hi, For some reason train simulator is low/ lagging on my computer. The time is 2 to 3 seconds for every 1 second. here are my specs. Please comment to suggest how to get it up to speed.
Your processor is 6 years old, you don't say what graphics card you have My advice would be to use lower graphics settings, throttle your FPS and realise that busier places (usually terminal stations) with more AI will cause slow down I run a slowish i7 with a 2Gb graphics card, but throttle to 15FPS and use low to mid graphics settings. I do then get "realtime"
From the desktop hold the windows key and then press the R key (then let both go) You should have a box pop up called RUN In here type dxdiag and then click OK Wait a few seconds and you should see a diagnostic tool. The front page shows your processor, windows version, BIOS version etc At the top you should have at least one tab called DISPLAY, click this and you will see what the graphics processor is. If it says Intel (HD) Graphics, then you're using the onboard intel one Let us know
You don’t have a dedicated graphics card. That would always be my first suggestion (can be bought from about £20 for a basic card) Dump any thoughts of hi res full screen Put it in a window and about half your screen size Limit the frame rate to 15 Then you should get an approximation of realtime
I have TS running on two laptops with roughly similar i5 processors but one has your common-or-garden Intel HD integrated graphics while the other has a discrete GPU and the difference really is night and day. This is not only because of the dedicated hardware (which is hardly state of the art) but because it and the CPU aren't playing After You Claude for memory access. If you have the option (and if you think it worth updating an old machine) even a basic GPU will make a big difference. That said if I had the choice of only using the first system or not using TS at all I'd muddle along and turning down most of the graphics settings and perhaps running at a lower screen resolution will go a long way toward making things run smoothly. (TS seems to be a bit nonplussed when installed on systems without a GPU and leaves everything on maximum.) What you change is up to you- I don't like having scenery popping into existence in the middle distance or missing buildings so I have scenery density and viewing distance turned up and pretty much everything else off.
If you're thinking of installing a dedicated graphics card, make sure that you have a spare slot for it on the motherboard.
Just out of interest, do you have a budget for upgrades or is this going to be a kind of save up for what you can afford? There is a reason for my question but it kind of depends on your answer.
Check out the MSI GeForce GT710 PCI-E card on Amazon for about £35. But remember it will not compare with the expensive higher spec cards - but it should be an improvement on your current specs. Cant send link as I'm writing on tablet.
Any basic PCIe 2Gb or higher card will function fine You may have to change your motherboard settings to address the expansion card rather than the onboard so be aware of that
Also be sure that your system has enough power available and room for the card. That may sound pretty basic but some budget systems, in spite of their impressively large cases, have weedy PSUs and few expansion options.
Oh dear- that's going to limit upgrade options. If you're lucky you might have an expansion slot but likely as not your only option will be to change the graphics settings.
As far as I can determine, the C540 doesn't have any provision for expansion cards, so it looks like you'll be limited to any adjustments you can make to the existing graphics chip settings.
Hi Mkdog, Sadly your system doesn't have much room for improvement as AIO PC's are built like laptops with very little space for upgrading. Whilst your CPU is relatively powerful it's integrated graphics were never designed with gaming in mind so will be the limiting factor when it comes to gaming. If you wish to improve performance you'll need to lower the resolution of the game and reduce the graphical settings to their minimums whilst ensuring you have the latest graphics driver available for your Intel HD 2500 graphics: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/product/81501/Intel-HD-Graphics-2500 If your looking at upgrading to another desktop in the future I'd suggest starting a forum post about it so forum users can recommend something suitable with room for upgrading further down the line.
Hi, sorry to hijack this but I didn’t want to start a whole new thread. You mentioned that you run TS on a couple of laptops, I’m incredibly tempted to stop watching videos on YouTube and actually dive in myself but I’m interested in how it will run before I buy (I know about Steam refund policy but it feels like cheating, I don’t want to buy something unless I’m going to keep it). I have a Thinkpad E356. It’s got an i5-6200u, 8GB RAM and an AMD Radeon R7 m370 (2GB). Can I expect decent performance? I actually prefer to play windowed so I don’t mind making the window smaller and I don’t care about 60fps but I’d like it not to look like I’m looking at it through a potato.
Someone else will be able to come up with numbers and detailed advice but I can describe my own system and experience. My system runs Windows 7 so it's at least six years old (second hand so I can't say exactly). It has a 2.4GHz i5 and Radeon HD 7690M XT GPU. TS runs fairly smoothly for the most part, though I couldn't tell you the frame rate, but will slow down on some routes when there's a lot of details to handle. Köln-Koblenz with its urban settings and acres of electrified marshalling yards is the worst route I have in that respect but remains driveable. Steam locomotives are more work than Diesels or 'leccys so massed kettles can slow things down too- again not unbearably in my opinion. Now there are lies, damned lies and statistics and benchmarks but my impression is that your system, while it wouldn't beat mine out of sight, should be noticeably better. That's running TS at the same HD resolution- if your screen is lower resolution it might be much better. It won't look as good as those YouTube videos though. I think the cheapest way to get TS through Steam at the moment is to buy The West Somerset Railway which is one of a few DLCs which is actually a single route edition- London to Faversham is another IIRC but the WSR is less than a fiver at the moment. Other sites offer older editions of TS for the same sort of prices- ask Google. Hope this is helpful.
That’s extremely helpful actually, really appreciate it thanks. I’m torn between doing this and going with TSW on PS4 but, TSW being a lot more expensive is one issue and I do have a feeling that updates and DLC may dry up for the console release. Anyway, again, thank you.
You're very welcome. TSW looks great and if I had the hardware (and saw it cheap!) I'd be tempted to get it, especially with that Pennine route out now, but IMHO the huge choice available for TS gives it the edge. If you want to drive a steam loco' TS holds all the cards at the moment. ...and you can get it for a fiver!
I use a surface pro laptop or a five year old core i7. both 4Gb RAM. The surface has built in graphics, the desktop a 2Gb £25 PCIe 2.0 POS GPU I run windowed on both, limited to 15FPS and the graphics are still passable given it IS a computer simulation. If you want better then a better machine will be needed, but it will run fine on that setup, even with tweaked settings
Well, like your other system, the processor is more than adequate for TS but I see no indication of a discrete GPU. Are you sure you're not missing something off the spec's? A system might have an integrated chipset on the motherboard (which is what you show here) but a second GPU thanks to a graphics card or, in the case of a laptop, a second more independant and higher powered chipset for programs that can benefit from it. After the recent update some people found TS running slowly because it was using integrated graphics even though 3D hardware was available and had to force the issue in their settings. Is this a desktop or a notebook? You can get a comprehensive list of spec's in the Steam program by clicking System Information in the Help menu then cut and paste the resulting list here.
Yes, the system doesn't appear to be using a discrete (dedicated) graphics card. What kind of discrete graphics card have you got, and how much graphics memory does it have? Your existing onboard graphics chip is using shared memory, so that will reduce the amount of RAM available to you. Gordon
The core i7-2600 is almost 8 years old... https://ark.intel.com/products/52213/Intel-Core-i7-2600-Processor-8M-Cache-up-to-3-80-GHz-
It is a monitor and computer set. and also don't have any dedicated graphics. Any you could recommend and how to install them. Many thanks Mkdog45
Do I gather from that that the HD graphics is actually incorporated into the CPU? The advice up-thread is still applicable and fitting cards is not the arcane process it used to be. I'd still check not just that you have a slot to put a card in but that you have the power for it. My Dad's desktop PC looks impressive until you notice the weedy 65W notebook style power supply that it works off- he could add some more memory and a second HD but not much else. My notebook with a pretty modest GPU has a 120W power supply- granted that powers the screen as well but you see my point.
To give that advice i would need to know what motherboard you have or what make / model the base unit is. The processor doesnt' give any of that info Yup
