help me build a trainz super computer

placer_railway

PORTLAND & WESTERN
hello

i have been gone awhile because my old super puter died in june with all my 2/3 complete DURANGO & SILVERTON SUPERDETAILED DEM ROUTE content inside it can be saved (transfered) but i now have the funds to build a really powerful system so what should i get?
BUDGET 3,000 - 4,000
THINK THE BEST!
THINK OVERKILL
THINK BEST FRAME RATES POSSIBLE
whats the best power supply?
what is the best processor?
whats the most ram?
whats the best new video card?
what else is needed for "CLASSIC"?
HELP ME PLEASE
long lost john
 
Last edited:
I'm using Newegg ;) You want Intel 32bit dual-core or AMD 64 bit dual-core? I don't think Trainz supports 64 bit, but I'm an AMD fan anyway:cool:

Tim
 
Intel is 64bit now too. Go for 64 bit if at all possible, get a 64bit operating system - I'd recommend Ubuntu, it runs Trainz decently (faster than Windows itself!) under WINE.
 
Give us your budget please.

If money is no object, I'd recommend a $17,552.77 Falcon Northwest Mach V gaming box.

But you could get a decent car (or an old CV coach) for that price, so I'm not sure it's worth it.

I was able to bump it up to $23,565.11. :cool: Who the heck would want to pay that kind of price? That's just stupid. If you're willing to pay that much for a computer, go for something more logical, like a Yaris or something. :eek:

And placer_railway, here's a good motherboard I'd reccomend:http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16813186134
 
Intel Core 2 Quad...five stars on Newegg...now for a mobo to go with that!
Here is a motherboard...however it is a pain with WinXP and not very upgradeable...one guy actually fried two WD HDs with it...Another similar Mobo wasn't much better...one guy said the only pro was that it didn't give you diarrhea...

Ok...I've decided to look at AMD motherboards for you...
Here and here.

They are both socket AM2s, so they support good AMD Athlon FX procs.

Here is the page for Socket AM2 procs. You can browse and see what you want...
For RAM, I would recommend a couple of packages of Wintec 2 X 1GB sticks, as the $200 Asus board supports four of them...You could also use the same number of 2GB sticks...8GBs of RAM never hurt!
 
HEY DAVE

DMDRAKE
nice to see your still here
i finally got a little laptop to get back online
now i can get my puter back up to speed
i have missed trs2006 and this forum alot
it is nice that i have not been forgotten
so as soon as puter is ready i will start banging away
on the DURANGO & SILVERTON ( I SWEAR IT WILL GET FINISHED)

THANKS JOHN
 
Very nice! D&SNG-somewhat a sister railroad to the C&TS version that I'm working on! Glad to see someone shares my insanity
 
hello

i have been gone awhile because my old super puter died in june with all my 2/3 complete DURANGO & SILVERTON SUPERDETAILED DEM ROUTE content inside it can be saved (transfered) but i now have the funds to build a really powerful system so what should i get?
BUDGET 3,000 - 4,000
THINK THE BEST!
THINK OVERKILL
THINK BEST FRAME RATES POSSIBLE
whats the best power supply?
what is the best processor?
whats the most ram?
whats the best new video card?
what else is needed for "CLASSIC"?
HELP ME PLEASE
long lost john

Do nothing for a month or so. Intel are about to release their 45 nm cpus which run cooler and faster than anything available at the moment.

Also nVidia appear to be about to release some high end video cards if nothing else the 8800 GT will become more wide spreadly available.

Basically Intel cpu, nVidia graphics card, ASUS motherboard, possibly an Antec case and power supply.

www.tomshardware.com for more background.

Cheerio John
 
Give us your budget please.

If money is no object, I'd recommend a $17,552.77 Falcon Northwest Mach V gaming box.

If it is, get a second job :hehe:

Any medium price computer will suffice, provided the video hardware is sufficient to support the graphics. I'm running TRS2004 on an ancient Compaq Presario SR1012SX with a 64M GeForce4-MX wuth good results.
 
The problem is, right after they are released, they're gonna release something even cooler right after that (kidding). :p


I can also just build an all-out monster machine if you want. :eek:

The move to 45 nm is much more fundamental than that. It's a fairly large step that happens about every two years.

Cheerio John
 
The problem is, right after they are released, they're gonna release something even cooler right after that (kidding). :p

Well, I went ahead and slapped together a general use computer. Tell me what you think placer_railway.
Motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16813186134

Video: 2 orders of http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16814125081

Memory: 2 orders of http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16820220293

Audio: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16829132005

Processor: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16819115017

TV: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16815100014

Hard drives: Get 4 of these. Trust me, 300GB is more than enough. Once done, put in 0+1 RAID. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136011

For overclocking the CPU, you'll need to toss the stock Intel cooling unit, and buy a better one. Here's a very good one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118019

Here's the RAID controller card. Plug your drives into this, not the motherboard. With 4 drives, you can have both stripping and mirroring, faster performance and more reliability. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816129011

A physics card? Most stuff now doesn't use them, but this just "future proofs" you even more. There are already some apps that can use a physics card, and the amount is slowly expanding. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814143055

Here's the PSU. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817194020


You should pick the media drives and the case out yourself, because the look, feel, and what you need is up to you. :)

I can also just build an all-out monster machine if you want. :eek:

Motherboard tier three company, either use Intel or ASUS for better Windows drivers and updates.

Video card SLI as I understand it needs the game to be able to use it otherwise it doesn't buy anything. As far as I know there are no special drivers for Trainz. You have however just raised the power supply and cooling requirements.

Processor as far as I am aware Trainz runs on a single core so the advantage of quad cores would be three cores adding extra heat? The program needs to be rewritten to use multiple cores. A dual core would let Traniz run on one and the operating system on the other.

Hard drive Trainz doesn't bottleneck on hard drives so why have four expensive ones instead of one or two more normal drives when Trainz can't tell the difference?

Overclocking yes it can be done but there are stability issues and heat issues with four core. Dual cores over clock better and the new 45 nm cpus over clock even better if you are into over clocking.

A physics card isn't used by Trainz so it would just add to the heat inside which makes the machine more unstable.

Case recommendation is a bit loose especially as with all the things you've put in it it's going to need a lot of cooling. I'd actually go and dig at tomshardware on cases. An Antec P190 might fit the bill here with the rest of what you are recommending.

You haven't mentioned an operating system choice by the way. TC is being run under Wine , XP 64 bit XP, vista, 64 bit vista.

Cheerio John
 
OVERWHELMING

thank you all
all this tech spec info is awesome
i have not had to build up a puter before
so i am having a crash course in all this new techno goodies
dual core over clocking raid 0+1
it is taking me alittle while to catch up
but thank you all for your help and keep
the info coming
 
hello

i have been gone awhile because my old super puter died in june with all my 2/3 complete DURANGO & SILVERTON SUPERDETAILED DEM ROUTE content inside it can be saved (transfered) but i now have the funds to build a really powerful system so what should i get?
BUDGET 3,000 - 4,000
THINK THE BEST!
THINK OVERKILL
THINK BEST FRAME RATES POSSIBLE
whats the best power supply?
what is the best processor?
whats the most ram?
whats the best new video card?
what else is needed for "CLASSIC"?
HELP ME PLEASE
long lost john

Let's start with the basics. If a computer runs too hot then the failure rate goes up, this is generic any sort of game console, computer, Unix server etc. Most off the shelf computers are designed to keep the system cool enough when the cpu runs about 5% utilisation. If you are word processing, web browsing etc. that's about what you use on average. Trainz will run one core at 100% cpu utilisation. The cpu will run much hotter than normal usage.

If you look at the cooler reviews at tomshardware you can see the temperature difference at different cpu utilisation.

So the optimum Trainz computer is one that has components that Trainz can make use of but no more since anything extra means more heat inside the case and lower reliability.

Computers like to be fed clean power, put an APC UPS in between the power socket and the computer.

Some bright spark sat down and looked at what you see when you look at a screen for HDTV. The idea was to show as much as possible that the eyes could register but to keep the processing and bandwidths down by eliminating unimportant bits of the screen. They spent a lot of time and money working out that 16:9 is the optimum shape. So wide screen is better. 1440 by 900 on an LCD screen at 60 hz needs roughly 16% more resources than 1024 by 768 by 75hz so a good 2ms lcd screen makes sense. SAMSUNG do a reasonable 19 inch one 906BW . 2ms is the sort of refresh rate, manufactures can be very creative when measuring this 2ms is very good, 25 ms is very bad for Trainz but fine for word processing. Stick to major brand names in monitors, even HP and the reviewers end up with different numbers one HP monitor came up as 15-25 ms when measured. There are only about three major LCD manufacturers, Samsung and I think LG are two, practically every one else is a relabel so read more expensive.

If you increase the screen size above 1440 by 900 accept your frames per second will decrease.

Trainz can use a maximum of 2 gigs of memory, 32 bit XP can use roughly 2.7 gigs of memory, anything else is wasted, the addresses are used for other hardware bits so 3 gigs memory is good. XP will hide in the memory above the 2 gig mark. These days most memory modules are 1 gig so you may end up with 4 gigs.

Having said that there is a way that a new version of Trainz could access 4 gigs of memory under Vista 64 bit in the future so a motherboard that can be expanded to 8 gigs might be sensible.

The way that the chips are made makes a difference. The closer the components are the shorter the distance the electrons have to travel. So in general 45 nm fabrication is better than 90 nm fabrication. It's trickier to build but will give off less heat (the limiting factor on all computers) so it can have a higher refresh rate. You can get more cpus out of the same silicon wafer as well so its cheaper to make as well.

AMD made some good designs but the dual core and the new 45 nm cpus from Intel run cooler and faster, see Tomshardware .com. Here you have to make some guesses but a good motherboard that takes a dual today will probably take a quad in the future should Trainz start to run on more than one core. 45 nm parts should be more easily overclocked if you wish to go this route. Look for specialist gaming boards with extra cooling on the northbridge etc its not only the cpu that gets hotter when you over clock.

Technically DDR3 main memory can be faster than DDR2. This is very new and at the moment much more expensive than DDR2. You will need to look closely at the benefits and costs here at the moment.

On video memory Maddy came up with a figure of 700 mb in textures for one scene, for optimum performance 700 mb of memory would be nice. ATI's new cards are built on 55 nm as against 65 nm for the nVidea cards so they run cooler however the nVidia cards are faster at the moment. nVidia have just released the 8800 GT with 512 mb of memory, look for a new card from them with more memory shortly.

The case will be important, cooling is important, overclocking means more heat so more noise for cooling fans. Quiet cases that cool well are not the cheapest, many come with a very reasonable power supply built in.

That should be enough to think about for the moment.

Note nVidia in expected to bring out a new video card with more the 512 mb of memory and Intel is about to announce their new 45 nm cpus. Buying this week will get you lower performance products.

Cheerio John
 
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