[dforrest]

I'm buying a new computer and am trying to decide on a video card. I am considering the NVIDIA GTX-1060 or the NVIDIA GTX-1070. Is there any benefit that the higher specification card will give me in running Open Rails?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[drjayyyy]

In researching the right video card for a home built gaming system I put together earlier this year I first looked at one of the Geforce GTX1080 cards but on YouTube someone compared the 1080 and the 1060 and found the 1080 just slightly out performed 1060. I settled on the Geforce GTX 1060 Strix .6gb. I can't remember the difference in price. My old rig could not run Trainz/TANE smoothly or TS2017s New Jersey Transit routes without locking up. Now with all video settings maxed out. Overclocking activated also . It runs smooth like butter.

[EricF]

It really depends on what you plan to do with the card. The GTX1080 offers more performance particularly on DirectX 11/12, plus Vulkan (OpenGL evolution) compared to the GTX1060. It also depends on what screen resolution you run. Even a GTX1080TI can be hard-pressed to deliver high frame rates on 4K screens. A lot of it comes down to how many pixels you want the card to draw at once. Lower resolutions need less GPU capability. Multiple monitors, 2K and especially 4K resolutions all need more GPU capability to run games at their highest-detail graphics settings.

Open Rails currently isn't that heavily GPU-dependent, since it's still on DX9. In time, that could change, so consider the future. But right now, even a GTX 1060 is overkill for OR. If you run other much more GPU-dependent games, use those as your guide instead.

There's also the pricing issue, especially for the mid-range GTX1070 which is often called the best value. It probably is for most people, but that makes it very popular -- and supplies keep running low. Low supply drives the price up to nearly the same as 1080 cards. At that point, if you can save up a little more money, the GTX1080 is the difference between getting a GPU now vs saving a little money on a 1070 but having to wait a month or so for supplies to come back. Meanwhile, it keeps GTX1080 sales moving, so there's no incentive to drop their prices... The situation is extremely profitable for the graphics card manufacturers. Not so great for consumers.

If you're not worried about running first-person shooter games at 120Hz refresh rate on a high-res screen or multiple monitors, a GTX1060 -- particularly a factory-overclocked one like what Asus, MSI and others offer -- is a great value.

If you're considering going to multiple monitors, an ultra-wide 2K (typically 3440x1440p) screen or even 4K, you may want to future-proof a bit with a 1070 or 1080 card. But it's all largely irrelevant for the current state of Open Rails. It's more about what else you run and your monitor setup's requirement in pure number of pixels vs the card's pixel output at a given frame rate (typically 60FPS unless you like fast-twitch games).

As you move up the scale in video cards, they tend to generate more heat. Be sure your computer's case has adequate airflow and fans to push it out.

You can also look at AMD cards, however, their power requirements (and heat output) tend to be higher. Their driver architecture has been strictly forward-looking since DX9/10. AMD's drivers often have poor support for older pre-DX9 games (like MSTS...). For that reason, a lot of us who like older games tend to be stuck on Nvidia's offerings whether we like it or not.

Here's my personal anecdote --

I built my system with a GTX960 card, a factory-overclocked card with extra memory that was pretty much the most you could get out of a 960. It was still inexpensive, and it was only meant to be a stopgap until the 10-series came out. It drove a 1440x900 monitor, and dad absolutely no problems with Open Rails. Running max graphics settings on DX9 games like Euro Truck Simulator/American Truck Simulator, or Elder Scrolls Online could push it pretty hard to its limits, but it still did well

I built an identical computer for my wife a few months later; it has a GTX1060 and runs dual 1920x1080 monitors. The 1060 card keeps up just fine with anything she throws at it, mostly DX9 stuff.

I upgraded my computer with a 34" ultrawide 3440x1440 monitor. I was concerned that it might be a bit much for a GTX1060; an overclocked 1070 would be better, but pricing and availability made an overclocked GTX1080 the better upgrade choice at less than US$100 more. (The monitor was already expensive enough; splitting hairs on price wasn't worth it...) The 1080 card keeps up just fine with whatever I throw at it; I've found any issues with frame rates are generally due to game bugs and optimization problems, not the card's capability. (My monitor isn't a 120Hz "gaming" monitor; it's a 60Hz Dell Ultrasharp which is plenty good for me; For 3440x1440 and above at 120Hz, experts recommend the GTX 1080TI.) A 1060 would probably require backing off some graphics settings from "Ultra" or "Highest" to "High" or "Medium" in some games, and that's fine for a lot of folks.

[dforrest]

Thanks for all that Eric. A lot to think about. My proposed system is a GTX 1080. The video card a "EVGA GeForce® GTX 1070 Superclocked ACX 3.0 Edition 8GB GDDR5 (Pascal)[VR Ready]" and the processor is a "Intel® Core™ Processor i5-8600K 3.60GHZ 9MB Intel Smart Cache LGA1151 (Coffee Lake)" I am also considering a "512GB ADATA XPG GAMMIX S10 PCIe M.2 SSD" as the boot drive. Also plenty of cooling particularly as I am in thr Caribbean usually with no AC!

[EricF]

EVGA makes some very nice graphics cards. I was considering one of their 1070s, but when the availability kept going into back-order and the price kept creeping up, I decided to use a little of the extra money I'd already saved up from waiting for the 1070s to come back in stock -- and buy their 1080 "supeclocked" card instead. I did go one step up in their lineup to the "ICX" heatsink design instead of the "ACX" series, mainly for the additional temperature monitoring and improved cooling. Might be worth evaluating for your purposes. EVGA's heatsink design definitely sheds a lot of heat... and dumps it into the case for the rest of the fans to push out. I can always notice when the GPU is working -- the top fan in my case really starts pushing out the heat.

One side note on EVGA -- In order to download the monitoring and control software for their cards, you have to register your serial number and address information with them. It's mostly to ensure customers register for the warranty, but the registration process is kind of cumbersome. And they will email you with advertisements periodically unless you find and select the option to turn it off

Be sure your case fan setup is moving plenty of air across the SSD in the M.2 slot. SSDs get warm under load, and they can throttle their speed if they get too warm. Some of the newer motherboard designs include a small fan that blows across the M.2 slot area; there are also small heatsinks for M.2 SSDs and even tiny heatsink/fan coolers for them, like scaled-down CPU air coolers. Sometimes the M.2 slot is located close to where the GPU fans are exhausting warm air, so keeping them cool can be a consideration if you run into unexpected performance drops from an SSD in an M.2 slot.

[dforrest]

Thanks again Eric. I have order the system and included the SSD, It has liquid cooling and I have also included three extra case fans!

[Genma Saotome]

 dforrest, on 22 December 2017 - 03:47 PM, said:

Is there any benefit that the higher specification card will give me in running Open Rails?

No, not for Open Rails. Any fps that are higher than your monitor (usually 60fps) is wasted processing and there you don't need to worry about any of those. The routes are are under, oh, lets say 45fps, need all the CPU speed you can give them so again the better GPU is a waste of money. AFAIK it all comes down to whether a better GPU can squeeze out a few more fps when the deck is already stacked against you. IMO some but probably not worth the extra bucks for a better GPU.

IMO you would do far better spending any extra money on a superior CPU; OR tends to be CPU bound anyway.

OTOH if you play a variety of games then on the whole you might do better with a higher end GPU. Some clearly do better than others w/ good GPU processing. OR isn't one of them.

[Hamza97]

I am thinking of upgrading my PC to following specs, i hope that's enough to run any route in OR :sweatingbullets: :

1) CPU : G4650 or i3-7100
2) GPU : GTX 1050ti
3) Mobo : Any model with H110 chipset
4) RAM : 8GB 2400Mhz
5) Storage : Possibly an SSD for boot, normal HDD for storage
6) Monitor : 1920x1080 res, 24inch with IPS

Will be using this for content creation as well as some other gaming like NFS and possibly dabbling in UE4... Any suggestions will be helpful.

[Mike B]

Hamza: if you've scanned any of the other threads on computer specs, you'll note that nobody recommends an i3. Most are dual-core only, perhaps with hyperthreading to simulate 4. That works, but Open Rails runs into limits quickly if it doesn't have at least 4 *real* CPU cores. So I'd upgrade that spec to include an i5 with 4 cores (no hyperthreading in most models, but that's OK). In the current (8th Generation) line, most i5 models should work (do not get the i5-72xx models, which have only 2 cores). See https://www.intel.co...processors.html

If you must stick with an i3, look at the i3-8100 or -8350K, which have 4 cores. Note the pricing, though; you might be able to get a mid-level i5 at a similar or better price. See https://www.intel.co...processors.html

Also, while based on my experience in an older computer with a 750ti the GTX1050ti should be adequate as a GPU, it's low end. If you're really short on cash, it will be OK, but will have little headroom for routes with detailed scenery or activities with a lot of AI and other details. If you can afford a bigger power supply, to support a GTX 1060 or 1080 (see discussion above), the system would work better and longer.

Otherwise, it looks adequate to me in general. Be sure to get that SSD for a boot/software/gaming drive (probably need at least 240-250GB, 450-500 preferred) - the high reading speed compared to a conventional hard disk will greatly help with Open Rails (and MSTS if you try it) frame rates. You can keep non-game data and backups on the hard disk (including an image of the SSD boot disk, for easy restoration if it dies and has to be replaced).

Bottom line: what you've specced would work for most routes in Open Rails as it stands now, but it's not a high-end gaming computer and would likely slow down noticeably on very detailed routes, complex activities, and future versions. Depending on how long you plan to keep it, some strategic CPU and GPU upgrades would help.

[Genma Saotome]

Hamza, you didn't mention what OS you are using. If it is either Win7 or Win10 then 8gb of RAM may be inadequate (for me the art software I use to create textures was the issue; A dozen -- or two -- texture files open at the same time really chews up your RAM)..

I agree with the above comment on real vs. virtual cores. Get 4 real cores if you can.

I have tried several GPU vendors over the years and keep going back to eVGA's cards with nVidia chipsets.
I used to be a confirmed ASUS MB buyer but I became disillusioned and have switched to ASROCK and so far it was a good decision.

That said, what's good or best changes every few months. I recommend you do some study at www.tomshardware.com as tehy are always updating their recommendations