TANE SP2 on HDD or SDD?

Hi;
Currently I have only HDD's in my system, but am considering a 500GB SSD, which will use SATA3.
TANE is now on a WD WD1002FAEX-007BA0 drive.
My OS is Windows 7 Ultimate SP1.
(multi-boot Win 7, Win 10, Ubuntu - system boots to Grub menu)

System is:

MSI P67A-C43(B3) mobo - current BIOS
Intel i5 2500 CPU
Gigabyte/NVidia GeForce 750Ti 2GB on PCIEx16 (Current drivers)
16GB DDR3 RAM @ 1600Mhz

Hard Drives:

WDC WD5001AALS-00L3B2
Seagate ST31608125V
WDC WD1002FAEX-007BA0

Monitors:
NEC MultiSync EA244WMi @ 1920 x 1200
Samsung SyncMaster 2494HS @ 1920 x 1080

So I'm thinking I would re-install the OS from scratch - not sure if I will install the Linux or not - on the SSD.
Install TANE on the SSD, but put its data files on the HDD? Or should I install all of TANE on the SSD?

Thanks for your advice

CP

My second machine is of similar spec and like you I use multiple OS although more Linux than Windows. Faced with a similar decision some time ago instead of using Grab I opted for removable hard-drive caddies admittedly the rack and one caddie cost about £20 and the spare caddies about £8 each all SATA 3. Either way I would install Trainz (or any other preferred game/simulator) on the fasted dive together with your OS of choice and use it for nothing else other than that game/simulation. I'd set other drives up for social media, office, browsing, etc. The majority of Linux distributions have less dross than Windows anyway and are fairly nippy in their own right even if you are playing Linux games, so instead of including Linux consider running it from a reasonable quality USB3 stick of 8GB or more in a USB3 socket. Peter

It doesn't matter very much on the frame rates say maybe an additional frame per second but scenery objects etc load faster on an SSD.

Cheerio John

Thanks guys;
I ordered the Samsung 850 EVO 500GB. Considering that my current Windows 7 install is on a 210GB partition, I should be able to install both Windows 7 and Windows 10 on the SSD, as well as TANE, and any other simulation games. I am probably going to get a flight sim (leaning towards X-Plane 11), and I think that it would really benefit from the SSD as well.

I like the idea of putting any Linux distros on a USB3 stick. I have a 128GB USB3 which I have been leaving pretty much for backups, but I can easily put the Linux on that as well.

I installed a Samsung EVO with 256G. I reinstalled Win 10 on it with TANE SP1 HF4 programs and data on it as well. No appreciable increase in frame rate. What a disappointment. On the routes/sessions I run it seems CPU is the bottle neck. My Nvidia GTX 1060 6G video card is not being pushed. I'm running about 22 AI trains. My FPS dropped about 50% when I went from SP1 HF4 to SP2 HF0. I wonder what others are seeing.

rcwarner1953 - SSDs will not affect video framerates, but they will vastly improve disk i/o to perceptibly speed up the loading and reading of T:ANE database files, route and session start-up times and in-session on-the-fly file use.
I have a Samsung EVO SSD too and I can confidently assert that database repairs are measurably faster with an SSD compared to a conventional hard disk drive as I have multiple T:ANE installations using both storage formats on the same machine.

If you want to see a marked improvement in frame-rate performance, then look primarily to your graphics card - this has the single-most important influence on rendering frames.
A suitably fast CPU, coupled with fast Random Access Memory and even faster Video RAM can aid a GPU in this task, but physical storage is relatively unimportant in this role.
Upgrading from a GTX 1060 to a faster GPU, such as a GTX 1070, or 1080Ti for example, is the only realistic path to improved video framerates.

I don't think I will be upgrading my graphics card (750Ti 2GB) until I can also upgrade the mobo/cpu system. It would be the CPU that is the bottleneck if a high-end graphics card is installed on an older/slow mobo.
I do believe though that upgrading my RAM from 8GB to 16GB (mobo max) resulted in less stutter in moving about a large route. I would assume that TANE or Windows will cache as much data from the slower storage (HDD) to faster RAM as it can.
I wonder what kind of system it would take to get FPS up to 60.

Approach_Medium said:

I don't think I will be upgrading my graphics card (750Ti 2GB) until I can also upgrade the mobo/cpu system. It would be the CPU that is the bottleneck if a high-end graphics card is installed on an older/slow mobo.
I do believe though that upgrading my RAM from 8GB to 16GB (mobo max) resulted in less stutter in moving about a large route. I would assume that TANE or Windows will cache as much data from the slower storage (HDD) to faster RAM as it can.
I wonder what kind of system it would take to get FPS up to 60.

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TANE runs cooler on the CPU and hotter on the GPU than TS12. Your i5 should be fast enough but your GPU is well below a GTX1060 which is sort of the recommended GPU if you go by WindWalkr recommendations and whilst I don't always agree with what he says in this case a GTX1060 min would be my recommendation as well. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gpu-hierarchy,4388.html to compare, you're more than three levels below the GTX 1060 although some are happy with a GTX 1050 which is a tad faster than your card.

I'd also run win 10 it has better drivers.

Cheerio John

Approach-Medium - Yes, it is the combination that counts and a weak component dependency can easily degrade the potential performance of a high-end device.
To answer your last question, I regularly see T:ANE frame-rates in triple digits (and hardly ever below 60 FPS @1080p) with an Asus ROG Strix OC GTX 1070 coupled with a Devil's Canyon i7-4790K running @4.6Ghz - with all the wicks turned up and Vertical Sync turned OFF.
There are so many other variables in this equation, however... Whether or not you expect to have 15,000m Draw Distance, Ultra Shadows set and with everything else at their maximum settings is a matter for practical assessment, personal taste and affordability of the requisite components.
In terms of bang for buck, the principal system upgrades I made that seriously improved T:ANE performance in the past year or two were roughly in this order:
1. Faster Graphics Cards (GTX 1070)
2. Faster CPUs (especially multi-core, high Instructions-Per-Clock modern CPUs with >4Ghz clocks
3. Doubling system RAM from 8Gb to 16Gb (There are diminishing returns after this amount of RAM as T:ANE doesn't really use it, unless things go wrong)
4. Replacing fast 7200 RPM HDDs for OS and Game Drives with much faster SSDs from Samsung and Crucial, whilst retaining the big Enterprise HDDs for bulk storage of other data

Important also that we do not ignore the fact that N3V Devs have tweaked T:ANE performance remarkably over almost every recent patch through various code and scripting optimizations, better caching, improved asset validations and constant guidance to asset creators on matters such as LODs and in-game rendering performance optimization.

Thanks guys; That's good info. I'm going to look into the 1070 or at least 1060 cards to see what they are costing these days. After all, I can still upgrade the graphics card now, and take that card with me to a new mobo/cpu, so long as I don't wait so long that PCIEx16 is obsoleted.
I have a dual monitor setup, but always shut down the secondary monitor when I run TANE, since it is useless for the sim. I have found that even if I leave the secondary monitor running and start TANE in full-screen mode, I cannot access what is on the secondary monitor anyway. I think that I can if I run TANE in windowed mode, but I really don't like to do that, and besides, I think I get better frame rates from the 750Ti if only one monitor is active.

If you were going to upgrade from the 750TI 2GB to the 1060, would you go with 6GB or 3GB?
I'm thinking more is better in this case, assuming speed is the same for both. Difference is about $50 at this point.
That said, I'm pretty sure that the longer I hold out, the lower the price will go. Especially around xmas when the new ones are released...

These cards are in demand for bitcoin mining, there are two basic different cards. The performance difference is around 5% how much memory do you need? Well TANE uses an image compression that is much more efficient than TRS2004 about 4:1 so that 3 gigs is roughly the equivalent of 12 gigs of memory in TRS2004.

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_1060_Gaming_X_3_GB/26.html

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2016-nvidia-geforce-gtx-1060-3gb-vs-6gb-review_6

Because of the bit coin mining demand I'd probably think more in terms of the 3 gig cards as good value for money. Toms makes no difference in the hierarchy table.

Note the most expensive 6 gig card on newegg.com is $350 the cheapest 3 gig card is $220.

Cheerio John

I had to do some research on Bitcoin. I have never had much interest in such concepts. I am happy that TANE doesn't involve such things.
So anyway, I guess 3GB is enough for a fast GPU. In any case, I'm not going to rush into another upgrade just now. I'll be pretty busy for a while re-configuring my system with the new SSD.
BTW; Am I correct in assuming that it makes no difference as to which SATA3 channel I connect the SSD (so long as they are all the same speed). Unlike the old EIDE where you needed to put your boot drive on the Master channel.

The price difference among cards with the same capability is interesting. My 750Ti is a Gigabyte. I usually go with user ratings from several sites to steer me in the right direction.

No problems should be encountered. It only becomes an issue of which set of ports you use when setting up RAID or JBOD Arrays.

pdkoester said:

No problems should be encountered. It only becomes an issue of which set of ports you use when setting up RAID or JBOD Arrays.

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Thanks for that info. I should be receiving my new SSD today.