looking for a new pc.....

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Shippy2013

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having been playing for a while on my trusty old HP intel core 2 dou system i am looking at purchasing a new pc to hopefully alleviate the stuttering and occasional momentary freeze during play. i dont want to spend over £400 for a system and have found a pc im interested in would these specs run the game more satifactory. the HD will be replaved with a SSD i currently use as a slave in my curent PC and Windows 8 will be windows 10 i thnk my current PC's main issue is Graphics card it only has on board and has no AGP PCI-e or other slots available.


  • Intel® 4th Generation Core™ i3-4160 processor
  • 3.6Ghz Haswell CPU
  • 1Tb Western Digital hard drive
  • 8Gb RAM DDR3 1600Mhz
  • Intel® B85 Chipset
  • DVD-RW optical drive
  • Windows 8.1
  • nVidiaGT740 1Gb graphics card
  • Wi-Fi enabled
  • Network Interface: Realtek10/100/1000 LAN
  • 1 year on site warranty
  • Monitor not included
  • 4x USB 3.0 (2 front, 2 rear), 4x USB 2.0 (all rear)
  • 1x DVI-D, 1x VGA, 2x HDMI, 1x RJ-45 port
 
You will need a $1000 laptop, and $1200 to $1700 is recommended, I3 and I5 will not be good enough for anything but TRS2006 and lower. An I7 HP DV7 is total carp, for $1200. Most $800 USD laptops will not run Trainz, and you need a 64bit PC to run T:ANE
 
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That PC won't provide a satisfactory experience I'm afraid, that and £400 won't get you anything that will. Cascaderailroads description doesn't actually help much so I'll try to elaborate.

The CPU is a lesser factor in the ability to run T:ANE. That doesn't mean it's not important however, a Haswell or Skylake core series CPU will do you well, especially the i5 parts from a cost/performance perspective. The graphics card, or GPU, is the most important factor to consider when running a game and this is no different for Trainz. Personally I use an AMD Radeon R9 270X, which is a £150 'last-gen' part. Which gives me reasonable performance with shadows set to low. This is what I would consider a a bare minimum in terms of GPU capability, and the Nvidia Geforce GT740 listed in your description falls far short of it. Most people here who know what's current will tell you an R9 390 or Geforce GTX 970 will deliver in terms of visuals, performance and price, however these cards retail at at least £250. RAM wise you only need as much as you plan to use. 8GB can be considered a reasonable minimum as of now, however we should see densities increase and cost come down as DDR4 replaces DDR3 in the mainstream.

The above listed parts will generally speaking dictate your experience the most, however having Trainz on an SSD helps a bunch in terms of load times and in reducing asset 'pop in' as you move the camera.

The simple fact is T:ANE is quite challenging to run and needs the hardware to support it. This hardware doesn't come cheap. For example, my R9 270X, i5 4690K, 16GB RAM, SSD and other associated parts will have cost me in excess of £700 and I had to build it myself to achieve these cost benefits.

Jack
 
You will need a $1000 laptop, and $1200 to $1700 is recommended, I3 and I5 will not be good enough for anything but TRS2006 and lower. An I7 HP DV7 is total carp, for $1200. Most $800 USD laptops will not run Trainz, and you need a 64bit PC to run T:ANE

Where did he mention a laptop? Sounds like he is talking about a desktop. I can't say about an i3, but Trainz runs fine on my i5 and GTX 680.
 
There are some BigBox Stores Gaming desktops that cost @ $800 - $900, but anything under that is carp, and would require a high end video card, and a higher wattage power supply, for $100 - $300 additional
 
£399+vat

cooler_master[1].jpg

i5.jpg
Intel Core i5 3300 3.1GHz x 4
Hynix 8GB DDR3 Memory
1Tb Sata 3 Hard Disk
DVD Writer
MSI B75MA-P45 Motherboard mATX
1.5Gb Geforce GTX 580
Coolermaster Quality Case
USB2 x 6, USB 3 x 2, 7.1 Sound
500 Watt Silverstone PSU
Windows 7 64 Bit
12 months Warranty



can ge this one with I7 for extra £100 win 7 would still be win10 and id still swap out the HD​
 
For TANE start with a GTX 970 avoid AMD, TANE likes an i7, its a quad with hyperthreading but the CPU isn't so critical as the GPU. Have a look for a refurbished Dell T5500, ie off lease, you want a quad CPU and around 16 gigs of memory. It's a xeon processor but the important bit is a very nice power supply and lots of room for a GTX 970 /980. They sell for about a quarter of the price they were when new three years ago. Get one with a video card just to see it all works, you won't use the video card sinec you'll replace it with a 970.

Lesser video cards might work but 970 and 980 users seem to be happy with TANE performance.

Cheerio John
 
Looking at that chassis it looks like although it'd have the length, height is probably going to be an issue since the case is pretty shallow and there's a vertically mounted hard drive bracket above it which is going to block any card with the power connectors on top instead of at the back.
 
£399+vat

cooler_master[1].jpg

i5.jpg
Intel Core i5 3300 3.1GHz x 4
Hynix 8GB DDR3 Memory
1Tb Sata 3 Hard Disk
DVD Writer
MSI B75MA-P45 Motherboard mATX
1.5Gb Geforce GTX 580
Coolermaster Quality Case
USB2 x 6, USB 3 x 2, 7.1 Sound
500 Watt Silverstone PSU
Windows 7 64 Bit
12 months Warranty



can ge this one with I7 for extra £100 win 7 would still be win10 and id still swap out the HD​

You mean £399 + 20% = £478.80(https://vat-calc.net) for Intel Core i5 3300 3.1GHz x 4?
 
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