3-4 years ago i upgraded the pc to a i72600k and a GTX 680.....now just cause 3 wont run at 720p lowest settings without chugging like a mofo so i guess its time to upgrade again.

Not had any insight into the current hardware scene so what advice and ideas would people suggest to have a 1080p relativly high settings justcause 3 stable 60 FPS or if its an optomisation issue what cards and CPU would we expect to be able to do it in the near future with a patch?

This is a sample build I gave over in another thread as to what I'd consider the best "run everything short of 4K" build right now. You don't need to get those exact parts. But as far as basic CPU and GPU go, you're looking at probably an i5 4690K and either a Radeon 390 or an NVIDIA GTX 970 for best bang for your buck options IMO.

Are you planning on overclocking?

Edited your thread title and moved it out of Off Topic to the PC platform board. Please make your thread titles descriptive so people don't have to read your thread just to find out what it's about - "It finally happened" could be describing anything. Thanks.

i am kinda surprised it doesnt run it on lowest settings, the 680 isn't that bad still surely. I would say your pc is still more powerful than a ps4 ans that must be around mid setings on the pc

I have a 2500k (oced to 4.4) and a 760, so overall less powerful than OP, and I'm running JC3 on mostly very high with certain things turned down or off as per the guide thing Nvidia put out. I get between 40 and 50 fps, which ain't great but it's at least playable. If I turn absolutely everything to the lowest I barely get over 60, and I'd rather take the 15fps hit and have it look nice. The difference between my combination and everything maxed is barely noticeable as well, and I actually think the game looks way better with global illumination off.

Even if your rig might be old, Just Cause 3 has been performing like poo even for people with PCs that should be able to run it without any trouble. In my case it runs perfectly otherwise, but occasionally becomes a stuttering mess, regardless of what happens on the screen. It's incredibly frustrating, because I really like of what I'm playing, even with the shoddy performance, so I'd probably love it, if the performance was top-notch. Just hoping it won't take them a month to push out that patch.

Just Cause 3 is a technical mess. Even people with state-of-the-art PCs are getting bad framerate drops. Not saying that you shouldn't upgrade, but it might not help with that particular game.

Well I would ask myself "What other games don't run properly" before deciding on an upgrade as Just Cause 3 seems like a pretty bad performer all around. I upgraded my card when Arkham Knight came out and it ran like shit (almost exactly the same) on both my cards. Now the upgrade was worth it in the end but i kinda wish i had waited. Anyway, depending on your budget you can probably just get 970 or a 980 ti I don't know much about intel cpu's so i couldn't say if it would bottleneck or not.

Yeah, I wouldn't judge your PC's performance based on JC3, which has a ton of problems. Games like Witcher 3 and MGSV would be much better indicators of performance. Your CPU and GPU ain't bad at all. I'd look into overclocking your CPU first if you haven't already (and even GPU as well), and then only upgrading the GPU at first if you feel the need. Also, not to insult your intelligence or anything, but are you running the latest Nvidia drivers?

This is the correct answer to your problems.

First update drivers and overclock your CPU. Overclocked 2600K is a beast and you only get a small boost in gaming performance if you buy a new top of the line intel CPU.

Having a good GPU is what matters the most when you want to play games so buying a better card is the easiest way to get more power. But the smartest thing right now would be to wait until next year when GPUs with new architecture start hitting the market. And 680 is not a bad card even now so it's just cause 3 screwing you over.

Thanks for all the input guys.

Just to further the cause, I am running the latest drivers from nvidia and my CPU is over clocked using the Auto OC on my mother board to 4.4 i have the software to OC the 680 and its the massive triple slot fan kind so has plent of cooling just never been sure what to set the numbers too so if any one knows what kind of base line to push for that would be a big help every guide i've ever seen never tells you what to set every setting at to get it right.

But sounds like Its fairly pointless changing the mother board and CPU then? and if over clocking the 680 isnt good enough just going for a 970 980 upgrade would do the job.

Not sure why just cause was running so badly its on an SSD and literally just playable at 720p on every set fully low putting the textures to medium caused massive drops in frame rate even just in the open world driving around just a bit dissapointed as havnt had to worry about poor FPS for years even when pushing games to the limit and now this one drops like a stone

I have your exact gpu and cpu, at 1360x765, mostly medium settings, a few high and low, and I run at a solid 30fps without frames drops. I do have 24 gigs of ram, maybe that helps, but then again every game on my pc runs and runs well.

Just to be complete running a i72600k 4.4ghz GTX680 Direct CU2 8gb ram (forget the speed but was fairly high end) can run things like fallout perfectly so just thinking working out best numbers for an over clock on the GPU would be best option

Your milage may vary, but a stable 680 overclock is generally in the 132% power target, 75NHz core overclock, 500MHz memory overclock. Run a game and see if things run smoothly, from then on you can push the clock speed in increments of 5MHz and Memory in 25MHz increments.

see years of on again off again searches and this is the first time i've seen anything close to that in terms of useful info thank you

This is what i get on defualt just for my peace of mind what would ppl suggest as a good starting point for numbers/high numbers to push for

@silenceuk: If you do upgrade your GPU, a GTX 970 or a Radeon 390 is the right option, not a 980. You only need a 980 if you want to do 4K gaming. Otherwise it's a waste.

Just Cause 3 is kind of a mess on all platforms as others have said. I should have mentioned that as well in my first post. I can only speak to the PS4 version directly, but everything I've read just suggests it's an issue with the game itself. There are side missions that have taken in excess of a full minute to load, which is absurd, even on consoles.

It sounds like now isn't the time to upgrade for you, though.

could any one give exact number to try on the over clock ?

I'd hold off on making any big upgrade purchases because of JC3. the big framerate dips seem more like they're the fault of the game than they are your hardware. last night just to try test it, i turned everything to lowest settings and set the screen res to 640x480 and took over a small outpost. I had frame rate drops from 70-80 fps down to the mid-teens and then back up. This happens to me regardless of what graphical setting i'm at. My specs are below. Lots of people are having issues with these performance stutters. Even at Max settings, i can start to pull 30-40 FPS but after 10-20 minutes, it degrades into the low 30s-20 FPS and the whole time i get the stutter just from panning the camera around. It seems like the game has frame pacing issues that may or may not be being exacerbated by a memory leak. the game uses a ton of RAM and pagefile when running. It also crashes to desktop or freezes my computer at times. Not the most stable game at the moment.

FX-8320 4.0Ghz

16GB DDR3 1600

R9 270 2GB (latest AMD beta drivers)

Windows 10 Pro