why do fps seem so dire? (in connection with bala hub v4)

wookey · Post by **wookey** » Wed Jun 30, 2004 7:48 pm

can anyone help out?,

i recently took delivery of the excellent new Bala hub and am enjoying driving such a fantastic route but the problem is my framerates seem so poor

i have a 1.2Ghz athlon processor, 512 Mb of RAM, and a GeForce4 Ti 4200 graphics card,

now i'm not sure whether insufficient recources are availiable to run such a detailed route, but Gordon mentions in the readme that frame rates didnt drop to low figures on his system which i think was actually lower spec than the one i run on

but a lot of the activitys just bring up send/dont send messages, and my framerates seem awfully dire whenever AI traffic comes into view, getting as low as 4-5fps with one AI train in view, and about 13-14 fps running light across Barmouth bridge looking back towards barmouth harbour 9both of the above at a res of 600x800) which isnt particularly stunning given that i'm running light, is this just the sad reality of Msts and its limitations or is somthing amiss here?

arabiandisco · Post by **arabiandisco** » Wed Jun 30, 2004 7:59 pm

Drivers and so on is a decent start, and if your hard disk's full that causes problems too.

I have a 1.2 Athlon, 256RAM and a 32MB Geforce 2 GTS. It's not man enough for these new routes, and my laptop is even slower, despite having a better processor and more ram. I've never had any luck with 3D games though, I used to get 10fps less than my mate on Quake 3, on a higher spec machine with the above system, and his was a Pentium 2 500MHz with a GF2MX graphics...

Not sure if any of that was relevant, but it took some effort to type. My diagnosis is the computer's too feeble, but as I said, Mine just doesn't like 3D games (and the only bits that are original from when I started gaming are the DVD and the HDD, changed everything else and it still didn't help anything. typical.)

gopher · Post by **gopher** » Wed Jun 30, 2004 8:31 pm

Hi Wookey

I ran it on a similar system, the only difference was a Geforce 2 not four. You should be getting better frame rates than that although Barmouth was never very good. I think I get around 8 to 10 fps there in a heavy activity. I tested the route on two similar Athlons and got better results on the one with older video drivers?????.

The first thing to do is make sure you do not have any programs running in the background. I recommend using a freeware program called EndItAll to do this. Just search for it on the web and use it's default settings. The other thing to try is reduce your game video settings. Select Options on the main MSTS page then Advanced display.
1. Reduce visibility to about halfway.
2. Reduce world objects density by one or two notches, don't do too many or you will lose lots of scenery.
3. Always leave the world and train object quality settings on high or you get some not very nice effects. You can lower the world objects quality as a last resort.
4. Drop the world and train texture qualities by one notch.
If you are still not happy after this on the same screen uncheck

Dynamic shadows, specular lighting and high detail shadows.

Last of all start saving up for a 3Ghz Pentium with a fast video card with 128Mbts of ram and at least 512Mbyts of DDR ram and watch the difference. I bought a tower a couple of months ago at a computer fair with similar specs (it's an Athlon) for just over Â£300.

Gordon

wookey · Post by **wookey** » Wed Jun 30, 2004 9:34 pm

ok, cheers for the advice guys especially all the suggestions Gordon, i'll let you know how i get on next time i get back on,

one other question tho, i think one of the activities that wont load is the bleneau shunt one, has anyone else said it dosnt work? only i was quite looking foreward to that one when i saw the brief lol,

am not sure if its somthing ive done wrong or if its a general problem.

p.s. hmm, Â£300 isnt really too bad for that kind of spec,.. i think i'll be on the lookout for somthing like that now.

gopher · Post by **gopher** » Wed Jun 30, 2004 9:44 pm

Hi Wookey

If your graphics card has only 64Mb ram the activities should load and save OK once you have reduced the game video settings enough. I had the same problems on my Athlon 1.2 system with 64Mb video memory.

Gordon

kimdurose · Post by **kimdurose** » Thu Jul 01, 2004 5:49 am

If you have Norton Internet Security or Norton Anti-Virus, I recommend you uninstall them and confine them to a skip somewhere.
Only now, after more than 9 months, am I starting to appreciate just how fast my PC can operate now that I have junked this over-bloated monster!

And.......my MSTS framerates have increased by about 20%.

degzc · Post by **degzc** » Thu Jul 01, 2004 6:49 am

kimdurose wrote:If you have Norton Internet Security or Norton Anti-Virus, I recommend you uninstall them and confine them to a skip somewhere.
Only now, after more than 9 months, am I starting to appreciate just how fast my PC can operate now that I have junked this over-bloated monster!

And.......my MSTS framerates have increased by about 20%.

Thanks for the tip Kim, I have had nothing but problems too since I installed both of them. Now I know who the culprit is it's back to ZoneAlarm for me. Unless someone can reccomend a better freebie.

Many thanks

degzc

degzc · Post by **degzc** » Thu Jul 01, 2004 7:07 am

wookey wrote:ok, cheers for the advice guys especially all the suggestions Gordon, i'll let you know how i get on next time i get back on,

one other question tho, i think one of the activities that wont load is the bleneau shunt one, has anyone else said it dosnt work? only i was quite looking foreward to that one when i saw the brief lol, am not sure if its somthing ive done wrong or if its a general problem.

p.s. hmm, Â£300 isnt really too bad for that kind of spec,.. i think i'll be on the lookout for somthing like that now.

Hi wookey, I'm afraid the ol' 1.2Ghz is not up to the latest routes. Get yourself something like mine:

Pentium 4 2.8Ghz with Dual Bios, 512 DDR Ram, 80Gb HDD and a 256Mb WinFast A360 Graphics card based on the Nvidia GeForce FX 5700.

Then give Bala Hub a run. I guarantee it's money well spent.

I added a new tower and DVD Player plus a 16xDVD+/- writer for AU$1100 custom built. Best thing I ever did.

Cheers Degzc

johndibben · Post by **johndibben** » Thu Jul 01, 2004 8:48 am

With al the tweaks above, you should increase fps quite a bit. I also took Tim Court's advice and start an activity, shut it down and restart it. It really does improve things.

I also don't play while connected to the Internet and reboot after disconnecting. This helps enormously.

Trainz uses far more memory and complex routes won't run properly on my PC without doing this.

Your specs are low for MSTS these days though.

I've got 2.8Ghz, 512RAM and an 128MB video card and even that's sufficient for most routes with the low fps you get on almost every route somewhere.

I doubt it will be for any second generation trainsims though.

thenudehamster · Post by **thenudehamster** » Thu Jul 01, 2004 12:53 pm

degzc wrote:
kimdurose wrote:If you have Norton Internet Security or Norton Anti-Virus, I recommend you uninstall them and confine them to a skip somewhere.
Only now, after more than 9 months, am I starting to appreciate just how fast my PC can operate now that I have junked this over-bloated monster!

And.......my MSTS framerates have increased by about 20%.
Thanks for the tip Kim, I have had nothing but problems too since I installed both of them. Now I know who the culprit is it's back to ZoneAlarm for me. Unless someone can reccomend a better freebie.

Many thanks

degzc

AVG (http://www.grisoft.com) have a free, updateable version of their excellent anti-virus app which seem not affect my setup at all.

Now if only I could get my Motherboard to recognise my new XP2400 CPU for what it is I'd be even happier....

decapod · Post by **decapod** » Thu Jul 01, 2004 1:57 pm

Apart from the graphics options mentioned above.

Defrag the disk regularly ....

Before you do that - try out my savetex utility on the route and trainset folder.
http://www31.brinkster.com/decapod/downloadsv.htm

It makes many texture files even smaller, so stuttering is much less.

This makes low frame rates more constant and, to me, more acceptible.
(still running 1Ghz GF2MX)

saddletank · Post by **saddletank** » Thu Jul 01, 2004 2:11 pm

kimdurose wrote:If you have Norton Internet Security or Norton Anti-Virus, I recommend you uninstall them and confine them to a skip somewhere.
Only now, after more than 9 months, am I starting to appreciate just how fast my PC can operate now that I have junked this over-bloated monster!

And.......my MSTS framerates have increased by about 20%.

It may be just the Internet Security software which upset your machine Kim (which I don't have), as I use Norton A-V and never turn it off when running MSTS, and I have not noticed an fps hit in MSTS at all

I've used McAfee, Panda, AVG and Norton and none of them have impacted the running of MSTS as far as I can tell. Maybe you had set Norton up to interrogate files when they are accessed? I can imagine that might annoy MSTS!

degzc · Post by **degzc** » Thu Jul 01, 2004 6:56 pm

Thanks BarryH,

I had forgotten that one. Been a while since I've used it. Memory is not what it used to be, (another old fart, lol)

Cheers degzc

ABABAB · Post by **ABABAB** » Thu Jul 01, 2004 8:39 pm

Hi Wookey
I too have a G force 4 ti 4200 128MB ram running in quality mode. I have a athlon 2.4 and 1GB of ram. Bala Hubb 4 runs very reasonably, no real complaints. I just thought this might be helpful. I am told for future reference a radeon 9600 XT might be my best upgrade. I hope this is of some help to you.

gopher · Post by **gopher** » Thu Jul 01, 2004 10:27 pm

Decapod wrote

(still running 1Ghz GF2MX)

Paul I'm stunned. What does the gas bill come to

Gordon