Running T:ane - Graphica Card Upgrade?

tmiller453

New member
Hey Guys,

Just loaded the new version of T:ane. Running a little sluggish compared to the Community Version I had installed. So I am thinking that possibly my graphics card needs a boost. Here is my configuration currently:

2.80 gigahertz AMD Atahlon II X4 630
64 bit
12 GB RAM Memory
Windows 7 Pro
GeForce 610 Graphic Card 2gb memory

Please advise what changes I should make to make the program run smoother, and what graphic card you would recommend. Not looking for the moste expensive card. Thinking of around $150 if possible.

Thanks for the help.

Ted
 
Hey Falcus,

Thanks fo that information. Some had mentioned a PNY GeForce GTX 750, Still not hot enough? The GeForce GTX 970 is a great looking card. Pricey, but can do. Now, there are several models of that card. Can you give me a specific model number, or doesn't it matter? I would also assume I am looking at a 4GB memory. I just recently switched over to a 400 watt power supply, that I think would be plenty, although I haven't read anyplace the power requirements for that card.

Thanks.

Ted
 
I would stay away from PNY in general. They're ok, but they had some, IIRC, QC issues before on previous releases. EVGA tends to be a well rounded maker with a good reputation all around.

You'll need a beefier PSU if you're going for a 970 (I ended up with a Corsair CX750, 750W, only cost about $100). You'll be alright with a 400 *I THINK* if you just get a 750TI of any description. You have to remember, when you buy a Card that asks for 400W, thats ONLY for the Card. So the Computer itself will need a good 150-200W all its own. IE I'd suggest at least a 600W PSU for a computer you're dropping a 400W Card into. Don't skimp on the PSU, Bad joo joo happens if you do. Also on PSUs, Try to stay away from the cheap import knock offs. Bad PSU is about the only thing that will get you more bad joo joo then having too little power......

Types of the individual cards tends to depend on the maker. Most makers offer an "OC" or Over Clocked version, but most of these you want to stay away from. Its easy to actually get less returns and more heat from OC if its not done right. One of the things I liked about EVGA is they offered SC (Super Clocked), OC, and what they call "FTW" versions to choose from. I personally went with SC for my 970. Slightly higher stats for slightly higher price, without dragging the Card up into the Red Zones on anything, though if I was going to buy a seriously modified card from anyone, I'd look at EVGA first and find someone else to compare against second.

-Falcus
 
One of the things I liked about EVGA is they offered SC (Super Clocked), OC, and what they call "FTW" versions to choose from. I personally went with SC for my 970. Slightly higher stats for slightly higher price, without dragging the Card up into the Red Zones on anything, though if I was going to buy a seriously modified card from anyone, I'd look at EVGA first and find someone else to compare against second.

-Falcus

EVGA for sure. MSI or ASUS would be next on the list. I've had bad luck with PNY in the past. EVGA stands behind their products where as PNY will most likely hang you out to dry.
 
Thanks Falcus for the great advice. Nice stuff to know about the power supply. So, what are your thoughts on the 750Ti? Bigger is always better, but would this card work? Or would I still experience some issues?

Ted
 
In looking at the
[h=1]EVGA GeForce GTX 970 Super Clocked ACX 2.0 4GB GDDR5 Graphics Card[/h]it says a minimum of A 500 WATT PSU. It goes on to say that total power draw is 145 watts. So I would have to think that my 400 watt PS would be enough. I would hate to upgrade to a 600 watt suppley, since I just installed the 400 watt PS.

Comments, suggestions.

Ted
 
@Ted
The numbers I used were purely hypothetical. My computer shipped with a 300W PSU, and I knew that wasn't gonna cut it for any kind of added GPU. After that, probably I would suggest doing some research on your machine if you're really going to pursue a mid-high range GPU. What Motherboard do you have, and how much power does it draw to feed the CPU & RAM you have?

Honestly though, if you're going to get a 900 series though, I highly recommend just trying to get a higher Watt Supply. Like I said, playing with under-powering things can really cause some bad juju (Up to and including burning out computer components). If you've had that 400W for less then 3 months theres a good chance you can take it back to wherever you got it from (Depends on the vendor, call and ask. Might need receipt, might not, some places can track card purchases of any sort including Debit, others can't or won't).

Also, IIRC the 145 Watt Draw it's talking about is its minimum draw. At times of heavy load or Graphics Boosting/Turbo is when it'll use the higher amounts. Nothing like getting everything hooked up, turn it on, get into a game, and 2 minutes in the computer powers down and the lights in the house go out cuz the circuit breaker flipped, with a nice smell of ozone permeating from your computer case..... (Absolute worst case scenario, highly unlikely to occur, but....).

@750ti
750ti is nothing to sneeze at. When it was released it became kind of the mid-range standard for many many games to be able to play decent on. I've never owned one so I can't speak directly about experiences with it..... But I've heard alot of good things. I would give pretty good odds it'd play TANE fairly well at lowest settings, and probably decent at mid settings depending on how resource intensive the Route/Rolling Stock are (Hinton Division seems to be kind of the Testing ground right now for people because of all the crazy high resource eating Speed Trees in it, and I would wager the 750Ti would probably struggle a bit with it with the rest of your set up, not sure though).

The real question is do you want to buy a 750ti and probably keep your current PSU, and replace them in a couple years? Or do you want to spend a bit more replace both PSU and GPU with a higher priced one and replace the pair probably 5+ down the line? I didn't buy the GTX970 because I want to play Battlefield-65 with super crazy ultra graphics where I can see the shadows of Blood Splatter through rippling water in the middle of a Windstorm.... I bought it because I fully expect it to meet my minimum needs for at least half a decade or so...... Of course, I paid a bit more then twice what the 750TI would have cost and dumped out for a $100 750 Watt supply at the same time, so did I really save money? /shrug, only time will tell..... But it runs TANE freakin awesome at least, lol.

-Falcus
 
Newer card available in the 900 GTX series that might be a better option is the 960 it is considerably cheaper than what you will pay for a 970 or a 980. Still need a p/s higher than the minimum 500, I am running a 1000 watt in this machine but it is also a newer build that I did in the last week after a 9 year run with the previous. The only real specific thing about the brand you buy is the core speed IF you intend later to add another graphics card to go to a SLI configuration. The EVGA 660ti I had ran previous versions just fine but there is no doubt the 970 I replaced it with is much better. And the higher the last numbers of the series the better the performance, anything will be a big improvement when going from the 610 to a 960, last pricing I saw on a 960 was 219 from newegg
 
12GB RAM
3TB external HD
1TB HDD
AsRock 990 extreme 9 motherboard
MSI GeForce Nividia 760 graphics card
AMD 8 core FX-8350 nighthawk edition processor
750W power supply
60" tv monitor
32" tv monitor
20" monitor
A71 Chaser Thermaltake case 5 fans air cool
Windows 8 64 bit OS professional fully loaded
All with overclocking ability
Nickname "The Limited"

Will this run TANE decently?
 
The EVGA GeForce 960 looks like a nice card. I would opt for the 4GB version for a few extra bucks. The manufacturer calls for a minimum of a 400 watts PSU, but I would think a 600 watts unit would be better. Nice package that I just might consider.

Thnks for the heads-up!

Ted
 
If you want to go high-end but last year's video card, look at the EVGA GTX780Ti. I have one of these and it handles T:ANE fine. I only keep the shadows at high, and the draw distance at 7500, everything else is on ultra or to the top. The advantage of going slightly older is the chipset is now stable, and the prices are much lower.

You definitely want a larger power supply. EVGA makes some nice power supplies as well. I paid in the $360 range for their 1200W with a nice warranty. As has been mentioned you never want to under power your components. This can cause component burn-out, literally as they draw extra current. In my tech days, I saw ground and power connectors that were charred from a high power draw caused by an inadequate power supply. The old Apple Quadra 950s were notorious for this, and the power supply had to be changed out, and the power and ground traces had to be rewired.

John
 
I went with a Gigabyte GTX 970 OC. Reasonable price when I got it 6 months ago, should be cheaper now. Running a 750W Thermaltake PSU. No problems at all with the card, runs fine.
 
Ditto John C. on the GTX 780ti..........lot of bang for the buck there............
I'm running a GTX 780 and it's quite adequate for what T:ANE has to offer.
 
I've been reading of several instances in newer games built on Nvidia Gameworks such as The Witcher 3 and PROJECT CARS where Kepler based GPU's (GTX 700 Series + Titan) have been experiencing poorer performance than theoretically worse cards from the Maxwell lineup, which is quite interesting.

This Witcher 3 benchmark places the GTX 960 above the GTX 780, which should not be the case at all. Alas, it's not the only source to report it being the case.

http://www.gamersnexus.net/game-bench/1947-witcher-3-pc-graphics-card-fps-benchmark

Even looking at their current driver notes, Kepler cards aren't even in the support list anymore. Considering their age, this is actually quite poor.

http://us.download.nvidia.com/Windows/352.86/352.86-win8-win7-winvista-desktop-release-notes.pdf

Perhaps suggesting older cards from Nvidia might not be a good idea if this is actually the case. One could argue that a GTX 780 or 780 Ti is good enough for Trainz and you would be right, but buying the GPU for the sake of one piece of software would be quite narrow minded in my opinion.
 
12GB RAM
3TB external HD
1TB HDD
AsRock 990 extreme 9 motherboard
MSI GeForce Nividia 760 graphics card
AMD 8 core FX-8350 nighthawk edition processor
750W power supply
60" tv monitor
32" tv monitor
20" monitor
A71 Chaser Thermaltake case 5 fans air cool
Windows 8 64 bit OS professional fully loaded
All with overclocking ability
Nickname "The Limited"

Will this run TANE decently?

I would think so, but I don't know AMD Processor's very well. Last I had heard, probably over a year ago or so, is that they weren't as up on multi-threading as Intel was. I3 quadcore = 4 core computer. In theory an I5 quad = 8 or 16 Core depending on Generation and Build, and I7 quad = 16 or 32 core again depending on generation and build. This is a SUPER BASIC explanation, there is in fact ALOT more that goes on here, and honestly I would never expect an I5 or I7 to actually run quite as well to replace that amount of single cores.

Point I'm trying to make is that, AMD, last I knew, in lagging behind in the Multi-threading thing wasn't keeping up with this. But, I honestly Don't know, so maybe someone with more experience then myself can answer that particular issue of it.

After that, if John's saying his 780 is running TANE fine, I'd take him at his word and pass a 760. PSU seems good. Monitors don't matter much. Edit: Found the Ram listing, lol. 12GB should be fine.

As far as "Overclock ability", If they're not already overclocked, or you're unsure about the very exacting specifics of it, Id suggest staying away from it. Its very easy to burn out your Processors with incorrect Over Clocking (Like burn your house down "Burn out"). If you want to research it and learn it and do it, by all means, I wish you luck. I only intend this as a warning to be VERY careful.

-Falcus
 
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What they say seems to be true! There's tons of great info on the Web-o-Sphere, just begging to be read. ;)


For example, this CPU World page compares the AMD FX-8350 (~$180, US) vs Intel Core i5-4690 (~$225, US) in terms of overall benchmarks and general performance in a variety of areas.

Scroll down on the page and you can cycle through a fairly long list of other CPUs to compare either CPU to.


If you want to get a general comparison of video cards performance, check out the PassMark Software site.


No, benchmarks aren't a 100% accurate way to judge real world performance, but I'll take them over pure speculation, Ouija boards, and reading tea leaves, any day! ;)
 
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