Computer Reccomendations

[linenoise]

First off, I apologize if this in the wrong group, but it seemed the most appropriate.

I have a friend that plays with Trainz 2006 constantly and doesn't know anything about computers. He wants a new computer and the last one I got him still skips in populated areas (p4 HT 3ghz, 2GB ram, 512mb vid card, XP PRO) Sorry, I can't remember exactly which video card. But I know we spent a fortune in upgrading it. (It was a Dell special, that was way above the requirements for the game until he started building his own lines)

So I Spec'ing him a new computer:

COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 CAC-T05-UW Black Aluminum Bezel, SECC ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail $49.99

Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 ST3500641AS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM $149.99

ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe Wireless Edition Socket AM2 NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI MCP ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail $186.99

EVGA 768-P2-N837-AR GeForce 8800GTX 768MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 KO HDCP Video Card - Retail $649.99

Thermaltake W0106RU Complies with ATX 12V 2.2 & EPS 12V version 700W Power Supply - Retail $164.99

CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TWIN2X2048-6400 - Retail
$412.00 ($206.00 each)

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ Windsor 2.6GHz Socket AM2 Processor Model ADA5200CSBOX - Retail $229.00

ZALMAN CNPS 9500 AM2 2 Ball CPU Cooling Fan/Heatsink - Retail $48.99

Subtotal: $1,891.94

I went all out on the Graphics Card and RAM. Does anyone have any other suggestions?

Thank you in advance!

My other concern is, he buys all the add-on stuff (Marias pass is one I know off the top of my head) What does that do to performance of the game as a whole?

 

[JAMEZ001]

Brand new stuff isn't always the best option, as it can have many teething problems, often resulting in far worse performance than stated possible by the manufacturer.

I suggest getting an ASUS Socket-A A7N8X-X Motherboard, and work from there.

You can find them on eBay for under US$50.

And steer clear of anything PCI-E, stick with AGP. A good Nvidia 128mb AGP Graphics Card will pull it's weight and never slow down even in the most graphically cluttered areas, and obviously a 256 would have no problems.

Just make sure that what ever you get has a good sized fan and heat sink. That's the easiest way to tell how good a card is by looking at it. If it has a fan, or no fan then it isn't doing much of the work and your CPU will have to compensate for the loss.

Good luck.

 

[Harry_James_Potter]

First off, I apologize if this in the wrong group, but it seemed the most appropriate.

I have a friend that plays with Trainz 2006 constantly and doesn't know anything about computers. He wants a new computer and the last one I got him still skips in populated areas (p4 HT 3ghz, 2GB ram, 512mb vid card, XP PRO) Sorry, I can't remember exactly which video card. But I know we spent a fortune in upgrading it. (It was a Dell special, that was way above the requirements for the game until he started building his own lines)

So I Spec'ing him a new computer:

COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 CAC-T05-UW Black Aluminum Bezel, SECC ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail $49.99

Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 ST3500641AS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM $149.99

ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe Wireless Edition Socket AM2 NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI MCP ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail $186.99

EVGA 768-P2-N837-AR GeForce 8800GTX 768MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 KO HDCP Video Card - Retail $649.99

Thermaltake W0106RU Complies with ATX 12V 2.2 & EPS 12V version 700W Power Supply - Retail $164.99

CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TWIN2X2048-6400 - Retail
$412.00 ($206.00 each)

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ Windsor 2.6GHz Socket AM2 Processor Model ADA5200CSBOX - Retail $229.00

ZALMAN CNPS 9500 AM2 2 Ball CPU Cooling Fan/Heatsink - Retail $48.99

Subtotal: $1,891.94

I went all out on the Graphics Card and RAM. Does anyone have any other suggestions?

Thank you in advance!

My other concern is, he buys all the add-on stuff (Marias pass is one I know off the top of my head) What does that do to performance of the game as a whole?

That sounds pretty damned fine to me.

If he's got the money to burn to buy a rig like that, go all-out and make sure that XP is the OS. Vista just isn't bedded in properly yet.

JAMEZ001..
I'm sorry but your advice about graphics cards and mobos just doesn't stand.

And steer clear of anything PCI-E, stick with AGP. A good Nvidia 128mb AGP Graphics Card will pull it's weight and never slow down even in the most graphically cluttered areas, and obviously a 256 would have no problems.

You obviously haven't run anything that pushes your PC to the limit in TRS2006 yet... Or you have but you run with the sliders down. My 256MB 6800 Ultra (AGP BTW) has a hard job coping with the larger routes out there and frequently gives me about 20FPS when things get a bit busy (maxxed sliders at 1024 by 768 res.) TRS is, I am told, SLI capable and that is a nice SLI capable board with bags of potential and the ability to shove a second 8800 in later. SLI is, to my knowledge, only available on PCI-E and AGP is now, pretty much, a dead format. If you're going to build a new machine, go PCI-E and have the expandability in the future when faster cards hit the shelves.

Just make sure that what ever you get has a good sized fan and heat sink. That's the easiest way to tell how good a card is by looking at it. If it has a *crappy* fan, or no fan then it isn't doing much of the work and your CPU will have to compensate for the loss.

May I point your attention towards the Gainward or GigaByte brand of passively cooled cards that have no fan and yet, are capable of tearing the house down... The size of heatsink employed is NOT a clear indication of how a card performs. The easiest way of finding out how a card performs is to pick up some computing mags or hit the internet (www.pcpro.co.uk or http://www.tomshardware.com/) and have a look at the reviews of graphics cards. Remember... Fan/heatsink size is NOT an easy way to tell if a graphics card is crap or not.

Friendly piece of advice. Go outside into the big bad world, learn a bit about PCs, how they are used, the different types of hardware, their advantages/disadvantages and where they are used. Then, once you've learned a bit and used them in the different environments, come back and start handing out the advice.

"Why?" i hear you ask. Because that has to be the worst advice I have seen around here for a loooooong time.

regards

Harry

Ps... Welcome to the forums.

 

[GP_38-2]

linenoise: I wish I had you're budget man, That is ONE AWSOME setup. Top notch equipment. Looking at his pervious machine though I can't see why it would drag as you say, it's far more powerful than mine? Either way the new rig would be a sweet upgrade.

Brand new stuff isn't always the best option, as it can have many teething problems, often resulting in far worse performance than stated possible by the manufacturer.
I suggest getting an ASUS Socket-A A7N8X-X Motherboard, and work from there.
You can find them on eBay for under US$50.
And steer clear of anything PCI-E, stick with AGP. A good Nvidia 128mb AGP Graphics Card will pull it's weight and never slow down even in the most graphically cluttered areas, and obviously a 256 would have no problems.
Just make sure that what ever you get has a good sized fan and heat sink. That's the easiest way to tell how good a card is by looking at it. If it has a fan, or no fan then it isn't doing much of the work and your CPU will have to compensate for the loss.
Good luck.

I don't know if you're living in the 80's or the 90's, but if you plan on giving advice I suggest you update your standards.

PCI-e is the way to go these days AGP IS DEAD you can barely find any new AGP cards these days. 128MB VRAM also WILL NEVER CUT IT 256MB IS THE BARE MINIMUM for today's standard (even 256MB is barely enough).
It doesn't matter how it's cooled, it's HOW IT PERFORMS (talk to a proper IT to find out what's good these days). A big fan MEANS NOTHING, ZERO, NADA. I've had perfectly good passive cooled cards.

Socket A IS DEAD, you can't even find a decent CPU for socket A (never buy used stuff from EBAY you are temtping fate)

My current setup is as follows
ABIT KV7-V Socket A motherboard
2GB Kingston Hyper X DDR400
Athlon XP 2900+ 512kb cache, 400mhz FSB
ATI X800 XT 256MB GDDR3
pretty close to what you just suggested, and you know what? IT SUCKS for current games. If I had the cash I'd spend it like linenoise in a nanosecond.

Friendly piece of advice. Go outside into the big bad world, learn a bit about PCs, how they are used, the different types of hardware, their advantages/disadvantages and where they are used. Then, once you've learned a bit and used them in the different environments, come back and start handing out the advice.
"Why?" i hear you ask. Because that has to be the worst advice I have seen around here for a loooooong time.

agreed 100%

 

[johnwhelan]

I'd go Intel duo cpu at the moment, check tomshardware.com, I'd take the memory above 2 gigs, 2 gigs for Trainz, 512 Mb for XP, use XP not Vista, and make sure you modify the trainzoptions.txt file.

This will affect your motherboard choice. ASUS would be my first choice, Intel my second.

I personally prefer ecc memory less chance of memory errors, I'd go two or even three hard drives, XP does do software RAID5 and with one processor idle most of the time there are plenty of cycles to cover it. Hardware RAID is a little difficult, what happens when both drives don't process the write correctly?

Video card memory some one worked out the size of all the texture files in a particular screen shot, 700 Mb so don't skimp on video card memory. The big nVidia would be my graphics card of choice this week if money was no object.

Cheerio John

 

[linenoise]

Brand new stuff isn't always the best option, as it can have many teething problems, often resulting in far worse performance than stated possible by the manufacturer.

I suggest getting an ASUS Socket-A A7N8X-X Motherboard, and work from there.

You can find them on eBay for under US$50.

And steer clear of anything PCI-E, stick with AGP. A good Nvidia 128mb AGP Graphics Card will pull it's weight and never slow down even in the most graphically cluttered areas, and obviously a 256 would have no problems.

Just make sure that what ever you get has a good sized fan and heat sink. That's the easiest way to tell how good a card is by looking at it. If it has a fan, or no fan then it isn't doing much of the work and your CPU will have to compensate for the loss.

Good luck.

I agree with the teething problems, however, the computer he has now like I stated tears up what you suggested and it still has problems. I've got some old video cards and a bunch of p4 heat sinks. I'll hook them up, you wanna buy them? My point: You can't judge a book by it's cover. (But I do understand your reasoning)

 

[linenoise]

That sounds pretty damned fine to me.

If he's got the money to burn to buy a rig like that, go all-out and make sure that XP is the OS. Vista just isn't bedded in properly yet.

Thank you! And I can ASSURE you that it will be XP PRO. I won't touch Vista with a 10 foot pole.

 

[linenoise]

linenoise: I wish I had you're budget man, That is ONE AWSOME setup. Top notch equipment. Looking at his pervious machine though I can't see why it would drag as you say, it's far more powerful than mine? Either way the new rig would be a sweet upgrade.

My current setup is as follows
ABIT KV7-V Socket A motherboard
2GB Kingston Hyper X DDR400
Athlon XP 2900+ 512kb cache, 400mhz FSB
ATI X800 XT 256MB GDDR3
pretty close to what you just suggested, and you know what? IT SUCKS for current games. If I had the cash I'd spend it like linenoise in a nanosecond.

agreed 100%

First off, I wish I had my budget too. Like I said before, it's for a friend that LOVES Trainz. (He's retired and had his own very successful business for 30 years, he may not be Bill Gates, but you can see what he can spend on his hobby)

It's mind boggling to me also why his current setup drags either. I've been working with computer since 386's (I'm only 22, but I did have a VIC 20) so i'm not new to this stuff. The only thing I can think it's because it's a dell. I mean, it's got XP Pro, 2gb ram, I wish I could remember the video card though, because I tried to get him an SLI, but it wouldn't fit in the case and a p4 3ghz HT. But he still reports back to me that when he gets into a populated area that it starts to skip.

What I am scared about is, he is going to get this computer and it's still going to give him this problem. Is Trainz poorly coded? (I mean no disrespect by that comment) Are these add-ons he's buying causing the hangup?

Thanks for your comment!

 

[linenoise]

I'd go Intel duo cpu at the moment, check tomshardware.com, I'd take the memory above 2 gigs, 2 gigs for Trainz, 512 Mb for XP, use XP not Vista, and make sure you modify the trainzoptions.txt file.

This will affect your motherboard choice. ASUS would be my first choice, Intel my second.

I personally prefer ecc memory less chance of memory errors, I'd go two or even three hard drives, XP does do software RAID5 and with one processor idle most of the time there are plenty of cycles to cover it. Hardware RAID is a little difficult, what happens when both drives don't process the write correctly?

Video card memory some one worked out the size of all the texture files in a particular screen shot, 700 Mb so don't skimp on video card memory. The big nVidia would be my graphics card of choice this week if money was no object.

Cheerio John

I would do Intel also, however I have a close friend that has done research with/for AMD and swears by their architecture. For this high power gaming he assures me this is my best choice.

I don't see why I would need more than 1 drive? He's got 180gb right now and I don't even thing he's past 50gb usage.

I believe I selected a video card with 768mb ram and it's and SLI.

I'll take my chances with the ram for now, I know that ECC can slow the system down, but I would bet that errors can slow it down too, but as to the significance I can't see it being that bad.

(Sorry for the multiple replies, I didn't see the multiple quote button when I started)

 

[JAMEZ001]

Sorry if you took my advice the wrong way, but I live in Australia, we're always dead last to get anything new and updated, I can assure you that what Euro's and US has is about 18months ahead of us, so I appoligise as I'm not 110% up to date on the very latest worldwide products, only ones that I can get my hands on.

 

[linenoise]

Sorry if you took my advice the wrong way, but I live in Australia, we're always dead last to get anything new and updated, I can assure you that what Euro's and US has is about 18months ahead of us, so I appoligise as I'm not 110% up to date on the very latest worldwide products, only ones that I can get my hands on.

I know how that is, I wouldn't have my hands on this computer i'm building now if it wasn't for my friend that has money. lol. Good luck to you.

 

[leigh123]

I have the XFX 8800 GTX 600Mhz 768mb edition card. Runs TRS06 Really nice, But be aware some of the scenery and objects on your route can still slow these big expensive cards down.

There were parts of my route where my old 7800 gtx card was really struggling so i left that part alone so that i could see how the 8800 performed in that area,I Still had some low framerates but was it was far better, I deleted some objects and re arranged a few things and now my trainz are running fine through it all.

As stated on previous posts here the current intel chipset is rather better than the AMD at the moment for the price, But i beleive AMD will be bringing some new processors out.

My system is:-

AMD Duel core 64x 4200.
ASUS A8N SLI Premium
OCZ PC3200 DDR 400 2GB Matched pair
XFX 8800 GTX GT 600Mhz 768MB
ENERMAX 580W Powerpack
300GB HDD

Leigh

 

[Harry_James_Potter]

First off, I wish I had my budget too. Like I said before, it's for a friend that LOVES Trainz. (He's retired and had his own very successful business for 30 years, he may not be Bill Gates, but you can see what he can spend on his hobby)

It's mind boggling to me also why his current setup drags either. I've been working with computer since 386's (I'm only 22, but I did have a VIC 20) so i'm not new to this stuff. The only thing I can think it's because it's a dell. I mean, it's got XP Pro, 2gb ram, I wish I could remember the video card though, because I tried to get him an SLI, but it wouldn't fit in the case and a p4 3ghz HT. But he still reports back to me that when he gets into a populated area that it starts to skip.

What I am scared about is, he is going to get this computer and it's still going to give him this problem. Is Trainz poorly coded? (I mean no disrespect by that comment) Are these add-ons he's buying causing the hangup?

Thanks for your comment!

Heh...

Tried putting -framestoaverage=16 in the trainzoptions.txt and seeing if that makes a difference.

regards

Harry

 

[Harry_James_Potter]

Sorry if you took my advice the wrong way, but I live in Australia, we're always dead last to get anything new and updated, I can assure you that what Euro's and US has is about 18months ahead of us, so I appoligise as I'm not 110% up to date on the very latest worldwide products, only ones that I can get my hands on.

That's why you should have a read of the links I posted. One is UK based and the other is US based...

Maybe there is a project in it to import the latest and greatest tech into Oz...

regards

Harry

 

[WileeCoyote]

My ancient relic of a machine exactly meets the reccomended requirements for TRS2006 except that it has 512MB of RAM instead of 1024MB, it does reasonably well for that but I would suggest a 256MB Nvidia video card, 1GB of ram, and possibly one of the newer Intel dual core proccessors. With that setup you should be able to run TRS2006 far better than I ever will .

WileeCoyote

 

[FootplatePhil]

That's why you should have a read of the links I posted. One is UK based and the other is US based...

Maybe there is a project in it to import the latest and greatest tech into Oz...

regards

Harry

The second post was as credible as the first.

Phil (last time I checked my theodolite, I was also in Australia.... )

 

[mtldrm38]

I use nvidea s geforce 7600 256mb which is pretty good and upgraded my ram to 4 gb which which holds up pretty well but still your gonna get
problems with lagg in high poly areas also may note with the card u want
your gonna need added power source plus adding another coolin fan for the card....
But suggest more ram the better....

good luck

Dave =)

 

[kcdowdy]

most graphically cluttered areas... and obviously a 256 would have no problems.

i reinstalled trainz (With a 256mb card) it's was right out of the box and i made a route 1 base board put two trees a O shaped track a green area around the 2 trees
GRAPIC stand sTIlL IT's CRAZY!!

 

[johnwhelan]

The second post was as credible as the first.

Phil (last time I checked my theodolite, I was also in Australia.... )

Be careful, the latest ones work on GPS and are computer assisted.

Are you certain it is Malware free and has the latest updates?

Cheerio John

 

[linenoise]

I don't understand the term skipping and jumping. Are you running TRS2006? If so just copy the cache folder to dvds, use nero backup software, it comes free with most DVD burners. You can also do an archive but restoring one of these might not be the easiest thing you've ever done, especially if it's large.

Cheerio John

Yes TRS2006.

It hangs and looks like a slide show. (That's the only other way I know how to describe it)

Well, luckily he backed everything up from his old computer (everything = entire C: drive) to an external hard drive and that's how he's been running it, until now when it's starting to lag. So I want to get the tracks he's been playing with off that external drive to the local c: drive.