Atomic Systems

Evening,

Have searched the forums already but just looking for some clarity.

One of my bugbears on TS2020 are the loading times and some stuttering.

I understand that an SSD could alleviate some of these problems.

Is there any advice on what exactly I need? Best ones on the market etc

Also what is the process of moving my TS installation over to the SSD?

Thanks,

An SSD offers much faster read speeds than a conventional spinning drive, and near enough a complete lack of "wait states" as there's no reading head to move to the right location.
Samsung drives are highly regarded, but any drive from a *known* name will perform admirably...expect to pay around £60 for a 250GB model, £90 for 500GB.

The capabilities of the rest of the PC are a big factor though: it's pointless adding a fast drive to a machine that can't use it efficiently so what are your PC specs?

Moving Steam and TS is dead easy---simply a matter of copying Steam.exe to its new folder on the new drive and double clicking it. It will then install all the files it needs and your Steam games to that location, once you've confirmed you're who you say you are by inputting a code Steam will mail to your registered e-mail address.
You could also just move the Steam library that TS lives in, done through the Steam client but I'd always go for the full Steam move, particularly if Steam currently sits on your system drive.

Thanks Gary,

Spec is:

Radeon RX 580 Series
AMD Ryzen 7 1700 Eight-Core Processor
Asus AM4 PRIME X370 PRO Motherboard
8GB Ram
Windows 10 64bit

Can play TS2020 and TSW at decent quality.

Of course my setup is now just over 2 years old.


In terms of graphics/look of the game, I don’t have many complaints, it can always be better!

But the stuttering/loading, which doesn’t help with the size of my Railworks folder, I must have around 100 scenarios I’ve made myself!

Shaun, As Gary says any know brand will do, I'm a Samsung man myself I use 840,860,950,960 and the latest 970. SSD is fast (950 oldest 970 newest 8,567,0 even older) (Pro version is slightly better, very slightly different capacity, but a longer warrenty)
https://ssd.userbenchmark.com/ enter Samsung on the left box (just so you compare like with like)
If your going to fit it yourself a SATA SSD is a doddle.
As I said a SATA 3 SSD is fast (6GB/s but a NVMe is EVEN faster (16GB/s NVMe M.2. it is more like a Circuit Board and only certain PC's can take them (look in your manual or ring your supplier)

These days an extra advantage of SATA SSD is that you can buy a short cable and use them into a USB 3.1 Socket (5Gb/s) that means you can take the game to any half decent PC and run it of that externally, Ive done it often, USB 3.1 Gen2 (10GB/s)is even faster sometimes the socket is a C type USB not the big ole things of the past, it makes no difference just for the cable.

However even with all this speed and I have the fastest M.2 PC I could afford, stutters will only be helped a bit, a big bit yes, but they don't go away altogether.
The write speed of a 860 5xxGB SATA SSD = 435MB/s £70.00
The write speed of a 960 5xxGB NVMe card =1189MB/s £100.00
The write speed of a 970 5xxGB NVMe card =2115MB/s £114.00
https://ssd.userbenchmark.com/Compare/S ... 4072vs3477
CHECK with your supplier WHICH version of NVMe card works in your PC first, there are 3 versions DONT get the wrong one.
Good Luck John

Shaun
Your stuttering is also probably due to having only 8GB RAM onboard if you are loading/using TS2020 in 64-bit mode.
In 64-bit mode, your system will quite possibly be using the paging file which is much slower than RAM. Add another 8GB matched RAM for better results.
Like the post above a SSD has many advantages over a conventional spinner with far faster reads/writes which can benefit loading times and reduce some stutters.
I run a 300+GB install of TS2020 on an EXTERNAL USB 3.0c SSD with no issues, equivalent performance to my NVMe system.
pH

I agree with all the comments that SSDs reduce stuttering - I have two Samsung SSDs now: a 500 MB 950 for the system and other software, and a 1 TB 860 for Steam/TS.

However, the stuttering at frame boundaries does seem to be route dependant - on many (most) routes it doesn't affect my enjoyment at all because it is very hard to spot, but on a few routes it is a real pain as frame rates drop to low single figures.

Would it be a good idea if we compile a list of the routes where this is most problematic?

Thanks,

I knew an SSD wouldn’t solve all the issues, but my concern is my TS installation is so big, it’s worth a go!

Take it there is no difference between getting an External vs Internal
SSD?

shaun123 wrote:Thanks,

I knew an SSD wouldn’t solve all the issues, but my concern is my TS installation is so big, it’s worth a go!

Take it there is no difference between getting an External vs Internal
SSD?

Personally I would go for an internal SSD.
I put a Samsung SSD 860 EVO 1TB in 2 years ago and I'm quite happy

Peter

I'll agree with the other guys about the memory, you really should be looking at doubling that up. The rest of your system is certainly more than ample to run TS well.

shaun123 wrote: my concern is my TS installation is so big

What amount of *big* is big?....total size on disc?...number of routes/scenarios?. If the former, then a good clean up of the junk files we all accumulate would claw back a surprising amount of space--for example you don't need any .bak files in your assets, no .xml files (DON'T delete .proxyxml though!!), no .cost files or .tgt files that often come with 3D models. There are a number of .bat files available to make this clean up a "one click, done" job.
Similarly, you don't need .bak files in your Contents\Routes folders.
If you're in the habit of extracting the contents of .ap archives, stop it! All you need to extract are the few files that you're editing/have edited and of course any .GeoPcDx files for reskins--99+% of the contents of a .ap archive absolutely don't need extracting.

shaun123 wrote:Take it there is no difference between getting an External vs Internal SSD?

Unless you need portability go for the internal option, after making sure there's actually room inside the case of course. Fitting is just a case of screwing it in place, in a caddy if necessary, plugging in the power and data cables and turning the machine back on. They're all "plug and play" so an automatic routine will load all the drivers etc that are needed.

It’s the amount of routes and scenarios and my own scenarios I’ve created (around 100) which I think is taking up the space.

In terms of graphical performance, no major complaints, I see other videos/screenshots and think others look miles better, but it’s all personal preference isn’t it?!

Thanks for the advice

Just a couple of other comments regarding SSDs.

1. Make sure you get one a lot bigger than you currently need, especially if your Steam folder includes other games than TS2020. It is usually recommended that you have at least 20% blank space on your drive for good running.

2. Note that SSDs, although usually reliable, can fail (my son and I have had 3 fail between us over the past 10 years or so). When they fail they do so suddenly and you end up with a 'brick'. There is no way of recovering data from them. So make sure you have something like a large USB drive to which you can back up at least your Assets and Content folders regularly, 'Just in case'.

shaun123 wrote:It’s the amount of routes and scenarios and my own scenarios I’ve created (around 100) which I think is taking up the space.

OK...so how much space is taken up by TS?

gptech wrote:

shaun123 wrote:It’s the amount of routes and scenarios and my own scenarios I’ve created (around 100) which I think is taking up the space.

OK...so how much space is taken up by TS?

My Railworks folder is 125GB, I’ll be honest I thought it was bigger!

shaun123 wrote:

gptech wrote:OK...so how much space is taken up by TS?

My Railworks folder is 125GB, I’ll be honest I thought it was bigger!

LOL

Peter

Blimey, thought mine was bad at 250gb!