What Graphics card should I get?

I don't know what thread you are reading but it isn't the one I am posting in.

Nowhere did I connect the SSD to frame rates. I said that the next component to be upgraded would be the hard disk (if the tech didn't just do it as a matter of course) and I then expanded that comment with a reason - because the hard disk drive would then be the weakest component in the system, and is therefore the next candidate for upgrade. You introduced the talk about frame rates. Creating a straw man just so you can argue about it amounts to trolling.

I'll put it another way. What is so critical about having an SSD in your opinion?

Thanks John
 
I'll put it another way. What is so critical about having an SSD in your opinion?
Who mentioned critical? I said that the HDD was now the weakest component in the system, and therefore the next candidate for upgrade. Whether OP sees that as critical and does it soon, or not so important and does it later, is up to them. But it will be the next thing to happen.
 
Read it again it doesn't say 16 gigs min it says it depends on the software. Yes memory is good but above 8 gigs you're probably into diminishing returns with TANE and that's the problem very few benchmarks are done with TANE so you need to guess.

Balancing a system I'd spend the money on the GPU first rather than take the memory up to 32 gigs which your statement of 16 gigs implies.

It depends on how much cash you have available. These days my personal preference would be a GTX1080ti something like a 6 core xeon, 16 gigs ECC memory and use SSDs for storage but reality says my old 4 core XEON will have to stagger on for a little longer and ECC memory is just something I prefer.

Cheerio John

If you have not read up how windows 10 uses memory to its advantage vs prior operating systems then I may suggest you do so...their are other processes that run in the background of a computer when using TANE or any other software, more memory allows your program as well as the others including those in the background to run more efficiently regardless....show me any article stating 8gb of ram is just as good as 16gb of ram in Windows 10. Please do.
 
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Who mentioned critical? I said that the HDD was now the weakest component in the system, and therefore the next candidate for upgrade. Whether OP sees that as critical and does it soon, or not so important and does it later, is up to them. But it will be the next thing to happen.

Why not consider an IPS monitor or an external hard drive for back up? I'd rate an external hard drive for back up fairly high on the wish list or even a UPS for that matter. They do tend to reduce the number of software errors.

Cheerio John
 
If you have not read up how windows 10 uses memory to its advantage vs prior operating systems then I may suggest you do so...their are other processes that run in the background of a computer when using TANE or any other software, more memory allows your program as well as the others including those in the background to run more efficiently regardless....show me any article stating 8gb of ram is just as good as 16gb of ram in Windows 10. Please do.

I accept that WIN 10 can make use of memory for caching etc. I have a 2 gig lap top that ran win 10 quite happily before I pushed the memory to 4 gigs. What I am saying is running with 12 gigs of memory and a GTX 980 I get much the same frame rates as those running 32 gigs of memory. 12 gigs I have a triple channel motherboard.

Using task manager at the same time as TANE is running in driver I can see driver in TANE is running in 750 mb of memory on a simple layout. You can play with perfmon as well to see how much memory it uses. A large complex layout may use more memory but you'll be pushing it to find one that takes TANE above 4 gigs. In my opinion if WIN 10 is happy running on a 4 gig machine and I have a few around with that amount I'm unable to see why going above 8 gigs would give any great gains in performance. Yes it caches a few more files but that isn't the end of the world. If you want to run a multitude of other programs than yes more memory helps but if you want the best performance out of the hardware available then I'd suggest running TANE under its own account that doesn't have as many background tasks ongoing. If you're running TANE do you really need to have 23 tabs open in Chrome?

Cheerio John
 
The point is simple...more memory more processes move efficiently which benefits the software you are using whether TANE, Photoshop or whatever.............freeing up resources is the bottom line not to mention that if you plan on gaming in higher resolutions especially 4k then 16GB ram will benefit you even more for the higher resolution...............pretty simple with one caveat that being your using Windows 10 in 64 bit mode vs. 32 so that would be more of a benefit. Not to the mention the fact of switching between modes in games such as surveyor mode in TANE for example or loads times for that matter................sheesh
 
show me any article stating 8gb of ram is just as good as 16gb of ram in Windows 10. Please do.

Here's a very interesting recent video clip from HardwareCanucks comparing the Gaming performance of 8Gb vs 16Gb vs 32Gb GDDR4 RAM. Runs for just 4 minutes and covers a few productivity applications (image & video rendering, etc.,) results as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytl2IUHU6pI

Of course, gaming is one thing, but other Productivity applications really DO show benefits of greater amounts of system RAM.

If you've got time, check out this video on exactly the same theme from Hardware Unboxed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0t4uLh2ZK04

I have 16Gb of system RAM on my current rig which is more than enough for any route or session I can throw at it in T:ANE. Maximum RAM I've seen in use (during normal session play) is about 12Gb (Ffestiniog session) with VRAM peaking out below 4Gb of the 8Gb available on my card. I DID see an improvement in overall responsiveness (but not FPS) in T:ANE when I upgraded my system RAM from 8Gb to 16Gb, but suspect there will be rapidly diminishing returns if I was to upgrade that further.

It's only when you are doing Extended Database Repairs, image editing and compute-intensive processing and/or considerable multitasking, that you begin to appreciate larger system memory availability/ overheads. And sometimes when things go wrong with buggy software, I've found. It can be the difference between completing a task and a blue screen of death, or excessive swapping to disk in virtual memory.
 
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I have 16Gb of system RAM on my current rig which is more than enough for any route or session I can throw at it in T:ANE. Maximum RAM I've seen in use (during normal session play) is about 12Gb (Ffestiniog session) with VRAM peaking out below 4Gb of the 8Gb available on my card. I DID see an improvement in overall responsiveness (but not FPS) in T:ANE when I upgraded my system RAM from 8Gb to 16Gb, but suspect there will be rapidly diminishing returns if I was to upgrade that further.

It's only when you are doing Extended Database Repairs, image editing and compute-intensive processing and/or considerable multitasking, that you begin to appreciate larger system memory availability/ overheads. And sometimes when things go wrong with buggy software, I've found. It can be the difference between completing a task and a blue screen of death, or excessive swapping to disk in virtual memory.

If you're just spending money then memory is somewhere to spend it on. If you're looking to ease bottlenecks and looking after the pennies then moving from 8 gigs to 16 gigs didn't improve the frames per second. If you feel that 4k is the way to go then I think you can expect to think in terms of 32 gigs of memory and the fastest GPU available.

I'm not arguing that SSDs and more memory will make TANE run more smoothly but I don't think they are essential. TANE will run on lesser machines and we need it to, if it is only to be sold to customers with a GTX1080ti, an i7, SSD and 32 gigs of memory then N3V's customer base is too small and they will fade away.

Cheerio John
 
Runs fine on my oldest PC, Phenom II X6 1090T, 8GB DDR3, GTX680 2GB DDR5, SSD for OS only TANE on a 500GB WD, it's a SATAII / IDE motherboard so initial loading takes a while. Frame rates are no different to when it had an SSD for TANE and 16GB DDR3.

Where the 16GB I have on my other PC's comes in handy is for the creation side of things such as running PSP, 3dsMax and Transdem and a few other creation related programs, I can run TANE to test things without having to shut anything else down. In fact by accident I managed to have two copies of TANE, different builds running at the same time in driver....... forgot I'd minimised one of them only found out when I closed one of them and saw the other one still in the task bar!
 
Hi everybody.
. I'm not arguing that SSDs and more memory will make TANE run more smoothly but I don't think they are essential. TANE will run on lesser machines and we need it to, if it is only to be sold to customers with a GTX1080ti, an i7, SSD and 32 gigs of memory then N3V's customer base is too small and they will fade away.

Cheerio John

John, I could not agree with your above posting more in regard to the very high end specs many PC games now require and the expenditure that places on it’s customer base. Full statistics are not available at this point in time for Q3 of the current financial year, but as Forbes reported in regard to Q2 and Q1 rising costs are now beginning to show an adverse affect on gaming revenue in both PC and mobile gaming. In the foregoing many smaller gaming developer’s could be facing much tougher times going forward if gaming revenues overall decline due to a reducing user base brought about by rising costs.

Many in the gaming industry seem to “shrug their shoulders” in regard to rising consumer costs and point to the dynamic rise in gaming sales overall in the last five years. However, a huge percentage of that increase has been by way of mobile with PC and console gaming increasing but at a slower rate. In the foregoing, mobile gaming has been hit hard by the rising cost of devices with tablet sales falling of a cliff. PC gaming sales are also now showing the first signs of decline but that is not to say that decline cannot be arrested given the correct coarse of actions.

Both Microsoft and Google are in the last few days being reported as opposing the hostile takeover of Qualcomm by Broadcom as both feel that such an acquisition would reduce competition and innovation in the IT industry. In that Microsoft and Google both realize that Qualcomm with it’s highly developed system on chip (soc) approach to IT technology is essential in their own continued development.

In the above, the latest released Qualcomm 845 processer is being incorporated into both Google Chromebooks with Android duel booting on board and a series of recently announced Windows 10 laptops. That is not to state that as yet Qualcomm have developed processers that are capable of powering high end gaming. However, there are those in the gaming industry and on this forum who need to “wake up” to the damage rising costs are doing, and cease talking as though the problem did not exist.

Not everyone has inexhaustible resources however much they may love their gaming
Bill
 
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I run 20gb of ram (2.46gb available under my xp boot), and I can say that i get a bit more outta all i run. I can run my MC server, T:ANE, Gmod (at the highest settings) and not experience any lag. T:ANE i've experienced very minimal lag on the newest settings that are higher then the last update.
 
I run 20gb of ram (2.46gb available under my xp boot), and I can say that i get a bit more outta all i run. I can run my MC server, T:ANE, Gmod (at the highest settings) and not experience any lag. T:ANE i've experienced very minimal lag on the newest settings that are higher then the last update.

If you are running multiple programs at the same time then more memory works very well. If you are only running TANE in driver mode then massive amounts of memory don't really make a big difference to what you see in TANE.

The comments are aimed more at if you have a modest amount of money to spend where should you spend it for the best result.

Cheerio John
 
if you have a modest amount of money to spend where should you spend it for the best result.
... and as always, the (T:ANE) answer almost unquestionably is - on a better graphics card.
 
Why not consider an IPS monitor or an external hard drive for back up? I'd rate an external hard drive for back up fairly high on the wish list or even a UPS for that matter. They do tend to reduce the number of software errors.
If you want to speculate about wish lists for additional components to create an ideal, unlimited budget system, then please start a new thread on that topic. It's not relevant to the present discussion.
 
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...I also have on order a laptop with an GTX1050Ti (and slower SATA3 SSD with i5), which I plan to use for testing sessions at the same time I'm working on the cosmetics of the route on the desktop. If I can I will post (in a separate thread) my thoughts on the differences between the two.


Phil
Just as a postscript, my new "gaming" laptop with 1050ti arrived today, and is running TANE as I type. After a bit of fiddling my preferred settings are as follow: 1920x1080 60 Hz, draw distance is set to 6km, anti-aliasing 4x, and all performance settings=high (but not ultra). With "vsynch=half" frame rates stay above 30 fps 99% of time on my route. Graphics quality is surprisingly good compared with my GTX 1070, and considering the 1050ti represents the current gaming value/entry point in NVIDIA cards. I would definitely recommend it for a budget TANEing setup.

Phil
 
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