed to be looking at. I don't even know what you mean by "12 volt rail".
I can tell you that the current Radeon 4800-series GPU is currently powered by two six-pin PCI-2 (according to the wiring plug label) plugs from the power supply, and that an eight-pin one is not immediately apparent for a swap-out. (One of the two six-pin plugs has a separate small 2-pin plug harnessed next to it, but the pins appear to be of different sizes.)
As for "when I can afford it," that depends on my current stupendous indebtedness (only increased by COVID) coming down a lot, or streaming income going UP a lot to make it a justifiable business expense. Neither seems likely in the next year or so.
5299622
You're good then. I edited the post a bit. I automatically typed and looked up older shit from when I built stuff more often. Like I said, just go to Best Buy if you're going to justify it anyway. Try it out. If it works perfectly for you great you're good for now. If it doesn't bring it back. No loss.
5299625 Nearest Best Buy is a 100-mile plus round trip, and you always pay retail-plus there for lousy selection. If I go that route I'll go into Houston to the MicroCenter there- a 200-mile round trip, but better selection, better return policy, other errands I can run while down there, and frequent sales and deals.
... obviously I'm not going to do this under the current circumstances, though. Not unless something much more urgent brings me to Houston anyway.
If you've been to a Microcenter yeah, then that's obviously the better option. Though Best Buy's and Microcenters and Amazons and Neweggs, etc. are all right around $160 for that card.
Also you know that Microcenter put together parts for a $150 fee right? See: https://www.microcenter.com/site/service/instore-service-complete-build.aspx So if you want to part it out that's still viable and it's a service they provide. They usually offer building classes too, but that's suspended thanks to the current bug.
Well, whatever you decide we'll be here to help, especially Bree R up there lol
Since the others comments already said a lot of stuff about upgrading, I will be recommending this
PC Gaming Benchmark
I used this whenever I find a shiny new game that WOULD potentially work on my old laptop, help save and maximize a few dollars here and there.
It works by first analyzing your pc/laptop (either via downloading a program that automatically scan your computer or via you personally keying in your system), then it will show you whether or not that game can be run or not by your system, and why, and if you REALLY want to play that game, it will show you what upgrade you need.
5299864 Yeah, I found that yesterday.
My got-it-for-free casting rig rates 5%, and the biggest problem is as others have said: the CPU, not just the GPU.
The laptop, at least, rates 63%. Unfortunately it's not really upgradable.
5299602
On the lowest settings survivng mars is supprisingly playable on even really old graphics card (I had my modern card die on me, so for a couple weeks I had to use a really old one). Have you gone into it's settings and set them lower (and maybe knock down the resolution to 1200 x 800 or something).
5299972 The game won't even boot on the casting machine. I installed it on the laptop last night, and the default installation is fullscreen "how big can we make it?", so I'm not surprised the casting machine is choking.
5299978
On my machine, the config file is located at AppData\Roaming\Surviving Mars\LocalStorage.lua
Here is a config with the settings set low. Hope it helps. Might need to adjust resolution to one your monitor supports.
5300293 No change. I get a blank white window for about two seconds, and then it shuts itself down, same as before.
5300487
Guess the graphics card doesn't support some base feature used by the game engine.
5300487
Sorry for butting in. I wanted to thank you for writing The Maretian and saw this blog entry.
I checked the game requirements for Surviving Mars on steam and while I initially thought your graphics card shouldn't be supported, the good news is minimum listed is an HD 4600 which is a very much budget version of your card. The bad news the minimum video RAM listed is 1GB, if I interpret the log posted earlier correctly, you have ~500 on your card still working. That doesn't mean that the game is guaranteed not to work on that card under any circumstances but it's often the case.
Anyway, I had a look around and found this topic on the official forums: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/surviving-mars-game-screen-launches-100-white-after-recent-win10-auto-update.1101764/
Most people on there seem to be talking about nvidia cards but have you checked if you have the most up to date drivers for your hd4800 series card? It's usually one of the first things people suggest but I haven't seen it in this comment section so far. If somebody has already done so on one of your streams or elsewhere please disregard my comment.
5301840 I'll look into it, but odds are I'll buy a new GPU and some extra memory anyway, since I intend to offer up KSP: Galileo Planet Pack as an option for August. The mod eats a lot more memory than vanilla KSP.