New PC which Hard disc for TRS2019

I am a Mac user, but I have just taken delivery of a new PC dedicated to TRAINZ, as the Mac can’t get the best out of TRS2019.

I have installed 2019 on the new machine on to the C drive, which, from the distant past, I remembered was the main hard drive on PCs.

However, The new machine has a much smaller SSD, as well as a main disc labelled D. Going into the future Trainz will outgrow the SSD, and before putting a lot of work into transferring stuff from the Mac, I would very much appreciate some advice on how to play this.

1. Should I Completely reinstall TRS2019 on the D drive, and delete the firs installation from the SSD
2. Can I store the data on the D drive, and leave the current installation on the SSD C drive, and if so, what is the best way to do that (I am not proficient with PCs)

Thank you for any help.

Best wishes
Ian

Ian - Yes, in the case you've outlined with a smaller SSD for the boot drive C:, it is probably a good idea to consider shifting your Local Data Folder (usually known as your 'Userdata' folder) over to the larger Hard Disk Drive (HDD) D:.
There will be a small penalty associated with disk access times and greater latency with the Userdata files residing on a slower disk, but that's better than the prospect of having a completely full SSD boot drive eventually and all the troubles that would bring.

Suggest create a new, empty directory on your D: drive and call it simply "Userdata". (Alternatively, you could make that a subdirectory of D:\TRS19, so that the actual path would read D:\TRS19\Userdata).

Then COPY all of your TRS19 data files and folders from their current (probably hidden) location on C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\N3V Games\ over to D:\Userdata.
(To get the exact path to your local user data folders and files, look at the path shown in your Install tab in Launcher's Trainz Settings menu).
You might need to get Windows File Manager to Show Hidden Files.

Leave the main program files on your SSD boot drive. They won't grow too much in size over time, unlike your Userdata folders.

Once your Userdata folders are all safely copied over to D:\Userdata, then go to the Trainz Settings Install tab again and point your program to the new location for your 'Local Data Folder' by browsing to the new location and setting the path in the text entry box. (If, after testing this thoroughly, and all is working well, feel free to delete the original Userdata files on C: to free up the space).

Welcome to the brave, wild new world of PC computing!
If you get stuck, there are many of us here who will be delighted to help out and demystify some of the issues you're bound to encounter as a relative 'newbie' to Windows OS and PC gaming.
Remember, there's no such thing as a dumb question. (Just the occasional dumb answer!)
PC.

How big is your SSD? How much space are you currently using for your Trainz data folder? I have installed Trainz (program and data) on my 256G SSD C: drive. Trainz definitely runs better that way (less 'lag'). But I am quite selective about what I download and keep. And my PC is dedicated #1 to Trainz, as is yours. I push everything else I can (apart from Trainz) to D:. So the size of my Trainz data folder is not a huge issue. If you have already chosen D: as your data drive for Trainz you can move it back to the SSD, and point Trainz at that drive by updating the path in Settings (Local Data Folder). On the other hand, if everything is already on C:, then I would suggest you go with it. You can always move the data folder to D: later if you are running out of space.

Edit. Seems PC_Ace and I have a different approach . Try mine first for optimum performance. Go with PC_ACE if you have a LOT of Trainz data.

Actually, I'm with Phil on this one if your SSD is not as small as I imagined. (I was thinking 60 to 128Gb disks, which would definitely be problematic).
You could probably get away with leaving the entire installation on C: drive for as long as possible until the point where you have less than 30Gb of spare SSD drive space.
Trainz performs much better when both program files and the data files are on fast SSDs. Indeed, many of us dedicate separate SSDs to each installation of Trainz that we maintain.
SSDs perform badly when they fill up and wear out faster if left in that state too long.

Hello... Another Mac user here. I'm in the middle of my first PC build. I have everything but my motherboard is "still out of stock - will ship any day." urgghhh! To keep costs low for now I went with a 240gb SSD and a pre-owned 1060-6 graphics card.

Just wondering what specs on your PC are and I'd be interested in your impressions from running on Mac vs PC once you get up and running.

I am a also a Mac discliple, but I am ready to go beyond running this program on low to medium settings with my AMD FirePro D700 6GB video card. I also seem to load up my CPU when I run too many trains on a route.

I want to look into a gaming PC. I would like to keep my Mac for things like email, photos, iTunes, and web surfing so the PC would be strictly for video intensive games. I would like to comfortably run multiple trains on complicated routes with max slider settings and recognize that will come at a price. However, I don’t want to spend silly money on overkill.

So, it seems to make sense to pay up for the GTX 1080 Ti video card. What about an i7 processor?

I have some questions about memory.

Should I care about 2666 MHZ vs 2933 vs 3200? Is more gb at 2666 better than less at higher frequency?

For the hard drive, should I get solid state or disc or a combination? If I get a combination, I already have some good advice from this thread.

Thanks for helping out this PC newbie!

Here's a very helpful site. You can "build" a PC and check parts compatibility and prices.
https://pcpartpicker.com

Frimbo - You can learn a lot about the relative performance in T:ANE or TRS19 of many PC components by reviewing the UserBenchMarks reports thread in this forum here:

https://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?131841-Benchmarking-your-PC-let-s-see-what-you-got!

Regarding using a GTX 1080Ti and an i7 8700K with fast RAM and PCIe SSD, look at the benchmarks I achieved recently with my second gaming rig:

Some results from a Userbenchmarks 'UFO Class' system I put together recently, which runs TRS2019 superbly and without breaking a sweat:

UserBenchmarks: Game 141%, Desk 156%, Work 138%
CPU: Intel Core i7-8700K - 110.9%
GPU: Nvidia GTX 1080-Ti - 168.9%
SSD: Samsung 970 Evo NVMe PCIe M.2 1TB - 323.4%
RAM: G.SKILL Trident Z RGB DDR4 3200 C16 2x8GB - 97.7%
MBD: Asus ROG STRIX Z370-E GAMING

This machine allows me to run T:ANE SP3 HF1 (Beta) and TRS2019 Build 96720 (Beta) smoothly with all the stops out/ no compromises.​

Click to expand...

Faster RAM allows for higher clocks and quicker IPC/ I/O. The above benchmarks were achieved upon 'first light', i.e. when the system was booted up for the first time, at default GPU and CPU clocks without any overclocking performed.
In most use-cases, however, you'd be hard-picked to tell the difference between memory clocked at 2666MHz vs 3200MHz.
Suggest go for what is affordable and plentiful, rather than exotic, expensive and rare.

Thanks for the help. Just to start pricing things out, I went to the Dell Alienware site. For a new Aurora, here are the pricing options for memory:





Which of these upgrades is worth the money? Which are overkill in terms of running Trainz maxed out?

Here are the hard drive options. Any opinions on these?



It is all very new to this lifelong Mac addict! Thanks to everyone for looking this over and posting an opinion!

Thank you for the quick and very informative responses. I now feel much happier about the situation.
My C drive SSD is 240Gb., and is currently showing over 90Gb free, so I am leaning slightly towards the “leave it there for now approach” now that you have confirmed the possibility to switch the Data to D drive later if necessary. I just need to work out how much more of the space I will fill short term - starting by NOT installing a lot of the built in routes which I will never use.

T o you fellow Mac users, I would say that seeing Kickstarter, and Cornish on the new PC was a revelation in terms of performance. It was smooth with virtually everything on maximum, and will make for some really pleasurable operating once I have set the environment up properly. The PC has a 6core i5 processor, 9600K, 3.7GHz: , 16Gb DDR4 Vengeance RAM, and the Graphics processor is GeForce RTX2080. I was advised by the builders that for my purpose The i5 processor was better value for money than the i7 one I originally looked at, and they were able to demonstrate this and back it up with numbers, ans saved me some cash to boot, so no regrets there.

Notwithstanding the above, the new machine is TRAINZ only - I will never change from the iMacfor everything else I do.

Thanks again for all the input.

Best wishes
Ian

Congrats Ian, sounds like a great result.

Quote "I will never change from the iMac for everything else I do". My response.... don't give up, just try a bit harder .

Cheers, Phil, but please don’t hold your breath waiting for me to start trying!
Best wishes
Ian

IanOHoseason said:

Cheers, Phil, but please don’t hold your breath waiting for me to start trying!
Best wishes
Ian

Click to expand...

:Y: Makes me happy...