Ideal computer for Trainsimulator 2013

[gptech]

Steve,
you have to look at what you're getting for your 300 quid--when we've had discussions about how much a PC to run the game fairly well would cost we've more or less agreed that you can upgrade an existing machine for around 300-350, so this particular machine is certainly a viable alternative for those who don't know how to or are reluctant to dive into the innards of the 'magic box'.

Nothing 'only' about a terrabyte of HDD, that's a grand amount of storage for the money and the fact that it's a conventional spinning disc wouldn't worry me. I feel too much is made of SSD's, yes they offer fast read speeds but that's all, and in the context of TS2013 aren't the complete answer to eliminating stuttering. The end user can easily alter the partition sizes of their HDD, slightly trickier with the OS installed but there's plenty of software vailable to do the job---why you'd want to do it is another question though; there's absolutely no performance benefit and you may even find that there's a degredation as NTFS is more efficient on a single volume. Prersonal preference of course, if partitioning a drive fits with your preferred way of logically defining which areas are for what then I'm not going to tell you not to, but I would say have a good think about why.

No speakers included is about par for the course in this price bracket, but even if some were included you'd still need room on a table for them so the space 'question' shouldn't count as a negative; WiFi enabled desktop machines aren't the norm, the thinking is that a desktop machine will be near enough to a wired network but of course as WiFi has become more prevalent in the house then this view will change. Easily, and relatively cheaply, rectified either by a PCI-e card or even a USB 'dongle'.

A cluttered, cramped inside is once again normal in this price range, and no different from 80% of the machines you'd buy on the high street and would be a concern if you intended fitting a large graphics card at a later stage but if you just want something that works when you press the button it's of no concern. Fans aren't needed, at least not until you start adding heat producing goodies such as a beefy GPU or try over-clocking but if you found temps were getting a wee bit high case fans are cheap and easy to fit, even in the smallest of cases. As it comes, the only big heat producer would be the CPU, but from the pics you can see that the exhaust is vented straight out of the side of the case, rather a good feature for a *cheap* PC.

I'd certainly like to read more reviews before saying it's a 'must have' but from what I've seen I'd not hesitate to give it consideration if I were looking for a new PC.

[TransportSteve]

You make some fair points there Gary with your wider grasp of IT than I do. Personally speaking, I've always been a fan of having at least 2 drives on a computer/laptop, one for the OS and other operational Windows bits, Firefox, ATI Graphics, soundcards, etc, etc, and at least a second drive for my PC gaming, and all manner of other things, having absolutely everything on one drive doesn't do it for me, especially, after experiencing a virus once and had to do a complete re-install of the OS, but, only on my C Drive, everything that was on the other drives didn't need touching, so, I'd rather have to re-install 250/500GB's of content, than 1 TB of EVERYTHING.
I was always under the impression that a good computer should last you 4/5 years, this machine is new and fresh out of the stable, what it'll be like in 18 months / 2 years time after hard gaming every day/weekend is anyone's guess, nobody has had this particular model for this long yet, so, it's an unknown entity, I've seen that the manufacturer has other products out on the market, and to be very fair, has had favourable reviews on all of them up to now, I have nothing against the organisation per se, but, in a couple of year's time if this machine goes belly up, it'd be a waste of £300+ if I had to go out and purchase another more recognised companies model at a higher price.

Cheerz. Steve.

[shanyiqua]

having absolutely everything on one drive doesn't do it for me, especially, after experiencing a virus once and had to do a complete re-install of the OS, but, only on my C Drive, everything that was on the other drives didn't need touching, so, I'd rather have to re-install 250/500GB's of content, than 1 TB of EVERYTHING.

You should read about disk partitioning

[gptech]

Having the OS and data on different drives is a good strategy, one I've used for many years but on separate physical drives---something to bear in mind when you do move on to a new machine.
Viral attacks unfortunately do happen and I'll wager you were logged on with admiinstructive rights at the time. Running with lower privileges stops the majority of aware installer from running, so that's worthwhile strategy too. Admittedly the two stage authentication in Win7/8 reduces the risk but it does nothing to prevent us 'clicking before thinking' and giving a nasty permission to run before investigating why it needs elevated privileges to run.
If you have a higher budget than bigstewart then yes, you can buy *better* but a higher price doesn't always mean better ------Alienware anyone?
If a cheaper PC has the features you need, if the components are from reputable manufacturers then you can be reasonably confident that you've chosen well. You could suffer a HDD failure in a £1,000 machine just as easily as you would in a £300 one.

What would be helpful for those considering a new machine this year would be a long term evaluation of this machine, would you be willing to report how you'vefared in say 6 months time Stewart? Not in a techie way, but in the more important user experience way

[bigstewart]

No problem. As I'm not a computer tec person, jut an old get it out the box and plug it in sort of guy. I will let you know.

SP

[gptech]

That'd be great Stewart; there are many like yourself who don't give a monkeys about what's in the box, as long as it works---I often wish I was like that
Also, many like you, will be looking for the best 'value for money' PC they can get; all the bells and whistles might sound impressive but if that puts the price out of the question thay count for nought so it would be of great benefit to many to find out how a 'cheaper end' PC copes with the game and how it deals with life in the hands of a train-simmer.

Gary

[ProRail]

My system (build last week)

AMD Zambesi 3.6 Ghz Octacore CPU
GPU: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5767/caps ... ck-edition
8 GB Ram

Clapham Junction in full game specs..... Nah... no problem for this beast.

[stephenhornsey]

Does it have to run Windows 8 or would 7 work?

[gptech]

Does it have to run Windows 8 or would 7 work?

It's up to you what operating system you install, you could put Win 95 on it if you so wanted (OK, you might be stuck getting drivers etc ) but no, if you'd prefer to install Win 7 rather than Win 8 it'll work perfectly.

[Drogba11CFC]

Well, my new PC has arrived, and WCML with TSX runs like a charm on the RSC scenarios.

We shall soon see how it handles the AP scenarios.

[stephenhornsey]

Well, my new PC has arrived, and WCML with TSX runs like a charm on the RSC scenarios.

We shall soon see how it handles the AP scenarios.

Let us know what happens.
Also if anyone has the chance to try out any London Underground simulators and flight simulators it would be interesting to know how they run on higher settings, thanks.

[VernonDozier]

ANyone know how an Intel i3-2120 would handle this game? It's dual core.

Looking to buy a computer used with the following specs:
MSI GeForce GTX 560 Ti Hawk
Intel i3-2120 @ 3.3Ghz
8GB of ram

[gptech]

Should be fine, I was firmly of the belief that the i3 (at that time Sandybridge family) wouldn't have the 'grunt' when I put my machine together---however I'm happy to have been proven wrong by quite a number of members who are happily running with such a CPU.

[VernonDozier]

Thanks.
This one has been unlocked so I believe it can be overclocked too.

[gptech]

Thanks.
This one has been unlocked so I believe it can be overclocked too.

Unlikely, you need a 'K' suffixed CPU to higher the multiplier, and also a motherboard that supports that.

(http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1650/17/)