The influence of detector effects on TPC performance

TPC stand alone simulations based on different energy loss models are compared to previously reported measurements with an ALICE TPC prototype. The performance obtained from simulations is shown to depend significantly on all the included detector effects stressing that energy loss model calculations alone are inadequate for describing the performance. When all effects are included, a good quantitative description of both the specific energy loss and the space point resolution can be obtained from all models. This shows that the TPC description in the official ALICE TPC simulation is in agreement with the measured test beam data.