Is This The Right PC for Railworks?

[CSX2057]

You got a good system however i dont recommend the onboard graphics card which will cause the simulator choppy. My suggestion to get a nvidia 550ti or higher with 600watts power supply. That should get you going.

I have all graphics to the highest except shadow to medium or low cause that kills fps using tsx.

[arizonachris]

If that Intel HD4000 graphics is onboard graphics, RW may run but not with TSX on or high settings. I presume this is your "dream" PC and not your laptop? Laptops usually can't be upgraded with a better video "card" whereas a desktop can easily be fitted with a nice video card. (may need a higher wattage PSU along with that nicer video card) Everything else looks OK. I'm not a fan of Win 8, but some folks seem to like it and TS2013 runs just fine on it. TS2014 isn't out yet so we really don't know what it will need as far as running gear. Everyone's hoping that TS2014 will actually be less demanding than TS2013.

(Oops, ninja post from Daniel)

[buzz456]

Thanks for the feedback! I chose a desktop computer than a laptop because I know how a laptop can get with my gaming. As for the video card, I will put research into it soon. \

GTX650Ti. You'll never look back. If that's too pricey for you the 550 also works pretty good, no very good.

[arizonachris]

Ummm, GXT550Ti is a little weak, 560Ti is lots better. Or, if you can find one, the GTX670 really rocks! I can throw any game at my EVGA GTX670 2Gb with everything on high and the card doesn't even flinch.

[buzz456]

Ummm, GXT550Ti is a little weak, 560Ti is lots better. Or, if you can find one, the GTX670 really rocks! I can throw any game at my EVGA GTX670 2Gb with everything on high and the card doesn't even flinch.

If you have enough money.

[buzz456]

I might go for the GTX550Ti or the GTX560Ti, I'll see when I get the computer (in December)

Take a good look at the 650 before you make a decision. I have two screens and can run RW wide open pretty much in windows mode and still do my repainting with all the gobblygook entailed with that open on the other monitor and RW just hums along without a stutter. I have the 2 gig version by the way.

[CSX2057]

Yes 550ti is weak due to antanlaising, can't eveb spell that!!

But im running everything else on high to highest. I even run bf3 on high. 550Ti is still a good graphics card. But its up to you

[arizonachris]

GT640M is a mobile video card, even with 2Gb dedicated RAM, it's not gonna give you the best results for RW, probably not TSX or high settings. This must be in a laptop you are looking at now?

[DapperDan]

Hi All,

First let me apologize, as my intentions aren't to hijack the OPs thread, but I'm also in a bit of a quandary regarding the purchase of a new computer and as I'm not a computer whiz your help would be greatly appreciated. If I have everything correct these are the specs of my current computer.

MB - Asus F1A55-M LX Plus with onboard Radeon HD 6410D graphics
CPU - AMD A4-3300 2.5Ghz

My first question is, can I disable the onboard graphics and add a better card, and even if I can, would it be worth it.

If I can't, then this is what a local computer store is recommending I consider purchasing and believe it or not, the wife's OK with this.

MB - Intel DZ77GA-70K
CPU - Intel Quad Core i7 3770 3.4Ghz 8MB cache
GPU - ATI Sapphire HD7850 2GB DDR5

If I have to go this route, instead of the HD7850 card I've been looking at the latest GTX760 NVidia card. There's a number of them out there but I'm leaning towards the following.

MSI Gaming N70 TF 4GD/OC GeForce GTX760 4GB 256bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0

Your thoughts and suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Doug

[artimrj]

Yes you have to turn off the onboard video to add a new card. You also have to make sure you have room, slots and enough power for the new video card.

[arizonachris]

Hi, Doug, ! I like the PC that your local computer store recommends. That MSI card is a fantastic card, so I have read anyways. How much RAM and what version of windows are you planning on? Or just move existing stuff over from your current PC?

[DapperDan]

Thanks for the quick response guys.

Bob - I have enough room (the card is 10-1/4" in length). Not sure if my current PSU has enough power. It's a 500W Cooler Master Extreme with two 12V rails rated at 18A each and the MSI card says it requires 170W, and if I figured that out correctly, a little over 14A. I'm currently reading the MB manual for my computer and it looks like I can disable the onboard video through the BIOS. It has a section that refers to Primary Video Device (PCIE/PCI). The one thing I'm not certain on is the MB has two PCI express 2.0 slots and the MSI card says it requires PCI Express 3.0

Chris - If I can't use my current computer with the MSI card per above then I guess I'll have to consider the new computer. It comes with 8GB ram, 1TB HD, LG DVD-RW and a 600W PSU which I didn't think of asking what the exact specs were on it. I currently have W7 Home Premium and would go with the same in this computer. Ideally what I would like to do is just migrate my current W7 HD over to this computer, but I know potentially this could open up a whole new set of problems (I've already gone through the slipstreaming thing etc. with XP). If the above would work then it's about $900.00 less then having to go with a new computer. After 43 years together I've learned that even though the boss says it's OK, there's always some sort of payback required and I'm not told what that might be.

Narada, I hope I haven't offended you as my intention wasn't to take over your OP.

Doug

P.S. Has anyone contacted RSC and asked them what they're using in their machines.

[buzz456]

Two things. First there is no problem running a 3.0 card in a 2.0 slot. You will probably never see any difference. Second just checking, you are running the 64 bit win7 right? It's way better for a lot of reasons.

[arizonachris]

You should be able to run that GTX760 in your current PC, but that 500 watt PSU is on the edge. remember, whatever the card draws has to be added to what the CPU, drives, RAM and cooling fans draw. 600 watts is better. Your current CPU, the A4-3300 is a little slow. Asus' CPU support list here: http://support.asus.com/cpusupport/cpu_ ... 0LX%20PLUS shows the fastest you can go with that small board is 3.0Ghz. so you could grab a new CPU and with the new video card, may be a lot better than what you have now and cheaper than the new PC. I presume you have win 7 64 bit and at least 8Gb of RAM already?

Swapping your existing hard drive into a new PC is fine, but you may have to install board drivers for the new board. After it's all up and running, you can get rid of old drivers if needed.

[DapperDan]

Thanks for all the help and suggestions guys, I really appreciate it.

Sorry, forgot to mention that my W7 Home Premium is 64bit and I only have 4GB ram.

Chris, after thinking about your comments I'm tending to lean towards just going ahead and purchasing the new computer once I confirm what the specs are on the PSU and adding the MSI card to it. My reasoning (I can talk myself into just about anything) is that if I start tinkering with my current computer by getting a better PSU, adding more RAM, plus the purchase of the MSI GPU and I'm not happy with it, I've just wasted time and money and would have a tougher time talking the boss into letting me purchase the new computer. I've actually looked into possibly building a new computer, but after pricing everything up I found it wasn't much cheaper then buying the computer from the local store. This way I can give my current computer to the wife (she has a 6+ year old Dell running XP).

Now I've got to start doing some searches and reading up on the headaches involved with trying to migrate the W7 HD to the new computer cause I just hate the thought of having to do fresh installs of W7 and all my other software and data and then after that spending days trying to tweak everything.

Oh, and just so you all know, I'll be letting the wife know that you talked me into this (names will be included).

Doug