What is the best hardware to buy for Trainz?

[polllo]

Hi all,
I am here freezing my butt off in Chicago with no desire to go outside, so I am going to build a new gaming computer from scratch, mainly for Trainz (Current and future versions).
I'm more concerned with top performance then I am with price.
I already have an LCD TV with a 120 Hz refresh rate, so I am just interested in the computer.
Any advice from experienced builders would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

 

[johnwhelan]

Hi all,
I am here freezing my butt off in Chicago with no desire to go outside, so I am going to build a new gaming computer from scratch, mainly for Trainz (Current and future versions).
I'm more concerned with top performance then I am with price.
I already have an LCD TV with a 120 Hz refresh rate, so I am just interested in the computer.
Any advice from experienced builders would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

So basically you want TS2010, a fast quad processor, 64 bit operating system, 6 gigs of memory, if money is really no object SDD hard drive, and the ugliest nVidia graphics card money can buy that is NOT SLI. ATI should work on the graphics side as well again there are reservations on crossfire.

Drop in an APC UPS to reduce software problems, its the brown outs that cause the most problems.

Cheerio John

 

[polllo]

Best Hardware for Trainz

Thanks John,
I like the idea of a SSD. I know they're expensive, but worth it. I'm going a bit overboard but I assume this setup will be good past the 2010 version too.
Thanks again

 

[kin3]

Here's my build (a couple of months old). I don't have Trainz loaded as of yet but it does real good on Crysis so I think it will work great with Trainz.

Motherboard: ASUS P7P55D Deluxe P55 1366

Graphic Card: XFX Radeon HD 5870 1GB PCIe DDR5

Monitor: Dell 2407WFP-HC

DVD: LG GH22NS50 22XDVD-RW SATA

Sound: onboard

Power Supply: CORSAIR CMPSU-750HX 750W ATX12V 2.3 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS SILVER Certified Modular Active PFC

CPU: Intel Core i7-860 Lynnfield 2.8GHz LGA 1156 95W Quad-Core

CPU Cooler: Thermaltake Silent 1156 CLP0552 92mm CPU Cooler For Intel Socket LGA1156

Memory: CORSAIR XMS3 8GB (4 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMX8GX3M4A1600C9

Hard Drive: SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - OEM

Case: COOLER MASTER HAF 932 RC-932-KKN1-GP Black Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case

OS: Win7 Home Preium 64

 

[saintjimmy]

I'd say you have a superb build! It's better than mine, and I can already run Trainz perfectly, so you should have super-smooth performance!

Off the top of my head, I could name some specs that would play Trainz no problem:

Any Intel Core i7 processor or AMD Phenom II X4 processor (over 3 GHz for the AMD, I'd say, even overclocked).

At least 6 GB DDR3 1333 MHz memory

A fast hard drive: 10k/15k RPM or SSD of at least 100 GB for Trainz, Windows, and other games, and a large (500+ GB) 7200 RPM hard drive for Trainz backups and everything else

The fastest single GPU graphics card you can find, currently the ATI Radeon HD 5870, with the 5850 in 2nd and nVidia GTX 285 in 3rd

A high quality sound card like an ASUS Xonar or Creative X-Fi Titanium

A PSU of 750 watts or more from a respectible company (Corsair, Cooler Master, Antec, OCZ, Thermaltake, BFG, and others)

And this is just my opinion, but go for a large monitor of at least 1920 x 1080 if you wanted another screen.

Then to top it all off, Windows 7 Home Premium or Ultimate, and MAKE SURE IT IS THE 64 BIT VERSION! Especially the newer Trainz 2009/2010 will be limited on a 32 bit operating system, as they will run out of memory on many routes with huge amounts of content.


Just my thoughts. And since I have nothing better to do...

 

[Paulsw2]

I'm running the ATI HD 5870 with the i7 860 and 8GB RAM and a 10,000rpm drive on Win 7 64bit. Pretty good! I guess if you wanted to go further you'd go for an i7 9xx series CPU allied to an Nvidia GTX925 or ATI HD 5970 card.

The big debate is whether Trainz suits Nvidia better than ATI and people seem to think Nvidia wins.

Paul

 

[johnwhelan]

The big debate is whether Trainz suits Nvidia better than ATI and people seem to think Nvidia wins.

Paul

nVidia has a program to assist game companies to get the best out of their video cards which Auran take advantage of.

However DirectX in ATI seem to work fine for me so I'm not too worried about the nVidia optimisations. DirectX is a lot more manufacturer neutral than OpenGL with nVidia extensions.

Cheerio John

 

[polllo]

WOW, GREAT ADVICE

I've started to look into all these suggestions I'm getting here. Thanks so much.
I started by ordering a Cooler Master HAF 932 this week. Should be here Friday. Since I'm not backed by the US government's printing presses, I'll have to spread out my purchases to about one a week, so its gonna be a while before I finish.
I'm thinking next week I should buy the mobo, but haven't decided on what CPU yet, either Intel or AMD, so also not sure what model number either. And by buying the motherboard first, it will give a bit more time for the chipsets to go down in price. I hope I hope.
I'm also taking John's advice of putting in a SSD. And more then likely a HD too. Actually, the boss, my wifey, wants a faster PC for herself too, so I was thinking about putting in a 3rd HD just for her. If anyone is knowledgable about setting up multiple drives, please leave some advice. I know this case has the room. Since she's not into games other then farmville, I don't think I need a big one for her.
Anyway, I am very greatful for everyones advice and reading about what you are all using now. It's great information.
Thanks, Glenn

 

[johnwhelan]

I've started to look into all these suggestions I'm getting here. Thanks so much.
I started by ordering a Cooler Master HAF 932 this week. Should be here Friday. Since I'm not backed by the US government's printing presses, I'll have to spread out my purchases to about one a week, so its gonna be a while before I finish.
I'm thinking next week I should buy the mobo, but haven't decided on what CPU yet, either Intel or AMD, so also not sure what model number either. And by buying the motherboard first, it will give a bit more time for the chipsets to go down in price. I hope I hope.
I'm also taking John's advice of putting in a SSD. And more then likely a HD too. Actually, the boss, my wifey, wants a faster PC for herself too, so I was thinking about putting in a 3rd HD just for her. If anyone is knowledgable about setting up multiple drives, please leave some advice. I know this case has the room. Since she's not into games other then farmville, I don't think I need a big one for her.
Anyway, I am very greatful for everyones advice and reading about what you are all using now. It's great information.
Thanks, Glenn

For the wife just set her up with her own account. All her working files will go into mydocuments under her account there is no need for a separate drive.

I'd put the weekly money to one side then buy everything together at the end from newegg. The shipping is cheaper altogether. In computers there is always a better component available cheaper next week and it gives people another couple of days to get the drivers correct.

Cheerio John

 

[polllo]

Amazon vs Newegg

For the wife just set her up with her own account. All her working files will go into mydocuments under her account there is no need for a separate drive.

I'd put the weekly money to one side then buy everything together at the end from newegg. The shipping is cheaper altogether. In computers there is always a better component available cheaper next week and it gives people another couple of days to get the drivers correct.

Cheerio John

Hi John,
I had checked prices on the case before I ordered and found Amazon to be much cheaper then newegg. I pay no tax or shipping charge thru amazon. Newegg was 25 bucks just for shipping which made just the one item over 13 percent higher. Suppose I sound like a bean counter, don't I?
How difficult is it to setup a SSD and HD together in one machine? I'm assuming the SSD will be either 80 or 160 GB, and the HD 500 or 1TB. And how much space does TS2009 or 2010 need? I'm assuming I need to put Windows 7 on the SSD, but what about Trainz?
Thanks again,
Glenn

 

[johnwhelan]

Hi John,
I had checked prices on the case before I ordered and found Amazon to be much cheaper then newegg. I pay no tax or shipping charge thru amazon. Newegg was 25 bucks just for shipping which made just the one item over 13 percent higher. Suppose I sound like a bean counter, don't I?
How difficult is it to setup a SSD and HD together in one machine? I'm assuming the SSD will be either 80 or 160 GB, and the HD 500 or 1TB. And how much space does TS2009 or 2010 need? I'm assuming I need to put Windows 7 on the SSD, but what about Trainz?
Thanks again,
Glenn

Amazon sounds good to me, I bean count as well but Amazon.com wouldn't ship to Canada and amazon.ca don't have computer bits, actually I'll check shortly.

I'd go 80 gig SDD and just put Win 7 on it. 1 t on the hard drive and samsung 1 t USB drive for backup. Dump all the software you can on the hard drive, Trainz doesn't do much disk activity once its running.

Drives are independent so you can start by just dropping in the SSD drive installing the operating system then adding the second hard drive or install them both together.

Currently I think I have some 70 gigs of Trainz related files on my machine and its growing so I wouldn't put them on a SSD. HP engineers many years ago came up with some drive performance data that basically says if you fill a hard drive more than 80% full the performance nose dives. It's still true today. Databases are nice but often need working space so 70 gig may not reflect the peak during a database rebuild.

Cheerio John

 

[Paulsw2]

This is interesting - I probably missed a trick with an SSD for the operating system. I've put Win7 and Trainz on the 10,000rpm 300GB HD and I'm trying to keep everything else away and onto my other (standard) HD.

Paul

 

[kin3]

Asus has a utility that came with the motherboard "ASUS Drive Xpert" that may help with multiple drives.

You will love that case at least I love mine. Big and roomy with big fans to keep everything cool.

 

[polllo]

RAM

Amazon sounds good to me, I bean count as well but Amazon.com wouldn't ship to Canada and amazon.ca don't have computer bits, actually I'll check shortly.

I'd go 80 gig SDD and just put Win 7 on it. 1 t on the hard drive and samsung 1 t USB drive for backup. Dump all the software you can on the hard drive, Trainz doesn't do much disk activity once its running.

Drives are independent so you can start by just dropping in the SSD drive installing the operating system then adding the second hard drive or install them both together.

Currently I think I have some 70 gigs of Trainz related files on my machine and its growing so I wouldn't put them on a SSD. HP engineers many years ago came up with some drive performance data that basically says if you fill a hard drive more than 80% full the performance nose dives. It's still true today. Databases are nice but often need working space so 70 gig may not reflect the peak during a database rebuild.

Cheerio John

So Trainz uses mostly the RAM during runtime? Then 8 GB of fast ram would almost be mandatory I would think. I had a terrible time with 2006 landscape loading super slow as the train moved. It made for very uninteresting trips.

 

[polllo]

Ram

So Trainz uses mostly the RAM during runtime? Then 8 GB of fast ram would almost be mandatory I would think. I had a terrible time with 2006 landscape loading super slow as the train moved. It made for very uninteresting trips.

 

[johnwhelan]

So Trainz uses mostly the RAM during runtime? Then 8 GB of fast ram would almost be mandatory I would think. I had a terrible time with 2006 landscape loading super slow as the train moved. It made for very uninteresting trips.

TS2009/10 can only use 4 gigs of memory under a 64 bit operating system so 6 gigs is enough.

Diskeeper might be an idea to improve disk performance and group things together.

Cheerio John