What would be a good laptop for Trainz 2009?

[LBMATTY]

I've been wondering if anyone can help me here. What would the system requirements for running either Trainz 2009 or Trainz 2010 on a laptop?

From what I've researched, Most Laptops don't seem to run Trainz very well, but There are several laptops that can run Trainz 2009 really well, and I'm planning to buy a new one with better specs to run Trainz better.


-Which CPU should it have?
-Which video card would work best with it (Specifically,anything close to NVIDIA)?
-How much Ram should it have?

 

[pdkoester]

TS2009 probably run fine on most laptops with 8 GB of RAM and i3 or i5 CPU.

 

[LBMATTY]

I think Intel should be good in terms of CPU.

is the NVIDIA GeForce 940M any good for Trainz? I know NVIDIA's Really good with Trainz.

 

[cascaderailroad]

how bout' this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/ASUS-GL551J...645370?hash=item25afe27afa:g:K7sAAOSw5VFWJvlZ

 

[LBMATTY]

how bout' this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/ASUS-GL551J...645370?hash=item25afe27afa:g:K7sAAOSw5VFWJvlZ

That's too expensive for me. I'm aiming for something around $500-$600. Some Laptops I've researched on Newegg and Amazon cost around that and they have Intel i5 for a cpu, Nvidia Geforce 940m for a Gpu/Video card and 8gb Ram. Would that be good for Trainz?

 

[pdkoester]

how bout' this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/ASUS-GL551J...645370?hash=item25afe27afa:g:K7sAAOSw5VFWJvlZ

this one is cheaper... http://www.ebay.com/itm/ASUS-ROG-GL...a563697&pid=100005&rk=3&rkt=6&sd=161864645370

 

[Saieditor]

this one is cheaper... http://www.ebay.com/itm/ASUS-ROG-GL...a563697&pid=100005&rk=3&rkt=6&sd=161864645370

That's a good price for those specs.

 

[LBMATTY]

I've just recieved an email from my brother on which Laptop to receive, but I need some kind of input on which one works best before I make the purchase

Here are the 2 Laptop's my brother suggested:

Recommendation #1: Lenovo ThinkPad E555 (Best value available)

• Price: US$343 (Amazon, as of 2016-01-16)
• TechRadar review: 4/5 stars
• CPU: AMD A8-7100 APU
• RAM: 4GB (DDR3L 1600Mhz)
• Graphics: ATI/AMD Radeon R5 GPU (integrated)

Recommendation #2: HP EliteBook 745 G3

• Price: ~US$700
• TechRadar review: 4/5 stars
• CPU: 2.10GHz quad-core AMD A12-8800B R7
• RAM: 8GB (DDR3L 1600Mhz)
• Storage: 256 GB 2280 M2 SATA III TLC Solid-State Drive (SSD)
• Graphics: AMD Radeon R7 GPU (8-core; integrated)

Acer Aspire E5-573G-57HR Specifications

• Type: Desktop replacement
• OS: Windows 8 (Upgradeable to Windows 10 for free)
• CPU: Intel Core i5-5200U (CPU speed: 2.2 GHz)
• RAM: 8 GB
• Storage: 1 TB hard drive (not an SSD, but very large capacity)
• Graphics: Nvidia GeForce 130 M GPU
• Screen: 15.6 inches (and 1080p resolution!)
• Weight: 5.29 lb (
• Battery life: 7h56m

 

[JCitron]

These are all medium to low-end machines. You may want to look a bit higher than this because Trainz, any version for that matter, will beat these machines to a pulp, and will even probably cause them to melt as they're not really suitable for high-end gaming.

Machine No. 1 is a business-class machine. This is okay for office-type work, though it does support DX11 with it's integrated ATI GPU. The problem though is this chip is in the Class 3 or Class 4 range depending upon the model, which puts it into the real lower tier.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-R5-M240.126735.0.html

Machine No. 2 The HP machine looks good from the specs, but HP locks out the ability to upgrade these machines. Red Rattler (another Trainz user) had this issue when he was looking at a new laptop recently. The GPU though isn't half bad though and is capable of T:ANE. I'm not sure about the CPU.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-R7-250.105887.0.html


The Acer Expire (sorry Aspire!)

The graphics chip, the integrated GPU, on the last laptop is really low-end and is DirectX 10, which means it will never be capable of running T:ANE.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-130M.13789.0.html

The problem is with machines like this is they look like a good deal when they're not. In the end either you will be extremely frustrated with it because it can barely keep up with the demands you put on it while running Trainz, or worse you've spend your money on a useless machine for this purpose and on one that is only good for office type work or browsing the web.

John

 

[LBMATTY]

The Acer Expire (sorry Aspire!)

The graphics chip, the integrated GPU, on the last laptop is really low-end and is DirectX 10, which means it will never be capable of running T:ANE.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-130M.13789.0.html

John

Funny thing about the laptop is that I looked it up on Amazon, and the Geforce Card included with the laptop I suggested is actually the Geforce 940M which is DirectX 11/12 and from what I've researched, it's capable of having more memory compared to the GT 130M.

 

[JCitron]

Funny thing about the laptop is that I looked it up on Amazon, and the Geforce Card included with the laptop I suggested is actually the Geforce 940M which is DirectX 11/12 and from what I've researched, it's capable of having more memory compared to the GT 130M.

That's a bit better. The GT940 is a far better card!

Be careful though again with HP. This machine might be chintzed out on the memory which can't be upgraded. If it comes with 8GB, it's not bad, but Red looked at a similar machine with only 4GB which couldn't be upgraded so that put that machine in the don't bother pile.

You might want to look at some of the laptops on the website I linked to. They have a good explanation of all the video cards and various laptop reviews which maybe useful for you.

John