Atomic Systems

Hi guys, well I bought Rail Sim today from PC World and couldn't wait to get it going on my new Vista machine... But right from the installation it is has been all problems

Firstly when it installed it came up with a box saying "It might not have installed properly" but it still seemed to work when I ignored that warning. Then when I started playing it it was soooo unbelievably jerky! It runs at around 15FPS!! Just a little info on my machine specs... I bought this PC around a month ago and I know the graphics card isn't top notch but the rest is pretty decent.

Intel Core 2 Quad Processor Q6600
2.4GHZ Processor with 3GB DDR2 ram
Nvidia Geforce 7050 (I think the problem may lie in the fact the graphics card isn't too great)
Windows Vista 64 home premium

Now at the moment it's virtually unplayable because of the jerkyness, but also not only that... I have read all the controls for the game and things but for some reason the only way I can drive is.. BACKWARDS! haha, I'm following all the controls but it just can't help itself from moving backwards and not forwards! Good job i've only been playing in free mode.

I actually went town today to get MSTS for £5 but couldn't find it in any game shop so decided to buy Rail Sim instead. It does look like a very realistic game but it may be a waste of £15 if I can't iron out these problems on my new machine I need a lot of help to get this working smoothly! I think also I will have to un-install the whole thing because of the problem with my computer saying it doesen't recognise that the game was installed correctly.

So to put it bluntly... HEEEELLLPPPP!

Potentially great PC, but shocking graphics card compared with the rest of the spec. As you say, that's probably the cause of it being so "unbelievably jerky".

As for the warning about it not installing properly - I presume you're new to Vista? I've never seen RS say that, but other programs have. Vista tries to be clever, but quite often gets it wrong. Much like how it's all too quick to claim a program has stopped responding when actually it's very busy doing something...

simuk wrote:Potentially great PC, but shocking graphics card compared with the rest of the spec. As you say, that's probably the cause of it being so "unbelievably jerky".

As for the warning about it not installing properly - I presume you're new to Vista? I've never seen RS say that, but other programs have. Vista tries to be clever, but quite often gets it wrong. Much like how it's all too quick to claim a program has stopped responding when actually it's very busy doing something...

Yep, spose that's why it was £500 though. Big step up from my old PC I had before that which was 1.5 ghz, 512mb ram and Nvidia Geforce MX 200 graphics card LOL.

I would change the graphics card but I'm not good with the internal stuff of computers and I would have no idea what card would be compatible for a start. Yes I am new to Vista, if it was upto me I would have installed XP on my new computer but Vista came in the PC itself and I didn't need a disk to install it so I guess if I changed the OS to XP it would completely change it and I wouldn't get Vista back if I wanted to in the future without buying the Vista package.

One of AMD ATI Radeon 4xxx series would be a great thing, with new drivers they even got performance boost. Take a card with 512 MB of graphic memory.
Like Radeon 4670, it is quite fast for a quite low price (in Europe it costs between 80 and 90 €, in UK it's probably about 60 pounds.)
It depends however, how much money do you want to spend. I have Radeon 4870, this is really fast and quality graphic card, it runs RS in full detail with no problems.

keber wrote:One of AMD ATI Radeon 4xxx series would be a great thing, with new drivers they even got performance boost. Take a card with 512 MB of graphic memory.
Like Radeon 4670, it is quite fast for a quite low price (in Europe it costs between 80 and 90 €, in UK it's probably about 60 pounds.)
It depends however, how much money do you want to spend. I have Radeon 4870, this is really fast and quality graphic card, it runs RS in full detail with no problems.

Thanks for that reply Yes I would be interested in getting a better graphics card for it, the only problem is I would need some serious help on the technical side! I have had pc's for 7 years but never really explored the whole upgrading side apart from simply upgrading my old PC from 128mb ram to 512mb ram a few years back, pretty easy to replace ram though! I think you have to have a certain graphics card to fit a certain motherboard don't you? I mean for instance my old PC that was made in 2001, I never even bothered looking to upgrade that graphics card because I knew that it wouldn't support anything decent because the motherboard was so old.

Andy20 wrote:I think you have to have a certain graphics card to fit a certain motherboard don't you?

Seeing as yours is new it's most likely to be PCI Express, your old one was probably AGP. Other than just make sure your power supply is up to it and should be fine to upgrade.

Hi Andy
Welcome to the forum
If you look carefully at the silly warning cortesy of Vista you will see also that it says the program has installed correctly.
I tend to ignore this warning message now.
As long as you see on the initial installation that the program has installed correctly ignore Vista saying differently.
Vista is really stupid to say the least and I personally wish Microsoft had left XP as the favoured operating system.
Another annoyance you will come across with Vista is constantly being asked Do you want to install the software you are trying to install etc,
Vista doesn't trust us to make changes to the system.
Whenever you install anything make sure you select run with administrator rights in the options.
Otherwise this can cause big problems sooner or later.
I would also advise that you make a copy of the entire Rail Simulator Folder prior to installing new content ie add ons etc.
I hope you get your teething problem with the game resolved.
Kind regards Stephen

Extra memory will help alleviate the 'jerkiness' you describe. When I purchased RS the stuttering was terrible, but once I had installed an extra stick of memory on the advice of my brother the performance really improved, and RS runs nice and smoothly now, even through areas of dense scenery.

Best wishes,
Padster

From what I've read that graphics chip is integrated into the motherboard so you should have a empty graphics slot to put in a new one if you wanted to. It would be best to refer to the motherboard user manual to see what type of slot it needs. This will be the sole reason for the bad game performance as that chip is low end as intergrated chips go. Its usually not that hard to change graphics cards but if you are unsure you could either ask a friend who has done it or pay someone to do it for you as a last resort.

John

Integrated graphics cards often share the main memory for the graphics memory. Dedicated graphics memory have higher bandwidth.
The rest of the system spec should be good enough to get reasonable frame rates.

koiman wrote:Extra memory will help alleviate the 'jerkiness' you describe. When I purchased RS the stuttering was terrible, but once I had installed an extra stick of memory on the advice of my brother the performance really improved, and RS runs nice and smoothly now, even through areas of dense scenery.

Best wishes,
Padster

How much memory did you have before and after?
I went from 2GB to 4GB on Vista, but it didn't make a shocking difference. I think about 3GB is enough for RS on Vista. For rough figures, Vista eats up 1GB just for the pleasure of using it, RS and the route require about 1GB, and that leaves about 1GB for disk caching. Yep O/S's like to cache disk data and will happily swap out infrequently used application data space to accommodate it.

Thanks for all the help Ok so it seems that my main concern here is to upgrade the graphics card and I should be in business, not just for RS but for future games that i'll buy on my new computer!

Rich when you mention power supply, what exactly does that mean? Is that what kind of power supply is inside the box of my computer? See i'm pretty rubbish at knowing what those kinda things actually mean! lol. I don't want to end up breaking the comp having only just bought it

I could get a friend to help me but he lives in Stoke which is like 60 miles away so it may be difficult for him to get time to come down Would a Nvidia 8800 graphics card be good? It seems that people like that graphics card.

Hi Andy

From the spec of your computer, everything is very good bar the graphics card (god only knows why retailers put good parts into a computer, but use a next to rubbish graphics card or even intergrated graphics card!).

Several things we will need to know. First off as you identified correctly is the power supply 'box'. What we idealy need to know is the wattage rating it has. This should be found in the manual that came with the computer or, as you say as you are upgrading the graphics card, take off the side panel of the computer, and look at the 'box' at the top of the case. It will have a label reading several numbers on it with something like 'Total voltage output' and a value next to it. Post that if you can . I heavily suspect that it might be a generic 300watt power supply but have no fear! we only need to know the rating at this stage.

Next we will need to know is what motherboard you have. Now, this might not be obvious off the bat but your manual again should say what motherboard you have. If not and since this I think this is a pre built computer, would it be possible to give us a website link to where you bought it? Otherwise, as you say you purchased it just a month a go, it probably will have a PCI-e x16 slot, which is where the graphics card will go. (As a last resort you could look on the motherboard for a label which generally tells you what make/type of board it is).

Once we know these two things, you can consider what graphics card to buy . Now, if you do only have a 300watt power supply, as mentioned earlier, a Radeon 4670 will work wonders for you . It only takes the power it needs from the slot its in, so no additional connectors are required. The 4670 can usually be bought for around £60 online.

However, if you have a higher rated power supply buy a reputable maker, you can consider buying an even better graphics card such as the Radeon 4850, Nvidia 8800GT etc. I would leave that decision until we know:

- What power supply you have (i.e. the voltage rating and the Make of it if possible)
- What motherboard you have (I'm pretty confident it will have a PCI-e x16 slot regardless anyway considering its only 1 month old ).

But ultimately, if you purchased the computer from a shop retailer, either online or instore, would it be possible to give a website link to it please so we can look at the list of specifications? .

Graham

lostandwild wrote:Hi Andy

From the spec of your computer, everything is very good bar the graphics card (god only knows why retailers put good parts into a computer, but use a next to rubbish graphics card or even intergrated graphics card!).

Several things we will need to know. First off as you identified correctly is the power supply 'box'. What we idealy need to know is the wattage rating it has. This should be found in the manual that came with the computer or, as you say as you are upgrading the graphics card, take off the side panel of the computer, and look at the 'box' at the top of the case. It will have a label reading several numbers on it with something like 'Total voltage output' and a value next to it. Post that if you can . I heavily suspect that it might be a generic 300watt power supply but have no fear! we only need to know the rating at this stage.

Next we will need to know is what motherboard you have. Now, this might not be obvious off the bat but your manual again should say what motherboard you have. If not and since this I think this is a pre built computer, would it be possible to give us a website link to where you bought it? Otherwise, as you say you purchased it just a month a go, it probably will have a PCI-e x16 slot, which is where the graphics card will go. (As a last resort you could look on the motherboard for a label which generally tells you what make/type of board it is).

Once we know these two things, you can consider what graphics card to buy . Now, if you do only have a 300watt power supply, as mentioned earlier, a Radeon 4670 will work wonders for you . It only takes the power it needs from the slot its in, so no additional connectors are required. The 4670 can usually be bought for around £60 online.

However, if you have a higher rated power supply buy a reputable maker, you can consider buying an even better graphics card such as the Radeon 4850, Nvidia 8800GT etc. I would leave that decision until we know:

- What power supply you have (i.e. the voltage rating and the Make of it if possible)
- What motherboard you have (I'm pretty confident it will have a PCI-e x16 slot regardless anyway considering its only 1 month old ).

But ultimately, if you purchased the computer from a shop retailer, either online or instore, would it be possible to give a website link to it please so we can look at the list of specifications? .

Graham

Hi Graham, I really appreciate that The help I have recieved on these forums has been unbelievable! You are all a helpful bunch of people

Well I have found the PC on the PC world website where I bought it from... Here is the link

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/store/ ... oid=-35410

I haven't yet looked at the motherboard specs but I will do that soon and tell you what it is

Hmmm says the maximum power output shall not exceed 250 watts, that sucks! I basically need a new Power Supply and Graphics Card and I can't really afford both!! The joys of computers :bad-words: