Minimum specifications for Forged Alliance Forever

Due to a recent discussion I was wondering how much a setup would cost that can run Forged Alliance Forever without slowing down the game. Surprisingly it appears you can build such a computer with a budget of as little as 400 euro's.

I'm writing a wiki article on how to get the most out of your game, both in terms of simulation speed and fps. I'm hoping to gather tips and tricks in this topic, to solidify the article.

Answers I'm particularly interested in:

• (1) What minimum build do you have / have you made that runs Forged Alliance Forever?
• (2) What tricks would you recommend a user that wants to get more performance out of this game?

Some statistics:

The average game has 2000 to 4000 units, with peaks to 7000 units. My computer has a Ryzen 3600G, which is no longer for sale anymore. But it can run up to 6000 units without any problems on the FAF Develop game type. Therefore to be able to run 6000 units without any problems you need the following hardware as a minimum:

M2 disk The latter can cause stutters on various systems (including mine)

I use a M.2 NVMe drive for games and do not have a issue with games stuttering (including FA).
Though not all m.2 drives are made equal, some are SATA where others are NVMe-based, cheap ones run slower and have different caching capabilities (which could be the cause of this stuttering).

Also in order to use Resizable BAR you need an M.2 NVMe drive for applications/games which support it.

For the best experience look for a good quality M.2 NVMe drive like the Samsung EVO or PRO.

However for Minimum specifications and if low cost is important any good quality SSD will be good, however also keep in mind like M.2 drives not all SSDs are made equal.

I've had FAF on HDD for years and no problem. This game doesn't require fast storage at all. Hell, many of the new games can still be enjoyed on HDD if you don't mind longer loading times.

No excuses turin @SasagakiJunzou

even ryzen 5 3600 runs FAF fine (133 score), still using it and almost never lag, and definitely never the first to lag

I'm currently unable to use my gaming PC (not that that would be an improvement, the thing is 10 years old) and have been playing for about half a year on my surface pro 7.

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-1035G4 CPU @ 1.10GHz, integrated graphics.
RAM: 8GB

FAF runs, but I'm running it at a much lower resolution than what my screen would natively run at. All settings are medium or low to further squeeze out any performance.
Games with up to 8 people usually work fine, anything more than that and it becomes iffy. Larger maps with 12 players means I'll be at -4 simspeed after the first hour.

@blodir these numbers are for a PC, not a laptop.

@thecore I'll keep that in mind. I happen to have the Crucial I listed for quite some time now and it has always been good.

You don't need to buy a new PC to run FAF it worked fine 10 years ago on a Core2 Duo E8400. That was the top CPU back then, you can but second hand systems from 10 years ago for 200€.

Just don't use the cheap series. Stay away from Atom, Celeron, Pentium, i3 and Athlon and you should be good...?

@brutus5000 said in Minimum specifications for Forged Alliance Forever:

You don't need to buy a new PC to run FAF it worked fine 10 years ago on a Core2 Duo E8400. That was the top CPU back then, you can but second hand systems from 10 years ago for 200€.

Just don't use the cheap series. Stay away from Atom, Celeron, Pentium, i3 and Athlon and you should be good...?

This is correct
1 Don't have a potato for a PC
2 Don't have failing hardware
3 Don't have a corrupt OS
4 Don't use 2 cans and a piece of string to connect to the internet

The whole point of this thread is to define what "potato PC" means for playing faf

"Minimum specifications for Forged Alliance Forever" - open game.prefs...

@blackyps said in Minimum specifications for Forged Alliance Forever:

The whole point of this thread is to define what "potato PC" means for playing faf

The problem is, it is usually hard to compare current hardware recommendations to what people bought 5-10 years ago, as this does not appear in the same benchmarks. At best you find a benchmark comparison with the previous generation.

@ZLO join the ring and beat proposed setup, i know you can

@brutus5000 said in Minimum specifications for Forged Alliance Forever:

You don't need to buy a new PC to run FAF it worked fine 10 years ago on a Core2 Duo E8400. That was the top CPU back then, you can but second hand systems from 10 years ago for 200€.

Just don't use the cheap series. Stay away from Atom, Celeron, Pentium, i3 and Athlon and you should be good...?

My computer was built in 2010, I bought it 3 years ago for $300. Has the old cpu score of 240 and runs everything except late game survival or dual gap just fine. It's a Dell precision 7500 with a 3.3 ghz, lots of cheap ram, SSD. Machine still running strong. Was probably a $5000 computer when new.

i7 4770 3.9ghz works good. xeon E5-2630v3 2.4ghz does not handle large games but plays solo campaign fine. will soon see how E53267v3 3.7ghz handles it.

any lowly 4ghz modern pentium will scream.

you'll need a half decent GPU to run it at 4k
i would not recommend core2 platforms of less than 3ghz in 2023. x79 and x99 are very cheap

anything Ryzen, or intel 7th gen or newer will fly circles around the past.

I used to play SupCom on four pc's,

First pc had a E6300.
Second one a E8500 (core2duo)
Third one a 2500k
And now a 13700k.

Even the E6300 managed to run the vanilla game. Finnished all the campaigns on that pc. The e6300 was paired with a GeForce 7600 GS or GT.