Visuals upgrade (graphics card)

[3digitdriver]

Hey all hows it going, Im after some opinions, getting alot more time now for trainsim finally and am thinking of upgrading my graphics card. The one ive got in mind is the "ASUS STRIX GTX 970 DirectCU II" My current one, cant remember the exact one now plays the game smooth enought but i just want to try and get my track textures looking a bit better. Heres a link to one on ebuyer http://www.ebuyer.com/666705-asus-gtx-9 ... dc2oc-4gd5 Any thoughts? it seems massive but ive measured and should fit ok. Cheers all still loving this site

[Rockdoc2174]

That's more than good enough to give you very good displays of TS2015. I can run at the highest settings with mine and still get very acceptable frame-rates. In most cases the rate hits my lock of 40fps at 1920x1080.

Keith

[3digitdriver]

You say you've got 1? and running maxed out? sounds good to me. Reading some good reviews so i think im going to take the plunge. Il post back here with the out come. cheers all

[gptech]

Yeah, It's a fantastic card and a good price for that particular model, but whilst it might fit inside your case will it fit in and/or be compatible with your motherboard and CPU?

Pointless putting a top end GPU in a PC with a bottom end CPU as you'd never use it to it's potential so what are your system specs?

[gptech]

I can run at the highest settings with mine and still get very acceptable frame-rates. In most cases the rate hits my lock of 40fps at 1920x1080.

Does 'highest settings' also include 3x3 SSAA?

[lemberg]

No need to if you use nvidias upscaling, my gtx 780 runs maxed out using 2.5 upscale no fx.1920 x 1080

keith

[PaulH2]

Yeah, It's a fantastic card and a good price for that particular model, but whilst it might fit inside your case will it fit in and/or be compatible with your motherboard and CPU?

Pointless putting a top end GPU in a PC with a bottom end CPU as you'd never use it to it's potential so what are your system specs?

Another consideration with such a big card is whether the power supply in your PC can support it (it can draw over 200W according to the spec, which is quite a bit!) and has the appropriate auxiliary power connector.

Paul

[gptech]

No need to if you use nvidias upscaling, my gtx 780 runs maxed out using 2.5 upscale no fx.1920 x 1080

keith

Exactly, my 1GB equipped 550 runs quite nicely with *everything (that I deem necessary) maxed out* at 1920x1080 and often hits the ceiling imposed by V-Sync (in my case 30FPS as it wont hit 60) so there's a lot more to it than relying on somebody saying "I can do...."
Not that I'm denigrating Keith's input here, but some actual specs and full details of what settings, both in game and in the nVidia Control Panel, are essential. Nigh on 300 quid is a lot of money to spend only to find you don't get the improvement you'd like. Also, whilst the 970 (and that Asus model is widely touted as the best of a very good bunch) is hellishly powerful it offers nothing to convince a 770 (and even a 760) user that they should upgrade as a matter of urgency, so what you're running now has a big influence.

[3digitdriver]

Thanks for the input guys, ok specs

windows 8 64bit
intel core i7-377OK
32GBram
Nvidia geforce gtx 660
Asus P8Z77-V LX Mainboard

[3digitdriver]

And the PSU is a 700Watt

[gptech]

Thanks for the input guys, ok specs

windows 8 64bit
intel core i7-377OK
32GBram
Nvidia geforce gtx 660
Asus P8Z77-V LX Mainboard

Enjoy your new 970

Nothing wrong with those specs, it'll be a worthwhile upgrade even though TS2015 may not push it to it's limits.

[37114]

This game is CPU and not GPU hungry. I very much doubt you'll get an improvement in performance.

I speak from experience here. Last year I upgraded my CPU from an i7 2.7ghz to a 4ghz i7 Devils Canyon and got about a 150% increase in performance. Graphics was a nVidia GTX 650. I then upgraded to a 780 which on paper will give another 150% performance (and did indeed do so with other games) and got not a single frame more out of TS. This is an old game now and can't take advantage of modern hardware. Save your money.

[PaulH2]

This game is CPU and not GPU hungry. I very much doubt you'll get an improvement in performance.

I speak from experience here. Last year I upgraded my CPU from an i7 2.7ghz to a 4ghz i7 Devils Canyon and got about a 150% increase in performance. Graphics was a nVidia GTX 650. I then upgraded to a 780 which on paper will give another 150% performance (and did indeed do so with other games) and got not a single frame more out of TS. This is an old game now and can't take advantage of modern hardware. Save your money.

Its all about balance, agreed TS2015 is mostly a CPU hog, but GPU is important too. I have a (ancient by todays standards) Core 2 Quad (forget the model, 3.2GHz, it was the extreme edition when new) originally with a Radeon HD4870x2, I swapped that out 18 months ago for a HD 7970 and performance with the same settings went up substantially. More importantly (to me) I was also able to consistently run with 2x2 SSAA which I couldn't before.

Paul

[driverden]

I have recently installed the MSI version of this card and I am very pleased with it. I can run the simulator with everything at maximum settings including the top setting of anti-aliasing. In the last few days I've been driving the FL9 on the New York to New Haven route, the approach to New York with all the buildings looks spectacular with this card.

[Rockdoc2174]

Does 'highest settings' also include 3x3 SSAA?

It will run at that but, as you'd expect, not with as high a frame rate. I use 2x2 SSAA and that gives me a very clear image. On my monitor, an ASUS SonicMaster, I don't see a significant difference.

For comparison's sake, I have an MSI Z97M motherboard, 16Gb of 2133 RAM, an Intel i5 4690K and the MSI GTX970 Gaming 4G graphics card. The CPU is not stressed and I very much doubt that an i7 would improve TS performance.

Keith