$500 Gaming Laptop for Trainz?

Actually none of laptops not will be good for TANE, and all the more so for 500$.
I bought laptop for development and TANE testing and short gaming, but that's have 15-25 FPS on medium settings and 22-35 FPS on low settings without post processing in both happenings in HD resolution. But all the same, such laptop will be cost close to 800-1000 bucks.

I've just got an HP Pavilion 550-153wb Desktop PC with Intel Core i3-4170 Dual-Core Processor, 6 GB's of RAM (Expands to 16 GB's), a 1 TB Hard Drive and Windows 10 Home OS, and I want to get a Nvidia Graphic's Card for Trainz 2009/2010.

Does anyone know which Nvidia Graphic's Card is good enough for my Desktop to handle?

GTPS2 said:

I've just got an HP Pavilion 550-153wb Desktop PC with Intel Core i3-4170 Dual-Core Processor, 6 GB's of RAM (Expands to 16 GB's), a 1 TB Hard Drive and Windows 10 Home OS, and I want to get a Nvidia Graphic's Card for Trainz 2009/2010.

Does anyone know which Nvidia Graphic's Card is good enough for my Desktop to handle?

Click to expand...

I think that depends on the power supply and how much room there is for a video card. It appears your power supply is only 180 Watts from a review on Walmart so basically none. The refurbished machines typically have larger power supplies and are more expandable.

Cheerio John

If you don't want to build your own desktop one that might be OK to modify is the Acer Veriton 6 series:
http://www.acer.com/ac/en/GB/content/professional-model/DT.VCCEK.008

I have one and it's a solidly built commercial mini tower with a big hard drive and an i5 Sandy Bridge processor. Mind you I had to upgrade the power supply to install a decent GTX 650 Ti Boost video card. This machine runs TANE OK if graphics settings are moderate.

raymac1946 said:

If you don't want to build your own desktop one that might be OK to modify is the Acer Veriton 6 series:
http://www.acer.com/ac/en/GB/content/professional-model/DT.VCCEK.008

I have one and it's a solidly built commercial mini tower with a big hard drive and an i5 Sandy Bridge processor. Mind you I had to upgrade the power supply to install a decent GTX 650 Ti Boost video card. This machine runs TANE OK if graphics settings are moderate.

Click to expand...

I think the words were I've just brought......

John

Just to run over what has been talked about. The refurbished units are typically off lease business machines where reliabilty is paramount. The cost to a business of a machine breaking down iis often more than the cost of a new machine. Dell business machines have a well deserved reputation for reilability. Essentially they do this by overspecing eg the power supplies are normally far more than required. Often the machines have options for graphics cards which means that they have the power supply to handle them as standard and some consideration has been given to getting the heat out or cooling. When doing your research you can look this sort of thing up and note the graphics card, get one with a TDP the same as or lower than the optional card and you're home and dry. The off lease machines or refurbished are the machines I talked about when I said if it is marked power supply then it should run one of the passive cooled nVidia GPUs. A new HP built to a Walmart price is a very different animal.

These things are typically leased for three years so no its not the latest technology but on the other hand CPUs aren't that much different these days in three years, I'm running one which is probably six or seven years old and it isn't running anywhere near 100% in TANE. The GPUs are different, their power consumption has dropped and the performance has increased besides which they now support Directx 11 which some of the older ones didn't.

Your HP Walmart tower is not in the same class, the Intel built in graphics should support Directx 11, which means strangely enough TANE might even run on it with the sliders back if you pick the assets very very carefully and its lower end CPU shouldn't matter as much. Otherwise try TS12 and hope, it demands more CPU than TANE which is where your i3 might work against you.

Cheerio John

I know this isn't a particularly helpful comment but I just have to say that $500 sounds like the sort of sum you should be spending on a graphics card for T:ANE.

Trainz has always been one of those programs that can quite happily make use of every ounce of computing & graphics processing power you can throw at it.

Stuart

weevil said:

I know this isn't a particularly helpful comment but I just have to say that $500 sounds like the sort of sum you should be spending on a graphics card for T:ANE.

Trainz has always been one of those programs that can quite happily make use of every ounce of computing & graphics processing power you can throw at it.

Stuart

Click to expand...

Tottally agree but sometimes the budget isn't there.

Cheerio John

johnwhelan said:

. . .sometimes the budget isn't there.

Click to expand...

You're right of course John - been there myself before in the past.

In an attempt to be slightly more helpful I would suggest that the OP seriously reconsider buying a desktop rather than a laptop. The same advice would apply to anyone wanting to run Trainz on a tight budget. You generally get more performance for your money but most importantly, you can upgrade the weaker components one at a time when the budget does allow. For example buying a $500 desktop with integrated graphics might get you into a T:ANE slideshow today, but if you could then manage to spend another $200 in a few months time you could put in a GTX960 and probably get 20-25fps on the same machine. Obviously you'd have to check before buying the machine that it could support a graphics card upgrade.

Stuart

johnwhelan said:

I think that depends on the power supply and how much room there is for a video card. It appears your power supply is only 180 Watts from a review on Walmart so basically none. The refurbished machines typically have larger power supplies and are more expandable.

Cheerio John

Click to expand...

I guess this means I also need a 300 Watt Power Supply, right?

Hello, sorry to interrupt but i need help finding some locomotives, reply on my thread if you know where i can find this locomotive:

GTPS2 said:

I guess this means I also need a 300 Watt Power Supply, right?

Click to expand...

If you're replacing the power supply then I'd buy at least a name brand 500 watt one, provided it will fit in the case. It depends how many corners they have cut to get the price down and switching a power supply is not the first job you want to try inside a computer. Then you get into the heat problems and fans, a $499 new HP will not be designed to get rid of more heat than it needs to, any extra adds to the cost and any decent GPU will churn out a lot of heat.

Ever heard of the expression if you're going to go xyz I wouldn't start from here?

Cheerio John

A 300 watt power supply is a complete joke, and is severely under powered in a desktop

You are not going to get Trainz running on a low end laptop

You know what? I realized that I don't need a Nvidia Graphic's Card for Trainz 2009/2010, because I was able to lower the settings for it on my HP Desktop PC, and it was able to run at 30 FPS without lag.

But I appreciate all the help you guys gave to me.

GTPS2 said:

You know what? I realized that I don't need a Nvidia Graphic's Card for Trainz 2009/2010, because I was able to lower the settings for it on my HP Desktop PC, and it was able to run at 30 FPS without lag.

But I appreciate all the help you guys gave to me.

Click to expand...

With the same content and settings ie distance you should get even better frames per second using TS12 and you may find that TANE will run perhaps without shadows. TS12 is definitely worth getting your hands on, watch for a sale from N3V and then get the download version. A lot of the content has been improved performancewise with TS12 as well. Its $20 today from http://www.simulatorcentral.com/index.php/catalogsearch/result/?q=TS12 and I think worth it for the extra performance. $36 from Amazon.com by the way.

Cheerio John

johnwhelan said:

With the same content and settings ie distance you should get even better frames per second using TS12 and you may find that TANE will run perhaps without shadows. TS12 is definitely worth getting your hands on, watch for a sale from N3V and then get the download version. A lot of the content has been improved performancewise with TS12 as well. Its $20 today from http://www.simulatorcentral.com/index.php/catalogsearch/result/?q=TS12 and I think worth it for the extra performance. $36 from Amazon.com by the way.


Cheerio John

Click to expand...

Is this for steam or by itself? I have steam and it runs like junk. Also from GPTS2 post # 25 would this be ok with a video and power supply upgrade? http://www.walmart.com/ip/49333267 Thanks

kmver said:

Is this for steam or by itself? I have steam and it runs like junk. Also from GPTS2 post # 25 would this be ok with a video and power supply upgrade? http://www.walmart.com/ip/49333267 Thanks

Click to expand...

Are you talking about TS12 from steam? It makes no difference where it comes from, TS12 uses less resources for the same content and drawing distances than earlier versions. That means if TS2009 runs on your machine then the same content will give you slightly better frame rates on TS12, it does not mean running built in layouts and speedtrees will give you the same frame rates as TS2009.

The Walmart machine looks like a mini tower if so then others have upgraded the power supply but the drives need a right angled connector, use Google to dig out more details.

Cheerio John

johnwhelan said:

Are you talking about TS12 from steam? It makes no difference where it comes from, TS12 uses less resources for the same content and drawing distances than earlier versions. That means if TS2009 runs on your machine then the same content will give you slightly better frame rates on TS12, it does not mean running built in layouts and speedtrees will give you the same frame rates as TS2009.

The Walmart machine looks like a mini tower if so then others have upgraded the power supply but the drives need a right angled connector, use Google to dig out more details.

Cheerio John

Click to expand...

Yes ts12 that's funny 2009 runs great and 12 choppy a little.

kmver said:

Yes ts12 that's funny 2009 runs great and 12 choppy a little.

Click to expand...

Check the content are you using the same kuids? Adding in speedtrees doesn't help the frame rates, and check the distances, the default in TS2009 is much lower than TS12, lower the TS12 value to the same and you should see an improvement.

A 250 watt power supply gives you just enough room to drop in a passive cooled GPU by the way, something like an ASUS GeForce GT 730 with directx 11, according to tomshardware it draws about 25 watts and cost about $65 on Newegg.com. Let's you play with TANE.

Cheerio John
[h=1][/h]

johnwhelan said:

A low profile 730 with passive cooling will fit most cases and draw less power.

Cheerio John

Click to expand...

Just in case, can you show me a link to it?