[cjakeman]

I'm running Open Rails on a Sony laptop. It's an i5 processor with 6GB of RAM but the graphics card is nothing special - an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5470.

If I "invest" in a desktop with a high spec graphics card, I would expect to get much higher frames rates than the 20 / sec or so that the Sony gives me. It would be great to have smoother movement and the capacity to handle more polygons.

However my question is this (and I may be a little naive in asking it but I don't have a gaming background),

"What other improvements would a high spec graphics card enable Open Rails to give me - straight away and perhaps also in the future?"

Thanks,

[captain_bazza]

How strange is 'coincidence'? I, too, am looking at a new 'box' and a videocard (must be NVIDIA) is an important component. I don't need a fancy card, but it must have 2 GB of DDR5. My present GTX 550 Ti 1 GB card is good and I don't experience any particular problems but my previous experience with a 2 GB (less poweful ATI) was very good and I believe the extra 1 GB did make a difference, IMO and IME. I want a mid-range card at a suitable mid-range price, EG around NZ$450, which would give me something like a GTX660 with 2 GB DDR5.

I require an NVIDIA for technical reasons....such as getting my 3d capable ASUS monitor working in 3d mode (also requires W7).

Don't be shy of openly discussing such technical matters here - because they are important to anyone contemplating yet another financially debilitating and errksome upgrade decision. (Been there, done that, more times than I'd like to tell.) :)

Cheers Bazza

PS I am retaining my current system for modeling purpose because it does run everything okay on XP SP3.

[roeter]

Hello,

last year I got a bit frustrated with the low frames rates (hardly over 10) on my old laptop, so I got myself a new one - this time with a proper video card - a NVIDIA GEForce GT 650M (2 Gbyte). Frame rates are now generally over 100 - not bad for a laptop. Another advantage is that you can 'tune' this card for specific applications like OR.

Regards,

Rob Roeterdink

[captain_bazza]

I just got notification in an email today, there is a new up rated GTX 650 coming out....no local price yet, because it's not reached our market.

http://www.evga.com/articles/00737/

Cheers Bazza

[Lindsayts]

I have three systems running OR, the first is an older system, processor is (I think) a Q8400 running at 2.6ghz this has an Radeon 4870, the other are newer running one an i7 940 the other an i7 950, both at 3.0ghz. The first has an Nvdia GTX 560 SOC, the 2nd a Radeon 5870. All these run OR at good frame rates, the later from memory are around 30 or so percent higher frame rates than the 4870 machine. Note, the frame rates on the two newer machines are almost identical and the video cards are both the same vintage. The only route I have that will produce frame rates below 60fps is the SOB at some of the larger stations, particularly with a lot of AI traffic as some of SOB's activies have.

The usual frame rates with the two newer machines would be in the range of 80 to 200 fps, mostly appears to depend on object count of the route. Earlier versions of OR did have lowish frame rates in mountainous areas does not appear to be a concern now though.

I found a quad core CPU to be more important with OR than a real hot video card, although this should no longer be a problem on any recentish machine. It would be safe to say any mid range priced video card from either Nvidia or AMD will give a decent result.

Lindsay

[Lindsayts]

A further comment, a recent post on a Linux forum (phoronix) from one of the driver developers (bridgman) at AMD said the mid range cards give a better "bang for your buck" than either the high or low end cards, The high end cards suffering from it was difficult to get enough data into the GPU to keep them going at full speed, The lower end cards having not a fast enough data path into the GPU to keep it going properly.

I would put up a link but cannot immediately find the thread concerned.

Lindsay

[Genma Saotome]

Look at your f5 display in OR... what are the Render and Updater process percentages? If Render is always >90 and Updater waaay lower then you don't have a powerful enough CPU (or maybe it's ok but needs to be overclocked). That should influence your desktop build (and if it doesn't I can send you a route that will). Given OR is multi-threaded a quad core should be a requirement. Overclocking for OR should be at least a thought and so you should give some consideration to a good MB (ASUS MB's have an excellent reputation). As others have said a high end -- bleeding edge -- GPU is probably not worth the money (and neither is a cheap one). I'd like to see OR take advantage of SLI/Crossfire PC's but my hunch is it would only payoff on a really good (overclocked) CPU. Back to GPU's, it seems Nvidia is ahead again in the race w/ AMD, at least at the upper ends.

For non-OR games... AFAIK it really varies from game to game. There's a lot of good tech analysis at Tom's Hardware and IMO it is worth checking to see if your favorites are listed in the test suites.