Specs for TS

[englishkeymaster]

Just curious as to whether there's any kind of recognised optimim spec for a reasonable quality TS experience. Normally with most games you'd just go for the best hardware you can get but TS being quite old and poorly optimised doesn't seem to offer the best rewards for throwing money at it.

I don't use modern hardware at all, I normally build a machine for best value, so i'm almost always behind the curve - and in some cases by quite a lot. Don't laugh but here's my current rig:

Intel i5 3570k @ 3.4ghz
8gb RAM
HD7770 AMD Graphics
Onboard sound

I don't know when this processor was mainstream (2012 rings a bell? Thats very old in cpu temrs) but it actually runs quite well, I have most settings at or near max and i only really notice issues in really busy and populated zones, and the PC cost me almost sweet FA to build.

So I justify my hardware as saying I get 80% of the experience at 20% of the price.

Now, everythings fine performance wise however I did notice some slowdowns on some new routes ive downloaded - for example huddersfield stations to manchester at guide bridge and at manchester, though performance is still reasonable. I just downloaded the stainmore summit route and that is practically unplayable, hard disk activity off the scale so i've ordered another 8gb of ram.

It did get me thinking though, i've got away this far but maybe it's time to look at some upgrades, but scanning the benchmark scores for more modern cpu's (which is more the issue with this game) it seems im actually in a really good spot, for something that benchmarks 20% or so more it seems I can spend quite a lot.

Graphics on the other hand is different, i can get cards that theoretically have twice the power, but then I'm stuck on thinking whether this would really benefit such an old game given it's known bottlenecks.

So for me it's not going to be a case of splurging on all new hardware, but instead trying to decide if there are upgrades I can make that will actually deliver a benefit in the experience sense. I'm not ruling out a new pc alltogether but even then I really wouldn't want to splurge out on more hardware than necessary given besides the routes ive mentioned the computer seems ample as it is for everything else.

So, my question - what is a reasonable and not wasteful spec for this game to have every setting set reasonably high i/e without much quality compromise?

I appreciate it's a very open ended question perhaps, everyone will like their own rig and comparing hardware can be itself a very nuanced excercise.

[Chicken Balti]

Hello, as a PC builder myself, I would suggest the best value gaming CPU at the moment, is the new AMD Ryzen 3 3300x, which is receiving rave reviews from the Pro sites. Superb performance for the price.
Place that CPU on the one of the latest tighter budget AMD B550 motherboards and you should be good for some time again and experience a large TS2020 performance increase over your present PC.
GPU wise, I would suggest looking at the links below, a number of GPU's available dependent on how much you wish to spend and your intended screen resolution. Make sure you have a PSU to provide the power required for any new build though.
I would also suggest an M.2 NVMe SSD with rapid performance. B550 motherboards will have M.2 slot support plus the new PCIe 4 speeds, although not fully utilised at the moment, but you would be future proofed.
Best.
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-gpus,4380.html
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-ryzen-3-3300x-3100-cpu-review
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/asus-rog-strix-b550-f-gaming-wi-fi
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-ssds,3891.html

[englishkeymaster]

Thanks for the reply, it is nice to see AMD handing it back to Intel somewhat!

[trev123]

I'm still running TS on a Intel i5 2500K CPU at 3.4 GHZ with a Geforce 1060 6 gb card and 16gb of ram and it runs TS just fine.

[Growler]

@englishkeymaster.

I genuinely wouldn't laugh at your machine at all! Despite the age, your i5 processor, as far as cpu's go was a bit of a gem for playing TS. I should know I had the very same chip, before eventually upgrading to a modern i5-7600k. The 3570k served me very well for many years, but I've since discovered I didn't make the most of the chip. It could have worked for me even better.

It was only last X-mas (long after 'upgrading' to a new gaming rig) when I realised just how very well the old i5-3570k could run TS, & other awkwardly optimised games. This was when I recycled it, to build a first gaming rig for a young family member. In that PC build it was the first time I really truly overclocked the chip. The i5-3570k in gaming circles was always known for it's decent OC potential, & I was very pleasantly surprised to be able to very effortlessly OC it at 4.2 GHz. And to do so perfectly stable at relatively low heat (with good heat sink, never going above 55C even at full throttle). Combing this with an old Nvidia GTX 970 GPU it ran TS very nicely indeed. To be honest not a whole lot of a difference when compared to my newer expensive PC setup.

I'd therefore suggest if you know what you're doing (or have a friend that does) it's well worth a little experiment. Just the most basic simple OC settings required, together with a decent cooler and all should be good.

It's therefore just the graphics 'card' badly letting you down. If you can upgrade on that front, and install a proper independent graphics card, a Nvidia GTX 970 would be pretty ideal (nice & cheap second hand these days) but any modern equivalent or better - will give you a machine very capable of running TS nicely. A modern new gaming rig, would be able to eek out a little bit more performance but it's very much a case of rapidly diminishing returns for such an old game.

I know CB very much likes his AMD hardware, and there are some great very good value for money setups out there. And I can understand why his preference, since for many modern games the new AMD h/w can give a huge amount of bang for your buck - and great performance. Though if you were to upgrade existing GPU, (rather than buy whole new PC) personally I've always found that when it comes to TS, the game seems to run better when Intel CPUs are paired with Nvidia GPUs rather than AMD cards. I've done a fair bit of experimentation over the years, and for whatever reason my own findings were that it doesn't seem to work so well when combining the i5 with an AMD card. Just my own take, but IMO feel better stick with Intel/Nvidia or all AMD hardware - not a mix, in order to get the best overall performance and stability for running TS. And stability is a biggie for old TS!

With old RAM so cheap these days, if your RAM slots allow I'm pretty certain you'd find utilising 16GB a significant benefit for running 64bit TS2020.

Finally running the game from a SSD (as opposed to old 'spinner' HDDs) definitely helps significantly running TS, regardless of overall PC spec. Again smaller SSDs are so cheap these days, it's almost a must if wanting to run TS well.

So there you go. A careful OC (you'll be pleasantly surprised how far you can safely push this particular i5 chip of yours, as long as kept properly cool), combined with a proper graphics card upgrade, whack in a little more RAM, & install the game on a SSD. And I believe you'll find you can get potentially upgrade your existing old machine pretty cheaply & be very happy with the performance you can achieve running TS. It's your CPU that would make such an upgrade a really worthwhile option to explore.

Otherwise if deciding to go for an entirely new gaming rig, just follow CB's advice! ;) It's good advice, he's hit upon some very sound modern AMD setups that would certainly serve you proud. Especially if you're wanting an all round decent performing rig, for playing all manner of modern games, in addition to the golden oldie TS.

Good luck, whichever path you follow, in getting the improved performance you're after for playing TS.. All the best. :)

[Chicken Balti]

Originally posted by Growler:

@englishkeymaster.

I genuinely wouldn't laugh at your machine at all! Despite the age, your i5 processor, as far as cpu's go was a bit of a gem for playing TS. I should know I had the very same chip, before eventually upgrading to a modern i5-7600k. The 3570k served me very well for many years, but I've since discovered I didn't make the most of the chip. It could have worked for me even better.

It was only last X-mas (long after 'upgrading' to a new gaming rig) when I realised just how very well the old i5-3570k could run TS, & other awkwardly optimised games. This was when I recycled it, to build a first gaming rig for a young family member. In that PC build it was the first time I really truly overclocked the chip. The i5-3570k in gaming circles was always known for it's decent OC potential, & I was very pleasantly surprised to be able to very effortlessly OC it at 4.2 GHz. And to do so perfectly stable at relatively low heat (with good heat sink, never going above 55C even at full throttle). Combing this with an old Nvidia GTX 970 GPU it ran TS very nicely indeed. To be honest not a whole lot of a difference when compared to my newer expensive PC setup.

I'd therefore suggest if you know what you're doing (or have a friend that does) it's well worth a little experiment. Just the most basic simple OC settings required, together with a decent cooler and all should be good.

It's therefore just the graphics 'card' badly letting you down. If you can upgrade on that front, and install a proper independent graphics card, a Nvidia GTX 970 would be pretty ideal (nice & cheap second hand these days) but any modern equivalent or better - will give you a machine very capable of running TS nicely. A modern new gaming rig, would be able to eek out a little bit more performance but it's very much a case of rapidly diminishing returns for such an old game.

I know CB very much likes his AMD hardware, and there are some great very good value for money setups out there. And I can understand why his preference, since for many modern games the new AMD h/w can give a huge amount of bang for your buck - and great performance. Though if you were to upgrade existing GPU, (rather than buy whole new PC) personally I've always found that when it comes to TS, the game seems to run better when Intel CPUs are paired with Nvidia GPUs rather than AMD cards. I've done a fair bit of experimentation over the years, and for whatever reason my own findings were that it doesn't seem to work so well when combining the i5 with an AMD card. Just my own take, but IMO feel better stick with Intel/Nvidia or all AMD hardware - not a mix, in order to get the best overall performance and stability for running TS. And stability is a biggie for old TS!

With old RAM so cheap these days, if your RAM slots allow I'm pretty certain you'd find utilising 16GB a significant benefit for running 64bit TS2020.

Finally running the game from a SSD (as opposed to old 'spinner' HDDs) definitely helps significantly running TS, regardless of overall PC spec. Again smaller SSDs are so cheap these days, it's almost a must if wanting to run TS well.

So there you go. A careful OC (you'll be pleasantly surprised how far you can safely push this particular i5 chip of yours, as long as kept properly cool), combined with a proper graphics card upgrade, whack in a little more RAM, & install the game on a SSD. And I believe you'll find you can get potentially upgrade your existing old machine pretty cheaply & be very happy with the performance you can achieve running TS. It's your CPU that would make such an upgrade a really worthwhile option to explore.

Otherwise if deciding to go for an entirely new gaming rig, just follow CB's advice! ;) It's good advice, he's hit upon some very sound modern AMD setups that would certainly serve you proud. Especially if you're wanting an all round decent performing rig, for playing all manner of modern games, in addition to the golden oldie TS.

Good luck, whichever path you follow, in getting the improved performance you're after for playing TS.. All the best. :)

Hello Growler, hope you are well. Actually, I have built more intel based machines over the years and around 50% had Nvidia GPU's the others AMD.
I agree with you over some now older intel i5 CPU's. I had the much acclaimed at the time i5 4690k and it still lives on in one of my own self-builds. It still runs all modern TS content very well indeed.
Now moved over to AMD CPU's in the last few years, like many gamers have. Intel spent to much time 'resting' as top gaming dog and not bothering to introduce anything that could be classed as really brand new and not just 'tweeks'.
Zen 2 CPU's are fast gaming CPU's and not that far behind top intel CPU's. Other non-gaming application performance on Zen 2 CPU's, now beating most intel CPU's and less money to purchase, which I like very much, more money left to spend on the GPU.
AMD Threadripper even faster for such production work and now top dog, although newer Threadripper CPU's far from wallet friendly!
AMD promised to regain lost ground over the years and sure enough, they did, catching everybody by surprise, including intel. Great news for us all as the customer, wanting more choice and better prices. Now intel have to catch up with AMD, especially with the brand new Zen 3 CPU's about to launch this year, along with the latest AMD GPU line, all promising even more large performance jumps. Genuine competition at last and more choice.
Take care.
Best

[englishkeymaster]

Thanks for the feedback, some good points raised, and what it seems is something i've suspected for a while, value and price are quite far apart and especially where TS is concerned.

Obviously if I wanted to upgrade my CPU, because of the age of my socket type it's practically going to require a new PC build, in which case i'd look at a ryzen, but the question is - how have things actually moved on?

I picked the sort of cpu that would fit my budget at seemingly random from my local computer store to use as an example - a Ryzen 5 3600X at circa £200, and compared it with online benchmarks against my 3570k (which I bought used for £45) - whilst I know benchmarks have their flaws the difference was reasonable at an approx 40% boost in benchmark scores.

To get a consistent picture I picked a few more - a ryzen 7 3700xt with an approximated 50% horsepower increase - price is £390. A gamers budget perhaps but not mine.

The benchmark of the 3570k is not obviously as good, however Growler makes a good point, it actually still does reasonably (for it's age) it is not the dead donkey I expected and I would have to put out some money still to beat it.

So, if I am happy to wait a year or two for some new hardware, we could try overclocking it. I am not expecting the world here but it might help - I've not done this yet but what I did do was download coretemp and monitored temps as is whilst running from huddersfield to manchester. The temps mostly sat around 55 deg C, and peaked at 65 at the time I was rendering manchester.

The cooler I have seems decent but might want something a little better, the chip seems rated to 105 deg c but not sure how much real push room we have there. I wouldn't want it running that hot.

Sold state hard drive i've got covered, though I could do with a bigger one now in all fairness, with the amount of dlc ive bought and other computer software requirements 256gb isnt cutting it

RAM, I had 8gb when I made this post - i've now upgraded to 16gb and I would say the difference is reasonable, stainmore summit is now playable, obviously really it's mostly a benefit to asset rich routes where you might have to use the swapfile. but to anyone with 8gb I would say get the upgrade as it does help.

I also bought RWenhancer pro - wasn't sure if it would make a lot of difference to the quality of the game but it has actually livened it up a bit without much of a performance hit. Again for £20 i'd recommend though i've not played with the settings much

Finally, graphics. This is a bit more clearcut as the graphics world has moved on noticably since I built my PC. It's easy to find cards doing double and triple my own performance in terms of benchmarking for not strictly a lot of money. Looking at the GTX970 as an example it blows mine away in the benchmark comparisons

I suppose the million dollar question is, would TS2020 utilise it that much over my HD7770?

It's not an expensive card, but we have all heard that the TS doesn't utilise the GPU well, and if thats the case would it likely be lost cycles?

[trev123]

When I upgrade my computer I will only get a new CPU, Motherboard and ram and put into the old case. Saves a bit of money. Was going to do it about a year ago but more important things got in the way.

[OldAlaskaGuy]

Playing TS on my laptop at the moment, main system packed for moving, and it runs well:

Computer Information:
Manufacturer: Dell Inc.
Model: G5 5587
Form Factor: Laptop
No Touch Input Detected

Processor Information:
CPU Vendor: GenuineIntel
CPU Brand: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8750H CPU @ 2.20GHz
CPU Family: 0x6
CPU Model: 0x9e
CPU Stepping: 0xa
CPU Type: 0x0
Speed: 2208 Mhz
12 logical processors
6 physical processors
HyperThreading: Supported
FCMOV: Supported
SSE2: Supported
SSE3: Supported
SSSE3: Supported
SSE4a: Unsupported
SSE41: Supported
SSE42: Supported
AES: Supported
AVX: Supported
AVX2: Supported
AVX512F: Unsupported
AVX512PF: Unsupported
AVX512ER: Unsupported
AVX512CD: Unsupported
AVX512VNNI: Unsupported
SHA: Unsupported
CMPXCHG16B: Supported
LAHF/SAHF: Supported
PrefetchW: Unsupported

Operating System Version:
Windows 10 (64 bit)
NTFS: Supported
Crypto Provider Codes: Supported 311 0x0 0x0 0x0

Video Card:
Driver: Intel(R) UHD Graphics 630
DirectX Driver Name: nvldumd.dll
Driver Version: 26.20.100.7262
DirectX Driver Version: 27.21.14.5167
Driver Date: 9 25 2019
OpenGL Version: 4.6
Desktop Color Depth: 32 bits per pixel
Monitor Refresh Rate: 60 Hz
DirectX Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti
VendorID: 0x10de
DeviceID: 0x1c8c
Revision: 0xa1
Number of Monitors: 2
Number of Logical Video Cards: 2
No SLI or Crossfire Detected
Primary Display Resolution: 1920 x 1080
Desktop Resolution: 3840 x 1080
Primary Display Size: 13.54" x 7.60" (15.51" diag)
34.4cm x 19.3cm (39.4cm diag)
Primary Bus: PCI Express 16x
Primary VRAM: 1024 MB
Supported MSAA Modes: 2x 4x 8x

Sound card:
Audio device: Speakers/Headphones (2- Realtek

Memory:
RAM: 16178 Mb

VR Hardware:
VR Headset: None detected

Miscellaneous:
UI Language: English
Media Type: Undetermined
Total Hard Disk Space Available: 2137097 Mb
Largest Free Hard Disk Block: 1631791 Mb
OS Install Date: Dec 31 1969
Game Controller: None detected
MAC Address hash: 28a88015fbcf4a316ab79b3ae12e75b3ef06f4eb
Disk serial number hash: 60eb8a79

[Chicken Balti]

Hello englishkeymaster. A modern GPU upgrade would indeed help you with better game performance, but only to a point, then your much older CPU becomes a limiting factor. It may well bottleneck with the lower data rate flowing from your older CPU and a modern GPU with much more graphics processing power. ( Edit to keep Felix happy..but who knows..)
You would need to choose a new GPU with care, enough performance lift to make the purchase worthwhile but not super powerful that your older CPU limits further performance gains.
Otherwise, paying for GPU performance your older system can't fully use.
Remember, a modern lower budget Ryzen 3 3300x, is more powerful than top end CPU's from ten years ago, placing a modern GPU along side that CPU (or a Ryzen 5 3600x) in such a system, is not going to be a possible problem like much older CPU's.
Best.

[Felix.AVMP]

Originally posted by Chicken Balti:

It may well bottleneck with the additional faster data coming from a modern GPU with too much graphics processing power.

Do you realize, that you have it backwards?
GPU just waits for CPU to deliver the data for rendering, so yes, slow CPU will of course never use the GPU to its full potential (which may or may not be a really bad thing, as such underutilized GPU will be less prone to overheating).

I already noticed this error in one of your previous posts but I let it slide, but not this time.
Of course, there are games which run almost completely on the GPU, but Railworks engine is not one these games, Railworks engine requires as much CPU power as it can get and GPU just renders the "last mile".

[Phase3]

But Felix it is all about balance. If you have a powerful CPU and a middle of the road GPU there will be bottle-necking at the GPU because it can't render fast enough to the monitor what the CPU is delivering and vice versa a low end CPU with a top end GPU will have similar issues wrt TS. The monitor itself is also important in this equation.
BTW I have never heard of a GPU overheating if the system is set up properly.
As I say it is all about Balance and just not the CPU/GPU either - OS, TS install, the Monitor, case, cooling, mobo, RAM, SSD/HDD and so on.

[Chicken Balti]

Originally posted by Phase3:

But Felix it is all about balance. If you have a powerful CPU and a middle of the road GPU there will be bottle-necking at the GPU because it can't render fast enough to the monitor what the CPU is delivering and vice versa a low end CPU with a top end GPU will have similar issues wrt TS. The monitor itself is also important in this equation.
BTW I have never heard of a GPU overheating if the system is set up properly.
As I say it is all about Balance and just not the CPU/GPU either - OS, TS install, the Monitor, case, cooling, mobo, RAM, SSD/HDD and so on.

Exactly Phase3, balance is the key in all areas of a PC system. Which is why spending money without prior consideration of the abilities of existing components in a system, can sometimes be wasted.
Best.

[Felix.AVMP]

Originally posted by Phase3:

But Felix it is all about balance.
...

Please, do quote me exactly, where I am saying, that it is not.

Originally posted by Phase3:

BTW I have never heard of a GPU overheating if the system is set up properly.
...

Again, which is not, what I was saying.

You commited a classical logical fallacy here, be careful about that.

[Phase3]

Felix
Semantics Semantics LOL
You said " which may or may not be a really bad thing, as such underutilized GPU will be less prone to overheating)." The implication being that if the GPU is not UNDERUTILISED it could be more prone to overheating!
I was merely saying that if you set up a system correctly a GPU should not overheat, whether its fully utilised or not!
Where is the fallacy logical or even illogical in that?
You can't have balanced system with an underutilised GPU - balance means that everything is working as it should be not underutilised or over utilised- I was merely pointing out that a system needs balance to run TS optimally. No reflection on your comments merely an observation! :)

[englishkeymaster]

Given that even in-game loadings on components can be dynamic, I am completely open to the debate on trying to define how an over and what an underutilized graphic card could be classified :D

However in the short term, I'm really tempted by that 970GTX, it seems thats the last big move I can make (I overclocked by chip to 3.6ghz with success however did note my bios wouldn't let me do any more bah humbug)