Atomic Systems

Hi All

I am considering a new Graphics Card. I think every 24 months or so its worth reviewing whats inside your PC.

I have at the moment a Nvidia 9800 GTX, 8GB Ram and 64bit Win 7 Pro. It runs TS OK but as many others find it struggles around complex areas like Clapham Junction on London to Brighton for example. I have played other games on it and to be honest it can run those pretty much ok. But TS is the one that's always struggled.

I do recall seeing one video from RSC about them saying about TS may become multi core on the main CPU. I am not sure if its worth waiting to see if that happens and to keep the current card for the time being.

I also need to get the specs of my current system as I am sure someone's going to ask me that and I will need to do one of those scans to get that info.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Simon

RW2013 is very possessor hungry. You may not get much improvement by buying a new graphics card if your CPU is old which, as you are running a 9800, I suspect it is.

Regards
John A

OK. The CPU is a ............ AMD Athlon II x4 645 3.10ghz.... is that any good?

Simon

TheTazman wrote:OK. The CPU is a ............ AMD Athlon II x4 645 3.10ghz.... is that any good?

Simon

It's a budget 2010 chip. Others on here have more expertise than I to advise you on the benefits of a graphics card upgrade with that CPU.

John A

Hi, I had an Athlon 6400+ twin core & the limiting factor was actually the motherboard which fried the southbridge with the speed - PCIe x16 v1 when using a GT250 which wanted V2 speeds, it also killed a hard drive when it overheated!

Looking at my usual benchmark sites, the processor actually looks OK - not brilliant, but certainly not hopeless.
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html shows a score of 1080, which is 95% of mine and I run all the main detail settings on full.

Your 9800 GTX scores 906 (http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_list.php), which again is not far behind my system, so you'd probably need to invest in something pretty modern - say a GTX 560 or 650 Ti, minimum - to make it worthwhile.

Before spending any money, I'd use nVidia Inspector (or similar software) to keep a graph of GPU usage while you're playing RW - then when you notice it bogging down, Alt+Tab out to look at the graph and see whether the GPU is maxed out (and is therefore the limit).

If it is, next turn the anti-aliasing down to the lowest MSAA setting, and reduce the resolution setting, to see how many more fps you can get in those areas before the CPU becomes the limit. That should give you an idea of whether it's worth just upgrading your graphics card, or whether it's time to start shopping for a nice new i3 or i5 first...

To be honest, if it's slow only in certain areas, I think it's more likely to be the CPU.

OK So I could: retain the chassis / tower unit I have... quite a large chunky. Retain my current graphics card, retain the PSU .... which I hope could still work OK with an Intel i7 processor and Motherboard.

Leaves couple of questions is the memory from my current compatible with an Intel i7 motherboard? Lastly which processor chip to go for?

I guess I will need cooling for the fan to. I am not that knowledgeable about this side of things are we still looking at fan cooling or water cooled?

Thanks you guys for you sage council.

Simon

I would think that your old graphic card uses an AGP slot. All new mother boards now have PCIe slots for graphics cards so your 9800GTX won't fit.

Hi Simon

You could certainly retain the case and drives although you will need to reinstall Windows and you may need to buy an IDE adapter. You will probably be best advised to buy a new PSU. It needs to have a least 500w available and have up to date connectors which yours probably does not have.

Your Graphics Card is PCI-E so you should be OK there (I think). But it's a 2008 design.

John A

Yes you are right it is a PCIe. I have an old GF 8800 GTX lying around that is PCIe. It was 1 in the morning when I wrote that.

If I were to go for the Intel Processor then, which ones the best one to get within a reasonable budget? I am not too interested with machines that are the "EXTREME SUPER XXX GTI 10-000i" type names and cost £3000.

Hopefully theres something out there?

Best m/b, cheapest cpu...

That's always been my approach. The best and latest m/b allows you to upgrade the cpu later on, towards the end of the cpu series, when the £/performance has come down

Per my post in http://forums.uktrainsim.com/viewtopic. ... 1&t=132714: i3-3220 or 3225 is worth thinking about.

I will cosign on i3 3220 with one caveat that if you can afford a i5 in the 3.0 ghz plus range don't think twice, there's a big difference. I moved to an intel system and started with a i3 2120 which is almost on par with 3220 different bridge....but about the same, When I moved to an i7 3770 it had a HUGE impact on TS2013.....this is a cpu hungry program, but getting a good mobo with a 3220 means being set to upgrade later to faster cpu. the i7 is really not nesc for gaming I got it for video stuff, but the i5 of similar speed should have about same numbers gaming wise. I would do that first, get new gfx card second ( I strongly recommend the nvidia 600 series cards over AMD 7000 series particularly for this game). And SSD drive third...

i5/i7 is unnecessary for this game as it uses max 1,5 cores.