1st time desktop buyer....please help me!!

[gooche77]

I'm getting a PC tower/desktop that I would like to run TPA at a respectable level of lighting, graphics and frame rate.. My 32 inch Sony Bravia via HDMI is what I'm using as my display with a Bluetooth mouse/key board.

My problem is I'm a novice with hardware and want to keep under $1,000. This means I don't want to build one and was hoping my community pals could offer some suggestions:

Brand: Acer, Dell
Processor: Intel Core iX, Ghz?
RAM: 8 or 16GB
Graphics card: Nvidia, Intel HD
Windows OS preference?

Thanks in advance everyone!

 

[LeRoy3rd]

Do NOT buy brand name unless you're only willing to spend around $500. The bloatware on these PCs is horrible. Check out cyberpowerpc.com, pretty much anything you buy for that price there will work amazingly with TPA (including their $1k laptops!), and have no bloatware (you can even elect to have Win7 if you don't want Win8).If you want more specifics, let me know.

 

[gooche77]

Thanks dude! Any advice on specs?

 

[LeRoy3rd]

No problem, I'd suggest building yourself, but for a budget under $2k, you'll get more bang for your buck with cyberpower since they buy in bulk.

 

[hammr25]

If you want someone else to build the computer I'd recommend an Intel chipset and an nVidia video card simply because most game developers seem to test with those systems first. Other than that I'd just make sure the computer has a dedicated video card instead of using onboard video. The system requirements for The Pinball Arcade aren't very high.

 

[MontanaFrank]

Hi gooche77,

I bought a CybertronPC 3.5GHz 8GB DDR3 Escape Unleashed II in November last year as a present just to run the Steam version of TPA. It's a really nice tower a lot of extra room for expansion if ever wanting to upgrade. The PC ran about $800. It has plenty of power for TPA and more. TPA looks great on my 1080 monitor and the extra power for the DX11 upgrade.

Amazon has some good reviews about this product.

Happy Hunting...

 

[gooche77]

Thanks, MontanaFrank!

As far the DX11 is concerned, will you have to upgrade anything? If so, what?

Also, are most current desktops bluetooth capable? I'd like to use my PS3 controller and a bluetooth mouse/keyboard combo, if possible.

 

[DrainoBraino]

How exciting man. I hope you plan on going portrait mode, trust me you're gonna want to. Portrait mode on PC is TPA at it's finest.

If you don't plan on building yourself, get one with the best nvidia card you can afford, and as much ram as possible. Don't worry about hard drive space.

 

[gooche77]

How exciting man. I hope you plan on going portrait mode, trust me you're gonna want to. Portrait mode on PC is TPA at it's finest.

If you don't plan on building yourself, get one with the best nvidia card you can afford, and as much ram as possible. Don't worry about hard drive space.

My Sony Bravia is on a wall mount that can rotate for some portrait goodness! It's a big reason why I play on tablets.

 

[superballs]

Maybe I missed it but do you have a budget set for a pc?

 

[Retron]

Brand: Acer, Dell
Processor: Intel Core iX, Ghz?
RAM: 8 or 16GB
Graphics card: Nvidia, Intel HD
Windows OS preference?

Thanks in advance everyone!

FWIW, I run Pinball Arcade on two desktops - both cobbled together from various bits and pieces:

* An i7-2600K (quad-core, 3.4GHz) with 16GB RAM and an nVidia Geforce GTX 670. (Windows 8.1 x64)
It absolutely flies on this, but then again it ought to!

* A Pentium G860 (dual-core, 3.0 GHz) with 4GB RAM and an nVidia Geforce GTX 460 (Windows 8.1 x86)
This machine runs it perfectly smoothly - seems the GPU is more important than the CPU

My laptop doesn't run it quite as smoothly as the desktops - the laptop is a Clevo:
* An i7-2720QM (quad-core, 2.2GHz) with 10GB RAM and an nVidia Geforce GTX 560M (Windows 7 x64)
The laptop's GPU is around half as powerful as the desktop GTX 460 - and it shows.

All of the above are two generations out of date (Sandy Bridge, or 2nd Generation Core systems). Even the low end Pentium runs it smoothly, but the cut-off point for running smoothly with everything on at full HD seems to be between the 560M and the 460 - so a desktop with a 650 or 650 Ti (or higher) would be my recommendation.

Steer clear of integrated graphics. I can't give any info about AMD GPUs, but I'd imagine there'll be a similar cut-off point in their range.

As for Bluetooth, it's rare to be built-in to a desktop, or at least the sort of self-assembled desktops I look at! A cheap Bluetooth dongle causes Windows 8.1 to bluescreen when used with DS3_Tool and a PS3 Sixaxis controller on the Pentium PC, but the laptop's inbuilt Bluetooth works fine with it. I've not tried using the dongle/controller with the i7 desktop PC, as I use a long USB lead instead. I'm sure that if you used generic PC Bluetooth peripherals then it'd be fine.

 

[superballs]

My laptop is a core 2 duo at 2ghz. And a dedicated AMD Radeon hd2600 pro with 512MB and 4gb system memory with a paltry 663mhz clock speed. Game runs fine but I have ball reflections on low (still looks pretty nice) and aa off.

I run in portrait mode at 1050x1680 which is the highest my monitor supports.

The laptop is 5 years old. You need a bit better than that to run on full settings and I don't even want to speculate on dx11 lighting.

 

[gooche77]

Thanks Retron and SuperBalls!

Here's what I think might work. Let me know what you all think. Thanks!

CyberpowerPC Stealth Ronin GXi1400A
Price: $859.00
Processor: 3.2 GHz Intel Core i5
RAM: 8 GB DDR3
Hard Drive: 1 TB SATAIII
Graphics Coprocessor: NVIDIA GeForce GTX660
Graphics Card Ram Size: 2048 MB
Number of USB 2.0 Ports: 6
Number of USB 3.0 Ports: 3
Operating System: Windows 8
Hard Drive Rotational Speed: 7200 RPM
Optical Drive Type: 24x DVD±RW Dual-Layer Super-Multi Drive
Audio-out Ports (#): 2

 

[canuck]

No problem with buying a Dell or HP, just wipe the hard drive and do a clean install of windows when you receive it - no bloat.

IMO if you're a novice, buying a complete package such as you would get with HP or Dell is the way to go for ease of use.

 

[superballs]

Thanks Retron and SuperBalls!

Here's what I think might work. Let me know what you all think. Thanks!

CyberpowerPC Stealth Ronin GXi1400A
Price: $859.00
Processor: 3.2 GHz Intel Core i5
RAM: 8 GB DDR3
Hard Drive: 1 TB SATAIII
Graphics Coprocessor: NVIDIA GeForce GTX660
Graphics Card Ram Size: 2048 MB
Number of USB 2.0 Ports: 6
Number of USB 3.0 Ports: 3
Operating System: Windows 8
Hard Drive Rotational Speed: 7200 RPM
Optical Drive Type: 24x DVD±RW Dual-Layer Super-Multi Drive
Audio-out Ports (#): 2

I haven't been following hardware lately like I used to but from the overview it should be good for most games I've looked at.

If you plan on doing photo or video editing at all I recommend an i7. If you are just gaming an i5 is plenty

 

[LeRoy3rd]

That will work fine for TPA. It will easily run 1080p full screen will all processing options.

 

[MontanaFrank]

I think your selection of a CyberpowerPC Stealth Ronin GXi1400A is an excellent choice.

 

[gooche77]

Thanks for the help. I knew I could count on my TPA homies.

 

[LeRoy3rd]

We've got your back, yo*.

*That's about all the "street" I can do, lol.

 

[superballs]

We've got your back, yo*.

*That's about all the "street" I can do, lol.

the name Leroy is all the street cred you need (though the capitalization insinuates that it's Le Roy as in the king).