PC's used during LCS matches?

OG Mesty·Jul 27, 2015·1 votes·2,128 views

Does anyone know what PC or the PC's specs used during LCS matches?

12 Comments

StratJul 27, 20152 votes

They're nothing impressive. LoL easily runs on toasters, it'd be the bare minimum to achieve maximum graphics settings.

Think literally any CPU made in the past 5-10 years, and any 1GB GPU that costs more than $120 or so. 1333MHz RAM minimum probably for fast loading times (along with a 128GB SSD of course).

OG MestyJul 27, 20152 votes

Ahh okay. I'm getting ready to PCS (military move) and was wondering if I could get a cheap laptop that could run LoL no problem while I wait on my PC.

StratJul 27, 20151 votes

What you're looking for minimum is:

2GB RAM, and:
a discrete GPU (i.e. labelled Nvidia or AMD, not just an Intel one) with minimum 512MB memory
CPU clocked at 2.2GHz or more

What would be nice is:

An SSD, preferably 120GB. This could be bought for <$100 if your choice of laptop has a HDD instead.
4GB RAM (can keep your web browser open alt-tabbed)
i3 or i5 intel CPU, 1.8GHz minimum (better architecture doesn't need as high of a clock)

The SSD is nice because you'll load the game faster, and more importantly, you can be a little "rough" with the laptop without damaging the HDD. Still can't smash it around obviously, but if you have it in a backpack and you drop it, it shouldn't do damage, at least, not to the SSD. Can't say the same for the screen or other components, of course.

OG MestyJul 27, 20151 votes

Sounds good. I will for sure look into that and see what I can come up with. Thank you!

StratJul 27, 20151 votes

No worries. Slightly updated it if you want to double check. Best of luck with your change of station :)

OG MestyJul 27, 20151 votes

Thank you :)

Gaxx DJul 27, 20151 votes

SSD for LoL is actually pretty pointless, considering that 9 other people need to get past the loading screen for you to get into the game. So even if you were to jump from 0-100% in 5 seconds, you'll have to wait for everyone else. HDD is perfectly fine.

StratJul 28, 20151 votes

Depends on what Elo you're at. In higher Elo almost everyone has an SSD so you'll tend to start games pretty fast. Also, SSDs tend to increase your FPS, at least, that's what I've experienced.

Gaxx DJul 28, 20151 votes

You're wrong about everyone having SSD in higher elo (you might be mistaking it with LCS or something). I've seen plenty of people who were loading the game for like 3 minutes in Master/Challenger. And regarding FPS, you get that mostly from your gpu and cpu, and I really see no reason to use SSD to bump that number from like 250+ to 300+ fps.

StratJul 28, 20151 votes

you get that mostly from your gpu and cpu

Well obviously, but I can only speak from experience. It seems that the LoL client loads resources from the disk (or maybe it's logging data) during gameplay. Either way, I had ~80 FPS on my HDD and I have 200 FPS on my SSD, so clearly there was some delay caused by using a HDD. It'd probably be less of a problem if you have a high quality HDD with decent response time (something a laptop that OP is getting won't generally have).

I've seen plenty of people who were loading the game for like 3 minutes in Master/Challenger

Same, but I've also seen plenty of 20 second loads, even in lowish Elo (Plat 2 here). Nobody likes the guy that takes 3 minutes to load.

Gaxx DJul 28, 20151 votes

Yeah, and you can read some snarky comments after the game is loaded, but 2 minutes into the game nobody cares anymore. And well, I've also seen plenty of people who were loading the game under 20 seconds, but that's just so rare (when it happens to all 10 people), I'd never buy/use SSD to run LoL. That's just a waste of resources, unless you want it just to brag about it (?).

StratJul 28, 20151 votes

Don't forget reloading - at times I've had to reload my client due to bugs. Having a 1-2 minute load time can destroy a game, whereas with an SSD you can just reload when you die or worst case scenario miss out on 20 seconds (1 wave) of farm.