Hi guys. I'm kinda new to using a PC for gaming these days (I did play games back in the day on Win XP). I'm looking for a decent(ish) PC that will run with good graphics, sound etc to run TS21 and a few other games. I don't want a hyper expensive gaming set-up that will cost me thousands as it won't be used as often as my console gaming systems. I'm in the UK and want something good enough to run games at a decent frame rate (will be coupled to a 4k TV) but cannot afford a fortune. I currently have an Acer Nitro V gaming laptop but it's a few years old now so want something better. I've heard bad reviews of PC specialist PC builds so am looking to the community for ideas. Any help would be fantastic. Thanks.
Depending on what those other games are you may be well advised to buy a system with them in mind and leave TS to look after itself. It's based on a venerable game engine which doesn't make good use of current hardware (it will only use a couple of CPU cores for instance) but it's also relatively undemanding so a machine that will run newer games well should make a decent job of running TS. You might be able to tailor a system to suit TS better (perhaps use a CPU with a higher clock speed but fewer cores) but you'd be holding other software back for what would probably be little appreciable improvement in one older game. Does that mean you want to run at 4K? It'll make a difference- mainly when it comes to the GPU I would say. FYI I'm happy with the system I got a couple of years ago from CCL for just over £1,000 which included a nice QHD monitor. We started discussions with one of their standard spec' machines as a basis and I found them very open to changing things to suit my wishes (big second drive for video, quiet case, no RGB because I'm not seven years old). Standard disclaimer. I had TS on a second hand i5 laptop (not sure how old but Windows 7 vintage) with a fairly basic Radeon GPU. Sure I had to dial down most of the graphics settings but it ran very acceptably and, if it hadn't broken down, I'd still be using it very happily.
If you want a good guide to getting the most out of TS, I'd recommend this: https://forums.dovetailgames.com/th...-max-performance-and-visual-quality-4k.18396/ You don't necessarily need all the enhancement software, but the specifications are solid.
Ok, so I would want a system that can run 4k or at least HDR. The tv I currently use as a monitor (49" 4k Sony Bravia) has HDR and my laptop recognises that it has HDR so I use it as a second screen (set to primary for steam and games). TS runs ok but as my laptop is also used for general purpose (browsing, YouTube, music and video) it stutters a lot. I'd be using it for TS and FS games and possibly some XBox games like Forza. current specs: Acer Nitro V Windows 10 home 64bit AMD Ryzen 5 2500U with Radeon Vega gfx 2GHz 8GB RAM (6.9GB useable) 128GB SSD (59.6GB free) 1TB HDD (643GB free) I've heard of CCL actually as they're based not too far away from me. When I was at college 20 years ago doing IT courses, we used to spec PCs using CCL custom builds as guides for pricing. For now I could hold off buying one as I only use the laptop for TS as I mainly play games on PS4/PS5. I was just looking at possibilities for when I finally set my den/man cave up in the next few months or so. I used to be up on system specs back in the day but now tech has moved on I'm not that tech savvy.
As is always the case... if you want useful advice... what is your budget? You say you don't want bleeding edge, but that still leaves a lot of guess room. £500? £800? £1200? Each system I could spec for those budgets would be hugely different machines with very different levels of performance. If you can give me a number, I (and others) can give you very specific advice. Also... what games apart from TS do you play, and what other uses do you have for the machine? You also weren't very clear on whether you wanted another laptop or not. You also appear to want to game at 4K... so £500 is probably out of he equation... and 800 is pushing it a bit.
Also... depending on what you need, now is a REALLY bad time to be buying new PC parts... especially graphics cards.
It's not that old then. Vega is AMD's integrated graphics which is not ideal- as you can see it uses system RAM reducing the still adequate amount (for TS- all comments here relate to TS) available and has the CPU effectively competing with itself for memory access. It's better than Intel's integrated solution though so the weakest part of a pretty good system (apart from it being Acer but I'll not get started down that path). Does HDR need support from the software? If so I think you might as well whistle for it in TS. As long as you're not trying to do everything at once what else you use a system for really shouldn't make much difference. What do you mean by stuttering a lot- constantly to some extent or every so often but quite noticeably? The latter is likely to be tile stutter- now and then as you drive along TS has to load in the next stretch of scenery and it's not very clever about it (old game engine). Faster storage will help but you're not going to eliminate it entirely. Is TS running at 4K? Could you run it at HD with the telly upscaling the picture? Having a quarter of the number of pixels to create ought to make things run more smoothly making up for the difference in picture quality unless you sit with your nose pressed against the screen. The frame rate is going to vary no matter what. I started with TS running on an i3 laptop using the HD graphics and, depending on the circumstances, it could be quite acceptable or hopeless. Pottering around the countryside in the Weardale and Teesdale was always fun but arrive at a busy Darlington and everything slowed down. (Never installed Portsmouth Direct on that laptop- Waterloo would have made it cry) If a system will handle the rest of that TS will be fine. It's never the right time to buy new hardware because there's always the next big thing coming along but, as I'm sure you're aware, there are other factors makings things somewhat vexatious at the moment (there's my nomination for this year's Litotes awards). If you can make do for a while that's not a bad option.
Thanks for the input so far guys. The budget would be a max of £1000 and it wouldn't matter if it was laptop or tower unit. I know laptops can have issues when it comes to upgrading items, especially as they seem to make them difficult to dismantle these days (all sealed units whereas before there were hatches for upgrading ram, HDD etc). Afaik, TS won't run at 4k because it is an old game but newer releases such as Forza 7/Horizons 4 etc can and will run in 4k. As for HDR, idk if it actually works through the laptop (it does when used as a tv only). The tv doesn't upscale everything to 4k/HDR as it is an older model (my newer 4K Bravia 55" upscales pretty much everything to 4k where possible). At the moment, the laptop is used for browsing (when gaming, I have internet browser open on the laptop screen), train sim and general casual games like Solitaire etc. When I say stuttering, it could be when loading the next section. I notice a significant drop in performance when there's ai traffic approaching and passing. It also freezes for a second or 2 sometimes whilst playing TS but again, that could be due to the game core being quite old now. I can hold off for a while as I need to finish designing and implementing my man cave/den before I can set things up.
That should set you up- not including a screen presumably. Laptops have the added drawback of being more expensive for what you get. The CPU and GPU in a gaming laptop may be named similarly to their desktop counterparts but they are not equal. TS seems to be quite flexible in this respect- it'll run 4K (plenty of 4K videos on YouTube), ultra-wide screens and across multiple screens. Wouldn't the telly still show an HD picture full screen even if it wasn't doing any upscaling process? More trains especially steam trains or more scenery detail will slow things down. That does sound like tile stutter.
Will you be building it yourself, getting a system builder to do it for you, or will you be buying an off the shelf product?
As mentioned, it’s budget. Even if you can’t get your optimum PC, you can always add RAM say later. I run TS on a 4K monitor, no problem. I don’t know if it’s as relevant for TS as your typical shoot ‘em up games, but one thing about using a TV instead of a monitor is that the refresh rate can be much lower, and you can get issues with chroma subsampling. But with TS, it’s not so likely to be an issue, and a screen can wait for another time!
That's what I thought with processors. Obviously a desktop/tower has more space so they can add more items and separate things. The TV does show it as an HD signal at 1080p but will only show 4k and HDR if the source is 4k and HDR. Tbh I have come to expect some stutter from sim games as even my old flight sim has stutter around t/o and landing. I won't be building it myself as I'm not up to date with tech now. I could definitely add extra RAM at a later date as that is something I know how to do along with upgrading HDDs in systems (upgraded quite a few laptop HDDs as well as several PS4 ones (every PS4 I own/have owned has had a new HDD fitted). As for screens, I do understand what you're saying as most TVs are capped at 120Hz (some only do 60Hz max at 4K). I could get full 4k if I hooked my laptop up to my new TV as it upscales everything to 4K (3840x2160) but again, the refresh rate would be max 120Hz (I don't think my laptop can do 120Hz anyway). As I've stated before, most use will be from TS but I will use it to play XBox games sometimes like Forza etc so I don't think that will be an issue for the TV. I'm only using the TV as a monitor when playing games because I have it spare and it's a good size at 49" (I bought a newer, larger 55" version after Christmas).
A shame, as off the shelf PCs are nearly always bad in one way or another, and system builders always find ways to cut corners... cheap power supplies... bad cases etc. As for spec... If I was building a gaming PC with a £1000 budget I'd do this: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 CPU (best bang for buck at mo) £189, or the much more capable Ryzen 5 5600 for only £100 more. Quality B550 socket AM4 motherboard (B550 gives you PCIe 4.0) £140 16GB DDR4 3200 RAM £85 (3200 is sweet spot for 2nd and 3rd gen Ryzen) 1TB Samsung 870 QVO SATA SSD (save money - don't go M.2 for just gaming... makes no difference.. genuine waste of cash - upgrade when you are feeling flush perhaps) £90 Silverstone 750 watt semi-modular PSU £90 (never skimp on PSU.. ever... many off the shelf PCs will have though ) Coolermaster NR600 case £70 total £764.00 or £764 depending on CPU chosen. You'll notice no GPU on there... This is the problem area right now. There's literally no point in putting a price on this at the moment, as all recommended retail prices are meaningless, as they keep going up in response to demand, short supply, and various tariff charges from component source territories. As an example, Upon launch, the new RTX3080 was £699 approx. That has now increased to more than 799... and you can't even buy one for less than £900 on Ebay. My advice here is to hold off buying a new GPU for now... bite the bullet, and get the best value used GPU you can, which at the moment is the GTX1080 for around £320 on Ebay. When... or IF the market returns to normal you can sell it and upgrade. However... if you aren't building it, you're at the mercy of whoever is. Most new, pre-built low to mid-range gaming machines around £1000 are now being shipped with a GTX1660Super... which is rubbish (hence why everyone only has these left). If you end up having to go down this road... rip out the 1660... Ebay it... and fit an older GTX1080 which will utterly spank the 1660super in every single respect. If you are not building it though.... (shrug)... All you can do is either find a PC with specs that match that, or if going the boutique route... tell whoever is building it to do this. Finding a GTX1080 is no easy task, because of he above issues, they're in demand at the moment. You have literally no chance of getting a new RTX 3series card (or even an older RTX2xxx) at even anything close to recommended retail price at the moment I can't help you with laptops Edited By DTG Natster
For the OP: if you live in or near a city, there could well be an independent computer shop that can custom build you a PC that’s much more affordable than an off the shelf gaming PC? Or they have a selection of refurbished slightly older ones? And as pookey says, you can get a cheaper case (thing ours was £40 last August): unless you are a teen (!), you don’t need a colourful, lighting up, transparent case for £100+
You do need good cooling though... at least 2x 120mm fans.. on front, one back... minimum. And a decent CPU cooler such as a Noctua NH-U14S... but he's not building it... so he'll get what he gets unless there's somewhere local to him that can build to spec. If so.. check the case fits the cooler... the Noctua is BIG.
Pookeyhead I have edited your above message. A couple of notes, the words you've used to describe some things is a little on the line of inappropriate, try to watch your language in the future. Furthermore I have removed the section about Brexit. Everyone is entitled to a different opinion where politics are involved. But it is generally a charged subject that only leads to arguments.
Yes, I live near a city but unfortunately all the independent PC shops have closed down here. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, CCL is not too far away from me and they have been running years and have a good reputation. I know there are issues getting hold of the latest chips, cards etc. This is due to a shortage of materials. Even Ford have had to stop production of new car orders and temporarily close one of their European plants because they can't get hold of the chips for the ECU/EMS etc.
It's due to 'bot buying of all available stock to scalp on Ebay when it comes to GPUs. The only place you'll find a RTX3080 is on Ebay.... for well over £1000... and there's a LOT of them. Ebay need to get their house in order. There'd be nowhere near the shortage there is if it wasn't for this. Just look on Ebay.. it's ridiculous.
Saw this mentioned on another forum as a "virtual gaming PC" option. No idea how good it is: https://shadow.tech/en-gb
There servers are obviously rubbish. When I do their speed test I get this... however.... every other speed test gives me this. Plus... £13 a month? No thanks.
Well that is not my experience with Shadow. I was recently in hospital and even on the hospital Wi-Fi I had a good connection. Certainly good enough to run TS2021 and play around in the scenario editor.
Your upload is 0. That can't be correct. Perhaps some firewall is messing things up. Did you try another browser ? or change location so different servers are used ? I did the test and got all green tick marks.
I white listed the site in my firewall and got the same results. Tried Chrome.. same results. With Edge I get this... So I have an upload speed of 1.3gigabits per second? LOL A 27ms ping, but with 290ms of jitter? How's that even possible? It's mental.
Thats great , you have a good enough connection. ;-) I changed to a few different locations. Especially had impact on ping and jitter. Closest was not the best in my case. Update: Included a wink smiley indicating this is meant to be humor.
I am not missing the point at all. You are missing my point maybe perhaps I wonder how easy the whole setup is. My dad his PC is too slow so perhaps this might be a good solution for him. I can do the setup and he cpuld simply connect. Does anyone know ?
So, I'm gonna resurrect this thread for a bit more advice. My Acer Nitro 5 seems to struggle with fps, even when using the default screen and medium settings for graphics. I rarely get above 15fps on TS routes. It's proving quite difficult to source a gaming PC. It seems with the UK lockdown that more and more people are buying pre-built gaming PCs. Anyway, I've seen one and wanted your opinions on whether it would be good enough to run TS21 on. Fierce Cyberpunk AMD R5 8GB 1TB 240GB GTX1650 (£699) AMD Ryzen 53600X processor. Hex core processor. Processor speed 3.8GHz with a burst speed of 4.4GHz. 8GB RAM DDR4. 1TB HDD storage. 240GB SSD storage. Hard drive speed 7200RPM. NVIDIA GTX 1650 with 4GB memory GDDR5. Or this one HP Pavilion TG01 (£850) Intel Core i510400 processor. Hex core processor. Processor speed 2.9GHz with a burst speed of 4.3GHz. 8GB RAM DDR4. 1TB HDD storage. 256GB SSD storage. Hard drive speed 7200RPM. NVIDIA GTX 1660 Super with 6GB memory GDDR6.
Both will run TS just fine. You might want 16GB of RAM though (in general), and possibly a bigger SSD depending on the size of your installation. The graphics card on the 1st one isn't great either (probably due to issues described above by PH.)
Or maybe this one Fierce Voodoo i5 16GB 1TB 480GB GTX1660 Gaming PC (£889) Intel Core i510400 processor. Hex core processor. Processor speed 2.9GHz with a burst speed of 4.3GHz. 16GB RAM DDR4. 1TB HDD storage. 480GB SSD storage. Hard drive speed 7200RPM. NVIDIA GTX 1660 with 6GB memory GDDR5.
I'd wait until the world silicon shortage is over. Everything has a 1660 in it at the moment because that's all anyone can get their hands on. Ask yourself this: Why are the 1650 and 1660 the only cards anyone can get? Why are 4 year old GTX1080s going for more on Ebay than a brand new 1660? The 1660 is rubbish, that's why. Just wait until supply becomes normal and Ebay scalpers have gone away, and get something with a RTX3060 in it.
I know times change but Pookeyhead is correct in post #38 about the general shortage of graphics cards and too a lesser extent CPUs. Speaking as an ex-HP employee I would avoid HP PCs. They are pretty well built but when I last looked a number of the models had non-standard PSUs so sourcing replacements / upgrades was difficult. Likewise some of the internal slots were space limited so full size graphics cards with decent cooling didn't fit very well. When drawing up a PC specification I would look for a motherboard that supports 2 M2. SSDs and put the OS on a 256 GB one and get a 1 TB one for TSW / TS20xx + any other games that benefit from fact access. Have a 2 TB 7200 rpm drive for general storage. Likewise I wouldn't even consider buying a PC now with less than 32GB of memory since my budget means a PC has to last 5 - 7 years (different replacement cycle to my car also on a 5 year cycle) in order to get the purchase past the domestic authority who balances our accounts.
As I wrote earlier, buying from a large manufacturer such as Dell or HP can cause you issues further down the line. Many use non standard parts, as Easilyconfused said above, especially PSUs and motherboards. Also, populating all RAM slots with smaller DIMMs is common, which makes upgrading RAM a problem later. Also... 1660s suck.. did I mention that? Here's a video of a 1660 getting absolutely ruined by a 5 year old GTX1080. Just wait until this whole GPU shortage blows over. Seriously.. just wait, and get something from a boutique system builder such as Scan UK, with a RTX3060 in it. The only reason so many system builders are shipping everything with 1660s in them is because that's all they can get at the moment... because no one else wants them.
If all you are using the graphics card for is TS though it'll be fine. I have a 1060 which is only 3GB RAM and lower spec and benchmarks substantially lower than the 1660, and it is pretty good for 1080p games in general, and runs TS in the 2x2 SSAA perfectly well. Not saying it's the right thing to do, just saying the spec will run Train Sim fine if you're desperate. I'd wait for a 3060 too.
Yeah, but to buy a NEW PC with a 1660 in it is ridiculous. The only reason they put them in is because that's all they can get. My GTX980 is "fine", but I'd not buy a new PC with one in
I was really lucky getting hold of a (hardly) used GTX1080Ti 11gb for £400 when my GTX980Ti self destructed, I was half expecting to have to stick with my old GTX780Ti for the foreseeable future until RTX30xx's prices had given their head a wobble and started being sensible again. Running an ultra wide monitor @ 1080p 144hz everything maxed out in TS and RWEnhancer Pro I done the dreaded Pando run from Euston to Birmingham New Street with an average of 35fps my highest was 54 and my lowest was one spike to 12 but averaging 22 through the infamous missing OHLE section. My specs for reference.. Oh and This setup (so far at least) has pretty much eliminated tile load stutter, I bracketed "so far at least" because I've only really played South Wales Coastal, Wherry Lines, WCML-South and a little IOW since re-installing everything, still got to d/l and install some freeware routes to really test this though.
time for another question from me. Seen 2 other pre-built PCs within my budget. Both are HP (I've had HP laptops in the past with no issues). HP Pavilion (£599) Ryzen 3 3200g quad core 8GB RAM DDR4 1TB HDD (7200) Dedicated graphics AMD Radeon RX5500 (4GB) or HP Omen (£999) i5 Processor hex core 16GB RAM DDR4 1TB HDD 256GB SSD Dedicated graphics Nvidia RTX2060 6GB GDDR6
Personally I wouldn't buy a desktop PC from HP, or Dell, or any other major brand, as discussed further up the thread. However, if you must, the second one will obviously be significantly better. However, I seriously doubt ANYONE can get their hands on a RTX GPU of any kind at the moment. I bet if you ordered the HP Omen, you'll get a message saying it will be weeks until you get it... or would you like to have it with a GTX1660 instead Almost every PC is "out of stock" on their website, and I cannot find that particularly "Omen" PC on it anywhere. Do you have a link?
I would go with Acer or Dell. I have a HP with GTX1080 and 16 GB RAM but I am not too happy about it. The fan is too loud. Also it has 512 SSD and 2 TB harddrive. You need a big harddrive for playing TS. I have 330+ GB files only for TS and not even having all DLC.
You said you were not far from CCL. Wait until lockdown ends... go in... Tell them you want: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 CPU (best bang for buck at mo) or 5600 for performance Quality B550 socket AM4 motherboard (B550 gives you PCIe 4.0) £140 16GB DDR4 3200 RAM (3200 is sweet spot for 2nd and 3rd gen Ryzen) 1TB Samsung 870 QVO SATA SSD (save money - don't go M.2 for just gaming... makes no difference.. genuine waste of cash - upgrade when you are feeling flush perhaps) Quality PSU at least 750 watts approx with 80+ silver or higher rating. If you look at their website... like EVERYWHERE else, all they are offering for GPUs is GTX1650/1660 (or Radeon RX5500). Both are rubbish, and the only reason they are offering them is because that's all anyone can get. Avoid Dell, HP etc desktops... They ALWAYS cut corners. Here's what I'm talking about.... Their after sales service is terrible too... in fact... from beginning to end it's horrible. Go and chat to CCL after lockdown. I'd let them build to the above spec and put whatever GPU they have in it (I bet you it's a GTX1660).. wait for the silicon shortage to end later in the year, which will allow you to save... and then upgrade the GPU to a RTX 3070 when they are available at recommended retail price again and you don't have to pay £1000 to an Ebay scalper.
From CCL... off the shelf... this looks reasonable. https://www.cclonline.com/pc/gaming-pcs/ryzen/ccl-ryzen-gaming-pc/ However... Adata SSDs are really poor quality, and they keep changing specs without telling you... watch this... Adata have been doing this for years... well dodgy SSDs. It will work though... you just might not be getting the best SSD you can imagine.
