Yet Another PC Thread (Sorry...)

[DescendingSadly]

Hi all,

My PC is now struggling to run TS2012 routes. My specs are as follows:

Mainboard : Asus P5QD TURBO
Processor : Intel Core 2 Quad Q8300 @ 2500MHz
Physical Memory : 3072MB
Video Card : NVIDIA GeForce GT 220
Hard Disk : SAMSUNG HD103SI (1000GB)
Operating System : Windows XP Professional 32 bit

What do you guys think my best move is? Apparently my graphics card isn't very good. Would this improve frame rates though?

Thank you.

[ttjph]

What CPU usage (in Windows Task Manager; showing all CPUs in one graph) and GPU usage (using nVidia Inspector) are you getting while running RW3? (Try running it in a window that's slightly smaller than your full-screen resolution, so you can drag it to one side to see the graphs.)

What antialiasing (in the launcher) and in-game detail settings are you running?

[gptech]

When you say it's "struggling", exactly what do you mean?---low frame rates, unable to use the 'prettier' features in TSX, or something else?
The graphics card is definately the weakest part, I'd suggest replacing that and then re-evaluating.
Moving to Win7 64Bit and upping the RAM to at least 4GB wouldn't hurt either.
How much are you willing to spend?

[dean1986]

Deleted

[dean1986]

think pc advice should have its own section in the forum not a day goes by when someone asks about specs. Be much easier for people to find advice.

[dean1986]

Wouldnt worry bout graphics card first check if your processor supports 64 bit if it doesnt get a new one i have the e8400 3 ghz which can be picked up quite cheap upgrade then to 64 bit windows and upgrade your ram to atleast 4gb as your pc takes about 800mb of it.

[dean1986]

Searched your card and it is 64 bit. Id suggest upgrading to windows 64 bit then adding more ram and if your not happy snd budget allowed upgrade your processor

[gptech]

Wouldnt worry bout graphics card first check if your processor supports 64 bit if it doesnt get a new one i have the e8400 3 ghz which can be picked up quite cheap upgrade then to 64 bit windows and upgrade your ram to atleast 4gb as your pc takes about 800mb of it.

Sorry Dean, but if you're going to give advice could you make it make sense?
If the PC takes 800MB of RAM, why are you advising him to increase his installed quantity to 5 times that amount?

(The P5QD supports 4 DDR2 modules, up to 4GB each to give a total of 16GB by the way)

The E8400 can be picked up cheaply, but I wouldn't say a move from a quad core CPU to a dual core one is much of an upgrade, the extra 500MHz in clock speed would make little difference.

Searched your card and it is 64 bit. Id suggest upgrading to windows 64 bit then adding more ram and if your not happy snd budget allowed upgrade your processor

If by "your card" you mean the 220, of course it'll work under a 64Bit OS. If we accept Kromaatickse's findings that a bandwidth of 50GB/s is needed to make the most of TSX features, then the 220 only offers about half that---running under a 64Bit OS will not change that! It's obvious that the GPU is the weakest part in the system.
Upgrading the GPU first, if it doesn't improve things enough, means DescendinglySadly would have a new graphics card he could still use in a further improved machine, changing the CPU, if it doesn't work, means he's bought something that's of no use what so ever in a subsequent upgrade. The fastest quad core (Q9650) is only 3GHz, a slight increase but not enough to give a vast improvement.
Upgrading the OS to 64Bit makes sense, something I'd recommend regardless of whatever hardware components are changed but as the biggest benefit is increased memory utilisation it doesn't make sense to add RAM and find it's not enough as he'd then have to spend on more RAM---moving to a newer CPU architecture and new motherboard would most certainly mean that DDR3 RAM would be needed.

[dean1986]

You seem like you know much more about this sort of thing than I do but I was in the same position two years ago, I couldn't run Railworks at all with the pc I had so I thought I will spend two hundred pound on a top of the range graphics card turns out it made no difference at all to me and was two hundred pound down the pan. I allready had 4gb of ram so I never upgraded that, I then decided to try upgrading the processor to my current E8400 3ghz processor and boy did it make a big difference, I sold the expensive graphics card I had and put my old card back in and there was still a vast improvement on framerates. Your best off taking Gptech's advice as he clearly knows his stuff

Dean

[DescendingSadly]

What CPU usage (in Windows Task Manager; showing all CPUs in one graph) and GPU usage (using nVidia Inspector) are you getting while running RW3? (Try running it in a window that's slightly smaller than your full-screen resolution, so you can drag it to one side to see the graphs.)

What antialiasing (in the launcher) and in-game detail settings are you running?

Hiya pal.

My CPU usage is around 40% when I load up a route in RW.

As for other questions, it struggles because in a TS2012 route, it's pretty much a slideshow in the complex areas. I get quite a few crashes too.

I'd be willing to spend up to £150.

Thanks again guys.

[smartie38]

What CPU usage (in Windows Task Manager; showing all CPUs in one graph) and GPU usage (using nVidia Inspector) are you getting while running RW3? (Try running it in a window that's slightly smaller than your full-screen resolution, so you can drag it to one side to see the graphs.)

What antialiasing (in the launcher) and in-game detail settings are you running?

Hiya pal.

My CPU usage is around 40% when I load up a route in RW.

As for other questions, it struggles because in a TS2012 route, it's pretty much a slideshow in the complex areas. I get quite a few crashes too.

I'd be willing to spend up to £150.

Thanks again guys.

If you do upgrade I wouldn't expect big increases, I've got somewhat higher specs in hardware than you and I still face slideshows at times in some of the more complex ts2012 routes

Phenom 1090T @ 3.7
Nvidia 580GTX
16GB DDR3 1600
X-FI Fatality Titanium

Prior to having the 580 I had the 470, I saw zero increase in fps when I installed the 580, also overclocked my cpu from 3.2 to 3.7 and had zero increase in fps??? I've also noticed that both my cpu & gpu usage is very low most of the time, even when I have a slideshow in some routes with around 8-10fps, my own view is that the core engine in this sim still isn't upto scratch, others will no doubt disagree but that's my view.

[Inthernet]

Graphics card, definitely. The Q8300 is a high-end CPU in 2007 while the GT220 is one of the lowest-end GPUs of 2008. I would think a graphics card in the £90-£100 range (GT550Ti/HD6750) would be more than good enough to match your CPU's capability. While Nvidia's cards seem to run RW better (according to another thread), I have obscure memories of some reported issues with the 550. Need someone more knowledgeable on that matter!

EDIT: Check your PSU as well. As a general guide, you'd want a minimum of 450 watts from a *reputable* (Corsair, Seasonic, FSP etc...) manufacturer.

[gptech]

You seem like you know much more about this sort of thing than I do.....

You're line of thinking was spot on, RW benefits more from CPU power than GPU, you just didn't realise how close your CPU and DescendingSadlys are. It's for this reason you're probably the one who can help him most; your anecdotal evidence and 'real world' experience of using something so similar to his is worth a lot more than any waffle and opinion of mine
Could you post what graphics card you have, what settings you run at and give some indication of how well the game runs?
That would give him a clearer picture of what he can expect.

....graphics card in the £90-£100 range (GT550Ti/HD6750) would be more than good enough to match your CPU's capability...

I can vouch for the 550, having recently bought one (http://www.cclonline.com/product/63278/ ... d/VGA0322/) and have had no issues using the drivers supplied with it (275.33)