Atomic Systems

I am currently using a NVIDIA Geforce 8400 GS and I am looking to upgrade for use with Railworks. Can anyone suggest an even better graphics card?

Many thanks, Malcolm

i'm doing well on a 9800GT 512mb, but am looking to get a 1GB version or go up to 240GTX in the coming months

matt

An ATI 6870 is superb. This is what I have. What is your CPU as Railworks needs a really good to run well?

Hi Malcolm

May i recommend a ASUS ENGTX460 DirectCU TOP 2DI 768MD5 . It is a very powerfull graphicscard to a fair price.

Or slightly more from a certain site ATI 5850 MSI 1GB 134.99 inc. VAT

I have upgraded 8600GT with an Asus GTX460 1Gb, this was a GREAT improvement with all my games but not so big with RW...
Actually, RW is more CPU than GPU dependant.

In my opinion, purchasing anything higher than say an 8800gt (or similar) just for Railworks is wasting money. I have a Ati 5870 andmy gpu activity averages about 25% when running Railworks. The only thing that will kill performance on a lower card is flying directly into smoke particles.

The only other reason I can think of to spend a ton of money is if you want to do SuperSampling. Even my 5870 can't handle 8x SuperSampling very well.

Thanks Guys,

My CPU is 2 x Intel R Core Duo E6850 @ 3.00Ghz. Is this sufficient?

Many thanks. Malcolm

Just a word of warning, make sure that your power supply will be up to the job. If it isn't it may potentially cause a lot of problems.

John

malcolmfhill wrote:Thanks Guys,

My CPU is 2 x Intel R Core Duo E6850 @ 3.00Ghz. Is this sufficient?

Many thanks. Malcolm

My Core 2 Duo E8400 @ 3.0 Ghz in conjunction with a Nvidia GeForce GTX 260 handles RW very well.

Andy L

Why hasn't anybody asked the first question they should have?...

namely.... what is your budget??

An 8400 is pretty old now and was never the high end. It'll be quite easy to find something that is an upgrade.

But to make any decent recommendation, we do need to know what the rest of the machine looks like and what your budget is. Do you have a 16x PCIe slot to put a new card in?

I'm using an nvidia 460GTX overclocked version that replaced an ati 4850HD.

The 460GTX has been excellent and is vastly superior to any other cards I have used - better be careful what i say here

Anyway, I had to get a 1000W power suppy and the rest of my spec is below if interested.

I am running the following system for Railworks which I put together a couple of weeks ago:-

Windows 7 Professional (x64)
AMD Phenom II X4 945 Processor
ASUS M4N75TD Motherboard
NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 Graphics Card
8GB DDR3 1333Mhz
550w Power supply

Railworks is now running better than I ever expected. Like someone said above its not just about a graphics card. The greatest graphics card in the world will be little help if your motherboard and power supply cant handle it to its full potential.

In addition to available budget one should consider what software / games one would like to be able to run and at what detail level and importantly at what resolution. Is your monitor 1080p? If you only want to run Railworks on your computer then a mid range card 70 to 90 (ATI 5770 etc) pounds will be more than sufficient and will come in handy if at a later date you get into other things. If you perhaps want to dabble in a spot of Crysis or Battlefield then a mid to high end card is essential, such as the 5850 which is a very generous portion of graphics processing muscle for 140 pounds and is probably the sweet spot for best bang for buck. Top end cards you pay a premium, bottom end cards are usually too crippled / slow to run anything decent at high resolutions and dont offer good value for money (waste of time). Sitting on the graphics card fence, if you buy either the ATI 5850 or the GTX260 you will find both these models keenly priced and you will get good value for money and be pleased with your purchase which ever model you decide to go for. Hope that helps

Malc