More about my new computer and MSTS woes

rdawes · Post by **rdawes** » Sun Mar 13, 2005 7:26 pm

A month or so ago I asked for help regarding getting MSTS working on a new P4 computer. No mater what I did I always ended up with a dual image of the program one full screen and one half screen like two different resolutions at the same time. I followed everyone's suggestions without any success until yesterday.

In exasperation, I purchased a mobile rack so I could experiment with different operating system configurations on removable hard drives. My first try was to use Windows 98SE without any upgrades to DirectX, etc. I had thought that possibly it was my upgrading DirectX to 9 that caused the problem because MSTS is almost 4 years old.

When this resulted in the same video problem I tried using Windows XP Pro and it has solved the problem. I am getting frame rates in the mid 30's and no lower than 19 FPS in built up areas with all sliders at the maximum. No stuttering with AI in sight and sounds that I have never heard before like the flange sqeal on corners.

This is like a brand new game which has to say something for both MS and Kuju since it is almost 4 years old.

Thanks to all who helped me with suggestions and I hope that my success might encourage anyone having similar problems. Obviously, some PC's and mother boards are designed for the latest versions of Windows and work best when you use them.

Bob

chrisiveson · Post by **chrisiveson** » Sun Mar 13, 2005 9:13 pm

Hi Bob
I suppose an expensive mistake could be made when deciding what sort of computer and OS to purchase.
I've been building and repairing computers now for several years and at present have two running MSTS. Similar spec except one is a P4, the other a Sempron and both running XP Pro.
The Sempron is slightly better at running the activities but falls over with the maths when making activities, especially the timetable calculations.
The P4 breezes through the calculations no bother at all.
And now with a 64bit OS on the horizon I'm starting to think about what sort of a setup will be next.

Regards Chris

rdawes · Post by **rdawes** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 8:36 pm

I had squeeked the maximum fps out of my PIII-600 and got frustrated trying to run routes like NWE2 with all it's complexity which is why I upgraded to a P4-2.4Ghz with a Gig of RAM and a 128MB Nvidia card. I was dissapointed when it wouldn't run MSTS like the old PIII and consequently haven't run a train for months.

It was on a whim that I decided to load XP-Pro on a spare hard-drive to see what would happen. I still can't explain where the problem is with 98SE. It was right up to date with DirectX 9 plus all the latest video drivers and yet I would get the same problem every time. I do suspect that it is the video card but would have to try another one to prove it. Now that I am getting such great frame rates and the machine is working I think that I'll stay out of the box for a while.

Bob

salopiangrowler · Post by **salopiangrowler** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 1:37 am

try 1024x768 on monitor with 32bit colour
1024x768x32 on msts resolutions, thats what im running and im pentium celeron 2.6Ghz 128 Nvidia

rdawes · Post by **rdawes** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 3:11 am

Sorry, I tried every combination from 640x480 and up without success. Same problem every time until I used XP.

At this point I'm just happy to be driving trains again after many months of nothing.

Bob

buffy500 · Post by **buffy500** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 8:44 am

rdawes wrote:I still can't explain where the problem is with 98SE.

Its cr@p, thats whats up with it.

wirralsimon · Post by **wirralsimon** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 12:21 pm

One thing I have seen with Win98 is that too much extra RAM can be counter-productive. There is no way Win98 is going to do anything useful with 1GB RAM unless RAM disks etc come into play. Reason being that Win98 pre-dates that kind of RAM being available on an individual machine and isn't programmed to take advantage of it.

It would have been interesting to see if dropping the RAM to 512MB made any difference . Logic says it should make things worse, but I am not so sure.

Certainly makes sense to upgrade the OS as Win 2k or WinXP will be able to make use of the extra RAM. You may well find that Win98 gets scant consideration when writing graphics card drivers etc. for up to date cards, and this could easily be leading to bottlenecks too.

Simon

salopiangrowler · Post by **salopiangrowler** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 12:34 pm

When you say new computer do you mean the full works or are you using an older monitor

chrisiveson · Post by **chrisiveson** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 2:08 pm

It's not just the amount of RAM that XP can handle, it's also the way it handles it more efficiently that goes to help the sim.
One thing I tried last night when running Pacific Surfliner was to shutdown the AV, firewall and anti-spyware programs and I'm sure the thing ran smoother especially where I've had to save activities and re-start to avoid freeze ups
One thing: don't forget to re-boot to enable the AVs etc. if you try this, before e-mailing or browsing!

Regards Chris

rdawes · Post by **rdawes** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 5:01 pm

The advantage of using a mobile rack with a removable hard-drive dedicated to simulations is that I didn't even install a firewall or AV program on it. When I want to go on-line I pop in my primary hard-drive and have all the latest security plus other safeguards.

BTW my primary HDD runs 98SE using 1Gb RAM without any problem except for MSTS. Even Combat Flight Simulator 3 works which you would expect to suffer the same problems.

To answer another question, my monitor is a ViewSonic G800 19" which can handle about any video card.

chrisiveson · Post by **chrisiveson** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 5:35 pm

I dunno, the lenghts we go to, to play a game!
Mobile rack sounds like a good idea, I did use a couple of caddies in one of my old machines but now have a SFF setup as a primary machine, just enough room for 2 optical drives, one HDD, a decent AGP card and a capture card.
I'm now thinking of building a dedicated MSTS machine with no network or internet connections.

Chris

rdawes · Post by **rdawes** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 10:29 pm

Especially, when you consider that we spend most of the time fiddling with consist, eng, cab and wag files just to run an activity. This isn't counting the amount of time spent finding downloads, downloading them, and then cataloging and saving them to be able to find them later. I think that I spend more time using Windows Explorer than MSTS to run this game.

Bob

salopiangrowler · Post by **salopiangrowler** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 1:38 am

of which is fun when you know what your doing, and if the right info has been told.

Mention no names! but there is one activity with twice the amount of stock needed than in the readme, lucky i know where most the stuff is.

rdawes · Post by **rdawes** » Mon Apr 11, 2005 5:28 am

Just so you know!

I changed my Nvidia card for an ATI Radeon 8500 and all my problems with running MSTS on Win 98 went away.

The only problem I get now is great frame rates early in the activity but everything seems to grind to a halt when running a long activity in NWE2 so far. I go from an FPS in the 50's down to zero after about an hour of running time. Saving and re-starting doesn't solve the problem. I can't believe that the video card can be the problem here.

Where oh where is TMTS???????

Bob

Hickerbod · Post by **Hickerbod** » Mon Apr 11, 2005 9:18 am

wirralsimon wrote:One thing I have seen with Win98 is that too much extra RAM can be counter-productive. There is no way Win98 is going to do anything useful with 1GB RAM unless RAM disks etc come into play. Reason being that Win98 pre-dates that kind of RAM being available on an individual machine and isn't programmed to take advantage of it.

It would have been interesting to see if dropping the RAM to 512MB made any difference . Logic says it should make things worse, but I am not so sure.

Certainly makes sense to upgrade the OS as Win 2k or WinXP will be able to make use of the extra RAM. You may well find that Win98 gets scant consideration when writing graphics card drivers etc. for up to date cards, and this could easily be leading to bottlenecks tooSimon

Hi guys,

In my experience even 512mb extra memory Windows 98SE will not take it. I tried it when I purchased the Severn Valley Addon from Bluearrowts. The Framerates would drop considerably even turning everything of running in the background,the Addon would freeze and a lot of the time Msts would revert to the Desktop. I have since got XP Home Edition and had no problems running Msts.

Windows 98SE was a very good OS in its day but handling extra memory above 256mb it would have trouble with.

All the Best

Chris