Which computer?

[PWHolmes]

I am rapidly coming to ther conclusion that my old 32 bit system is just not up to TS2013 and that I should be starting to consider upgrading to something more powerful.

Does anyone know what I should get? I really dont want to start bespoking something and would prefer an off-the-shelf number and also I dont want to shell out a huge amount of money!!

Or maybe I should just pack it all in and join the local steam railway preservation society and do it for real.

[SquidvT]

Lets start with what you have first. Could you post your system spec? It could be more of a case of an upgrade rather than a new system.

Note TS is a 32 Bit application. What OS are you currently running etc?

[PWHolmes]

Please remind me again how to get my spec out of my PC.

[johnrossetti]

One of the best & free ways of finding out what your pc is and what is one it and how up to date it is is Belarc Advisor
http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html
Even tells you if all your updates are up to date, if you see what I mean

[PWHolmes]

[SquidvT]

Thanks for posting that. The really relevant info is that you have a Core 2 processor running at 2Gig, 2 Gig of ram and a Nvdia 9800 graphics card.

The system you have as you rightly mentioned in your OP is rather long in the tooth, infact I would say its below minimum requirements to run the game. Thats the bad news. The good news is that even a cheap more modern system would provide quite a considerable difference in how well the game runs.

I know you mentioned you didn't want to spend a lot of money, do you have a figure in mind that you think would be acceptable? If so let us know and we can make some suggestions based on that and the biggest "bang for buck" as far as TS2013 is concerned. Obviously the more you pay the better the results, but even so things can be done on a budget.

[PWHolmes]

I could possibly go a grand, but the boss wouldn't be happy. Would prefer a bit less but having looked at some off the shelf models I don't know if that's feasible.

[ttjph]

Here are some previous discussions that might help:
http://forums.uktrainsim.com/viewtopic. ... 1&t=130600
http://forums.uktrainsim.com/viewtopic. ... 1&t=131184
and there have been a couple of others recently too, I think.

Once you've found something you like the look of, let us know what it is and we can check that all seems sensible.

[SquidvT]

I think that around the 700-1000 mark is realistic. I upgraded my system about a year ago and I spent around 1000 on it. And very happy I was too.

But just a cursory look tells me you could get a very significant upgrade for less.

http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/computers ... livery/88/

I got my current system from PCspecialist and they are very good, quick and provide good support. Really the best way to get the most for you money is to design one, using their easy to use interface. But the premade example I posted above would comfortably run TS2013 and be very much more capable than your current system. (Not just for TS, but overall).

Have a look at their different premades, and by all means post any you are intrested in and I am sure we can offer advice as to whether they offer what you are looking for.

[PWHolmes]

I have finally got round to looking at the website recommended above. Fascinating!!

When I tried to formulate a suitable PC, I ended up with a prospective bill of over 1.5 Grand, mainly because I don't know what is required and tended to err on the side of the top end of the options. I assume that a SSD is better than a HDD, and the bigger the better and that top end sound and video cards are required with as much RAM as possible and this pushes up the prices.

My budget tops is £800.

Can someone guide me here and suggest either a good mix, or the sort of rules I should be following. For example, are the ultra top end video and sound cards really necessary? What size of SSD do I need? How much RAM? etc etc. I am sure that once one gets up to the top end of these specs, some sort of law of diminishing returns must apply.

Also, I do like to shop around so are there similar websites that any of you good folk can recommend?

Paul

[gptech]

Hi Paul,

I take it you're not looking for a system you can overclock the nuts off, just one that runs TS2013 happily?
If so, 800 quid will get you a pretty good system; I've just run through the options at PC Specialist and brought the figure down to £720 inc. VAT and delivery but not including a monitor, mouse, keyboard or speakers as I assume you'll be able to use your existing ones.

STYLISH PIANO BLACK ENIGMA MICRO-ATX CASE + 2 FRONT USB

Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-3570 (3.4GHz) 6MB Cache
Motherboard

ASUS® P8H61-MX USB3/SI: uATX, USB 3.0, SATA 3.0Gb/s

8GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (2 X 4GB)

1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 650 - DVI, mHDMI, VGA - 3D Vision Ready

FREE £50 IN-GAME VOUCHER with GTX 650 & GTX 650Ti GPUs!

500GB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 16MB CACHE

1TB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 32MB CACHE

24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

CORSAIR 750W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX750 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£89)

INTEL SOCKET LGA1155 STANDARD CPU COOLER

ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs

MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS

Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence (£109)

NO OFFICE SOFTWARE

NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE


3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)

STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)

Standard Build - Approximately 9 to 11 working days

As for alternatives, look at CCL and Aria, both of which I can vouch for in terms of quality and honesty and they do allow you to tweak a system to suit your needs. ( http://www.cclonline.com/category/202/D ... t/1175003/ and http://www.aria.co.uk/Systems/Gaming+Range/ )

Can someone guide me here and suggest either a good mix, or the sort of rules I should be following. For example, are the ultra top end video and sound cards really necessary? What size of SSD do I need? How much RAM? etc etc. I am sure that once one gets up to the top end of these specs, some sort of law of diminishing returns must apply.

Bewildering isn't it?...particularly if you don't know what those impressive numbers quoted actually mean.
SSD or HDD has been debated/argued quite a few times, and in the last not-very-scientific tests we did in here we found that an SSD powered system booted up to the desktop in about half the time my conventinal spinning HDD did.

Impressive eh?....

Not really when you learn we're talking about 20 seconds as opposed to 40 which only meant that the faster system was waiting for the user to get themselves sorted for 20 seconds longer than the slower one. When loading scenarios the SSD system was even faster, loading a scenario uo in about 20% of the time the HDD system took--in real money, about half a minute as opposed to just over two.
Whether an SSD helps reduce or even eliminate any tile loading stutter when actually playing is a subject still open for debate, some see an improvement but other don't. As the primary function of a hard drive is to provide storage space, the £100 you'd spend on a 120GB SSD would get 2TB of HDD so in my view the time saving offered by an SSD doesn't justify the cost. So far nobody has provided any results using an SSD as they were designed to be used--a fast cache drive for frequently accessed files--but I suspect that that would be the most cost effective way to go, using a small SSD to speed up reads.

You can achieve a decent performance boost by having your OS and data/programs on completely separate drives, as you'll have noted in the above spec it has a 500GB drive for Windows, and Windows alone, with a 1TB drive for 'all yer goodies'
500GB is the smallest they offer on the web page, in truth 100GB would be more than ample so I'd consider the 'spare' space on that drive as a nice place for archived copies of stuff you need to save.

The most obvious benefit of a 64bit OS is the ability to use more than 4GB of RAM, 8 is a sensible amount to use even though TS2013 won't use it (32bit app, so it only sees 4GB) Windows will have space to breathe in. In the dim and distant past (though many would say I'm still a bit dim and distant in the present) managing your mrmory was quite a 'black art'; now all you need to do is let Windows deal with it and your only worry is how much of it you can afford.

Unless you're really in to messing about with or creating sounds the on board sound on modern motherboards is more than adequate; remember that a 300 quid sound card is a waste of money if it's pushing the noises to a £10 2:1 speaker set from Tesco so unles you're a real audiophile just stick with what's provided as standard. Most graphics cards now offer an HDMI port, so if you can utilise that they also do a pretty good job of handling sound too.

The general consensus in here is that nVidia GPUs perform better than AMD for TS2013, and would be my choice but as much from habit as from an having authorative knowledge about which manufacturer is best. With nVidia, the important thing is to pick a card of at least *50 in the name/number---in nVidia speak the last 2 digits indicate how well the card will run games; 10 means it's a general purpose card, great for watching you tube videos or DVDs but not up to gaming, 90 means it's the dogs back wheels for gaming with 40 being the more or less accepted point at which nVidia cards become capable of playing games *properly*.
If it helps the budget at all, you could use the integrated GPU on the CPU until you could afford/sneak past the gaffer a discrete card, but you'd be unlikely to be able to run with details on high or with much in the way of shadows.
2GB of RAM on a graphics card comes into play really only if you're running at a huge (above 1920 x 1080) resolution, over multiple monitors or using very high definition textures. Whilst 'more is good' in this respect, a 1GB card will suffice if needed.

Hope that helps a bit, any more questions please don't hesitate to ask etc...

Gary

[Ximmy]

CORSAIR 750W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX750 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£89)
Surely thats overkill for that system?
I too have used pc specialist in the past and they are very helpfull give them a phone and they will talk you through anythin you are not sure of.

[gptech]

CORSAIR 750W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX750 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£89)
Surely thats overkill for that system?

Not really, given that the other options were dual rail models---I take the view that a single 12V rail kicking out 40A + is the way to go. Certainly it gives more than a sensible minimum of 500W, or the nVidia specified minimum of 400W, but as PSUs degrade with age its better to fit (or have fitted) something that wil last. The 80 Plus rating means it's eficient and therefore less prone to over-heating and of course cheaper to run----something the *gaffer* might like to hear An efficient PSU can also be claimed to be nice and 'green', saving the planet and all that!
We all forget about the humble PSU unfortunately; there's very little 'sexy' about them and next to nothing in the specs we can point at say "see that?..bet you're impressed".
Of course we all have our own opinions on hardware, and which bits of hardware offer the best compromise between cost and performance but the Corsair units are very reliable, come with a 5 year warranty, are quiet in operation (140mm fan I believe). I'd rather spend money on a good PSU with good overload protection etc (bear in mind that if a PSU 'goes' it has potential to take other components with it) than an SSD for example.

[PWHolmes]

Thanks everyone - that's just the sort of advice I need.

Now to get my head round it.......

[deltic009]

PC specialist are.good but expensive, swap the i5 3570 down to a 3470, the 650 up to a 650Ti and drop the OS and you have the machine I bought pre-assembled and tested for £325 less!

Try someone like SpherePC on Ebay if you don't mind using it, good systems, good value and performance for your money - with what you save versus PC specialist you can up the spec or buy a new.1080P with bells monitor.

http://wap.ebay.co.uk/Pages/ViewItem.as ... 0840013325

This has a 1Tb HD, and a GTX660 card for still £140 less than PC Specialist - enough for the OS.

Just as a note, the reason nVidia cards do better us that the game was developed with their help and also the 7xxx generation of cards perform worse on DX9 than on higher versions.