Atomic Systems

I have an XP 3000 with 512ram and 128 graphics. But the train simulator still stops and starts every few minutes. I also have a LCD 15" monitor. So could someone please tell me why this happens even though the trains run better. I would have thought with all this they would run without the stops and starts every few minutes. Apart from this the computor runs perfect so is there a minor ajustment from someone out there to tell me what to do.

What train sim are you talking about ( anyway, this is the Model Railway forum, nothing to do with train sims)

Slight jutters are just one of those things. It's almost certain that, as you go from one track module to another, information has to be loaded. The monitor shouldn't freeze, though. Press shift-z to see the frame rate.

If it worries you try turning the graphics settings down a bit; lowering visibility might help. Try getting it running to your liking on one of the default routes first. Most add-on routes make far greater demands on the graphics card.

regards
Richard

I put my hand rather deeply into my pocket and put in two 120Gb SATA HDs with stripe RAID.

The stuttering is better but it's still there.

glenwood4 wrote:I have an XP 3000 with 512ram and 128 graphics. But the train simulator still stops and starts every few minutes. I also have a LCD 15" monitor. So could someone please tell me why this happens even though the trains run better. I would have thought with all this they would run without the stops and starts every few minutes. Apart from this the computor runs perfect so is there a minor ajustment from someone out there to tell me what to do.

This phenomenon can be the result of several factors. If what your saying is the game stuttering, well live with it, because you can spend a fortune on a monster pc, and it will still be there when loading a busy tile. MSTS does not use your pc's abbilities very well atall. Alternativly, if the game keeps freezing, for a few seconds and the running, and then freezing, you could be suffering from the processor overheating. The cooling fans for the xp3000 arn't realy up to the job with the thrashing the msts gives your processor. I have got 7 fans in my xp2800 PC to keep it cool. You can defrost bread quite quickly by sticking the slices behind my pc!
Jim

Some of the stuttering is due to loading up ambient sounds such as water, town noises etc. which are often quite large file sizes or track region sounds. Just another example of Kuju's inefficient code which we have grown to live with!

Using the "Load all Wavs" option in Route Riter will help with this a bit.

Nothing to do with data transfer rate it`s more a memory problem.

Alas I dont think it is, since increasing RAM memory on a test machine with only MSTS installed from 512MB to 1GB made no difference at all to stuttering since the game doesnt use its available memory efficiently.

Improvements are possible using SATA disks but at current levels of technology i dont think a completely stutter free installation is possible.


Oh ... and I have to run my Athlon 1.8ghz pc with both side panels removed and an external fan blowing across the motherboard to stop overheating ( a suggestion made by AMD themselves when i complained of lockups after 10 minutes operation ). It runs at around 90 degrees C, great for warming your toes in winter and i had a heat sink, CPU cooling fan, psu cooling fan, graphic card cooling fan, sucker fan to draw in air to the case and an exhaust fan to blow air out.

rlmathers wrote:Hello Jim

I have never had a machine with more than 3 fans, I have an Athon (tm) XP 3000 + with 1 fan and a second fan for motherboard and power supply cooling. I do have thermal monitoring and control and I do not have problems.

Please do not give misguided advice about processor cooling, provided you choose a fan with the correct heat loss/dissipation characteristics and you operate the machine within its thermal limits there will not be a problem.

You are bound to have noticed the common factor in the above posts, loading tiles, loading sounds, loading all wav files though this last piece of advice really ought to have an attached caveat, beware! Nothing to do with data transfer rate it`s more a memory problem.

Kindest regards
Ray

I just like my pc to run cool If you buy an AMD processor and fan package, the fan you get is not really up to the job. Oh and what temperature is your processor running at after several hours of running msts? I never said anything about data transfer. I refered to the fact that the orriginal poster didn't make it clear as to wether they had stuttering or freezing.

Hello Ray

Interesting discussion

rlmathers wrote:MSTS running with Skipton 1920 route using the original activities and believe me it doesn`t get more graphically or sound intensive than that.

It does. Have you tried Severn Valley Railway? That route contains a good number of wavs over 1Mb in size, and many more objects per tile than Skipton, plus a number of animated scenery objects which add to the load. Skipton is a lightweight in comparison.

Reducing the options settings to lower values won't reduce stutter much in my experience. The game engine is still loading and unloading s files and ace files into/out of memory from the HDD as you cross tile boundaries.

A better option is more efficient route building using common textures, DXT compressed textures, sensible LODs, and similar tricks. Unfortunately the end user is unable to improve all of these.

I don't have the inclination to spend lots on a game over 3 years old now. I'll put up with my AMD 2800, 1Gig of 400ms RAM, 128Mb FX 5700, and ATA100 HDD for now. Well at least until the 2nd generation of train sims comes out and we learn what the optimum setup for getting the best out of those is.

rlmathers wrote:Hi Jim

I havn't got a problem!

Take a look Jim:



Just to remind you:

ASUS A7N8X-E motherboard
AMD Athlon (tm) XP 3000 +

MSTS running with Skipton 1920 route using the original activities and believe me it doesn`t get more graphically or sound intensive than that.

Blue graph - CPU
Red graph - motherboard

Sample rate - 5 secs
Date and times as shown on the graph.

Kindest regards
Ray

I don't have a problem:

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