Laptop Specs

[BatController]

Hi,

I’ve a huge train enthusiast and have been ever since I built a huge model railway set with my dad back in the day. We built a huge track in our attic and went all out modelling the terrain and multiple platforms and stations. There something incredibly satisfying about making trains run around a track that you built. From there I got the train bug.

Sadly I don’t have space in my current house for making a new model set, but thankfully I got into virtual trains, which has a satisfaction all of its own. I bought some train simulators online and played Microsoft Train Simulator and Railroad Tycoon, both of which are good, if a little basic in parts.

A friend of mine introduced me to his copy of Trainz though and I could see that it was much more detailed and in-depth than the others. Right up my street. Anyway, I don't have a very good computer so can't play it. I’m going to buy new laptop and was wondering if the specs would handle the game. The specs are:

Windows 10
Intel Core i5-6300HQ, 2.1 GHz
4GB RAM
Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M

Will this be enough to play the game at full resolution and with all the bells and whistles (excuse the pun)

Thanks.

 

[PC_Ace]

Gidday BatController - Welcome to the forums.
That laptop spec is adequate - perhaps a tad on the light side for larger routes with comprehensive high-density scenery, but with some of the sliders turned down it would be ok.
The GT 960m is the crucial enabler - T:ANE is very GPU-centric and the mobile version of the 960 is quite capable of running T:ANE at modest frame rates as long as you don't set shadows too high or high draw distances.
Your Intel i5 CPU is capable and probably would not constitute a bottleneck, though the 2.1Ghz clock speed is under the preferred baseline.
4Gb of RAM is about the minimum you can run with T:ANE on Windows 10, so you won't be able to turn up the eye-candy too much and nor can you expect it to load larger routes and sessions quickly.
If the laptop had an SSD it would assist on the load times and improve performance slightly, but adding more RAM would certainly increase smoothness and overall user experience.
So - at full resolution and with all the bells and whistles? Depends on the actual default resolution of your laptop's screen. If less that full HD (1920 by 1080) then probably yes, but that would require that you make a judicious choice of performance appearance compromises (effected by turning some of the eye-candy down) to ensure you get running speeds better than a slideshow.
The bells and whistles will depend on your built-in sound card and the amount of random access memory headroom available whilst playing T:ANE.

 

[johnwhelan]

There are now laptops with a GTX 1060 and 1070 available they would be better.

Cheerio John

 

[KTOutlaw]

Price will be a big factor with the Laptops that are including the 1060, 1070, or 1080 Cards, at current time those are coming in at a hefty 1,800 to 4,000 USD depending on graphic card and other options in the product line. They are very nice laptops but like anything new are quite expensive.