Railworks America

Hello All,

I was looking into buying a new Alienware laptop in the next couple of days and have a couple of questions.

If I wanted to run TS2012 at completely maxed out settings, while achieving high FPS (no stutter), would the following components be good enough?

http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/ ... r=15723376

(The link is to all of the specs to the computer that I personalized. If neccesary, I could upgrade to a 3.6 GHz processor, and I could afford to upgrade the hard drive as well. I just don't want to overspend if possible).

Thanks a ton!

Stephen

Steve, even with a desktop like I have, I get stutters. Some tried SSD drives, still get stutters.

My best advice, upgrade because, it's time to upgrade. It's always nice to have a new PC. The specs of that Alienware (Dell) look fine. But it's not gonna run RW with a high frame rate with TSX on. Maybe run a lot of other games just fine, tho.

Oh, crap, man, I could buy a car for what that costs! You can get a really nice desktop for $400 less! Remember, Alienware is now Dell. It's junk, In My Own Opinion, of course. Desktop, go with iBuypower. Laptop, go with a Sager.

Chris,

Thanks alot for the information and advice; it is greatly appreciated.

Taking your comment into consideration, and after checking out numerous reviews, I've decided to go with the Sager NP9170.

If you don't mind checking these specs out real quick:

Display 17.3" Full HD LED-Backlit Display with Matte Finished Surface (1920 x 1080) [$30.00]
Video & Graphics Card Nvidia GeForce GTX 680M GPU with 4GB GDDR5 Video Memory [$445.00]
CPU Processor 3rd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-3610QM Processor ( 6MB L3 Cache, 2.30GHz)
Thermal Compound Stock Standard Thermal Compound
Operating System Genuine MS Windows® 7 Home Premium 32/64-Bit Edition ( 64-Bit Preloaded )
Memory 8GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz - 2 X 4GB
RAID Storage Options Non-RAID Storage
Primary Hard Disk Drive 750GB 7200rpm SATA 300 Hard Drive
mSATA SSD Drive — For Intel Smart Response Technology Intel 40GB 310 Series mSATA SSD - Preconfigured for Intel SRT [$120.00]

Do you think all of this would be sufficient for RW 3/ TS 2012? Also, would the mSATA SSD Drive be worth the money, and would an AMD Radeon HD 7970M be nearly just as good as the GeForce 680M? I'm trying to save a little bit of money if possible. I would do desktop, but I'm going to college and will be moving around alot, so I'd like to do a lap top.

Thank you very much for all of your help - it is greatly appreciated.

Holy crap, dude, that's one heck of a laptop! Might as well be a desktop with those specs! Wow! Fantastic! You are gonna like Win 7 64 bit, all that RAM, that awesome CPU and that video card. Dang, 4Gb video memory? Stay with the Nvidia, and forget the SSD. That 680M is sweet!

RW should run fine, as will most every other game in the world. But, RW will still stutter. Can't fix that, it loads the next tile from the hard drive every time. But, that is a really sweet laptop.

Chris:

Thinking about my previous post concerning stutters, what you say here (Can't fix that, it loads the next tile from the hard drive every time.) regarding this post by GuilfordRailSD45, am I correct in inferring that RW differs from most other sims in how it gathers info and finally translates it back to the monitor in the form of an image? In other simpler terms, just wondering why RW stutters when other sims, such as FSX, run very smoothly on a (my) system.

Good to know!

So if I have the 680M, is the addition of the mSATA SSD really not worth it for the extra $120? Just checking, because if it would make a significant difference, I could pop in the extra cash (been saving up for quite some time!).

Also, I have an option between a super-glossy and a matte-finished screen. I'm not too worried about reflections, but more image quality - would super-glossy provide better image quality and color depth than matte would, especially when gaming? I am leaning towards super-glossy, so I am just looking for a second opinion if possible.

That is all for questions! You have been a tremendous help, thank you very much.

Steve, personally, I would not wast that extra money on an SSD right now. Look at getting a high speed (like 7500RPM or maybe A Raptor, 10,000rpm) drive with a good capacity. 500Gb at least.

Matte finished screen, definately. Glossy is affected by any back light. Any light will reflect, wash out color. I love this Asus 24" LED flat screen, but I am on a desktop. Your milage will vary.

Hey, is there a Best Buy, Staples, Office Depot near by? Go and take a look before you buy! Oh, crap, they may not carry Sager. But, you can at least look and see the difference between matte and glossy. I think you will like matte.

Miata, RW has so much to draw in, and some routes have so many poly's on each tile, and the core of the game as well as the graphics engine, is so old school, until RSC updates all of that (maybe not in my life time) the stuttering will not go away. We can minimize it, but not cure it. I've tried. Can't do it. Not on my budget, anyways.

Alrighty, matte it is. And the best I can do is 7200 RPM... but I just realized I now have another decision to make!

500GB 7200rpm SATA Hybrid Hard Drive with 4GB SSD or 750GB 7200rpm SATA 300 Hard Drive

Both are free with this specia back to school promotion. I was thinking of the 500 GB one since you were saying at least 500, and seeing as it has an essentially free SSD with it. Do think that is the smart thing to do, or should I do the 750 GB option?

I promise this is the last question! Lol, I am only a click away from "Check Out".

Those Hybrid drives are bleeding edge tech. Personally, I don't do bleeding edge. I would go for the 750, or just stick with the 500, unless you do a lot of Photo Shop or editing. In that case get the 750Gb drive.

My main system, a desktop, has the main 500Gb 7500 RPM drive, plus a second drive I do backups to on a weekly basis. My main drive, with Win 7 and RW and all my other games, is over 300Gb free space. Backup drive, only about 100Gb used space.

GuilfordRailSD45 wrote:500GB 7200rpm SATA Hybrid Hard Drive with 4GB SSD or 750GB 7200rpm SATA 300 Hard Drive

Both are free with this specia back to school promotion. I was thinking of the 500 GB one since you were saying at least 500, and seeing as it has an essentially free SSD with it. Do think that is the smart thing to do, or should I do the 750 GB option?

Hey, GuilfordRailSD45! I have two of the 500GB hybrid drives (Seagate MomentusXT) in the desktop I built in December and I LOVE them. One thing though - your statement that the have "an essentially free SSD with it" is not completely correct. They have a relatively small amount of flash memory to help out with access speed, but they're not quite as fast as an SSD since it's still spinning platters. They are, however, terrific for TS2012.
That laptop sounds KILLER! I hope you report on its performance when you get it and install everything you need.

Of course, YMMV!

Best,
Marc

With Win 7, I use an 8Gb flash drive for "ready boost". Those little flash drives are cheap, and it works a treat loading all my games, and when I cold boot Windows (I usually let the PC run 24/7, I run Folding @ Home on both the quad core and the Nvidia card)

arizonachris wrote:With Win 7, I use an 8Gb flash drive for "ready boost". Those little flash drives are cheap, and it works a treat loading all my games, and when I cold boot Windows (I usually let the PC run 24/7, I run Folding @ Home on both the quad core and the Nvidia card)

Hi, Chris. I've read that using flash drives for "Ready Boost" in Win7 can potentially lead to premature flash drive failure with the excessive number of r/w cycles they experience. Or does the inexpensive nature of the drives just mean you'll get another if one cr@ps out? Do you use the "Dedicate" function for RB? Micro$oft suggests using at least 2x the amount of flash as you have system RAM for proper functioning of RB.
Do you notice a real difference using RB? I may try it, as I have a 16GB flash drive.
So many questions, so little time...

Best,
Marc

Edit: I tried using a 16GB MicroSD card with a full-size adapter and after struggling with it I noticed that the adapter's write protect switch was broken and it would always move it to protect as soon as I plugged it into the laptop. Easy fix, I used another adapter. Then I noticed that RB said there was only 4GB available on an otherwise empty SD card. I looked at properties and noticed that it was formatted FAT32. I reformatted as NTFS and then it reported 15+GB available (little bit of overhead...). It seems to be working on the laptop, I just ran a couple of Portland Terminal scenarios and with the FPS lock set at 15 on the l/t, there were only a few minor slips below 15, mostly on Commercial Street (as usual), but it never got below 10FPS. I'd say that it actually does some good. Plus, I have another 16GB MicroSD card if and when this one fails!
More stuff to try...

TTFN,
Marc

Ahhhh, MS is just trying to get you to buy more expensive stuff. I have had my little 8Gb flash drive for 4 years now, it still works fine. Yes, you do have to format them for the OS you are using, but that's easy. I think I paid about $18 for it. That was when they were still expensive. If you have 8Gb RAM, go with an 8Gb flash drive. Above that,with the flash drive capacity, it won't matter. All the "ready boost" really does is support the buffer in your hard drive. Oh, I don't have USB3 yet, so it could be that is a great advantage, but then I need a whole new PC (and a new flash drive) Not worth it to me.

Well, I don't remember what I paid for the 16GB MicroSD cards I have, but when I bought them they were real cheap, otherwise I wouldn't have. I'm thinking maybe $15 each or less. I originally bought one for my Sansa MP3 player for additional storage. Unfortunately I found out the player is too old to use anything larger than 2GB, so the first one became surplus. The second one came from the cellphone that I was upgrading. The new phone already came with a 16GB card. So now I have two spares. Nice to put them to some kind of use and not laying around in a box somewhere.
I just like experimenting with stuff, and if I can find a way to use something I already have that's potentially helpful I'll at least give it a try.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained, as they say!

It did seem to achieve about a 2-3 FPS increase on Portland Terminal, so I'm definitely OK with THAT! That's one of my fave routes.

Marc