Computer Recomendation

[brakeman9]

Hello Forum Members:

I am curious about something. I now run Trainz 2004,2006, and would love to add my new 2010 engineer`s edition as well. I tired it once and my poor HP almost died from it.
So my question to you all is this; What brand or type of computer would you suggest I use? I have a feeling that I might have to settle for just maybe one Trainz version but I am a bit curious as to what some of you run your games on as I plan to purchase a new computer that can handle all of the graphics of the games. Any help of thoughts or comments would be appreciated

Michael

 

[johnwhelan]

What are your current specs as TS2010 in native mode should give higher frame rates than TRS2004 using the same items.

Cheerio John

 

[brakeman9]

Im currently running an HP Pavilion Elite m9500

With the following:

AMD Phenom X4 Quad Core processor 8 GB System Memory

750 GB hard drive

NVIDIA G Force 9500 GS Graphics Card with 512 MB dedicated video memory


Michael

 

[ct_krogen]

you should not have any problems running 10 on that computer,,, at alll..
what do you mean my killing your computer\

 

[RRSignal]

Describe your issues in more detail. If TS2010 is grinding on your computer, I'm guessing your OS is pretty messed up or you may have hardware problems, or both. You're at a disadvantage having bought a pre-built computer - that's why all the "power users" build their own - but you still shouldn't have major issues on that machine. I run a far less powerful machine with no problems.

Although I'd be happy to take that machine off your hands for a good price let's see if we can save you some cash.

 

[brakeman9]

When I started running Trainz 2010, on the computer mentioned in the previous post, I seemed to take a while for the railyard program to open. After checking it out, the game froze up when i tried to open another section. i believe it was the routes. I will try downloading it again after removing the copy of trainz 2004 already installed. As for grinding, i havent heard anything of that nature.

Michael

 

[RRSignal]

Well I didn't really mean "grinding" literally! But, yeah, try reinstalling it and see what happens.

 

[fran1]

What O/S are you running ? Is everything up to date driver wise.

 

[Bitstorm]

Thing is I am running an overkill machine. But for your curiosity sake I will list my full hardware spec's. Just remember I built this machine to never have to upgrade again. (except vid card )

Asus AM3 Motherboard (cost 269.99 USD)
AMD Phenom II X6 @ 2.80 GHZ (9.1MB total Cache) Essentially 6 CPU's
8 GB DDR3 RAM @ 1600 Mhz FSB
Geforce 9800 GTX PCI Express Video card w/ 1GB of Video memory
1 x 250 GB hard drive (for OS)
2 x 1 TB Hard drive(s) for data and backup purposes
1 x Blu-ray combo DVD drive w/light scribe
1 x 23 Inch LCD Panel by Acer with DVI interface and HDMI capable
700 Watt Powersupply.
Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit edition

Yes purely overkill but heh i love this thing Built it on a budget of 1200 USD.

Trainz has never run so good.


Bitstorm


PS I'm Back

 

[johnwhelan]

Im currently running an HP Pavilion Elite m9500

With the following:

AMD Phenom X4 Quad Core processor 8 GB System Memory

750 GB hard drive

NVIDIA G Force 9500 GS Graphics Card with 512 MB dedicated video memory


Michael

I assume you are running Win 7 64 bit?

Thanks John

 

[djt]

Thing is I am running an overkill machine.


Asus AM3 Motherboard (cost 269.99 USD)
AMD Phenom II X6 @ 2.80 GHZ (9.1MB total Cache) Essentially 6 CPU's
8 GB DDR3 RAM @ 1600 Mhz FSB
Geforce 9800 GTX PCI Express Video card w/ 1GB of Video memory
1 x 250 GB hard drive (for OS)
2 x 1 TB Hard drive(s) for data and backup purposes
1 x Blu-ray combo DVD drive w/light scribe
1 x 23 Inch LCD Panel by Acer with DVI interface and HDMI capable
700 Watt Powersupply.
Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit edition

A Phenom II and Nvidia 9800 are far from “overkill” especially with applications (games) that are primarily CPU dependent.

I built this machine to never have to upgrade again. (except vid card )

Unless you plan on giving up on gaming on the PC how would those specs allow you to “never have to upgrade again”, lol.




ASUS Rampage III Extreme (1102 BIOS)
Intel Core i7-980X Extreme Edition w/Corsair H70
Corsair DOMINATOR-GT 6GB DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) CMT6GX3M3A1600C7
EVGA GeForce GTX 580 SuperClocked (262.99)
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty
WD VelociRaptor 150GB – Windows 7 Ultimate 64/SP1 RC
WD VelociRaptor 300GB – Games/Programs
Corsair AX1200
Corsair 800D w/NoiseBlocker fans

ASUS Rampage II Extreme (1914 BIOS)
Intel Core i7-975 Extreme Edition w/Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme 1366 RT
Mushkin Redline Ascent 6GB DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) (6-7-6-18-1N)
Asus/ATI 5870 (Catalyst 10.10e)
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty
WD VelociRaptor 150GB Windows 7 Ultimate 64/SP1 RC
WD VelociRaptor 300GB Games/Programs
SILVERSTONE 1500Watt SST
SILVERSTONE TJ09-B

 

[Bitstorm]

Well the Phenom II is a Hexa Core CPU and i see no use in upgrading to an intel for 999 USD. its just unreasonable. Also I have 8 GB of ram, pointless to have that much unless your doing very large database work. Also I have yet to max out my Hexacore CPU. I have done everything from Compiling software that was designed to take advantage of multi cpu processing to music and movie remastering. Sure I max out the cores with the movie remastering but only for about 20 - 30 minutes for a movie that is at least 20 GB in size and I want to drop it down to about 1.8 GB if i can manage it.

The 9800 tho your right on cause Even though I have yet to play a game that makes it choke I will eventually need to upgrade it. The Asus Board i am using allows for SLI or Crossfire (its nice to have flexibility).

But yes for Trainz or Trainz 2010 its overkill.

Crysis i average about 30 - 35 FPS at max settings. It isn't so much CPU intensive except to loading the maps but after that its all GPU.


Bitstorm

 

[Zephyr_Pilot]

@Brakeman9.
Have you downloaded and installed all updates in correct order?

 

[rebel57]

Thing is I am running an overkill machine. But for your curiosity sake I will list my full hardware spec's. Just remember I built this machine to never have to upgrade again. (except vid card )

Asus AM3 Motherboard (cost 269.99 USD)
AMD Phenom II X6 @ 2.80 GHZ (9.1MB total Cache) Essentially 6 CPU's
8 GB DDR3 RAM @ 1600 Mhz FSB
Geforce 9800 GTX PCI Express Video card w/ 1GB of Video memory
1 x 250 GB hard drive (for OS)
2 x 1 TB Hard drive(s) for data and backup purposes
1 x Blu-ray combo DVD drive w/light scribe
1 x 23 Inch LCD Panel by Acer with DVI interface and HDMI capable
700 Watt Powersupply.
Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit edition

Yes purely overkill but heh i love this thing Built it on a budget of 1200 USD.

Trainz has never run so good.


Bitstorm


PS I'm Back

Hi I upgraded last June. here is

Asus M4A89GTD Pro/USB 3.0 890GX SATA 6.0 HDMI AMD ATX ($139.99)

AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition 3.2 GHz ($299.99)

G.Skill 8GB (2 pair of 4GB Dual Channel Kits DDR3 1600 ($218.98 =109.99EA for 2) )

total $739.97

it come from NEW EGG free shipping but no tax across state line:clap:
I bought 750 watts 80% and Nvidia 9800GT PCI-E 1GB video card from CompUsa (TAX):'(

Windows 7 64bit

so I keep old hard drive use 3.0gb

I played ts2006 petty good I wait for ts2010 SP????

 

[lewisner]

"it come from NEW EGG free shipping but no tax across state line"

Being from the UK I've often wondered how the tax thing works in the states. When I see US prices for GPU's and so on they seem unfeasibly cheap compared to the UK where we have to pay 17.5% VAT shortly to go up to 20%.

 

[Pencil42]

Being from the UK I've often wondered how the tax thing works in the states. When I see US prices for GPU's and so on they seem unfeasibly cheap compared to the UK where we have to pay 17.5% VAT shortly to go up to 20%.

Sales taxes here in the US are applied at a local (city / county / state) level. Interstate commerce is the exclusive domain of our federal government, so local entities cannot tax across state lines.
Sales taxes here range from 0 to probably 10% or higher, depending on the location.

To the original question, I've noticed that the first couple of times I run Trainz on a new install, it runs a bit slower. It's almost like it's building a cache, and after that is completed, it runs much smoother. I don't know if that's applicable in this case, but it may be.

Curtis

 

[Bitstorm]

Actually I believe it does, however the best place to install the Trainz program in general is on a near empty drive with small cluster sizes on the Hard drive. The reason I say this is Trainz uses a ton of small files and doesn't bunch them up in a more efficient larger file size library.

I hate to use this example but it really does make sense, World of warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo II etc all use the .mpq format if you break them down using a viewer you can see its just a simple setup of sub folders and files. Blizzard the company that made these games has seen that using a larger 'archive' to house a bunch of smaller files allows hard drives to basically store the small files in a seamless consecutive single file and let the file be in one location area on the hard drive. Making it easier to keep load times really really low.

Auran could do this by allowing its users to compile or add anything downloaded from the download station into a single stream file that would be easily accessed by the program and recognized. It would also allow the program to keep compatibility of mods on a single level and would prevent un supported mods from being allowed to be compiled into the single 'archive' architecture.

Just my thoughts. I hope someone at Auran does read this because I believe this would be beneficial to the advancement of Trainz in general.


Bitstorm

 

[RRSignal]

I hate to use this example but it really does make sense, World of warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo II etc all use the .mpq format if you break them down using a viewer you can see its just a simple setup of sub folders and files. Blizzard the company that made these games has seen that using a larger 'archive' to house a bunch of smaller files allows hard drives to basically store the small files in a seamless consecutive single file and let the file be in one location area on the hard drive. Making it easier to keep load times really really low.

Auran could do this by allowing its users to compile or add anything downloaded from the download station into a single stream file that would be easily accessed by the program and recognized. It would also allow the program to keep compatibility of mods on a single level and would prevent un supported mods from being allowed to be compiled into the single 'archive' architecture.

Just my thoughts. I hope someone at Auran does read this because I believe this would be beneficial to the advancement of Trainz in general.


Bitstorm

Agreed completely. Actually this conundrum probably goes back to the beginning of file systems. I'm rather surprised the usage of smaller files is still done. While a single archive might be less than ideal, splitting the Trainz database into several large files is; and I believe this just what Auran does with the .ja files. They just need to apply that logic to the overall content management of Trainz.

 

[djt]

Well the Phenom II is a Hexa Core CPU and i see no use in upgrading to an intel for 999 USD. its just unreasonable.

Yes the price Intel demands for the extreme edition CPU's is ridiculous. Between my quad core 975X and the hex core 980X I've got two grand wrapped up in the processors alone. I do like the overclocking ease with the extreme editions unlocked multiplier but there's always the less expensive hex i7 970.


The Phenom II's whether it's a hex or quad just get clobbered by the i7 with CPU dependent applications so going with AMD for me was out of the question. Before the Intel Core 2 architecture came out all you would find in my gaming setups was AMD CPU's but unless “Bulldozer” changes things I don't see myself going back to AMD anytime soon.

Also I have 8 GB of ram, pointless to have that much unless your doing very large database work.

4 GB for gaming is plenty enough and the only reason why I'm using 6 GB is because of the triple channel memory support on the X58 chipset plus some of the tightest timings for the triple channel kits are with the 2 GB modules.

Also I have yet to max out my Hexacore CPU.

I haven't maxed out the hex 980X either but with the i7 it's the architecture of the CPU that's responsible for the excellent performance in CPU dependent games not the amount of cores.

 

[Bitstorm]

Agreed Djt.. totally agreed, and my next system will be a quad intel for sure. But in all seriousness I just wanted to build a budget pc that kicks butt but i kind of went over board


Bitstorm