Computer Expert Needed !!!

[johnwhelan]

OFF TOPIC RANT: everything is more expensive here in the uk, you wouldnt believe the cost of living over here,

cheers

Gav

Yes but the fish and chips aren't too bad and the guy who used to sell Cornish pasties in New Orleans went out of business in the big blow. I did notice that the pubs are fast disappearing though last time I was across there. Can't get brown and mild any more in North London though.

Cheerio John

 

[johnwhelan]

Thanks for all the replies and advise, so it would seem that the graphics card is the main "failing" area ? and why take out splines ? do they in particular use a lot of memory ?
Like I said I'm not into computers and most of it is a complete mystery to me, in fact until I bought TRS 2006 I had never played a Computer game nor was interested in doing so and only got TRS 2006 as I'm a frustrated Model Railroader with no space nowdays for a layout, therefore some things which are second nature to computer gamers are totally new to me, before TRS2006 I turned on my PC checked email and maybe the news then turned it off again !!!
PJ

Just a bit of background stuff.

Did you see the post about the number of model railway modellers is dropping in the US. Apparently they spend $1555 a year.

http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?t=10350

When you compare costs and advantages the virtual world comes out not too bad. Unfortunately though it does require some technical knowledge and depends what you want to do.

If you are content with out of the box software then a lower end machine will do, if however you are interested in something a little more complex then you are into the world of downloading.

Each content creator has their strengths and weaknesses. Some content looks good and has a minor impact on the computer. For example look for content from Paul Hobbs especially ones using lod (level of detail) which normally has three different meshes and if you are far away uses a lower detail mesh and texture file that has a lower impact on the computer. There are also a large number of reskins of his work. I'm told CMP does a count (view mesh technical details). Other content creators can be the same quality and impact, others use large numbers of polys which can have a larger impact. If you want to run a richer mixture then you need a more powerful machine.

The other thing to watch out for is variety, a hundred different trees has a much larger impact than 8 different trees repeated a dozen times.

Be aware that Trainz calculates everything in range, if you have a town or heavy poly object the other side of a hill, the frame rate will drop even though you can't see the item.

The nice thing is things which are difficult in modelling such as GWR Broad Gauge are much easier in the virtual world. Chimneys can smoke but the rate of smoke and the number of chimneys smoking has an impact on the PC performance. Animation is available, looks very good on the steam locos, but again its more work for the PC.

Anyway welcome to the world of Trainz.

Cheerio John

 

[dzien50]

Hi John
Thanks for all the trouble you have gone too for me, I reallt do appreciate it, yes I'm one of the " Model Railroaders " now into virtual railroading. As I said my problem is that this is the first computer game I've ever played so I have no learning curve to draw upon and the computer world seems full of jargon and meaningless numbers more designed to confuse than to help.

As you seem to know what you talking about what would you suggest is a very good ( but not Ultra ) system to have that will make TRS 2006 work well, ie in breakdown terms what should I be looking for in hard drive capacity, memory, graphics card etc, the cost will be quite good compared to what I used to spend on my "real" railroad when I had the space, for exanmple I can remember buying 7 locos with DCC and sound and it costing over £1000 !!

If I know what I need then hopefully I can get it or get it built for me. This morning I browsed in PC World and to be honest could not make head nor tail of what I was looking at and the assistant just seemed to want to point me in the direction of their special offer machines.

Any help you can give will be greatfully received

Cheers
PJ

 

[SuperFudd]

I am satisfied with my PC's performance ( see below) but then that may be because I don't use sstem killing "stuff".
Or it may be because my PC and Trainz are running very efficiently.
In any case I have put off getting a new PC this year since my mildly upgraded 4.5 year old machine is still doing well.

 

[johnwhelan]

I am satisfied with my PC's performance ( see below) but then that may be because I don't use sstem killing "stuff".
Or it may be because my PC and Trainz are running very efficiently.
In any case I have put off getting a new PC this year since my mildly upgraded 4.5 year old machine is still doing well.

I think both you and I run older machines although I do have a high end video card, but to do this you have to know a fair bit of how things work. What we are seeing now is Trainz has matured enough that people who are more interested in the model railway side of things are getting involved and to them the computer is just a black box that has a job to do.

They just want a box that does the specific job. One way to answer their specific needs is to "over" specify the box so it will meet their immediate needs and as they learn more how things work so they can get even more out of it. Compared to models this stuff is cheap. I think last time I went into a model shop I spent $1,000 on some 'n' gauge items.

Cheerio John

 

[johnwhelan]

I would suggest you talk to Dell and see if they will upgrade you that would be your cheapest option.

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/desktops_best?c=uk&cs=ukbsdt1&l=en&s=bsd

Either the XPS 710 or the 9200 will take the high end 8800 video card card but I think you will have to talk to the salesperson as it doesn't seem to be listed as an option. I don't like the RAID 0 hard drives, lose one drive and you have lost everything, ask if you can have them non Raided. All the Dell offered LCD monitors are slow for games, ideally you would like 5 ms or less, wide screen I quite like but they are more pixels than 1024 by 768 monitors.

Hard disk 160 gigs should be plenty, I have around 600 gigs but if you are just doing Trainz you don't need that much. Two hard drives are useful for backing each other up, 3 hard drives is interesting with Intel chipset on the motherboard you can Raid 5 them which means if one dies you just plug in another and nothing is lost. Memory 2 gigs ideally 2.5 if possible with XP, 3 gigs with Vista more doesn't get you anywhere.

Looking at the web sites I don't think I can advise you much further.

The following is a personal view, others will have their own ideas. On the custom build side Antec have very good power supplies and a quiet case so a Fusion around 90 quid, add in an an Asus P5B Deluxe WIFI Socket 775 Core 2 Duo P965 FSB1066 DDR2 SATA Audio ATX again about 95 quid and that is the basic machine. ASUS motherboards have good drivers for XP. You need a cpu Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 1.86ghz Socket 775 FSB800 2MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor cost 70 should be fine. Memory go to crucial.com and look up what they recommend for the motherboard, two 1 gig sticks and two 256 or 512 mb sticks. DVD burner, I've found LG drives work well, I have a Plextor as well but it doesn't seem to work so reliably. The motherboard has more SATA connections than ide so go with Sata on the DVD burner. I think it comes with Nero so that includes their backup software. XP retail, OEM needs a new copy every time you change computers or upgrade too much.

Video Card Leadtek 8800GTS 640MB DVI PCI-E 220 quid. Vista /XP retail 150 quid.

You'd need some one who knows what an antistatic strap was to put it together. It would probably take me about 2-3 hours it would take you longer and you would need a pc with an internet connection to pick up drivers on the way. Some one else on the forum maybe able to recommend some one who could build it for you locally.

Cheerio John

 

[overmars]

Also running trainz at 1400x900 is rubbish as you can only use 60hrz i usally use 1280x1024 as i can use it at 75hrz

 

[dzien50]

Hi John
I'm going to contact Dell and ask for the following :

Dimension 9200 machine
Higher processor speed 2.66ghz
Hard drive 640GB ( without Raid 0)
Memory 4096 MB ( 4x 1024MB )
Nvidia graphics card 8800 GTX

What do you think ?

After what you said about monitors from dell I might look elsewhere, what should I be looking for ?

Thanks
PJ

 

[overmars]

Hi John
I'm going to contact Dell and ask for the following :

Dimension 9200 machine
Higher processor speed 2.66ghz
Hard drive 640GB ( without Raid 0)
Memory 4096 MB ( 4x 1024MB )
Nvidia graphics card 8800 GTX

What do you think ?

After what you said about monitors from dell I might look elsewhere, what should I be looking for ?

Thanks
PJ

Thats the very same spec as mine. Wouldnt say it runs trains very very very good but then its not bad either.

I can get 60 fps on british midlands

 

[SuperFudd]

dzien50, In case you did not know:

Unlike a few years ago, not all CPUs of the same clock speed are equal. Some 2.5GHz CPUs will beat some 3GHz CPUs. What 2.66GHz CPU are you considering?

3gig of RAM should be plenty, even with Vista. Avoid Vista.

That is what I think.

 

[dzien50]

Superfudd
I dont know, I'm just getting the Dimension 9200 machine off the Dell Website and adding what I want, it will have XP not Vista, I have BVista on this new laptop of mine now and I think its ****

Overmars, yes almost the same but is not my graphics card slightly different to yours ? 8800 GTX - 8800 GTS ?
Thanks Guys
PJ

 

[johnwhelan]

Hi John
I'm going to contact Dell and ask for the following :

Dimension 9200 machine
Higher processor speed 2.66ghz
Hard drive 640GB ( without Raid 0)
Memory 4096 MB ( 4x 1024MB )
Nvidia graphics card 8800 GTX

What do you think ?

After what you said about monitors from dell I might look elsewhere, what should I be looking for ?

Thanks
PJ

Sounds sensible. I think they bundle in a monitor anyway so just accept their smallest wide screen monitor. Then you can make a value judgement later on. There is a new type of monitor coming out called an SED monitor by the way different technology due out later this year which will probably be more appropiate so muddle along with what you have then think about a SED monitor when a few people have purchased them and given feedback.

Did you get the note about the google group? If not email me jwhelan0112 gmail.com

Cheerio John

 

[johnwhelan]

Also running trainz at 1400x900 is rubbish as you can only use 60hrz i usally use 1280x1024 as i can use it at 75hrz

The impression I have is all lcd monitors run at 60 hrz and since the technology works a different way it puts a lower load on the graphic card and the image quality doesn't vary with refresh rate as it does on the CRTs.

Also the 1440 by 900 refers to the new batch of widescreen 19 inch monitors such as the Samsung 931BW which because you can cut more of them out of the basic LCD whatever than a 17 inch 4 by 3 monitor are both cheaper and offer a 16 by 10 aspect ratio which suits the eye better.

Cheerio John

 

[johnwhelan]

dzien50, In case you did not know:

Unlike a few years ago, not all CPUs of the same clock speed are equal. Some 2.5GHz CPUs will beat some 3GHz CPUs. What 2.66GHz CPU are you considering?

3gig of RAM should be plenty, even with Vista. Avoid Vista.

That is what I think.

The difficulty is working within the limitations and options of Dell. 3 gigs of memory is not one of their standard options. The cpu is an Intel duo.

Cheerio John

 

[dzien50]

Yes John I got the google group and will be contacting them, thanks for all your sound advice and to all others who have had an input.

By the way do Auran/Trainz whoever say what is best to run their programme ? I've noticed they give a minimum requirement but not what is ideal or the best, I think with more and more non computer, but model railway based people buying Trainz some sort of operating guide would be very useful to them/me !!

At the end of the day I am quite prepared to buy a system totally dedicated to only running trainz to its maximum and have another system for my everyday use, as I said before the cost v " real " model railroading is I think very reasonable.
PJ

 

[dzien50]

I've also noticed that under options I can run it with either " DirectX or Open GL " what is the difference ?
PJ

 

[johnwhelan]

Yes John I got the google group and will be contacting them, thanks for all your sound advice and to all others who have had an input.

By the way do Auran/Trainz whoever say what is best to run their programme ? I've noticed they give a minimum requirement but not what is ideal or the best, I think with more and more non computer, but model railway based people buying Trainz some sort of operating guide would be very useful to them/me !!

At the end of the day I am quite prepared to buy a system totally dedicated to only running trainz to its maximum and have another system for my everyday use, as I said before the cost v " real " model railroading is I think very reasonable.
PJ

The problem for Auran is that they get around $7 a copy unless you buy direct from them. Buy direct from them and you get the version that does not require you to have the CD or DVD in the drive by the way. So if they specify a high end machine that cuts their total market down. What is on the box will run the content in the box no question but Trainz really is a mixture of program and community input. The problem with community input is first the quality is variable and second people will build what works on their machine not at a given target machine.

Thus there are two major market places, those who buy and run it out of the box, and Auran research shows the majority of buyers are like this and they are content with the performance they get, and those who do more and use the downloads available. Many of the better downloads eventually end up in the box by the way.

If you want to get the best out of what is available you need a high end machine. This week's high end machine is next weeks medium machine so it's a little difficult to give a definite answer to what is the optimum machine to buy. ATI for example have a new range of video cards out either yesterday or today which might affect the choice. Until recently AMD 64 bit cpus were the cpu of choice not for the 64 bit but for the memory controller which was better than Intels, this week the intel duo cpu is top.

OpenGL or DirectX, OpenGL is a graphics card standard that came out of CAD programs, it takes about five years to get something into the standard but a company may add in its own extensions. nVidea has a program that provides assistance to companies who program on their video cards to get the best performance etc. You may assume that since Auran has a nVidea logo on its web site they have taken advantage of this program. DirectX came from Microsoft when they were looking to set up something to encourage people to use Windows rather than DOS for games. They talked to some three or four companies and came up with a device independant programming language that was optimised for PC games, and basically ATI implemented this in hardware. nVidea had to translate DirectX code into their own code before executing it. This meant that ATI could get better performance with fewer transistors and less heat than nVidea for DirectX, and sell for a cheaper price. Auran added directX support to broaden the base of people who could run Trainz.

Today in general if you have an nVidea card use OpenGL, an ATI card use directX. There are some cases were you will get better performance by using one rather than the other. Technically OpenGL should give you a better image but sometimes if a content creator has created something on an ATI card in DirectX then it will display better in DirectX. This was more common when the video card drivers were not so mature and is one reason why Auran suggests you make sure your video card drivers are the latest available.

Cheerio John

 

[laldfordo]

Info for not very technical people

That last post from johnwhelan was very clear and answered several puzzles. Thank you.

 

[johnwhelan]

That last post from johnwhelan was very clear and answered several puzzles. Thank you.

The problem is you need a mixture of technical knowledge and modelling to get the most out of Trainz, it's actually quite complex and there are parts that even I don't understand very well ewen though I've been using it for a few years and have a long histoory of working with computers.

Glad to be of service.

Cheerio John

 

[dzien50]

Yes John you have been a great help not only to me but I'm sure others who have been reading this thread, I don't have any history with computers which is why I find it all so confusing, for example when I go to one of my station areas that has many many items making it up it takes quite a while for all the bits to pop into place, so is this the graphics card which causes this delay or another part of the computer ? and is it possible to get it to almost instantly be there ?
PJ