Upgrading PC for this game (y/n/maybe?)

[wookdaddy]

I'm on a 4790k, 1080ti, 16 gb ram, normal mechanical HD for Steam games. Although the 4790k has been a beast for many years, this game is just so CPU intensive I don't think it can keep up. Battles have to be limited to 400, map stutter is moderate (although my normal, mechanical HD probably plays a part in that). I'm wondering how the people here running 3700x+ or 9700k+ etc. are playing this game. Can you have 1,000 man battles? Is it worth it to upgrade to a 3700x now, or wait for 4th, 5th gen Zen? I've never had an issue running other games smoothly at 2k, even with an older processor, but I have waited for this game for 10 years. What would you do?

 

[Pejot]

I'm on a 4790k and 1080ti. Although the 4790k has been a beast for many years, this game is just so CPU intensive I don't think it can keep up. Battles have to be limited to 400, map stutter is moderate (although my normal, mechanical HD probably plays a part in that). I'm wondering how the people here running 3700x+ or 9700k+ etc. are playing this game. Can you have 1,000 man battles? Is it worth it to upgrade to a 3700x now, or wait for 4th, 5th gen Zen? I've never had an issue running other games smoothly at 2k, even with an older processor, but I have waited for this game for 10 years. What would you do?

I would wait till they implement more fixes for performance cause I don't think it's in the final state for now. You have quite good specs and I think they will be enough for final release (even in further EA they should be enough)

 

[Kulgrinda Košmarjus]

1. get an SSD (nvme if your MB supports it). your PC will fly.
2. you should run at least 16 GB of ram, and ideally 2 bones making it dual channel.

do that and your pc performance will be enough for 5 more years.

 

[andycott]

I would wait till they implement more fixes for performance cause I don't think it's in the final state for now. You have quite good specs and I think they will be enough for final release (even in further EA they should be enough)

1. get an SSD (nvme if your MB supports it). your PC will fly.
2. you should run at least 16 GB of ram, and ideally 2 bones making it dual channel.

do that and your pc performance will be enough for 5 more years.

++
I would recommend the same as two advisers above.

In the current state this game is very heavy on hard disk and not optimized at all overall, so do not rush wasting too much money. You have good specs.
My specs are worse than yours and I can run any other game on high or ultra settings, including the latest.
And with this game the main problem for me was hard disk, not HDD, CPU, RAM or even GPU.
I solved the problem with defragmentation with non-windows specialised free software. It really made the game smoother. Maybe it will help you too.
But don't even look what windows defragmentator tells you. Search for a free software, specialized in defragmentation.
And still I can't run it on more than very low settings in big battles, unlike any other game. I can run the game without problems on max settings, excluding battles with more than 50-100 troops on each side.

I have also been waiting and thought about upgrading for Bannerlord after buying it. But after playing for more than 100 hours I realized that at the moment one single game isn't worth spending too much money.
In my case 16 GB and SSD won't make any difference. In your case it can possibly be a solution.

 

[badman]

i can confirm ram is critical with the game in its current state. I went from almost unplayable on lowest settings to perfectly smooth on medium setting (didn't try high yet) by going from 8gb to 24gb ram.
So 8gb is definitely not enough for even baseline performance, they should really change the minimum specs to reflect this, unless they are confident they can optimize the game a ton.

 

[xdj1nn]

I'm on a 4790k and 1080ti. Although the 4790k has been a beast for many years, this game is just so CPU intensive I don't think it can keep up. Battles have to be limited to 400, map stutter is moderate (although my normal, mechanical HD probably plays a part in that). I'm wondering how the people here running 3700x+ or 9700k+ etc. are playing this game. Can you have 1,000 man battles? Is it worth it to upgrade to a 3700x now, or wait for 4th, 5th gen Zen? I've never had an issue running other games smoothly at 2k, even with an older processor, but I have waited for this game for 10 years. What would you do?

no, you don't need to upgrade anything. That'd be a waste of money (unless you really want to).
I'm running the game just fine in a 6300fx AMD (which's extremely inferior to your own CPU). I do encounter occasional stuttering, but most of it is due to the game not being properly optimized.

Things that you must have for this one are at least 16gb RAM (no matter the speed, disregard what laymen say about it), you need a CPU with at least 3.8ghz speed (anything less will result in what I'm experiencing), and a decent graphic card with large VGA memory (anything above 4gb VGA mem.). Mine is beast for this game which's a RX 570, it destroys the game graphic wise, but the CPU being so inferior makes it stutter even more, so I play on "custom" low settings, I can go nuts with graphic mem consumption (like Textures and etc) but I must thread carefully when it comes to simulation of cloth, shaders, particles, etc... That's because it seems that the game insists on taxing the CPU with anything, even thigns that should be directed to the VGA are kind of bottle-necking in the CPU.

I'll, at some point in the future, upgrade my PC, basically just switch the Mobo, and the processor, maybe get a secondary SSD, but atm I have no money to spare on that, I've just moved to Italy, and plan to move again to London soon™, so my personal funds are basically directed towards these prior to wasting it on toys (toys of which are quite expensive in Europe when compared to my home country - Brazil - and specially compared to the USA)... Whenever possible I'd import stuff from the USA back home, my Power Supply, for instance, is the same since 2008 (1000 watts bought in the USA), I've never changed it because it's such a monster...

PS: SSD is critical for this game, without it you'll bottle-neck any performance given by CPU, RAM, and GPU...

 

[Botlike]

Hello guys.
I am also running the game on an old rig , been through a lot to optimise the game since EA launched.
Specifically i7-4770 16gb win 7 SSD and only 2gb GPU.
I've monitored CPU , GPU and RAM very extensively.
Believe it or not , i am able to play 1000 battles decently and my cpu doesn't even try. I didn't even have to overclock it ( i can't anyway ) , just have it on turbo mode and that's it. My gpu does struggle , had to tweak a lot of things , but i reached a point where most settings are on high , the game looks pretty good and i am happy. Imo SSD is a must have nowadays though. Even the time you save between loading screens and such stacks up really fast. More gaming time for you : )

However , my own issue is RAM. I've seen a lot of threads in the past about memory leaks , but somehow most people no longer bring this up.
For me , after ~1-1.5 hour or so in-game , i start getting 90%+ RAM usage , even though the task manager reports ~4k for bannerlords ( i have 16gb ). This always happens no matter what i do in-game. Battles seem to make it happen faster , but even trade windows and such is enough.
Only thing i can do is restart the game , otherwise it gets so laggy and stuttering that it's unplayable.
That's without any browser or any other ram leechers running.
Of all the suggestions i've seen so far , the only thing that slightly helped was manually changing VRAM pagefile.
I am curious , anyone else still struggling with memory leak issues ?

By now , i am more than happy with my money's worth of this old rig. It served me well on my nerd moments , i've accepted i have to change it and i most certainly will first chance i get. Just need to get this corona crap out of the way , get back to normal , gather a good 2k $+++ and go for it.
Till then any help on memory leaks would be appreciated. Especially interested on suggestions from people that are affected themselves.
Thanks guys !

 

[SmattlePattle]

Get an SSD and make sure you have 16gigs ram before committing to more expensive upgrades. So many issues are from HDD's and RAM but people get fixated on CPU's and GPU's.

To put it this way; For very little money you can upgrade RAM & an SSD and experience performance improvements across the board when using your computer for more mundane stuff. If you drop a ton of money on a new GPU/CPU, you'll rarely utilize its max capacities, and if you run them off a system with an HDD and limited RAM you'll never be able to effectively utilize them because something else is going to bottleneck first.

After getting a chance to test BL on a few different machines, I can run the game smoothly with pretty "meh" CPU's and GPU's, and the settings allow me to tweak things within range of their capacity. Anytime I'm on an HDD or limited RAM there is at least some unavoidable stuttering that no setting adjustments impact at all.

 

[SmattlePattle]

In my case 16 GB and SSD won't make any difference. In your case it can possibly be a solution.

So just to clarify: An HDD is a hard-disk. HDD stands for "Hard Drive Disk". SSD stands for Solid State Disk, I'm not sure if you made a typo in your post and I'm being patronizing but I thought I'd clarify just in case.

Not to be argumentive, but if you solved your issue with a defrag, then I'd say likely an SSD would undeniably make a big difference. Also RAM usage is related to HDD's/SSD's in the sense that if your on 8gigs of RAM, your computer is going to try and run virtual memory off your HDD/SSD to compensate since 8gigs isn't enough. Off an HDD this process is going to be way, way, way clunkier and induce game stuttering at any settings. Both increasing your RAM and converting to an SSD addresses this issue, which it sounds like you're having.

I'm not trying to tell you how to spend your money, though, but I am a big advocate that upgrading to an SSD & 16gigs ram is one of the best bang-for-your-buck upgrades out there.

 

[xdj1nn]

Hello guys.
I am also running the game on an old rig , been through a lot to optimise the game since EA launched.
Specifically i7-4770 16gb win 7 SSD and only 2gb GPU.
I've monitored CPU , GPU and RAM very extensively.
Believe it or not , i am able to play 1000 battles decently and my cpu doesn't even try. I didn't even have to overclock it ( i can't anyway ) , just have it on turbo mode and that's it. My gpu does struggle , had to tweak a lot of things , but i reached a point where most settings are on high , the game looks pretty good and i am happy. Imo SSD is a must have nowadays though. Even the time you save between loading screens and such stacks up really fast. More gaming time for you : )

However , my own issue is RAM. I've seen a lot of threads in the past about memory leaks , but somehow most people no longer bring this up.
For me , after ~1-1.5 hour or so in-game , i start getting 90%+ RAM usage , even though the task manager reports ~4k for bannerlords ( i have 16gb ). This always happens no matter what i do in-game. Battles seem to make it happen faster , but even trade windows and such is enough.
Only thing i can do is restart the game , otherwise it gets so laggy and stuttering that it's unplayable.
That's without any browser or any other ram leechers running.
Of all the suggestions i've seen so far , the only thing that slightly helped was manually changing VRAM pagefile.
I am curious , anyone else still struggling with memory leak issues ?

By now , i am more than happy with my money's worth of this old rig. It served me well on my nerd moments , i've accepted i have to change it and i most certainly will first chance i get. Just need to get this corona crap out of the way , get back to normal , gather a good 2k $+++ and go for it.
Till then any help on memory leaks would be appreciated. Especially interested on suggestions from people that are affected themselves.
Thanks guys !

switch the GPU to a 4gb one. Keep the rest the same. Problem solved

RAM issues are on their end, no matter how much you waste on it, it'll still give problems. Just close the game and re-open everytime it starts to get funny.

 

[ProudArabian]

from 6 GB ram to 16
from HDD to SSD

stuttering dramatically reduced.

 

[xdj1nn]

from 6 GB ram to 16
from HDD to SSD

stuttering dramatically reduced.

yeah, that's more or less the spirit... Game requires large amounts of RAM (due to bad optimization), and SSD (due to large real time file reading). But the core of the game taxes way more CPU than anything else. To have a smooth experience you need a beast of a processor, 16gb RAM, SSD, and a VGA with large amounts of VRAM. OP seems to have all of those except for VRAM, and maybe SSD (never disclosed)

I see tons of people here practically preaching heresy about hardware, entered in a few arguments here and there, but I know what I'm talking about, been running this game on a PC that meets everything I've said except for the CPU (mine is really old), and I do encounter occasional stuttering or mini-freezes, obviously due to the CPU, and sometimes due to Memory Leaks from the Engine itself.

 

[vahadar]

I'm on a 4790k and 1080ti. Although the 4790k has been a beast for many years, this game is just so CPU intensive I don't think it can keep up. Battles have to be limited to 400, map stutter is moderate (although my normal, mechanical HD probably plays a part in that). I'm wondering how the people here running 3700x+ or 9700k+ etc. are playing this game. Can you have 1,000 man battles? Is it worth it to upgrade to a 3700x now, or wait for 4th, 5th gen Zen? I've never had an issue running other games smoothly at 2k, even with an older processor, but I have waited for this game for 10 years. What would you do?

I dont know what hardware you really need for this game to run smooth because i see people with some stuff that are superior to mine having trouble.

I run on a gaming laptop all graphical settings to maximum in full HD, and battle set to 700 man battle (havent tried 1000). The laptop is a strix asus rog 753ve (i7 7700HQ), 1050Ti 4gb, i replaced the original 8gb memory by 2 stick of 8gb corsair vengeance, and a samsung evo external ssd that is hosting the game (not great read/write speed). All this was bought in early-mid 2017.

So this is an aging gaming config (3+ year this year), but it is perfectly good for the game, i have pretty good fps at maximum setting.

 

[xdj1nn]

I dont know what hardware you really need for this game to run smooth because i see people with some stuff that are superior to mine having trouble.

I run on a gaming laptop all graphical settings to maximum in full HD, and battle set to 700 man battle (havent tried 1000). The laptop is a strix asus rog 753ve (i7 7700HQ), 1050Ti 4gb, i replaced the original 8gb memory by 2 stick of 8gb corsair vengeance, and a samsung evo external ssd that is hosting the game (not great read/write speed). All this was bought in early-mid 2017.

So this is an aging gaming config (3+ year this year), but it is perfectly good for the game, i have pretty good fps at maximum setting.

It's an Early Access, the game is not optimized yet, it'll run into trouble in any gear, I bet my balls that even the computers at TW sometimes struggle with the game.

 

[Caps]

the better the pc the more fun the game is, because you can just scroll up the battle limit. Then again warband was played with 300 man battles, which should be possible on any pc.

 

[Senko]

Well new ryzen cpus will come in september? Might be worth waiting until then.
Faster CPU and a more playable and patched Bannerlord seems not like a bad idea.

 

[xdj1nn]

Well new ryzen cpus will come in september? Might be worth waiting until then.
Faster CPU and a more playable and patched Bannerlord seems not like a bad idea.

Yeah, i'm likely to combine a rig with Ryzen, SLI my RX 570 with a brand new one, and since switching the Mobo, maybe slap in another 16gb of RAM (currently using 4 slots for 16gb, if I get those monstrosities with 8 slots for RAM it might be too tempting)

 

[sexthrills]

Get the SSD and the extra ram. SSD makes a huge diff.

If it helps my PC specs are pretty close:
4790k at 4.5
1080
16 gigs
installed on an SSD
running at 1080p, 144hz

Game runs near maxed, and runs good.
Only lag I see in game is during siege battles, but everyone gets that from the bugged siege equipment.

 

[kreamy]

I'm on a 4790k and 1080ti. Although the 4790k has been a beast for many years, this game is just so CPU intensive I don't think it can keep up. Battles have to be limited to 400, map stutter is moderate (although my normal, mechanical HD probably plays a part in that). I'm wondering how the people here running 3700x+ or 9700k+ etc. are playing this game. Can you have 1,000 man battles? Is it worth it to upgrade to a 3700x now, or wait for 4th, 5th gen Zen? I've never had an issue running other games smoothly at 2k, even with an older processor, but I have waited for this game for 10 years. What would you do?

Im on a 1060 6gb and 3770k, 16gb, installed on SSD (regular, sata6)

I run basically maxed settings, 1080p, 700 person battles. I cant even believe u are talking about upgrading oyur PC for this (wtf settings are u even using, and are you using the recommended NVIDIA settings? That might help).

From my overlay, the game uses baisaclly 100% GPU, and ~80% CPU. I really wouldnt upgrade for this game....

Personally, I would uninstall the game and wait longer until it is playable for you. Whats another few years in hindsight?

 

[Ragratt]

I had Bannerlord on SATA HDD. I upgraded old SSD boot drive to 970 Evo nvme and installed on there. Then swapped a 4gb ram stick to a 8gb for $35 to match the other. Modded and tweaked heat on my laptop. Those few changes combined with some of the optimization TW is doing I'm getting double the FPS. The SSD made the biggest difference for me. I bought my laptop couple years ago used for $800, so all in I've spent under $1k and very pleased w performance at this point and itll just get better.

I may upgrade in a year or two. I think the tech to support 1000+ battles in 4k isnt out there yet but it is coming soon. Also, I expect some steep sales this Black Friday on account of CORONAVIRUS / economy.

12gb ram > 16gb
HDD > SDD nvme