Ancient PC upgrade advice

[Mightyena]

Hi everyone,

I'm currently planning a massive upgrade to my (fairly ancient) main PC, in order to cope with the rigours of T:ANE (that and the fact that it's positively ancient, and the CPU is dying and functions pretty well as a space heater these days), but I won't really have the funds for that until the end of the year, so I'll have to make do with the old Core 2 Quad for a while yet.

That said, this PC really does struggle with both TS12 and T:ANE, to the point where I have to run at 1280x800 to get decent framerates out of it.

Specs:
Intel Xeon X3220 (Q6600) G0 overclocked to 3.4GHz
8GB DDR2-800 RAM
GIGABYTE EP45-UD3R Motherboard
XFX Radeon HD 6870 (running at stock. I tried to overclock it, but it won't actually run at the new clocks)
Windows 10 Enterprise 64-bit
Monitor's native resolution is 1920x1200

I blame the 6870, I feel it simply isn't up to the challenge of TS12 at 1200p - It sounds like it's about to take off whenever I try and run any game at 1920x1200!
(I don't think the fan noise is due to excessive temps either, I cleaned out the HSF and reapplied thermal paste a couple of months ago, and it's never exceded 85C)

Given that I don't really have a lot of spare cash, I decided to try and live with it, but having to switch down to 1280x800 is annoying. I recently came across a decently priced Nvidia GTX 580, and was wondering if that might be a worthwile upgrade to tide me over, or is it likely the ageing CPU that's restricting performance, that only a complete rig upgrade will solve?

Anyone run Trainz with a 580 and can weigh in? I also seem to recall Trainz (especially T:ANE) favouring Nvidia cards, so that would be a plus too if that's true.

Thanks for any help,
James

[Itareus]

James

Before you spend on hardware check how much memory Windows Enterprise is using and also have a look at your swap file size (if that still exists in W10).

That said the graphics card could well be the bottleneck BUT think long and hard before you buy a new one - you might be better off suffering poor resolution for now and saving your money for a more broadly based upgrade later on.

Whatever you decide I hope it works for you !

Chris M

[cyberdonblue]

James ...think long and hard before you buy a new one - you might be better off suffering poor resolution for now and saving your money for a more broadly based upgrade later on.

Whatever you decide I hope it works for you !

Chris M

I have to say that I agree with Chris, James. Little upgrades at a time can quietly have cost you a fortune when you eventually sit down and look back at the master plan. I upgraded my graphics card 3 times. If I'd just bit the bullet and waited, did a bit more research, I could have saved a fair few quid.

T:ANE still isn't fully developed yet either so a few months suffering now could well pay dividends come the end of the year when you could perhaps even look at a complete rebuild. There are also some good packages out there too if you dig around a bit.

Like Chris, though, I hope that whatever you settle on works for you.

Dave

[Mightyena]

I'm definitely giving it a good long think, but I may have to give getting a used high-end older card a try. The plan is to build a completely new PC at the end of the year, once I've saved up enough money. Most likely an i5-4690k/6600k and either a GTX 970 or whatever Nvidia's Pascal cards have to offer then. It's just that whilst being home for Easter (with access to my vastly more powerful i5 machine) I got bitten by the Trainz bug again and would really like to continue with it!

Chris,
Windows 10 uses around 1GB (sees all 8GB as usable) idling, pagefile is currently system managed, but taking up around 1.5GB


Dave,
Yes I definitely know that feeling, my main PC at home was like that. I went from Radeon 6450 -> 6870 -> 7770 -> 7870 -> 7950! Cost a fair bit, but all the cards (aside from the 7870, which died. The 6870 started artifacting in games, but apparently is still going strong just running a multi-monitor setup for my friend's dad) are still in use with either me or friends, so at least it's not a complete waste of money...

Until then, my options are pretty much:

-abandon Trainz (and most other games) until January, since most games are unplayable as it stands, and look horrid at lower resolutions than native (stupid 27" screen )

-spend around £70 on a used GTX580 (or similar) in the hope that it will improve things (it should, since I believe the 580 was designed to compete with the Radeon 6970), and when I replace the PC in the new year, the 580 will filter down to some other PC, or get sold on.

[73129]

I may have a graphics card going spare if you need one.

[Mightyena]

I may have a graphics card going spare if you need one.

Thank you for the offer, but I have since managed to acquire a GTX 570 for this PC that seems to be coping well with TS12 (I'm pretty sure T:ANE is beond the old Core 2 Quad's capabilites)

[clam1952]

TANE would probably run OK on that Xeon, it's nowhere near as heavy on the CPU as TS12, most of the work is done by the GPU.

[Class172]

I'd agree with Clam, as the PC at home can run TANE with a Core 2 Quad (Q6700??) processor and a GTX 750.

[Mightyena]

That's interesting, I'll have to try it then. Is that with shadows enabled, because my home PC rig struggles to get to double figured framerates with an i5-2400 and GTX680...

[Class172]

I think it does have shadows though I'll try to have a look later (I barely get to use that computer any more, being the main house PC, hence why I'm building my own very soon!).

Having just checked the specs of that computer it has in fact the Q6600 processor - http://support.hp.com/gb-en/document/c01138829 - the only major differences to the stock specs are that it has 8GB RAM and the aforementioned GPU.

I can only conclude that was a very high end processor back in its day!

[Class172]

I've managed to have a look at the settings, which I've posted. I could fairly easily push some of those graphics settings a little further, but I'm happy with the frame rates and detail that it achieves at this point.

[Mightyena]

Thanks, I've used your settings as a starting point (since the X3220 is identical to the Q6600, just branded as a Xeon) with a little tweaking I've managed to get T:ANE to produce some half-decent framerates:

Screenshot 2016-04-21 21.43.47.png

This gives me around 25-30fps on most of my routes, which I'd never have expected from this old PC. Not bad for something that doesn't even meet the minimum spec!


(System requirements usually give me a little chuckle, since I worked out that My home PC, which meets minimum, but not recommended spec for TANE will perform better than one that does! An i5-3330+GTX660 will meet the spec, but my i5-2400+GTX680 doesn't, despite the fact that the i5-2400 performs almost identically to the 3330, and is in fact slightly faster! )