OpenRails performance on mid range system

[Train-a-Mania]

The vast majority of players don't have -- and never will -- such a machine. As both a route designer and a software developer I think it's pretty important to understand what people actually have... you know... reality.

I'm with Dave on this. One has to look at the "mid-range" of the train-simmers-who-own-PCs market, not "mid-range" of the entire computer market.

Keep in mind, too, that part of the idea of Train Simulation is to expand the interest in railroading to the general public. You can't do that if you tell them they need a "mid-range $1k+" PC to be a part of it.

Let me add in a car analogy using rough numbers: It's like saying a Porsche valued at $100k is a mid-range car. It may not be as powerful as a $500k Ferrari (ergo mid-range within the entire car market), but many people don't even have a Porsche to begin with. On a global scale (out of the percentages of all the cars in the world, figuring that there are 10,000 Ford Focus's for every Bentley), it's a high-performance car.

[conrail1]

I believe that only a small percentage of the people who run train sims do so on custom built, bleeding edge PC's and therefore to categorize a identical PC that happens to be 2 years old as mid range is, IMO, to completely misrepresent the environment that is use. The vast majority of players don't have -- and never will -- such a machine. As both a route designer and a software developer I think it's pretty important to understand what people actually have... you know... reality.

As I said before time marches on and just like we’ve seen with the flight sim community, a larger percentage of those who are serious about the hobby run train sims (well games up to this point) on custom PC’s.

The obvious reason why we haven’t seen any wide spread use of high end gaming setups in the train game community centers around what we’ve had for train games, a 10 year old program with DirectX 7 graphics (MSTS).

The vast majority of players don't have -- and never will -- such a machine.

A vast majority of players will never take a train simulator that serious either, just like a vast majority of players have never and will never experience fluid performance with a train simulator or any other game for that matter. In addition a vast majority of players in the end will also complain when their five year old PC can’t run that train simulator with the up to date game engine, and so the cycle continues with the train game community.

As both a route designer and a software developer I think it's pretty important to understand what people actually have... you know... reality.

As both someone who has been involved in the development of a professional training simulator and as a gaming system builder (those beautiful F-units in RailWorks were actually created on one of two machines that I built for a well known train sim add-on developer), I do have a very good understanding of what hardware will effectively run what game, it’s called… you know… experience.

FWIW, your price quotes include substitutions... the Rampage is available so instead of the $129 you suggested for the other product, it would cost you between $300-$400 for that MB and the EVGA graphics card is available and it'll cost between $400-$700. It's at least $1500... then add the OS. So I'll stick w/ my own estimate, thank you very much.

None of which will change the performance of this two year old, now mid range setup from the components I substituted above.

[conrail1]

One has to look at the "mid-range" of the train-simmers-who-own-PCs market, not "mid-range" of the entire computer market.

I’ll tell you what, when all the eye candy (shadows and self shadowing among other things), AI and a host of other features planed for OpenRails get implemented, show us what you’re getting for performance on a “train-simmers” idea of a mid-range system.

Take a serious look at just how much difference there is in performance between the mid and high end comparison in this thread. Then tell me how much over head you think the mid range system is going to have after all the goodies (high poly models, shadows, you name it) in OpenRails are implemented.

Keep in mind, too, that part of the idea of Train Simulation is to expand the interest in railroading to the general public.

Lol, sorry but I’ve spent most of my adult life in the railroad industry and I highly doubt that a train simulator is going to “expand the interest in railroading to the general public”.

[cwhense]

Well just my 2 cents worth, there is a thread up in pc tech that folks are listing their system specs on.

I priced out your mid range system, and it came to about 2200 custom built from Ibuypower.

I agree with you conrail1 that someone serious about GAMING will have the systems you are describing. But I also agree with Dave that most casual gamers will have something somewhat less.

what would you call my system I have the following specs

ASUS P5Q Pro Turbo LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard
CORSAIR DOMINATOR 4GB DDR2 1066
2 SAPPHIRE 100259-1GL Radeon HD 4870 1GB
Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer
Intel Core 2 Duo E6850
seagate 320gb 7200rpm hard-drives

It plays everything great even today's games, only upgrade done to it was the video cards and even today this system will cost you about 1000 dollars to build.

I would consider my machine a mid level machine in today's market but it still cost less then 2 grand when I bought it 3 years ago.

serious gamers my guess only makeup maybe 15 to 20% of the computer users out there, if you design your game for that market you are limiting yourself, now this is a open source product so profit is not a concern but you are still limiting yourself and the casual gamers market is a big one.

you need that market no matter if you are making a free game or not, more so in this type of game then a FPS or Morgg, because its that market that going to make it a success or failure.

[ericmp]

I think that what one considers 'good performance' is purely subjective. Some, such as myself, are perfectly content to game with frame rates below, say, 70 FPS in a graphics intensive game. Then there are some who simply cannot stand to game below the aforementioned benchmark, and that is probably because they just aren't used to it. And then there are some who would love to be able to get around 70 FPS in a graphics intensive game.

This is my system:

Vista Home Premium 64-bit
ASUS M3A78PRO Motherboard
AMD Phenom II X4 940 3.00GHz
8GB DDR2 800MHz RAM
EVGA NVidia 9600GT 512MB 256-bit
Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Sound Card
500GB Hard Drive
550W Power Supply
1X CD/DVD-RW Drive
3 Cooling Fans
ATX Tornado Mid-Tower Case

Cost: With the upgrades I've given it (Faster CPU and more RAM), I would estimate it's value off the top of my head at, perhaps, under a grand.

Compared to conrail1's high end system, it doesn't stand up at all, and I'm aware of that. It doesn't even stand up to his 'mid range' system. But, I still feel spoiled with it compared to my first system, which had an old Pentium 4 single core CPU and an ATI Radeon X1650PRO.

My point is that it seems rather silly and childish to bicker about "who has the better PC," because what one considers better is an opinion. conrail1 believes that his high end system is better than his 'mid range' system because he is just used to the outstanding gaming performance his high end system provides. In contrast, I would consider his 'mid range' system to be high end because it would probably kick my PC in the rear in a benchmark test.

Now, I'm aware that this could be easily combated by saying: "Well, the specs speak for themselves; my system x is still better than your system y no matter what your opinion is."

Well...okay then! I'm happy for you, but it certainly does NOT make you better than me or anyone else with a system slower that your system x. We're all just trying to play a game on our computers for pure recreation. Some are just willing to take it more seriously than others by building very high end machines, and that is perfectly fine! I respect that. But you aren't better for doing so.

That is just my two cents worth, and is said with the best of intentions. I was in no way trying to attack anyone and/or their opinions.

[conrail1]

I priced out your mid range system, and it came to about 2200 custom built from Ibuypower.

Just as the links I provided prove the same mid-range performance PC that I speced out will not even cost half as much as what “Ibuypower” is charging. Anyone who spends $2200.00 on a Core 2 based machine today would have to have their head examined.

But I also agree with Dave that most casual gamers will have something somewhat less.

Those of us who are interested in a real train simulation, with realistic physics and something that represents actual railroad operations would not be considered “casual gamers” in the least. A train simulator is not going to hold a casual gamers interest for more than three minutes.

serious gamers my guess only makeup maybe 15 to 20% of the computer users out there, if you design your game for that market you are limiting yourself, now this is a open source product so profit is not a concern but you are still limiting yourself and the casual gamers market is a big one.

you need that market no matter if you are making a free game or not, more so in this type of game then a FPS or Morgg, because its that market that going to make it a success or failure.

When you take into consideration that there is an extremely small market for train simulation to begin with and the fact that this is an open project without revenue to generate why would this even be relevant? There is no “market” to worry about.

As I mentioned in my response to “Train-a-Mania” if my two year old mid-range system is just performing a little better than the 60 FPS performance target now, what do you think performance is going to be like with all of OpenRail’s bells and whistles in place?

You don’t get something for nothing and you can only optimize so much.

[conrail1]

I think that what one considers 'good performance' is purely subjective. Some, such as myself, are perfectly content to game with frame rates below, say, 70 FPS in a graphics intensive game.

I’ve mentioned this before but the most fluid any game is going to be is when the frame rate consistently matches the refresh rate of the monitor along with v-sync enabled. In the case of an LCD that would be 60Hz/60 FPS. Personally I could care less if the frame rate goes above 60, what really matters is that the frame rate consistently matches the refresh rate which will require some grunt depending on the game.

It doesn't even stand up to his 'mid range' system.

Actually the AMD Phenom II architecture compares very well to Intel’s Core 2 and in a lot of cases performance will be neck and neck. It’s the i7 architecture that AMD has serious trouble competing with.

Maybe AMD’s future “Bulldozer” architecture will finally change this.