raymac46 Posted August 8, 2013 Share Posted August 8, 2013 (edited) I've had my business grade Acer Veriton desktop for a year or so now and I have been happy with its build quality and fine components. It has a Sandy Bridge i5, nice 1 TB HDD, and a solid Acer designed motherboard. Its only problems were a wimpy power supply and rather pathetic Intel HD2000 video. I added some memory and an Nvidia GT520 graphics card and I was very happy until I got a free copy of Train Simulator 2013 earlier this year. TS 2013 is not a state of the art DX11 game but it does need some graphics muscle to appear at its best. Its requirements simply overwhelmed my basic little GT520 card. I had to switch off most of the cool effects like rain, shadows and headlights to get a playable frame rate. Believe me, running a train at night without headlights is not something I'd want to do outside the virtual universe. Even with the TSX effects off I still got frame rates of 15-20 fps at times. This was like watching a 1918 silent film. Jerk city, here we come. So this past weekend I decided enough was enough. After a trip to my local Canada Computers store, I came home with a robust Cooler Master Gold power supply and an ASUS GTX650 TiBoost card. Then I had an afternoon of unscrewing, unplugging, card removal, re-screwing, snaking cables, plugging, card installation, more plugging and finally driver installation. At the end of the day I now have a very impressive system that brought back all the missing effects, gives almost photo realism, and a frame rate around 60-70 fps. Train driving is now a pleasure. This is one of the major reasons I will always want a desktop around. You can't beat the power, big screen, longevity, ease of upgrade a desktop system offers. Also I think if I need a new desktop I'm going to build my own next time. Edited August 9, 2013 by raymac46 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted August 8, 2013 Share Posted August 8, 2013 Man that is a huge 1GB HDD 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted August 9, 2013 Author Share Posted August 9, 2013 Edited. Obviously 1000 GB. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest LilBambi Posted August 9, 2013 Share Posted August 9, 2013 I've had my business grade Acer Veriton desktop for a year or so now and I have been happy with its build quality and fine components. It has a Sandy Bridge i5, nice 1 TB HDD, and a solid Acer designed motherboard. Its only problems were a wimpy power supply and rather pathetic Intel HD2000 video. I added some memory and an Nvidia GT520 graphics card and I was very happy until I got a free copy of Train Simulator 2013 earlier this year. TS 2013 is not a state of the art DX11 game but it does need some graphics muscle to appear at its best. Its requirements simply overwhelmed my basic little GT520 card. I had to switch off most of the cool effects like rain, shadows and headlights to get a playable frame rate. Believe me, running a train at night without headlights is not something I'd want to do outside the virtual universe. Even with the TSX effects off I still got frame rates of 15-20 fps at times. This was like watching a 1918 silent film. Jerk city, here we come. So this past weekend I decided enough was enough. After a trip to my local Canada Computers store, I came home with a robust Cooler Master Gold power supply and an ASUS GTX650 TiBoost card. Then I had an afternoon of unscrewing, unplugging, card removal, re-screwing, snaking cables, plugging, card installation, more plugging and finally driver installation. At the end of the day I now have a very impressive system that brought back all the missing effects, gives almost photo realism, and a frame rate around 60-70 fps. Train driving is now a pleasure. This is one of the major reasons I will always want a desktop around. You can't beat the power, big screen, longevity, ease of upgrade a desktop system offers. Also I think if I need a new desktop I'm going to build my own next time. Now that's gotta be much more fun to play games on! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted August 9, 2013 Author Share Posted August 9, 2013 Well I'm a long way from being a gamer but I like the train sim. You wouldn't think a train sim would need a lot of muscle but if you want to run at 1920X1080, have some cool effects and decent frame rates you are going to need at least a GT630. So I have futureproofed myself a bit. What really slows things down is if you are running a steam locomotive with lots of smoke (it takes some graphics horsepower to render a bunch of particles) or if you are going through the train yards with a collection of AI rolling stock sitting around or passing by. The basic game engine is only DX9 technology. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest LilBambi Posted August 9, 2013 Share Posted August 9, 2013 Yep, smoke, mist, rain, etc. really take their toll on resources. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted August 9, 2013 Share Posted August 9, 2013 Edited. Obviously 1000 GB. Yeah I know... I was kidding ya. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amenditman Posted August 10, 2013 Share Posted August 10, 2013 Yep, smoke, mist, rain, etc. really take their toll on resources. Yes, I had to set my son's minecraft game up to stay clear weather because it lagged so bad when it would rain or snow you couldn't play. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunrat Posted August 16, 2013 Share Posted August 16, 2013 Temmu, sounds like you need Grand Theft Auto 4. There is a great train destruction mission in it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted August 17, 2013 Author Share Posted August 17, 2013 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SB__QR70UoM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest LilBambi Posted August 21, 2013 Share Posted August 21, 2013 Well, could just play Plantz vs Zombies 2! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunrat Posted August 24, 2013 Share Posted August 24, 2013 well... did i miss the zombies? o! i get it! the guy driving the train was a zombie?! he certainly didn't know anything about train driving (neither do i, of course...) It's a 5 part series of videos. Maybe the the zombies are in a later episode. I didn't watch past ep.1. And I think he was just messing with us - he knew exactly how to drive that train! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted August 25, 2013 Author Share Posted August 25, 2013 (edited) You have to be a real train nut to get serious about train sims. They have their own challenges, although non stop action isn't part of it. In fact some scenarios like crossing the Rockies in a long diesel freight are like watching paint dry. You put the throttle to max and tool along at 25 mph or less. You can get a feel for what it's like to be in the cab of an antique steam engine, a 1950s diesel, or a modern electric locomotive - and many others. The scenery is quite spectacular. Driving a steam loco is a serious job, and even if you let the computer fire the engine and look after the water it's tricky just starting and stopping the thing. Diesels and electrics are easier but many of these are used on high speed runs where you need to meet a tight passenger schedule or - fail. Other jobs include shunting cars around a yard and you need to be careful not to bash into them too hard. You also have to set the points and paths to move around a freight yard which has dozens of tracks and scores of switches. The sim gives a pretty good HUD which combines controls and info. You wouldn't get that in real life, so if you want to switch it off and go native you can. You are not confined to the cab so you can station yourself trackside and watch the train go by or fly above the train as you wish. Some of these external views are handy for locating yourself in the scene. Then again a real life engineer won't have a helicopter view of his train. So you can play as a real engineer or as a lofty supervisor. Your choice. Edited August 25, 2013 by raymac46 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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