Atomic Systems

Hello all,

I bought a Graphics Card for my partner so he could run Railworks on something better than the integrated Intel graphics card, and got a 1GB ATI Radeon MSI R5450 from the local computer shop.

It was recommended as it has a low profile bracket to fit in the 4 inch wide case, so I installed it for him, updated the drivers and we tried running London to Brighton in TSX mode on high detail. This stutters to high heaven, so we tried it on the lowest, and only reads 14 FPS. With TSX off it's still no different, and actually the integrated card was giving better performance!

The loading times are slower too though I can't figure out what that has to do with a new graphics card. Although what is not matching up is I checked DxDiag to see if the card was registering on the PC correctly, and it states the memory is 2,700 odds, which is basically 2GB...but it's a 1GB card though, how does that work?

It's not the performance output I was expecting, and even the Windows 7 assessment rating has gone up from 3.1 to 4.6, yet TS2013 worked better before installing a new card.

Is there something I'm missing? Does anyone else have a similar card and runs TS2013 fine?


Any help would be appreciated


James.

TS2013 (and it's predecessors) are quite processor intensive (I think). You may now have an unbalanced system with a better card but a CPU that is now at it's limit and this might be causing the stuttering.

Not sure I can suggest a fix I am afraid other than play around with the settings on the card= and in game.

Jim

Hi James, if you look at the box, these cards swipe a load of system memory as well as having only 80 cores & relatively slow clock speed.

What's the computer specs.

Silly question James, but, I'll ask it anyway, did you do any internet research on this before purchasing it, does it work on 32 bit, or, 64 bit, computer systems, does your partner's computer meet all the criteria for allowing the graphics card to operate normally, have a look on t'internet to see what's what, there may be something obvious that you've unfortunately overlooked.

Cheerz. Transport Steve.

Hi James, that graphics card is not equipped to adequately play 3D games, and the person in the shop should have told you this, if you mentioned your reason for purchasing.

It is a very low power card designed to take the load off from integrated graphics, but it really isn't any better in 3D. I bought a fairly cheap system with nVidia 650Ti card in, and if you click the link you'll see the theoretical performance differences between the two card.

http://www.hwcompare.com/13696/geforce- ... n-hd-5450/

For reference, this is the graphics card I upgraded from as I wanted to play better with TSX enabled, rather than off. It is theoretically rated as much faster than the card you have purchased, even though for TS2013 it was very poor.

http://www.hwcompare.com/408/radeon-hd- ... n-hd-5450/

I hope this information helps.

Well originally I bought a nVidea GT 630 at 4GB, but it's too big for the case. Option two is to get a bigger case for it to fit.

Deltic009, I did actually say it was for Flight Sim and Train Sims mainly, I added Flight Sim just as an idea that it would need to be a decent card for Railworks (obviously not known to most shops). He said it would be fine!

I'm wondering if getting a full size case would work and hopefully the GT630 would work, the machine specs are:

Processor: Intel i5-2320 @ 3.00 GHz
RAM: 4GB
OS: Windows 7 64 bit
Graphics: ATI Radeon R5450 @ 1GB

Definately.

Bigger case, another 4 gigs of memory if it can fit to motherboard and some decent, ie. Nivida 650 or better (even top end 500-cards could do) or equivalent ATi-card, altho i have lost in them at current, probably 77xx or 78xx?

Hopefully you get it sorted, i can bet that it's more fun to railsim (and flightsim) with your partner.

Btw, does he share your interest on trains and other methods of mass transport?

Hugs.
Markku (or Make)

Makeone wrote:Definately.

Bigger case, another 4 gigs of memory if it can fit to motherboard and some decent, ie. Nivida 650 or better (even top end 500-cards could do) or equivalent ATi-card, altho i have lost in them at current, probably 77xx or 78xx?

Hopefully you get it sorted, i can bet that it's more fun to railsim (and flightsim) with your partner.

Btw, does he share your interest on trains and other methods of mass transport?

Hugs.
Markku (or Make)

I'll shall give that a try, and get a refund on the old card.

And yes he does, we met on here so he is a UKTS member too! PC's aren't his strong point, nor is mine but I know a bit more than he does...he just knows the locos and units that are on the PC..

AMD cards are without a doubt the absolute worst thing in the world to use if you want good performance with this game..

A GT 630 sounds low. The second digit seems to be the key one on nVidia - my GTX 260 is adequate for TS, scoring ~1100 on http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_list.php but a GT 630 only gets ~700. (In fact all the GT cards look mid-range at best.) The R5450 scores a little over 200, for comparison!

Try to go for at least an x50 (e.g. GTS 250, GTS 450) to make it worth the upgrade (and to balance with his CPU, which is pretty decent). If budget will stretch then something like a GTX 550 or 560 should give plenty of graphics power.

I dunno, I got the GT 630 for about £80, just about what can put up with spending, and tried it on here, runs a lot of routes clear as day, boosts MSTS Frames up no end too. Don't know if it would overclock his machine though.

So basically an x50 should give it a very good balance? I'm looking at spending £80 on changing towers, £40-ih for a new one and £30 for them to move the kit over, as I've not done that before.

Along with a new tower, he (at computer shop) said something about power supplies too needing the right case that's got the right power supply....wooosh!

styckx wrote:AMD cards are without a doubt the absolute worst thing in the world to use if you want good performance with this game..

That's an urban legend. But such urban legends keeping nvidia alive (as they make far worse gpus than amd in performance per price ratio).

No the problem is lies elsewhere. That hd5450 isn't a fast card(it meant for HTPC hw accelerated video playback, and browsing, not for gaming), but it still should be faster than a intel gpu (everything is faster than those).

You need a PSU with a greater maximum output than you're ever likely to draw so that it will be stable in use. Get them anywhere near their nominal limit and they may run hot, which can lead to the various voltages they give out varying too much for the components to handle. The shop should be able to advise you but don't skimp. It's definitely best to err on the big side.

Keith

My AMD 7850 runs railworks no problem, all settings on high, runs wlos easily.


Keith