Is Intel i7 3930k a good choice for playing TS12 ?

[johnwhelan]

Thank you very much John Whelan. I think similar to what you stated here.

The connection using SSDs in RAID 0 would give better results than a single but larger SSD?

John Charles

Trainz has lots of small files so high transfer rate doesn't gain you that much, ie 6 Gb/sec isn't much better than 3 Gb /sec. Latency is more important, I suggest 512 based on the size of my N3V folder at 182 gigs and allowing for things like TS12 SP1 needing a bit of working room. There are some issues with RAID on SSDs one is the ability to trim. My personal opinion would be one big SSD drive, maybe a smaller one for the operating system but I don't have a research lab available these days and its more a professional opinion than anything based on hard data.

Cheerio John

 

[KleinArt]

well an advice to you.
dont buy i7 3930k now as intel 4th gen i series processors are coming in june so wait and buy the latest processor.they will come with lga 1150 mobo and also nvidia has announced gtx 780 and 770 gpu and after some time 760 is coming.your wait will be worth if u buy latest hardware

Kamran thanks for the warning, but that would mean a big expense and I do not know if it would justify taking the computer I have now. And the motherboards are different: i7 3930 installs in Lga 2011 with 4 lines of RAM memory, instead of 2 lines of the Lga 1150.

John Charles

 

[KleinArt]

Trainz has lots of small files so high transfer rate doesn't gain you that much, ie 6 Gb/sec isn't much better than 3 Gb /sec. Latency is more important, I suggest 512 based on the size of my N3V folder at 182 gigs and allowing for things like TS12 SP1 needing a bit of working room. There are some issues with RAID on SSDs one is the ability to trim. My personal opinion would be one big SSD drive, maybe a smaller one for the operating system but I don't have a research lab available these days and its more a professional opinion than anything based on hard data.Cheerio John

Thanks John Whelan. Your explanation was very useful. I agree with you.

I think you will be interested in this review (in Spanish - can be translated with Google), but the data are very clear:

[url]http://www.ozeros.com/2012/12/review-raid-0-ocz-vertex-4-128gb/6/

[/URL] Thank you very much for your input.

Greetings

John Charles

 

[johnwhelan]

If you look at Trainz roughly 50% of the files are 4k or less now look at the web site, the big difference is in the larger file sizes. The problem with small files is there is an overhead involved in getting any file, when trainz is running its not really that disk intensive. You can dig with perfmon its really only loading up the next bit of scenery etc.

Traditionally most computers are limited by the disk sub system and memory access, bigger caches on the CPU can help. Trainz can only use a max of 4 gigs of memory, add in a gig or two for the operating system and everything else is just adding heat. It typically runs the CPU at 100% or at least the first core, this bay show as 50% in perfmon due to hyperthreading but because its a real time bit of software running at 100% doesn't mean its bottle necked on the processor its more it spends x millisecs drawing as much as it can then starts over.

It's always a balancing act on where to spend the money and how much to spend.

Have fun

Cheerio John

 

[KleinArt]

Thanks John for this additional explanation that allows me to better understand how Trainz works internally with the files it needs for the development of the activity of the game. Now I see more clearly the advantages or disadvantages of hardware devices. This allows me to make better decisions when it comes to decide whether to install them or not.


I think that everything that we discussed here, will be useful to many users of Trainz.
Glad we could clarify this issue, with which I was a bit cornered to make a good decision.


Again thank you very much John.


Best Regards


John Charles

 

[kamran]

Kamran thanks for the warning, but that would mean a big expense and I do not know if it would justify taking the computer I have now. And the motherboards are different: i7 3930 installs in Lga 2011 with 4 lines of RAM memory, instead of 2 lines of the Lga 1150.

John Charles

haswell cpus will be cheper then current ivy bridge cpu's.the only thing is that you have to change ur motherboard.and regarding memory lines it depends on motherboard that u buy ,motherboard ranges from 2 ram slots to 6 ram slots.it has no issue with cpu socket

 

[KleinArt]

...it has no issue with cpu socket

Yes it has!! Depending of type of socket will be the number of lines for the RAM memory.