I am trying to possibly beef up my older (2009) built computer with some additions to get Minecraft working better with mods and be able to turn up the graphics somewhat to look better but not crash or lag seriously. My son and I love playing but things like the Localized Storms mod crash or hang the game when we get near tornadoes or I try to turn up the graphics levels on them. Right now we can play OK with a bunch of mods loaded (over 20 in 1.7.10 and 1.8.9) but I do have to turn down various settings using Optifine for performance. I want to give my son a better experience overall! Looking for advice if I could do this with what I have and upgrade some of it or should I scrap the idea and build new? Price is the issue here as if I can upgrade this for cheaper than a new machine and get good performance I'd rather do that unless it's just not worth it. I am not looking for pristine mine craft with all settings / shaders running (unless possible!) but I'd like to have things like the grass flowing / water look nicer / texture packs used to their potential. Also would appreciate any advice on what to upgrade to if possible and any settings changes you could recommend
My current monitor is only 60hz so my FPS aren't normally high and usually run in the 30s.
I set the FPS to VSync.
I keep the render distance view in the normal range (lower end of normal) and put most graphic settings at fast with no smooth lighting.
Full screen at 1600 x 900 setting.
Chunk loading is at 3.
All settings for the world (clouds / grass / Eric) are set to normal.
Enable the options that say they stabilize FPS
Would like to up these obviously to give my son a cooler look.
Heres what I have with what I'd think to upgrade beside it
ASUS M3N72-D Mobo - can take PCie x16
AMD Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition CPU
6 GB DDR2 RAM - would want to up this to 8 or 16 GB. Site says mobo can do 8 but manual says 16
NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT card - would definately want to upgrade this, but to what? - thinking a GTX 660 2 GB - or would different cards in SLI be better?
Windows 7 64-bit
Java 64-Bit
Have the game capped at using 2 GB of available memory as once it takes more the system starts to slow down.
Thanks ahead of time for any help. Much appreciated. You can be as honest as you want!!!
I am trying to possibly beef up my older (2009) built computer with some additions to get Minecraft working better with mods and be able to turn up the graphics somewhat to look better but not crash or lag seriously. My son and I love playing but things like the Localized Storms mod crash or hang the game when we get near tornadoes or I try to turn up the graphics levels on them. Right now we can play OK with a bunch of mods loaded (over 20 in 1.7.10 and 1.8.9) but I do have to turn down various settings using Optifine for performance. I want to give my son a better experience overall! Looking for advice if I could do this with what I have and upgrade some of it or should I scrap the idea and build new? Price is the issue here as if I can upgrade this for cheaper than a new machine and get good performance I'd rather do that unless it's just not worth it. I am not looking for pristine mine craft with all settings / shaders running (unless possible!) but I'd like to have things like the grass flowing / water look nicer / texture packs used to their potential. Also would appreciate any advice on what to upgrade to if possible and any settings changes you could recommend
My current monitor is only 60hz so my FPS aren't normally high and usually run in the 30s.
I set the FPS to VSync.
I keep the render distance view in the normal range (lower end of normal) and put most graphic settings at fast with no smooth lighting.
Full screen at 1600 x 900 setting.
Chunk loading is at 3.
All settings for the world (clouds / grass / Eric) are set to normal.
Enable the options that say they stabilize FPS
Would like to up these obviously to give my son a cooler look.
Heres what I have with what I'd think to upgrade beside it
ASUS M3N72-D Mobo - can take PCie x16
AMD Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition CPU
6 GB DDR2 RAM - would want to up this to 8 or 16 GB. Site says mobo can do 8 but manual says 16
NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT card - would definately want to upgrade this, but to what? - thinking a GTX 660 2 GB - or would different cards in SLI be better?
Windows 7 64-bit
Java 64-Bit
Have the game capped at using 2 GB of available memory as once it takes more the system starts to slow down.
Thanks ahead of time for any help. Much appreciated. You can be as honest as you want!!!
Couple things...
First of all, your CPU is pretty slow. However to upgrade the CPU, you'd need a new motherboard. These days the majority of motherboards use DDR3 or DDR4 ram, so you would need new ram. You GPU definitely also needs an upgrade. Also remember that minecraft does not support SLI whatsoever.
The big question here is how much are you willing to spend? My personally recommendation is assuming you have a good power supply, hard drive, and case, just re-use those parts and build a new PC.
The i3-6100 has great single core performance which is what Minecraft depends on. 16gb of ram is plenty , and you can easily dedicate lots of ram if you run 100+ mods. The RX 460 is a really good card for the money and would work perfectly assuming your power supply is up to par. This setup would be MUCH faster than your current rig.
Thanks for the help. Out of curiosity, What makes my current CPU slow? It's a quad core 3.4 GHZ proc. Is it the internals that make it slow? Again just curious...I know it's older in terms of years and such.
Also I am planning on building a new computer ground up in about 6-7 months with a multi core proc and higher level parts that I know will be costly. But Between now and then I was hoping some upgrades would get things working a little better in the interim to at least have the tornadoes be used and not crash the system for my son? We can already run some texture packs with mods loaded fine, just have some of the high graphics stuff turned down. Would getting a GTX 660 and 8 GB RAM help that out for the stuff I want to day in the interim? Or just a waste of time?
Thanks for the help. Out of curiosity, What makes my current CPU slow? It's a quad core 3.4 GHZ proc. Is it the internals that make it slow? Again just curious...I know it's older in terms of years and such.
The thing is, the clock speed (the 3.4 GHz part) doesn't really mean anything in terms of performance. Different processors have different instructions per cycle. For example, the an AMD FX-8350 is an 8-core 4.3 GHz CPU, however the i5-6400 will easily outperform it running at 2.7 GHz with only 4 cores.
Basically the i5 has more instructions per cycle than the AMD FX, and also keep in mind that games like Minecraft don't benefit from more than 2 cores anyways. The i3-6100 is an amazing CPU for the price in terms of performance. It is dual core, however it has hyper-threading which means it has another 2 virtual cores, meaning games and programs that use 4+ cores won't have bad performance.
Also I am planning on building a new computer ground up in about 6-7 months with a multi core proc and higher level parts that I know will be costly. But Between now and then I was hoping some upgrades would get things working a little better in the interim to at least have the tornadoes be used and not crash the system for my son? We can already run some texture packs with mods loaded fine, just have some of the high graphics stuff turned down. Would getting a GTX 660 and 8 GB RAM help that out for the stuff I want to day in the interim? Or just a waste of time?
First of all, why a GTX 660? Are you buying a used one or something? Because it is an almost 4 year old graphics card. If you're buying used, it should get the job done however I wouldn't pay more than $50-60 for one. If you're getting a cheap one, just make sure your power supply is up for the job.
The extra 2gb ram would help. but you wouldn't be able to use that ram in a newer computer.
In terms of the tornadoes mod.... I have no clue whether the mod is CPU or GPU based. It appears to be a bit of both, so if you just upgrade your GPU, I don't know how much better your performance will be.
Really it's up to you in terms of how much money you want to spend. If you spend $20 on ram and $50 on the GPU, it might? hold you over until you build a new PC.
I am planning on building a new, fully up to date system in about 6-8 months that will enable me to run MInecraft with all features enabled / mods / texture packs running / etc.. for my son. But in the meantime, was just trying to get it to a point where he could enjoy some of the mods / features he wanted to. Its also for me as I really enjoy the game as well, and seeing some of the online videos for it with all features running / textures added really make me want to run it full bore. But for now, getting some of the features running for my son is the most important.
I installed an extra 2 GB of RAM I had in a box with older RAM to get me up to 8GB and we were able to get the tornadoes running with no issues even with the Local LAN open and me connecting from my laptop, so that was a good step forward. My graphics settings are still on the low side using Optifine, but its working and he's very happy!
I think I will get the video card as well (once I find one for a good price) to see what else I can get running for now, until I get to the new setup. I mentioned the GTX 660 as I had seen other posts around the web mentioning this card as a good upgrade option for an older system to get some other features working / see if I can turn up some of the graphics options / add some texture packs possibly...Is there a different card you'd recommend for this? I currently have the Zotac 9800 GT (1 GB / 256-Bit) running.
NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT card - would definately want to upgrade this, but to what? - thinking a GTX 660 2 GB - or would different cards in SLI be better?
I do not know, but I believe GPU is far more important than CPU...and here is a link I have used to find the best card any of my machines can handle without my having to break the bank: http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=&card2=
So I found another PC that I have (used as a media PC basically to house emulators and videos) that I completely forgot had some better specs than my rig I am currently using...curious if I hooked up a better graphics card than the 9800 GT in this if things would be much better:
The MOBO is a Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3P
The Processor is a AMD Athlon II X2 250 AM3 Processor (Dual 3.0 GHZ)
8 GB DDR3 1333 RAM in it.
If I were to get the better graphics card in this (for now) would things be better than my other setup? I know its still older but curious which setup would be better.....or would adding a better proc (For this generation) also help out?
So I found another PC that I have (used as a media PC basically to house emulators and videos) that I completely forgot had some better specs than my rig I am currently using...curious if I hooked up a better graphics card than the 9800 GT in this if things would be much better:
The MOBO is a Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3P
The Processor is a AMD Athlon II X2 250 AM3 Processor (Dual 3.0 GHZ)
8 GB DDR3 1333 RAM in it.
If I were to get the better graphics card in this (for now) would things be better than my other setup? I know its still older but curious which setup would be better.....or would adding a better proc (For this generation) also help out?
It's not really any better... in fact the CPU is slower than the X4 940 in your other PC.
As for the GPU, the GTX 660 is a pretty old GPU and unless you get an amazing deal on it, there's no reason to buy one. One thing you haven't specified is what power supply do you have? To run a good GPU you generally want a 500+ watt unit.
I personally would recommend the AMD RX 460. It can run on a smaller PSU (350+ watts) and it would be faster than the much older GTX 660. You can find them for as low as $90 for the 2gb version.
I am trying to possibly beef up my older (2009) built computer with some additions to get Minecraft working better with mods and be able to turn up the graphics somewhat to look better but not crash or lag seriously. My son and I love playing but things like the Localized Storms mod crash or hang the game when we get near tornadoes or I try to turn up the graphics levels on them. Right now we can play OK with a bunch of mods loaded (over 20 in 1.7.10 and 1.8.9) but I do have to turn down various settings using Optifine for performance. I want to give my son a better experience overall! Looking for advice if I could do this with what I have and upgrade some of it or should I scrap the idea and build new? Price is the issue here as if I can upgrade this for cheaper than a new machine and get good performance I'd rather do that unless it's just not worth it. I am not looking for pristine mine craft with all settings / shaders running (unless possible!) but I'd like to have things like the grass flowing / water look nicer / texture packs used to their potential. Also would appreciate any advice on what to upgrade to if possible and any settings changes you could recommend
My current monitor is only 60hz so my FPS aren't normally high and usually run in the 30s.
I set the FPS to VSync.
I keep the render distance view in the normal range (lower end of normal) and put most graphic settings at fast with no smooth lighting.
Full screen at 1600 x 900 setting.
Chunk loading is at 3.
All settings for the world (clouds / grass / Eric) are set to normal.
Enable the options that say they stabilize FPS
Would like to up these obviously to give my son a cooler look.
Heres what I have with what I'd think to upgrade beside it
ASUS M3N72-D Mobo - can take PCie x16
AMD Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition CPU
6 GB DDR2 RAM - would want to up this to 8 or 16 GB. Site says mobo can do 8 but manual says 16
NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT card - would definately want to upgrade this, but to what? - thinking a GTX 660 2 GB - or would different cards in SLI be better?
Windows 7 64-bit
Java 64-Bit
Have the game capped at using 2 GB of available memory as once it takes more the system starts to slow down.
Thanks ahead of time for any help. Much appreciated. You can be as honest as you want!!!
Couple things...
First of all, your CPU is pretty slow. However to upgrade the CPU, you'd need a new motherboard. These days the majority of motherboards use DDR3 or DDR4 ram, so you would need new ram. You GPU definitely also needs an upgrade. Also remember that minecraft does not support SLI whatsoever.
The big question here is how much are you willing to spend? My personally recommendation is assuming you have a good power supply, hard drive, and case, just re-use those parts and build a new PC.
Something like this would work great for your son:
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant
CPU: Intel Core i3-6100 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor ($110.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H110M-A Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($53.88 @ OutletPC)
Memory: Crucial 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory ($64.99 @ B&H)
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon RX 460 2GB WINDFORCE OC Video Card ($94.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $324.84
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-10-01 00:03 EDT-0400
The i3-6100 has great single core performance which is what Minecraft depends on. 16gb of ram is plenty , and you can easily dedicate lots of ram if you run 100+ mods. The RX 460 is a really good card for the money and would work perfectly assuming your power supply is up to par. This setup would be MUCH faster than your current rig.
Gaming PC Specs - Intel i5-2500K ~ ASUS P8P67M-Pro ~ Hyper 212+ ~ MSI GTX 970 OC ~ 8GB DDR3 Ram ~ 250GB Samsung EVO 850 ~ 500GB HardDrive ~ XFX 550w PSU ~ Fractal Core 1000 ~ Windows 8.1 ~ Samsung P2350 1080p Soon upgrading to GTX 1080/R9 490X + 1440p 144Hz
Macbook Pro 15" Retina - Intel i7 ~ 8GB Ram ~ Nvidia GT 650M ~ 256GB SSD ~ 2880 by 1800 Screen <3
Thanks for the help. Out of curiosity, What makes my current CPU slow? It's a quad core 3.4 GHZ proc. Is it the internals that make it slow? Again just curious...I know it's older in terms of years and such.
Also I am planning on building a new computer ground up in about 6-7 months with a multi core proc and higher level parts that I know will be costly. But Between now and then I was hoping some upgrades would get things working a little better in the interim to at least have the tornadoes be used and not crash the system for my son? We can already run some texture packs with mods loaded fine, just have some of the high graphics stuff turned down. Would getting a GTX 660 and 8 GB RAM help that out for the stuff I want to day in the interim? Or just a waste of time?
The thing is, the clock speed (the 3.4 GHz part) doesn't really mean anything in terms of performance. Different processors have different instructions per cycle. For example, the an AMD FX-8350 is an 8-core 4.3 GHz CPU, however the i5-6400 will easily outperform it running at 2.7 GHz with only 4 cores.
Basically the i5 has more instructions per cycle than the AMD FX, and also keep in mind that games like Minecraft don't benefit from more than 2 cores anyways. The i3-6100 is an amazing CPU for the price in terms of performance. It is dual core, however it has hyper-threading which means it has another 2 virtual cores, meaning games and programs that use 4+ cores won't have bad performance.
First of all, why a GTX 660? Are you buying a used one or something? Because it is an almost 4 year old graphics card. If you're buying used, it should get the job done however I wouldn't pay more than $50-60 for one. If you're getting a cheap one, just make sure your power supply is up for the job.
The extra 2gb ram would help. but you wouldn't be able to use that ram in a newer computer.
In terms of the tornadoes mod.... I have no clue whether the mod is CPU or GPU based. It appears to be a bit of both, so if you just upgrade your GPU, I don't know how much better your performance will be.
Really it's up to you in terms of how much money you want to spend. If you spend $20 on ram and $50 on the GPU, it might? hold you over until you build a new PC.
Gaming PC Specs - Intel i5-2500K ~ ASUS P8P67M-Pro ~ Hyper 212+ ~ MSI GTX 970 OC ~ 8GB DDR3 Ram ~ 250GB Samsung EVO 850 ~ 500GB HardDrive ~ XFX 550w PSU ~ Fractal Core 1000 ~ Windows 8.1 ~ Samsung P2350 1080p Soon upgrading to GTX 1080/R9 490X + 1440p 144Hz
Macbook Pro 15" Retina - Intel i7 ~ 8GB Ram ~ Nvidia GT 650M ~ 256GB SSD ~ 2880 by 1800 Screen <3
Thanks for the info once again.
I am planning on building a new, fully up to date system in about 6-8 months that will enable me to run MInecraft with all features enabled / mods / texture packs running / etc.. for my son. But in the meantime, was just trying to get it to a point where he could enjoy some of the mods / features he wanted to. Its also for me as I really enjoy the game as well, and seeing some of the online videos for it with all features running / textures added really make me want to run it full bore. But for now, getting some of the features running for my son is the most important.
I installed an extra 2 GB of RAM I had in a box with older RAM to get me up to 8GB and we were able to get the tornadoes running with no issues even with the Local LAN open and me connecting from my laptop, so that was a good step forward. My graphics settings are still on the low side using Optifine, but its working and he's very happy!
I think I will get the video card as well (once I find one for a good price) to see what else I can get running for now, until I get to the new setup. I mentioned the GTX 660 as I had seen other posts around the web mentioning this card as a good upgrade option for an older system to get some other features working / see if I can turn up some of the graphics options / add some texture packs possibly...Is there a different card you'd recommend for this? I currently have the Zotac 9800 GT (1 GB / 256-Bit) running.
I do not know, but I believe GPU is far more important than CPU...and here is a link I have used to find the best card any of my machines can handle without my having to break the bank:
http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=&card2=
SMP Game Server Domain: gPapaGoSurvival.net
Discord: discord.gg/2JFzJBu
So I found another PC that I have (used as a media PC basically to house emulators and videos) that I completely forgot had some better specs than my rig I am currently using...curious if I hooked up a better graphics card than the 9800 GT in this if things would be much better:
The MOBO is a Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3P
The Processor is a AMD Athlon II X2 250 AM3 Processor (Dual 3.0 GHZ)
8 GB DDR3 1333 RAM in it.
If I were to get the better graphics card in this (for now) would things be better than my other setup? I know its still older but curious which setup would be better.....or would adding a better proc (For this generation) also help out?
It's not really any better... in fact the CPU is slower than the X4 940 in your other PC.
As for the GPU, the GTX 660 is a pretty old GPU and unless you get an amazing deal on it, there's no reason to buy one. One thing you haven't specified is what power supply do you have? To run a good GPU you generally want a 500+ watt unit.
I personally would recommend the AMD RX 460. It can run on a smaller PSU (350+ watts) and it would be faster than the much older GTX 660. You can find them for as low as $90 for the 2gb version.
Gaming PC Specs - Intel i5-2500K ~ ASUS P8P67M-Pro ~ Hyper 212+ ~ MSI GTX 970 OC ~ 8GB DDR3 Ram ~ 250GB Samsung EVO 850 ~ 500GB HardDrive ~ XFX 550w PSU ~ Fractal Core 1000 ~ Windows 8.1 ~ Samsung P2350 1080p Soon upgrading to GTX 1080/R9 490X + 1440p 144Hz
Macbook Pro 15" Retina - Intel i7 ~ 8GB Ram ~ Nvidia GT 650M ~ 256GB SSD ~ 2880 by 1800 Screen <3