Atomic Systems

I was wondering, because my pcs aren't uber duber fast (i have a 1.8Ghz 256mb ram p4 and a 1.4Ghz 128mb ram celery stick, i mean celeron)

Would i be able to run such routes as thames-mersey and dorset coast, and if so, which computer

Or should i go upgrade my ram??

Hi there,

you would definately need to up the memory to a gig at least to handle CC5 and Burton on the 1.8Mhz machine to get reasonable frame rates. I have not ran it yet but Thames Mersey is a bit tougher on the resources than both of those 2.

It is the next route I am going to play with.

Mickrik

Your absolute bare minimum ram should be 512mb, really it should be at least 1gb for good performance.

Your processors aren't too hot, but should be able to run with detail settings turned down quite a bit.

Remember Dorset and Thames are the two biggest and most complex routes available. You could always download either of them to try first if you wished of course since both are available as a download.

Matt.

how does one go about upgrading RAM, is it plug and play?? or more technical?

Visit Crucial's website and download the memory checker program. It will tell you what your machine can take...and what to buy.

Once ordered, the memory simply plugs in to an edge connector on the motherboard. Fairly straight forward....

http://www.crucial.com/



Doug

Make sure you know the maximum your motherboard can support, as I'm not sure crucials "buy more ram from us" tool knows that. Also, see if it can do dual channel RAM (with DDR and DDR2, if identical sticks of RAM are installed in adjacent (or otherwise paired) sockets, the system can use them in paralell, essentially reading or writing with one stick while the other is in it's recharge cycle....a bit like RAID for RAM.

As an aside, I just went from 2 to 4 GB (well 3.5 in windows as it's 32 bit....the 64 bit versions being almost unusable, but I get all 4GB in 64bit Linux), and trainsim improved????? What's that all about? surely it supports nothing like 3.5GB? The only thing I can think of is that with 4 sticks of RAM in, it's operating as Quad channel not dual.


When buying....
If given a choice of really fast clocked RAM, or slightly slower RAM with lower CAS timings, take the lower CAS numbers every time. For instance, I bought 800MHz RAM (your machines are unlikely to support this) with 4-4-4-12 timings, instead of 1066MHz RAM with 6-6-6-15 timings, as that would actually operate slower (6 ticks at 1066 take longer to happen than 4 at 800).

If you can get a couple of GB in there, lose your swapfile, windows will only use it to waste your resources and no other reason....and if you get 4GB (you wont but others might) there is no point having one, becuse you only have a 32bit address space, so every byte you increase the swap by will cause 1 less byte of real (and infinitely faster) RAM to become invisible!

thegoonden wrote:Make sure you know the maximum your motherboard can support, as I'm not sure crucials "buy more ram from us" tool knows that. Also, see if it can do dual channel RAM (with DDR and DDR2, if identical sticks of RAM are installed in adjacent (or otherwise paired) sockets, the system can use them in paralell, essentially reading or writing with one stick while the other is in it's recharge cycle....a bit like RAID for RAM.

As an aside, I just went from 2 to 4 GB (well 3.5 in windows as it's 32 bit....the 64 bit versions being almost unusable, but I get all 4GB in 64bit Linux), and trainsim improved????? What's that all about? surely it supports nothing like 3.5GB? The only thing I can think of is that with 4 sticks of RAM in, it's operating as Quad channel not dual.


When buying....
If given a choice of really fast clocked RAM, or slightly slower RAM with lower CAS timings, take the lower CAS numbers every time. For instance, I bought 800MHz RAM (your machines are unlikely to support this) with 4-4-4-12 timings, instead of 1066MHz RAM with 6-6-6-15 timings, as that would actually operate slower (6 ticks at 1066 take longer to happen than 4 at 800).

If you can get a couple of GB in there, lose your swapfile, windows will only use it to waste your resources and no other reason....and if you get 4GB (you wont but others might) there is no point having one, becuse you only have a 32bit address space, so every byte you increase the swap by will cause 1 less byte of real (and infinitely faster) RAM to become invisible!

I don't mean to be rude, but can that be explained in english and not computer language as I don't know what most of that means. I'm not the best at computing!!!

If you are not confident in buying the memory and opening up your computer, you might be better off finding a local computer repair/maintenance shop, and asking if they can upgrade it for you.

Alan

If you do as I advise, you'll either be given a choice of memory....or it'll say it can't find any compatible memory.

Try it....it costs nothing and you lose nothing!

And if it ids your motherboard, it knows the max memory you can have!

Doug

Another vote for Crucial's memory tool here, upgraded to 1gb a couple of months ago with no hassles.

Yes - I use Crucial whenever I need a memory transplant, but we know how to do it. If you have never opened up your PC the prospect of doing so can be a bit frightening - that's why I suggested the commercial upgrade route.

Alan

I have a 1.74 ghz and 1 meg ram and thames mersey runs well on fairly high sliders,the sound is at medium.I have found that if i regularly optimise my hard drive using iobits Smart defrag speeds things up.

alanch wrote:If you are not confident in buying the memory and opening up your computer, you might be better off finding a local computer repair/maintenance shop, and asking if they can upgrade it for you.
Alan

Seems like a good idea, i'll go to my local techy guys

dkightley wrote:If you do as I advise, you'll either be given a choice of memory....or it'll say it can't find any compatible memory.

Try it....it costs nothing and you lose nothing!

And if it ids your motherboard, it knows the max memory you can have!

Doug

The problems i have here, is that the computer connected to the internet is neither of those described and i'm not allowed to use it for msts!! i have to take my UKTS downloads to my computers!