Advice on new PC Spec for MSTS please

[stevefran]

My old pc has finally given up the ghost (a mate put it together for £100 about 4 years ago!), it ran MSTS rather badly but it was bearable on a good day.
I have been looking at what I may need to run MSTS and advice would be much appreciated.
My idea so far is;

2 Quad Core Processor (2.4GHz, 8MB cache, 1066MHz FSB
4096MB Memory, 800MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM (4X1024)
500GB (7200rpm SATA Hard Drive
256MB ATI Radeon HD 3450 Graphics Card
Windows Vista Hom pREMIUM 32 Bit

I am not a pc buff but have learned a fair bit courtesy of the forum, any advice would be really appreciated.
Thanks in advance,

Steve

[dean1986]

Have a look on ebay http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/bess-system/. I got a great PC for 200pound and works great with train sim, rail sim and world of subways. They also give very good support. Hope it helps

[Tonysmedley]

Steve,

Unless you want Vista for other reasons, I would stick with XP which has been going long enough for most problems to be ironed out and for most hardware to have suitable drivers.

[Lad491]

2 Quad Core Processor (2.4GHz, 8MB cache, 1066MHz FSB

Likewise the quad processor will do nothing for msts which is a single threaded application and can only use one processor at a time. You may want the Quad for other things but a Dual Core is quite adequate, using one core to run Windows and the background tasks and one to run Msts.

4096MB Memory, 800MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM (4X1024)

Msts uses a maximum of 768kb when running so theoreticly 1MB is plenty. But Vista is very hungry and on my 3GB system i only have 32mb free left when Msts and all the operating background tasks are running. So 4GB is a good idea but you could manage on 3gb.

[desiro5]

Hi Steve,

Is this a dell by any chance?

I got a new dell last month, which pretty much same spex.

My processor was up at 3.00ghz and I had the next spec up grafix card. Apart from that, same memory, hd, etc.

MSTS runs at a good 40 -50 fps on all routes, dipping down in the really heavy areas - i.e southampton on dorset coast.

From the spec you've given me, i think you will have a good msts experience.

Ali

[mikesimpson]

Hi Steve,

1. Stick with Vista, it works fine and is still supported by MS, XP is a 10 year old system and showing its age.
2. Try to get a video card which is bigger than 256 megs - 512 or 768 is more appropriate for the newer games which are coming out, even 1 gig cards are starting to become the norm.

[stevefran]

Just to thank you all,

Ali was right I am considering a Dell, will try for a 500MB Graphics Card and will go with Vista.
I expect a bit of fun trying to set the permissions - thank goodness for the Forum!!
thanks again,

Steve

[Lad491]

I expect a bit of fun trying to set the permissions

Its easy There are now posts on the Vista forum which explain exactly what to do.

A tip though is not to accept the default msts install path to Program Files. Install msts to a directory of its own outside of Program Files - I called mine TrainSimulator, and that will cut out some of the permissions issues.

[rfletcher72]

Someone at work has built a PC up to sell, it spec is below:

Motherboard Abit AN52 (Nvidea Chipset)
160GIG Sata-III Hard Drive & 250GIG internal drive
TSST Corp DVD Writer
Nvidea GeForce 8500 GT PCIe Video Card with 512 DDRII Ram
AMD Athlon 64X2 Dual Core Processor 6000+ (Socket AM2 -940)
Realtek High Definition Audio
2 GB Memory DDR2 667

Any good for MSTS?

The above is all jibberish to me...

[Tonysmedley]

Richard,

It sounds OK to me if the price and guarantee is right. I am not sure what is the situation with the hard drives 1 or 2?
As a rough guide, PCSpecialists will make you a similar sort of PC with Vista Home with 1 year guarantee for £405 delivered

[rfletcher72]

Richard,

It sounds OK to me if the price and guarantee is right. I am not sure what is the situation with the hard drives 1 or 2?
As a rough guide, PCSpecialists will make you a similar sort of PC with Vista Home with 1 year guarantee for £405 delivered

Thanks Tony,

A second opinion anyone?

[Tonysmedley]

Come on, lads, someone help him!

[JamesC]

Might as well post my question here instead of opening up another thread.

I'm thinking on buying a new graphics card as I think its time to update it. My PC runs the routes ok, East Coast Express, Great Easten, West Coast Express etc. I have most of the settings set up high apart from the visibility what is right down. Some heavy built up areas of the routes the frame rates can drop right down to about 12 or 14.

My system spec:

Windows XP
Pentium D CPU 3.40GHz
3.40GHz, 2.00 GB of Ram
Geforce 7500 LE 512 MB

[Tonysmedley]

I have a GeForce 8500GT Super 512, which seems to be not too bad for me and a reasonable price, but i have read that the 8600GT which is cheaper is in fact better. Others may wish to comment.

[JamesC]

I actually went down to PC World today, one of the guys down there pointed me to the GeForce 9800GT 512MB for £80. I took it home and inserted it into my PC and ran train simulator and guess what, there were no difference! It was no better than the one I have already. So this new graphic card went back. I have recently downloaded an updated driver for my old graphic card, it seems to run a bit better with this update. I’m going to have to get a faster processor if I want more fps. My pc I have now is not to bad anyway, its just I would like to have the visibility up high but down goes the frame rates. Most of the time I get 30 and 40 fps but they do drop to 15 in some areas.