Frame Rates.

News & General Discussion
1

Hello,

I just started using unity once again after i realized unity has listened to the community and added quite a few things that kept me from using unity in the past.

Anyways ive been doing some bench mark tests cause im wanting to update my computer.I figured i would get a little advice from the community.

Im hitting 30 frames rates in high vegetation and around 50 to 60 in open mountain areas(the demo island map).I figured getting a new video card and a solid state hard drive to put my os on will give me what i want.

Im the lead developer at Xtreme Games so it is up to me to keep my computer at high standards.

Here are my specs.Let me know what you think i should buy that would help me out.
My specs
Vista 32-bit( i may switch to 64 bit but ive been told there isnt a huge performance difference between 32 and 64)
AMD Athlon 64 x2 Dual Core Processor 5000+ 2.61 ghz
4.00 Gb Ram
And 500 GB Hard Drive
nvidia gforce 8500 gt video card.

2

Get windows 7(not required, I just hate Vista), and a new graphics card would be a good idea.

I personally dislike SSD, but that is personal preference and I don’t have any actual valid reasons.

3

Perhaps not, but it would permit you to use more of your RAM. Currently, you’re getting between 3 and 3.5gb of that ram useable because your videocard’s VRAM is eating up address space. Windows 32 bit only has 4GB of address space, meaning that anything else which uses this takes away from your useable RAM. A 64 bit OS would solve this and give you your RAM back.

4

Thanks for the feed back guys.I have a copy of windows 7 64 bit that i just never have put to use.I guess its time i do.Along with a new video card.Any recommendations?I would like to stay with nvidia(personal preference)

5

A GTX460 is a good mid-range card. 470/480 if you have the money.

6

I would stay away from Solid State Drives, they are like flash drives in an enclosure. After so many writes they are gone. So heavy writing caused by Windows and all the file operations of writing and modifying game files will wear the drive out faster. SSD’s do not have near the life as regular hdd’s. Just make sure your hard disk is at least 7400RPM for faster performance.

Edit: And vista isnt so bad once its updated. It was a nightmare for the first 6 months after its launch, but I can’t complain. I got my desktop with Vista Ultimate x64 and a laptop with Vista Home Basic x86. Both are really nice systems. Of course I optimize my Windows using msconfig and disabling extra start-up programs.

7

I got two gtx 480’s in SLI in my system. They perform pretty well.

8

If you want to stay with nVIDIA than the GTX460 is probably the best balanced card these days.

9

But since he has the windows 7 discs, there really is no point in staying with Vista!