Will this GPU run OG Trainz?

S

slenderman8888

Active member
Hi. I've got a curious situation. I own a 2004 Dell Dimension 2400 which I am using for playing retro games. I've already been upgrading it like I swapped the Celeron for a P4 and I have a second RAM stick on order. But my current blunder is looking for a GPU so that it no longer needs to rely on the awful Intel integrated graphics chip. The 2400 is pretty limited in GPU upgrade choices since it has no AGP slot and no PCI-E (because it wasn't a thing when it was made) only the original PCI slots. After much searching on ebay for an affordable GPU I found this...
image.png

But before I buy the question is will it run better than the Integrated graphics or worse?
This isn't going to be running anything modern (It's a 2004 XP machine!) just retro titles such as the original release of Trainz.
So what performance can I expect from that GPU? Is it worth it or no?
A second (abeit more expensive) GPU option would be this. But again. Will it run?
image.png
 
Should make it clear that this PC is NOT my main PC. I solely use it for playing retro titles on. (Stuff like MSTS, ORIGINAL Trainz, etc) The PC you are suggesting is a modern XPS unit. That defeats the whole purpose of having a retro machine. Please re-read the OP throughly before making any replies.
 
256MB will be much better than a 64MB card, I'd be a bit sceptical over that Radeon though as it only shows a box, could be anything inside it or nothing!.

Nvidia wise the last PCI cards were GeForceFX 5200, 5500, 5700LE and 6200, need to specify PCI though as they were also available as AGP.


There's a 5500 here https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/124311458142?chn=ps&mkevt=1&mkcid=28 quite a few options and some ridiculously priced ones as well!

I'd be a bit sceptical over that Radeon as it only shows a box, could be anything inside it or nothing!
 
I think we've visited this subject with the OP before. The best suggestion I would have would be to switch the motherboard and drop in a CPU with some sort of integrated graphics or use a motherboard with PCI express.

You need a 3D score of 350 as the minimum to run Trainz and even that is choosing the assets very carefully. The video cards mentioned are all below this score. Try running Middleton for laptops and see if it appeals. If it doesn't then you need a 3D score of at least 2-3,000.

Farewell John
 
Forget Middleton it's irrelevant and not for old versions its TB 4.5, he's talking about legacy Train as in 2006 2004 and older.

2004 only requires a GPU with 32MB of ram
https://gamerinfo.net/game/trainz-railroad-simulator-2004/system-requirements/
System requirements:

  • OS: Windows 98/ME/2000/XP
  • CPU: Pentium III 600Mhz
  • RAM (memory): 256MB
  • Videocard: 32MB DirectX 9с-compatible graphics card
Click to expand...

2006 64MB GPU
https://gamerinfo.net/game/trainz-railroad-simulator-2006/system-requirements/

System requirements:


  • OS: Windows XP
  • CPU: Pentium IV 1.5GHz
  • RAM (memory): 512 MB RAM
  • Videocard: 64 MB
  • HDD: 4.2 GB
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
clam1952 said:
Forget Middleton it's irrelevant and not for old versions its TB 4.5, he's talking about legacy Train as in 2006 2004 and older.

2004 only requires a GPU with 32MB of ram
https://gamerinfo.net/game/trainz-railroad-simulator-2004/system-requirements/


2006 64MB GPU
https://gamerinfo.net/game/trainz-railroad-simulator-2006/system-requirements/
Click to expand...

but if you can run it TS12 gives much better frame rates than TRS2004 on the same hardware and the hardware requirements are much the same.

Cheerio John
 
Some folk just like to run old games John. I still have Ultimate Trainz, TS2004 and TS2006 disks on my bookshelf and I still have the old hotted up Rat P4 running XP that I played endless classic titles on when I first got into gaming. The old thing isn't a scratch on computers that are available today, but back then it was pretty darn hot.
Yes TS2012 is better, but the OP wants to play the earliest versions of Trainz and that's fine if that's what he wants to do.
 
KotangaGirl said:
Some folk just like to run old games John. I still have Ultimate Trainz, TS2004 and TS2006 disks on my bookshelf and I still have the old hotted up Rat P4 running XP that I played endless classic titles on when I first got into gaming. The old thing isn't a scratch on computers that are available today, but back then it was pretty darn hot.
Yes TS2012 is better, but the OP wants to play the earliest versions of Trainz and that's fine if that's what he wants to do.
Click to expand...

It's not a question of TS12 being better than TRS2004 it's more the code is more optimised so the same assets and viewing distance give you slightly better frame rates. TRS2004 only uses one core TS12 can use more than one core but if you only have one core that doesn't make that much difference. The other difference is in the error checking TS12 assets have fewer undocumented features which means they use less resources.

Middleton uses two basic wagons. The loco is two thousand polys which is fairly light for a loco, some simple diesels come close, the all the rest are the same identical wagon base and the variations are just visible loads. The repetition means the game engine basically only sees one wagon repeated which is much lighter on the computer load. The meshes should work fine in TRS2004 by the way you just might need to backdate them.

If it runs slow in TS12 I suggest taking off things like couplings and the sheep and cattle in the pens. TRS2004, TS2009 both run mainly on the CPU, TS12 does as well but may use a bit more GPU. Certainly TANE does a lot better on the higher end GPUs. If you could swop in a CPU with integrated graphics especially something above series 4000 that would be the nice way to up the GPU. On lower end GPUs having a tight connection to the CPU with integrated graphics is a major advantage.

I think we discussed all this back in July and I don't think much has changed.

Cheerio John
 
The OP wants to use Old Legacy hardware to play Old Legacy Games, not just Trainz, He does not want new hardware. See Post 2:

Should make it clear that this PC is NOT my main PC. I solely use it for playing retro titles on. (Stuff like MSTS, ORIGINAL Trainz, etc) The PC you are suggesting is a modern XPS unit. That defeats the whole purpose of having a retro machine. Please re-read the OP throughly before making any replies.
Click to expand...
 
clam1952 said:
The OP wants to use Old Legacy hardware to play Old Legacy Games, not just Trainz, He does not want new hardware. See Post 2:
Click to expand...


He wants to add a GPU as I understand it. Replacing the CPU which he has already done once, with one that has integrated graphics basically adds a GPU to the mix. If he doesn't want to add any new hardware then logically he doesn't want to even add a GPU. Has he even tried to run TRS2004 on the system? Or even one of the other early versions of Trainz that ran mainly on the CPU?

As stated in July I don't think there is an acceptable solution to the OP and I think this thread is going nowhere.

Cheerio John
 
JCitron said:
The Radeon 5000 is quite slow. You are better off getting a GT8800. This is a ca. 2007 card and does a fair job with performance on these older titles. I had one and thought the performance was quite good for its time.

EDIT:

Found this...

UserBenchmark: AMD Radeon X1300 vs Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX
Click to expand...


It's a PCIe card not PCI slot.

It is difficult to spot the PCI cards and when you do things like the GeForce 6200 have a 3D score of 35 or so.

Cheerio John
 
johnwhelan said:
It's a PCIe card not PCI slot.

It is difficult to spot the PCI cards and when you do things like the GeForce 6200 have a 3D score of 35 or so.

Cheerio John
Click to expand...

Yes, I know. But there was a PCI bus version as well back then because I purchased one at BestBuy when they sold cards like that. Prior to BestBuy, I used to go to CompUSA for hardware and always had good luck with the parts I purchased. This was all before buying hardware online only. The Vision-tek card, though is really, really slow even by the standards back then especially with the 64 MB of RAM.
 
JCitron said:
Yes, I know. But there was a PCI bus version as well back then because I purchased one at BestBuy when they sold cards like that. Prior to BestBuy, I used to go to CompUSA for hardware and always had good luck with the parts I purchased. This was all before buying hardware online only. The Vision-tek card, though is really, really slow even by the standards back then especially with the 64 MB of RAM.
Click to expand...

How would you move forward in this? I suspect there aren't any CPUs with integrated graphics that will fit this motherboard. Dell are notorious for custom motherboards and just about enough power supplies.

an i5-4570 would just about work, secondhand amazon.co.uk 140 quid. ebay.co.uk have a number of refurbished machines just check which integrated graphics they have around 50 quid and I think that would be the cheapest solution.

Cheerio John
 
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