Discussion of PC specs for playing FF

Farthest Frontier General Discussion
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Starting this as a result of an off topic discussion about PC specs for FF on another thread. Any comments about what is needed to make FF a seamless experience much appreciated.

For context and comparison I am currently struggling along using an old (2019?) Small form factor machine that I bought for word processing; browsing and light gaming.

It is an i5 -9400 which I have temporarily modded with 32Gb of Ram and a cheap Graphics card (RX550) to keep me just about playing FF while I procrastinate over buying a real gaming PC. Currently I get FPS that max about 20 and regularly go down to zero! It takes 5 minutes to load a 3000 pop FF save.

In the absence of any real understanding of these things I am about to throw money at the problem with something like this;

Processor (CPU)

AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D Eight Core CPU (Up to 5.2GHz/104MB w/3D V-CACHE/AM5)

Motherboard

ASUS® TUF GAMING X870-PLUS WIFI (AM5, DDR5, M.2 PCIe 5.0, Wi-Fi 7)

Memory (RAM)

32GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR5 6000MHz (2 x 16GB)

Graphics Card

16GB ASUS TUF GEFORCE RTX 4080 SUPER OC EDITION - HDMI, 3 x DP

M.2 SSD Drive

512GB SOLIDIGM P41+ GEN 4 M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 3500MB/sR, 1625MB/sW)

2nd M.2 SSD Drive

2TB SOLIDIGM P41+ GEN 4 M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 4125MB/sR, 3325MB/sW)

Power Supply

CORSAIR 850W RMx SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET

Any polite, or even rude suggestions /advice/experience gratefully received.

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This seems like a solid build. When it’s time for me to upgrade, I’d go a very similar route. Basically what you want to focus on with FF is CPU performance, as GPU is very secondary on this one. It doesn’t take much GPU to run it, but will destroy any CPU that isn’t high-end, especially when going for high populations.

The 9800X3D would also be my best bet as well, although I’m not sure if the raw horsepower of it’s bigger brothers would give a big increase, as they are with multiple CCX’s compared to the 9800X3D.

But overall, a solid build. When you go for your RAM, try to find some CL30, as most kits will be CL36.

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EDIT: As of 0.9.6p4, 4500 villagers and large map is getting ~8-12 fps as long as there’s no raiders doing their thing

RTX 3080
AMD 5900X
96GB ram
Samsung Pro 980 SSDs

As others have noted, it’s CPU-gated, so I would be really curious to see what FPS/perf people are getting with similar size cities on newer CPUs

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Currently, I have a VERY old PC…a dinosaur some might say-but it has served me well. It is an i5, ? on gen IDK- 4460 Processor- Nvidia GeForce GT 720- YA you read that correctly!!! Computer is est. 8+ years old or so. Other specs I have NO idea how to get. My kid, was a kid when we got him this rig. Now, I have his old rig and he has upgraded. This old AZZ computer runs FF with pop of almost 1000 with “some” hangups, but does a pretty decent job. After pop 700 it started to run the game with some annoyances. I do not think I can go over pop. 1000 without some SERIOUS problems. Occasionally, I save- exit out of game and reload game to get a fresh start. Then old AZZ computer runs better for awhile.
My new computer- which I have not tried yet - consists of the following
i5 13 GEN
MSI Pro B760 wifi DDR4
Noctua NH-D15 cooler
Corsiar Vengance 64 GB ram
MSI Ventus Geforce RTX 4060 TI 16GB

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