Does Trainz run well on Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit operating system?

[JonMyrlennBailey]

Would Trainz run better on any "professional" edition of Windows than "home" editions?

Which Microsoft Windows operating system edition do YOU use for your particular edition/build of Trainz?
I am not interested if you use Apple/Mac or Linux.

I was just wondering if any of the various Trainz editions are picky about the platform
they run on in order to give their best overall performance. Of course, PC hardware
selection and condition is a major concern for quality 3D game play as well.

Speaking of TANE, the Simulator Central website recommends Windows 8.1 but lists Windows 7
as a "minimum" requirement. Is it becoming fashionable to upgrade to a new operating system edition
just to satisfy the latest edition of a PC game every time you 'upgrade' to the latest edition of Trainz?

Does N3V, and other software vendors, get a kickback from some of the Microsoft profits by "optimizing" and "marketing" the latest edition of Trainz (or other software products) to be "recommended" for later editions, or the latest edition, of Windows? Conspiracy here?

 

[johnwhelan]

An operating system sits between the hardware and the software. Modern ones such as windows use drivers or bits of code that are tailored to things like GPUs.

A home user basically wants to use software installed on their machine and do backups to a USB connected external drive. In a work environment there is a requirement to have some central control and to have better file encryption for confidential work. The central control bit comes purely from the support cost point of view, things like group policies.

Basically the performance is the same, if you need to set up group policies or have multiple languages supported on the computer or have a desperate need to back up to a central server using Microsoft software then you should think about using something other than home edition.

Home has a limitation of 16 gigs of memory Pro is limited to 192 gigs, but 16 should be ample.

However Windows 10 home supports 128 gigs of memory and the performance and drivers have been optimised so if you want the best performance then go Win 10.

Cheerio John

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/14422-compare-windows-7-editions.html

 

[LNERlover5]

Will software run faster on different editions of the same OS, nope. These different Skus add features the higher you go, although Home and Pro are the only options for typical users not buying OEM copies of Windows 10.

I prefer 10 because simply because it is slightly better and will have DX12 support. I've had my OS's for free as a student for awhile now and I've had time to pick favourites as I went back and forth, 10 is my favourite so far just because it's more or less the same but with more features and optimisations.

Hardware will have significantly more of an impact in your overall experience as far as Trainz is concerned, baring compatibility problems between ageing versions and newer editions of Windows.

Is it fashionable to upgrade? Microsoft are providing 10 for free for the first year on release to move the market forward, simply put, they don't want 7 becoming another XP and outliving itself in personal and business environments. Overall it's down to cost and whether what a new OS provides tickles your fancy so to speak, in my case that selling point being DX12.

Conspiracy? Probably not. I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft did push for newer editions of Windows, but they've got to sell copies somehow. Again, 7 can't be like XP as far as they are concerned.

Jack

 

[clam1952]

Runs here on Win7 Home, Win7 Pro, Win10 Pro no difference between Win7 Pro and home. Slightly better in Windows 10.

Software companies can only recommend the current available operating system which at the time of T:ANE's inception was Windows 8.1. Win7 no longer officially being available as in MS no longer selling it. Obviously you can still get it as you can any operating system.
From Microsoft End of Windows 7 Retail Sales October 31st 2013 End of Retail Sales of PC's with Win7 Pre Installed 31st October 2014.

Microsoft do need to give people kickbacks as they virtually have a monopoly on operating systems.

 

[nfitzsimmons]

Microsoft do need to give people kickbacks as they virtually have a monopoly on operating systems.

I suspect Apple would disagree.

 

[LNERlover5]

I suspect Apple would disagree.

They wouldn't. Macintosh holds 8.18% of the X86 market place though OS X, with Microsoft holding 85.92% with XP onwards.

Even on ARM, the gap is closer, but Android holds the lead here as well...

Jack

 

[simulatortrain]

Works fine for me at the 16gb max.

 

[boc61]

I'm running Win 7 Home Premium 64 with 16 Gb RAM and TS 12 runs fine. I have the OS on an SSD along with Trainz on it's own SSD using a GTX 680 2GB GPU. I have no plans on upgrading to Windows 10 on this machine, I will just wait until I get a new one, which will most likely be within a year and get Win10 that way.

 

[johnwhelan]

I'm running Win 7 Home Premium 64 with 16 Gb RAM and TS 12 runs fine. I have the OS on an SSD along with Trainz on it's own SSD using a GTX 680 2GB GPU. I have no plans on upgrading to Windows 10 on this machine, I will just wait until I get a new one, which will most likely be within a year and get Win10 that way.

The win 10 upgrade is the easiest I've seen, it retains all your software and data files.

Cheerio John

 

[boc61]

So I hear. Still not interested. No need to change something that works fine as it is. I'll wait and let them work out the bugs and stuff, much like I am doing with TANE.

 

[davies_mike57]

Have a Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit operating system installed on a Core I5-3450 CPU @ 3.1GHz with 6 gigabytes of fast memory.
The display is only a 32-bit system with 1 gigabytes of video memory.
Most older games the graphics are still running on 32-bit system video memory so a computer running at 64-bit is not going to make much difference in video quality and speed at all.
Noticed that Trainz 12 Simulator runs a lot better with a 3.1GHz or higher CPU chip because you can assign lots more drivers in a session.
[h=2][/h]

 

[johnwhelan]

Have a Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit operating system installed on a Core I5-3450 CPU @ 3.1GHz with 6 gigabytes of fast memory.
The display is only a 32-bit system with 1 gigabytes of video memory.
Most older games the graphics are still running on 32-bit system video memory so a computer running at 64-bit is not going to make much difference in video quality and speed at all.
Noticed that Trainz 12 Simulator runs a lot better with a 3.1GHz or higher CPU chip because you can assign lots more drivers in a session.

I'm a little confused with what you are saying. The I5-3450 comes with integrated graphics the Intel® HD Graphics 2500

Normally Trainz runs better with a more powerful GPU, http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html and look at the bottom right for your GPU.

GPUs only access a maximum of roughly 4 gigs of memory, a CPU is used to access much more than this, normally a 32 bit processor is sufficient to access 4 gigs directly, so most GPUs are not 64 bit but some lesser number. An nVidia GTX 980 for example does not have 64 bit processors despite being the top of the current nVidia range. Dedicated GPUs do have dedicated memory which typically is much faster than the main memory, DDR5 was used in GPUs whilst CPUs were still using DDR3 memory.

Cheerio John