Computer advice

[quickthorn]

I've got a question on this theme.

There is no way on earth I would have the time to build my own PC (full time job, 3 young kids) so if I want a new one I'm going to have to buy one ready made. I'm not in a position to do so but I'd like to have an idea of cost so that I can maybe start preparing.

Hello Jimmy,

Building it's the easy bit, and doesn't take much time. I'm not an expert, and I put mine together in a morning.

I can't answer the first of your questions, and that one's the key. Once you know that, there are a few places that have system configurators, which will give you an idea of price. Plenty of links in this thread.

[jarmstro]

We all hear talk of minimum spec, recommended spec etc, followed by endless threads of debate but surely the simple questions on most peoples minds are:

what is the minimum spec needed to run TS2012 on highest settings?
what is the current cost of obtaining a PC of that spec?
where can I get one off the shelf?

Take away all the techincal debate and surely those are the million dollar questions!!

Hi Jimmy

My answer to your question would be something like this to ensure a bit of future proofing:

Intel Core i7 2600K Processor - Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Motherboard - 16GB DDR3 Memory - 2 x 1TB 6GB/s Drives - Intel 311 20GB SSD NVIDIA GTX 580 Graphics Win764 bit

Cost new including monitor and peripherals - Allow £1250

Source - Many but I have always used Novatech and found them very good.

Or save £400 by keeping your old keyboard, mouse, screen drives etc.

Upgrade potential with this rig would include SLI graphics and possibly CPU. Should be OK for two years

Regards
John A

[jimmyshand]

£1,250??!! and good for 2 years only? Not a chance in hell of me slipping that one past Mrs Jimmy even if I had that kind of spare cash lying around. Looks like I will have to grin and bear it with my old rig and plod on. Therein lieth the problem with PC gaming, ridiculously expensive and out of the reach of most normal people. Cutting edge hardware is just too darn expensive, most people when they look to buy a PC will be looking in the region of a few hundred quid not a few grand!! I spoke to a couple of OAP's on the phone at work today and in the course of conversation it transpired that they didn't have computers. It got me thinking that those old boys could well be old steam fanatics and potential Railworks customers. Can you imagine trying to explain to them that if they want to play Railworks they will need to buy a PC that costs more than their homes did when they bought them??!! The point I'm trying to make is that many rail fanatics and potential Railworks users are probably priced out of the game by the extreme hardware needed to run this sim and so the pace of development is outrunning the ability of potential users to keep up. That's a dangerous business model for the future.

[gptech]

Jimmy, if you're confident enough to take a motherboard out of a case and you're in a position to reuse your existing hard drives/DVD you could move to a Sandybridge based setup for under 400 quid.
The spec jarmstro came up with is very good, but a fair bit OTT. The i7 offers very little over an i5 in the RW world, but comes with a price tag of around £80 more than the i5. Z68 motherboards are very feature packed, but do you need Intel RST?, is SATA 6GB/s on your wish list?, SLI and X-Fire of interest?, ---if not consider the H61, about half ther price of a Z68 board.
16 GB of RAM?...a joke surely?....4GB is enough for today, 8GB is being ready for anything in the next 3 or 4 years. When we get to the point that we'll need 16GB of RAM we'll be replacing our CPUs too.
Could you fill 2 Terrabytes of disc space Jimmy?...
The graphics card is OK though

All this is rather moot though if you're having to save for a while, because when you have the money you'll find the technology has jumped ahead again so any recomendations you'll get today won't be valid---best to save 3 or 400 and then see whats available.

Why the need to run the game with everything on highest settings?... the settings are only valid when compared relative to each other....
consider this:
you buy game 'A' and can run it with everything on highest
a week later you buy game 'B' but can only use medium settings
has your PC suddenly deteriorated?
no!...game 'B' probably has medium settings that are the equal of game 'A's highest settings.
The question should be "What spec PC do I need to run RW with acceptable performance and have good quality graphics with smooth game play"

[mervyn61]

That spec really is very high-end and not very good value for money, although it will certainly run RW3 very well. It will also last quite a bit longer than 2 years. I generally have a major update every three years (usually driven by increasing demands of new software) and I bought a new machine in August in anticiaption of RW3.

A much more reasonable spec which will still run RW3 pretty well with most options turned on is as follows:

Intel i5-2500K (£160 instead of £250 for the i7-2600K and you will hardly notice any difference in performance)
A decent Z68 chipset motherboard (e.g Gigabyte Z68A-D3-B3)
NVidia Geforce GTX560-Ti Graphics (I am not an expert but others more knowledgeable than me claim that RW3 still makes more demands on the CPU than the GPU)
4Gb (2x2Gb) or 8Gb (2x4Gb) RAM is more than enough and 16Gb is overkill.
A 1Tb Hard Disk is more than adequate, and even a 2Tb SATA 2 drive is not that much more expensive (although hard disk prices seem to have gone up a lot recently)
An SSD is nice but a lot of money and is not really necessary.
A PSU of 700W or more to power it.
You don't need a fancy case provided it has good ventilation and cooling.
A DVD drive is cheap and a mouse, keyboard and speakers won't cost much either (I recently bought a Microsoft keyboard in Asda for £2.50!)
A 24" widescreen full HD monitor is really nice but a 19" one is a lot cheaper and will work just as well.
Windows 7 64bit Home Premium is all you need and if you order it with some hardware you can get the cheaper OEM version.

You should be able to get all of that for around £800 inc VAT

If after a year or so, you need a bit more performance both the CPU and graphics card can be overclocked quite easily, or you just need to change the graphics card and/or possibly add some more memory if it is needed.

If you order all the parts from one supplier (I use CCL in Bradford - usual disclaimer) they should be able to build and test it for you for a reasonable price (CCl will build and test your system for £60 inc VAT)

Mervyn

[gptech]

If after a year or so, you need a bit more performance both the CPU and graphics card can be overclocked quite easily

as long as ensure you buy the 'k' version of the CPU---this can't be stressed enough, hardware forums are full of folk trying to OC plain locked CPUs because they didn't read advisory posts properly. The Ivybridge CPUs due for release next year are supposedly coming in socket 1155 variants too, so a further upgrade shouldn't mean ripping the 'guts' out of the machine again!
I use CCL a lot, they're 20 minutes from home and only 10 from work so thats a bonus, but their service is very good---staff are knowledgable and not the 'spotty oik' type doing a Saturday job at Comet.

We could compare specs all week long though and not reach agreement, so Jimmy what are your current specs and realistically how much could you spend?--you may be part way there already, just as Retro is only lacking a decent graphics card you may be in a similar situation.

[theokus]

The question should be "What spec PC do I need to run RW with acceptable performance and have good quality graphics with smooth game play"

And the answer is gp??

http://www.railsimulator.com/support.php
System requirements
The kit you'll need to for the RailWorks2 Train Simulator experience

Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7
1.7GHz or faster
512MB RAM
64MB with Pixel Shader 2.0* (AGP PCIe only)
Version 9.0c (included)
6GB of free space
DirectX® 9.0c compatible
DVD Compatible Disk Reader
Internet connection required for activation and updates from Steam
==================================================================
http://www.railsimulator.com/microsite_ ... te/faq.pdf

Will Train Simulator 2012 work on my PC system? 
Yes, while Train Simulator 2012 will make use of the latest graphical technology and special effects, we have worked very hard to 
ensure it will continue to work on RW2’s minimum system requirements. Obviously to enjoy all the enhanced graphics you will need 
to have a more up to date system. 

And now you can give me the definition of RailWorks2 Train Simulator experience

This is not a criticism. I just read a few sentences.
Sometimes I have a problem with what people see as truth and especially with what they really mean.

[quickthorn]

...although hard disk prices seem to have gone up a lot recently...

I paid £42 odd for a 1Tb HD in September..same model from same supplier now £108. What's happened?

[Easilyconfused]

...although hard disk prices seem to have gone up a lot recently...

I paid £42 odd for a 1Tb HD in September..same model from same supplier now £108. What's happened?

Well this might have something to do with it ..... http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2011/1 ... s_at_xmas/

[gptech]

The question should be "What spec PC do I need to run RW with acceptable performance and have good quality graphics with smooth game play"

And the answer is gp??

.....

Ahhhh...if only I knew the answer...but, I'm half way there as I know the question...

[theokus]

The question should be "What spec PC do I need to run RW with acceptable performance and have good quality graphics with smooth game play"

And the answer is gp??

.....

Ahhhh...if only I knew the answer...but, I'm half way there as I know the question...

This is a good answer

[gptech]

Ahhhh...if only I knew the answer...but, I'm half way there as I know the question...

This is a good answer

I suppose it's better than knowing that the answer is 42, but not knowing the question....


(that'll stump the younger readers)

[Kromaatikse]

...surely the simple questions on most peoples minds are:

what is the minimum spec needed to run TS2012 on highest settings?
what is the current cost of obtaining a PC of that spec?
where can I get one off the shelf?

Take away all the techincal debate and surely those are the million dollar questions!!

That actually is a pretty good question. I still have to make a few reasonable assumptions to answer it, but here goes:

Assumption 1: Desktop rather than laptop. This saves you a lot of money and makes finding a good one much easier.

Assumption 2: Existing 24" monitor (1920x1200) maximum. This limits the number of pixels that the graphics card has to drive, and lets me concentrate on the computer itself.

Assumption 3: "High" rather than "Highest" sttings might be sufficient. (This is just me covering my backside.)

Assumption 4: Eliminate notoriously heavy routes (WCML-N in it's current incarnation, NEC) from consideration.


CPU: Nearly anything currently on sale is sufficient. Avoid Atom, Celeron, or AMD C- or E-series since these are deliberately cut-down models.

RAM: 4GB is enough to start with. Usually even 2GB is just about enough.

GPU: GTX 550 or Radeon 6770. These have about 75 GB/s VRAM bandwidth, similar to my old reference, the 8800GT.


Aria currently sell such a box (without OS, keyboard, mouse or monitor) for £400: http://www.aria.co.uk/Systems/Gaming+Ra ... ctId=46328

[jarmstro]

The question was simple enough- 'What PC is required to run RW3 at the highest settings?'

This question surely implies that the user will want stutter free flawless gameplay as well? This requires that the in game frame rate never drops below 30 because the human eye can only see flicker at rates less than 30fps as I understand it?

The 'optimised' NEC Route + Acela with TSX has shown the potential of the new game engine in terms of detail and effects. And it leaves my very reasonable system coughing at around 22fps on high settings!! To get fps constantly above 30 would require a beast of a system. Nothing less than a fast i7, fast RAM and a GTX 580 I would think to guarantee some sort of high end playability for the next 2 years, as I suggested above?

And this route is just for starters!! It is likely that new routes will quickly appear with far greater demands on the PC than the NEC!! And by 2013, who know, maybe we will be running RW4.

In fact, I suspect that even with the modestly priced £1250 Hyper PC spec I outlined, in two years time you won't be running anything on 'Highest Settings' anymore and will be once again asking the question:

'What PC is required to run RW4 at the highest settings"

Not even a Tesco's Cheese Flan goes out of date as quickly as a new PC if you must always have fps over 30, High Resolution and Maximum Graphics Settings !!

Sorry about the doom and gloom!!! Reality is painful.

Regards
John Armstrong

[glowball]

I think you are asking a question that can't really be answered yet.

You could go out and buy the best home PC available - but it won't guarantee you don't get frame rate dips down to 14fps.

Once we get the overdue core update, hopefully we will be closer to answering your questions.

Edit: should also add, the perfect system is already available for some, it's just a matter of what's acceptable to you.