Advice on new computer for COH

[Sessa]

So my computer died in 2013 and I only used to play CoH on it,now when there might be a chance to play CoH again in some form I needd to buy a new one.

I was going to wait and possibly buy a computer when/if CoT did come out,but now when CoH is here Im plotting a new one for sure.

Question is what should I buy? CoH is rather old so I guess new computers should run it easy.

So any advice would be good 

Budget could be around 800-1200 not really sure.

A silent running computer would be great and one that could be upgraded later on if needed.

Also are laptops viable to play games on or do they have a short lifespan and not worth the money?

[DeProgrammer]

CoH ran acceptably well on my Radeon X1650PRO back in the day, which has a Passmark G3D Mark of 84. For a desktop computer with that budget, you can easily get many times more power than you need. You can grab one of these and have double the benchmark score of my current gaming laptop for $110.

Laptops usually aren't very upgrade-capable and are more expensive, though ones with good airflow tend to be quieter than desktops. Personally, I'm on a roll of buying a refurbished $800-$900 ASUS Republic of Gamers laptop with a 17" screen every 2-3 years (I'm on my third one, and my previous two still work).

[The Fifth Horseman]

Question is what should I buy? CoH is rather old so I guess new computers should run it easy.
So any advice would be good 

Depends whether you want a budget system that can do COH now or you want a system that can do COH now and maybe do COT later (remember, it's never a guarantee when talking about titles that are still in development).

If "COH, now" is your only objective, I'd look for a refurbished business workstation with Windows 7 license on it - doesn't have to be particularly recent, at that - a second-hand dedicated video card (exact choice down to you - personally I run a GTX 970 and it's overkill for the game) and if the card needs dedicated power connections then also a new power supply ($50), roughly estimate $250-$300 total. Optionally an SSD (doesn't have to be very large, you can get some decent ones under $50-ish), which will nearly eliminate load times.

Also are laptops viable to play games on or do they have a short lifespan and not worth the money?

Gaming laptops are only worth it if you expect to be on the go a lot. Otherwise a low-end laptop is adequate for basic tasks.

[MyriVerse]

Old games like CO & CoH shouldn't have much trouble on even cheap craptops. I've been using a $300 laptop for those for years.

[Tahquitz]

On-CPU graphics will always do worse at games than discrete graphics (have to make the distinction, as it's hard to tell if a laptop has either without stickers or opening the Control Panel versus just looking at it.)

Intel GMA 4000 is the baseline for COH play... if it has at least that,  you're looking at gameplay on Minimum to Recommended settings at 30 frames per second.

[The Fifth Horseman]

I've seen players reporting issues with attempting to run the game on Intel's integrated GPUs. Even a low-end dedicated chip is advisable.

[Tahquitz]

I've seen players reporting issues with attempting to run the game on Intel's integrated GPUs. Even a low-end dedicated chip is advisable.

Yup, if a choice between Intel GMA and a low-end dedicated one like Geforce 620 GT, or AMD E4 APU, Geforce and AMD will always perform better.

[The Fifth Horseman]

It seems that if you want to play COH, your new computer can't be new-new after all:

We finally have confirmation on user's Intel integrated graphics & Windows 10 issues. A community discussion with a member of the team behind Homecoming and SCORE revealed that both Intel and Windows 10 offer next-to-no support for OpenGL or legacy graphics engines, partially due to Microsoft's push for DirectX; Windows 10 doesn't even support hardware-accelerated OpenGL at all.

Most of these problems have been experienced by people using modern laptops. We're working on a better way to broadcast these problems for them to know about, and also discussed some possible future software solutions that could be built to overcome this hurdle and keep City of Heroes' game client functional on future hardware.

The latter will be further explored by our team down the road once server proliferation and i24 development is at a comfortable stage, but if anyone has a development group familiar with this type of development who would like to get started or lay out the groundwork, there's a lot of people out there who would appreciate it.

So anything that runs Windows 10 is right out - the machine will have to run Windows 7 or 8.

[Tahquitz]

It seems that if you want to play COH, your new computer can't be new-new after all:
So anything that runs Windows 10 is right out - the machine will have to run Windows 7 or 8.

I'm running Windows 10, and use a GeForce in my desktop and laptop.  Both run COH well.  (I'm sure AMD is just as successful.)  So taking that literally, ANYTHING that runs Windows 10 being right out, isn't true.  Microsoft not supporting something doesn't mean it won't work.  OpenGL Support Forums confirms this; their tech support on problems are focused on Graphics Cards having compatibility, rather than the operating system.

Anything newer that runs Intel GMA, perhaps.  Older systems with Intel GMA 4000 I'm able to get COH running on, so there may be a 'sweet spot' between that point and when Intel decided to drop OpenGL support natively.  As a reality check, bring a USB with Tequila pre-downloaded with you.  If it will run Paragon Chat, the game should be fine.  (And mind the gap between "it runs", and "it runs well".  I've never see Intel GMA deliver FPS higher than 60 without pointing your camera so that the sky is out of view on City of Heroes.)

Laptops, regardless if they're brand new or refurbished, expect to spend at least $600 to find a system with a discrete graphics card (or integrated graphics that aren't terrible, like Radeon Vega.)  Most are going to be closer to $1,000, however.

[doc7924]

Funny thing as I had used the same PC I had in 2012 that I bought in 2004.

I had just gotten a brand new PC in 2012 a few months before the game shut down.

So should work great now since its still 2012 game files and code.