dear all, I’m looking at a new PC rig after many years. What would you suggest to run well and nicely TS2019? Thanks!
Something to consider might be what else you'd be running on the system. No matter what CPU and GPU you have TS is only going to use two cores and DirectX 9. If you have more modern games or simulators (such as TSW) or application software you could do better to think of that than TS which is poorly optimized for new hardware. That being the case though you'd be looking for something with a fast processor and decent GPU anyway which should see you all right for TS as well.
Thanks for the reply. What is the difference between TSW and TS? Is TSW running on PS4 as well? Can you get the same DLC and does it look any good?
Train Simulator uses an old unsupported game engine which is never going to be upated to current standards and, as such, is at something of a development dead-end. Well... never say, "never" (how many people expected it to go 64bit?) but it's pretty unlikely. You can get a knobbed up system with an eight core CPU and the latest NVidia graphics card with 12GB of video RAM and TS will run as smoothly and look as good as it ever will but, if you are only ever going to run TS on it, you'd be wasting a lot of money. TSW is the shiny new train simulator from the makers of Train Simulator. It uses a new game engine (Unreal) that is optimized for new hardware and its hardware requirements are rather higher so if you get a system with a fast i5 and a decent GPU (the sort of thing which would be more than adequate for TS) TSW will run and look okay. On a system with a ten core i9, twin uhd GPUs and 12 Giga-boggles of RAM it will look magnificent. Yes. That's one of the benefits of using a current game engine. You can't use TS DLC with TSW. The London-Reading route covers some of the same ground as one of the TS routes. It looks obsolutely gorgeous. I particularly fancy the new Trans-Pennine route.
Hit Post Reply before I was finished- I wanted to add a caveat to what I said about TS. Although development will (probably be) confined to a few tweaks TS is far from dead with new content coming out pretty much every week, a large enthusiastic user base and third party support that will keep it going for years even if Dovetail drop the title tomorrow. The massive choice of DLC gives it the edge over TSW at the moment IMHO- if you want to drive steam trains TS is the only option. Its lower hardware requirements make it more accessible- TS goes quite nicely on my second-hand, six or seven years old laptop (at least it did until it broke down the other day) which couldn't hope to run TSW. TSW looks like it's really coming along. If you're interested in it (and why wouldn't you be?) and buy a new PC with it in mind that same system will run TS pretty nicely as well. ...which, pretty much, brings us back where we started. Hope this helps. Happy new year.
Thanks for the extensive feedback. Much appreciated! Looks like TS could be a very good choice if I want to get a decent high-end PC or even a laptop without going for the ultimate 5000+ $ monster. A good 2nd-hand 2 or 3 years old rig could do the job I guess. Last but not least, would buying a PS4 be a good alternative? Could I run TSW with good graphics and looks compared to PC version? And a very happy new year as well
You're welcome. Indeed. My 6-7 year old laptop has a fairly low-end GPU so a lot of graphics settings are turned down but TS still looks pretty presentable. For £200 I'm quite happy with it... well I was until it lobotomised itself with a huge crash last week. That would best be asked in the TSW forum.