A breakthrough on lockups?

dforrest · Post by **dforrest** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 7:23 pm

The following has graetly improved the problems I had on some very "intense" activities on the Thames Mersey route.

http://forums.flightsim.com/ts/dcboard. ... 0852&page=

Basically the memory allocation which we have been setting higher than the default, is now set to zero!

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jbilton · Post by **jbilton** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 7:45 pm

Hi David
As I posted on TS.com, I think this just turns sounds off, although the originator claimed otherwise.
If you have msts resource problems and you turn the ambient sounds off, then obviously the game will run better.
IMO its basically the same as turning down your sound settings, or removing the WS tiles.
Cheers
Jon

dforrest · Post by **dforrest** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 8:34 pm

jbilton wrote:Hi David
As I posted on TS.com, I think this just turns sounds off, although the originator claimed otherwise.
If you have msts resource problems and you turn the ambient sounds off, then obviously the game will run better.
IMO its basically the same as turning down your sound settings, or removing the WS tiles.
Cheers
Jon

I am not so sure. I have always had the concern that perhaps in increasing the memory available for sounds, I am perhaps reducing the memory available for other files. It is never an inability to load a sound file that causes MSTS to hang. Most of the time it is a graphics file.

What if setting the memory size to zero tells the sim, as is the cases in many other applications, that it is to use whatever memory it needs without a limit. This would mean that a large block of memory was not reserved for sound files, as I assume it is with the current settings, but would remain available for use by any files, graphics included. Yes, all memory available may still be used and files may not be able to be loaded, but we will know that all memory available is being used and is not reserved for use of sound files but not being used.

David

AdamsRadial · Post by **AdamsRadial** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 8:40 pm

I have just tried the alteration on Dorset 2, where I have never been able to get an activity I wrote for a Basingstoke to Weymouth fast boat train to get beyond Windhester. It got me to beyond Southampton, but shortly after the Western docks I got the same old problem, the keyboard stops working, the cabview vanishes, and the sim is effectively uncontrolled. At least running it in a window allows me to kill it without having to do a full reboot.

So although it's moving in the right direction, it's still not the answer. As far as I could tell, though, all the sounds were still there.

jbilton · Post by **jbilton** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 8:48 pm

Hi David
Well thats another way of looking at it.....I suppose I could try it.
However I never run out of memory...so I think I'll be difficult for me to notice a difference.....unless sounds disappear.
BTW msts doesn't report sound faults like it does graphic file faults.
So unless you run the sound interface you don't see sound files failing to load.
When writing an activity for TM v3 I did loose the sounds from a class 40 until a LUL had departed, but after increasing to 1024Mb it never happened again.
Cheers
Jon

dforrest · Post by **dforrest** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 8:50 pm

AdamsRadial wrote:I have just tried the alteration on Dorset 2, where I have never been able to get an activity I wrote for a Basingstoke to Weymouth fast boat train to get beyond Windhester. It got me to beyond Southampton, but shortly after the Western docks I got the same old problem, the keyboard stops working, the cabview vanishes, and the sim is effectively uncontrolled. At least running it in a window allows me to kill it without having to do a full reboot.

So although it's moving in the right direction, it's still not the answer. As far as I could tell, though, all the sounds were still there.

Interesting and very similar to what I got on Thames Mersey. What I described in the second paragraph of my post above could explain this.

David

AdamsRadial · Post by **AdamsRadial** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 9:37 pm

David,

it could be so, a setting of zero implying dynamic allocation. In which case, I will try setting some of the other memory allocations to zero.

I have had this problem on several routes, I assumed that it was only the larger routes that caused it, but I had the same problem with the Leigh High line this afternoon.

Lad491 · Post by **Lad491** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 9:49 pm

well sound files do increase stuttering. I have my sound set to low and it does help - so I can see why this might work. Howver memory isnt a problem - my 786mb of ram is never fully utilised when running msts - never more than 380mb in fact. I still blame hd speed, but if the hard disk is trying to load big sound files its bound to slow performance.

AdamsRadial · Post by **AdamsRadial** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 10:13 pm

OK, I've zeroed all the other memory allocation figures and it's running, and there seems to be no change in sound in any of the views. I'm past eastleight without a lock up.

terrone · Post by **terrone** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 10:26 pm

Hi.

I could try doing this as i suffer from the same kind of problems. Could anybody tell me how i do it?

Thanks,
Terrone.

BobLatimer · Post by **BobLatimer** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 10:32 pm

Jon,

Does your MSTS never crash?

Regards,

Bob.

jbilton · Post by **jbilton** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 10:49 pm

latimers wrote:Jon,

Does your MSTS never crash?

Regards,

Bob.

Hi Bob
Generally I would say no.
However since trying this new/old patched train.exe its very unstable.
I have just tried to run an activity on TM v4, using these settings, thought I'd try Watford as there are a few ambient sounds in the railway yards there.....unfortunately as I arrived the whole thing crashed.
Memory manager reported 373Mb ram still available....so I don't think it worked for me....but I'll try another couple to be sure.
BTW...I only run MSTS, with 1024Mb of RAM,no swap file, off 2x 7200rpm RAID HDs.
My limit at the moment is 1024x768 32bit as my graphics card is an old FX5200 128Mb.
Cheers
Jon

BobLatimer · Post by **BobLatimer** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 11:01 pm

Jon,

I'm not sure that a memory manager report is that helpful for MSTS. One theory is that MSTS allocates a fixed amount of memory for itself up to its own set maximum. The memory manager report could be including free memory that MSTS will never have access to. That's supported by my experience that it doesn't matter how much RAM I add to my machine (I now have 1.5Gb), it doen't affect the MSTS performance. Under that theory, a large amount of memory allocated for sounds leaves that much less available for everything else. If the 0 really does trigger dynamic allocation for sounds, it could avoid some but not all of the memory-related crashes.

Regards,

Bob.

jbilton · Post by **jbilton** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 11:20 pm

Hi Bob
Well I don't fully subscribe to the fixed ammount of RAM theory.
Certainly going from 512mb to 1024mb cured my crashes on TM, a couple of years back.
However I've just tried a down train to Watford....and didn't make it...hundreds of failed to load faults, with msts finally folding....so it definately isn't working here.
The only route I've failed to run is CTN v5 coming into Sydney.
I have since read Mike Simpson say strip out the WS tiles....but I haven't been back to it since.
Cheers
Jon

AdamsRadial · Post by **AdamsRadial** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 11:27 pm

Right, I've run from Basingstoke right through Wareham and would have reached Weymouth if I had realised the 60 limit applied to the main line, not just to the oil depot branch

All memory settings in the soundcfg.dat file were set to zero, but I didn'f have any missing sounds as far as I can tell.

For the person who asked how to do this, you have to open the soundcfg.dat file in the GLOBAL folder using wordpad, look for lines starting "soundsystem", and replace the 4th number inside the brackets with 0, like this

SoundSystem ( 2, 40, 20, 0 )
skip ( 1048576 )

SoundSystem ( 3, 40, 20, 0 )
skip ( 5242880 )

SoundSystem ( 4, 40, 20, 0 )
skip ( 10485760 )

SoundSystem ( 5, 200, 20, 0 )
skip ( old memory figure was 62914560 )

(The last entry was my first experiment, hence the different style)
I don't think the issue here is as simple as how much memory the machine has, I think it is to do with reusability. I suspect that the memory allocated for each sound is not being released back into the pool quickly enough, if at all.