Hard drive trouble?

[miketrak]

I recently got KRS, and from what I've seen so far it seems very good. The steam loco sounds are the best I've heard in a computer sim, less said about the steam sounds for MSTS and Kisha De Go! the better!
I do however have trouble with stuttering like many people on here, the S&D route runs best, but the York and Paddington routes are the worst, with it virtually unplayable near the main stations. My graphics card is above the spec for the game, but when the game does stutter, my hard drive goes mad, obviously trying to load up the graphics. It also takes a while to load a route up, with the hard drive working very hard! I have a 2.4Ghz hard drive, so it is up to the game, but it makes me think that the problem I have got is the hard drive not working at this speed or something. I'm not terribly up on computers, so can anyone confirm/deny this fact? The reason I dont think its a graphics card or memory problem is the amount of work the hard drive is doing when the game stutters/freezes, as if it were these faults then the hard drive would not be working overtime! Oh, and I have defragged the drive .

For the record I have...

GeForce 7600 GS 256mb graphics card
AMD athalon 64 processor 2.4Ghz
512mb Ram

Hope someone can help
Mike.

[jamespetts]

Ahh, your specification belies the problem, I think: you have only 512Mb of RAM. That is not much these days. Rail Simulator is a memory-intensive application. When you get the "stuttering", associated with hard drive activity, that is the computer frantically trying to load things from the hard drive into the small amount of memory that you have. If you had more memory, it would have to do that far less often, and could do it further in advance and at a more even rate, so your experience would be smoother. By contrast, I have 2Gb of RAM, and I hardly ever have this problem.

[CaptScarlet]

I agree with James, 512MB is really the usable minimum for Windows XP let alone any other application on top of that.

John

[miketrak]

Thanks guys! I suspected a RAM upgrade may be needed. Any recommendations where to get a good price?

Mike.

[Easilyconfused]

http://www.crucial.com/uk/

[CaptScarlet]

If you buy any more ram make sure it works with you motherboard. ie does your motherboard use ddr or ddr2 ram. Also it is preferable that the ram modules match ie the brand, type and speed are the same as well as the size. If your system is using older ram it may be harder to find a match so you might need to replace it. Ram is relatively cheap at the moment so more is better ( 1 or 2 GB ) but take into account how long you will have this pc as you might not be able to use this ram in a new system ( depending on what type it is eg ddr ).

John

[phill70]

http://www.crucial.com/uk/

Crucial have a system checker, it matches the ram you already have.

[exshunter]

Without wanting to put a dampner on things , i have 4 gig of Corsair ram and my pc also stutters like crazy. I also have two 8800 gtx's in sli and no matter what settings,minimum or maximum,the game still stuuters and the difference between max and min settings is about 10 fps (max-40 ish fps, min-30 fps ish).

[miketrak]

Just put 2gb of RAM in, and the game now runs much, much better! Still stutters a little on very heavy scenery, and high speeds, but much improved! thanks! mike