Hello! I built my PC when the pandemic started 5 years ago, and I am seeing that Train Sim Classic is not running great. I am averaging 15- 18fps on low settings (with dynamic lighting) in rural areas and an appalling 10- 15fps in cities (don't even ask about London termini). Just wondering if tinkering with my settings might help or if I should just upgrade certain components, if so, which is most worthwhile. Current setup is: Processor: AMD Ryzen 3 3100 4-Core Processor 3.60 GHz GPU: AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT RAM: 16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2666MHz (2 x 8GB) Motherboard: ASUS® PRIME B450-PLUS (DDR4, USB 3.1, 6Gb/s) I'm aware Train Sim Classic isn't the best optimised game out there, but I can run more intensive games like MFS 2020, GTA V etc. fine so I don't really want to spend a ton just for TSC, but I'd like to see the options available. Any help is appreciated! (Side note: I also have RW Enhancer as well as all the general AP enhancement packs, tried turning RW off but makes little difference)
First of all I would make sure that TSC is using the dedicated graphics card, and not the integrated. What I would focus on building a PC for TSC is CPU and memory. So I might have looked into upgrading that RAM if possible.
How can I ensure TSC is running on the graphics card? Both my monitors are plugged into the GPU if that is what you mean? I have noticed poor % usage of my GPU when TSC is running (usually only 30%), but I assumed that was due to the poor core system
I don't think TSC can use more than ~1gb of the GPU, maybe that did change after the core updates. How To Set the Default GPU for Applications and Games
I don't think your mb or CPU has onboard GPU so I doubt that the issue is having the wrong GPU selected. You CPU and GPU are a bit weak for the current build of TSC. Although if you GPU utilisation is only 30% I wonder what is the CPU utilisation? And what display resolution are you playing on? From experience I have to crank the in game graphics settings up a bit for the game to utilise my gpu properly. With the settings to low my gpu just idles and the performance isn't good. Make sure the game is running in full screen mode and not windowed mode. Also there's some 3d application settings I have changed in the Nvidia control panel to get better performance. Although you have a AMD GPU and I'm not familiar with the AMD control panel. maybe somebody with a AMD GPU can help you with those.
My computer is reasonably fast. Compare it with your computer to see if it is slow or not. My PC: Asus AMD Rysen 7 6800H with Radeon Graphics NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti Laptop GPU GDDR6 @ 8GB (256 bits)
I'm surprised that you can run MFS2020 with that cpu/gpu combo and run dual monitors. 8gb and dual monitors along with a lower end cpu and 16gb of ram will absolutely bottleneck your system trying to run everything on max. I tried to run MML (AP) with a 4070ti super and a 9700k 4.9 and it was a stutter fest at max settings. Start with low/medium settings in TS and see if the fps improve, if not then it's time to upgrade the ram and cpu. 32gb of ram is the norm for gaming now and 8gb gpu is probably as low as you want to go. Also see if you can tweak your cpu to get a bit more out of it.
It certainly ran better when I first built the PC, although I have increased my collection of DLC and Enhancement packs, so I generally attributed the lower performance to that
Just in case it helps, these are my graphics settings + performance indicators while on the AP365 EP 07:06 Peterborough - King’s Cross scenario (waiting at Peterborough with 3-4 AI trains) I am on 1920x1080 resolution and I use windowed mode since I have a dual monitor setup
I've been running TSC very successfully with a 4GB GPU and 16GB RAM, the latter being the case now as well. You won't get majestic results from budget (or laptop) specs but low frames can be an issue. For one, I suspect that your CPU is bottlenecking simulation. Try to run scenarios with minimal AI. Since you mention UK I can imagine running busy scenarios and those tend to be an issue. Same with too much stock in termini. Back to simulation, I recently ran a Soldier Summit E2E scenario which was stuck at 23-27fps. Pausing shoots frames to 60 (cap). One cycle later I'm running another SS E2E which runs at 45-50 - with busy AI even. Experiment with running 32 and 64 bit versions. When the latter was released, it was a massive performance improvement for me. Basically, if you just want to get in the groove, I'd recommend playing older, simplistic content. No enhancement, no AP hi-res stock, nada. (A single set of elderly hi-res stock can kill my frame rates as well.) Then build from there as long as you're happy with the results. If you end up happy with the game, it's easy to spend a few thousand on DLC, you should at that point consider getting an Intel-Nvidia based beefy computer. Case in point, you should strive for balance: you can't enjoy DLC without a PC but you also just enable DLC (and other games).
Ah, I agree, the main point I created this thread was to see what I should upgrade. I am assuming CPU is my main issue, so I guess it would be wise to upgrade that first? Don't have a thousand to splurge on a beefy new PC, particularly since all my other games run fine (even TSW, where I get a steady 40fps) but nothing beats TSC in my opinion so I am willing to slowly upgrade my PC when funds permit to get that little bit more out of it
You could consider upgrading to the highest cpu your mobo takes and maxing out the ram. It won't be expensive and it should give you better performance as the Ryzen 5's and 7's will have better turbo speeds and you won't have to buy a new mobo.
There are websites such as cpubenchmark.net, one of the official metering software I think. You can find and compare your own equipment there. You can also navigate to GPU. Another comparison is Steam Survey. Okay, for reference here is mine. A 2022 ROG laptop. AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS with Radeon Graphics, 3.30 GHz (score 23251) AMD Radeon RX 6700S (score 15040) 16 GB RAM It performs roughly the same (in TSC; it is better in most scenarios, games) as my previous rig purchased in 2015, a desktop. The above I think has slightly better graphics and slightly worse CPU (per core): Intel i7-4770, 3.40 GHz (score 7059) Nvidia 970 (score 9642) 16 GB RAM For comparison's sake, a desktop RTX 4080 scores 34500. I'm observing very low CPU utilization, essentially one core, and relatively high GPU. I don't push it. About 6% and 75%. If you compare the above scores and ratios and my comments you can deduce that probably core speed is the thing for TSC, possibly a modern CPU will perform better in some scenarios bus speed must also matter which tends to be capped by clock and CPU you probably want higher GPU score than CPU score after all The 5500XT is 9099 and the Ryzen 3 3100 is 11563. Based on all the above rambling it's likely GPU after all. Then again, if this is old equipment I'd leave it alone and save for a proper rig.
