Atomic Systems

I've seen a lot of people asking about new video cards and the like for MSTS.
Well I just upgraded my machine and thought I would share my results.

I just bought an Athlon64X2 5600+ (2.8GHzX2) with 2GB of stupid-quick ram.
BUT, my video card is not here yet, so I borrowed an ugly, lowly 6200le(TC)....the one that uses SYSTEM RAM, yuk!

Even with this "pleb with a PCI-e buss" in the machine, my frame rate has rocketted. I can get 15 the whole way out of Waterloo on DC, and once in the open country I'm getting 45 on the drive by views and 30 in cab. turning AA or AIF on ruins it because the GPU is just too useless (having said that, the card will clock to TWICE it's rated speed and not complain).

Right now I am thinking MSTS needs a CPU for framerates and needs the GPU only for Polish.

In a couple of days, I will be receiving the proper card for this machine, a BFG NV8800GTS-oc 320MB. I suspect my frame rates will rise only a tiny teeny weeny bit with it's installation, but would expect that I will be able to maintain those frame rates with all the AA and AIF bashed up to "chuffing gorgeous"....especially since Nvidia say they have installed video processors on these cards so that AA (dunno about anisotropic filtering) can be shunted off the GPU, meaning that no matter where you set it, there should be minimal impact.

Probably the best thing for MSTS in the new machine is the combination of SATA-II discs and 800MHz RAM.....cuts down on scenery loading making it jitter a great deal.

Hope you don't mind me asking but what make is the pc and where did you get it?

GH

It's a "bitsa", CPU, Motherboard,ram and case came from overclockers.co.uk.
Drive and PSU from svp.co.uk
and videocard from ebay (cos I was gonna have to wait til at least the end of this week to order from overclockers, I paniced nd bought and slightly slower card (550Mhz instead of 575Mhz) thinking it would arrive on Sat....forgetting of course that it is far too big and heavy for standard post so is obviously going to arrive on tuesday

Will be useful too see just how much the fast card does, and how much it doesn't

Well, my 8800GTS arrived this morning. WOW.
I find it hard to express my reaction on this, one of the few fora where i make an effort to keep a civil tongue.

Weymoth-Bournemouth 40-55FPS the WHOLE way.
Waterloo-vauxhaul 25-35fps.
Clapham.....well OK, it dives to 9 on the approach for about half a mile but is up to 30 again by the end of the platform.

all at 1280x1024x32bit EVERYTHING maxed, the whole lot. 16Q Antialiasing and 16xanisotropy vsync on, the whole montgomery.

I, am a happy camper.

(115K in aquamark too )

Sorry, I should spell it out.
For MSTS in 2007, the following should be considered minimum spec (minimum because Clapham still wrecks it )

Athlon64X2 5600+
2GB 800MHZ Cas-4 RAM (CAS timings 4 4 4 12)
Asus M2N32-WS-pro motherboard
Geforce 8800GTS 320MB
SATA-II HD (as has been recommended by those wiser than me, wire 4 of these up in a Raid0 array and you wont even get scenery loading glitches)
Running Dos XP pro (32bit version)

haven't tried MSTS under Vista yet, but since Doom3 scored 52FPS in XP and 22FPS in vista, I think I can guess how it'lll be.

haven't tried MSTS under Vista yet,

heh well I have and the results aren't pretty (although, hey, it runs, kind of).

MSTS will run about 50% slower under Vista, which I find ridiculous. I have other games which utilize more graphics features and do not suffer as much as MSTS. It manages a 25-30 fps average frame rate with my Opteron 180 now but it was seriously struggling a while ago when I had an Athlon64 3400 as my CPU. Even before upgrading the CPU I was getting the same 25+ fps with the 3400 out of Windows 2003.

Another issue is DX9L under Vista which works well with most DX9 titles EXCEPT MSTS. Be prepared to see strange multicolored fragments appear where tiles intersect, unexplained jitter, and graphical problems that would never surface under XP.

So for those contemplating the possibility of running MSTS under Vista: save yourselves the trouble or get a dual boot set up if you really want to run Vista.

Sorry....but there's several misleading statements about MSTS and Vista.

See the new forum section for more accurate information.....


Doug

Seen a few of the things jixx is talking about in XP, mad spikey things leaping out of nowhere, but only VERY rarely.
Might try MSTS in Vista just for the hell of it, but I doubt it'll run faster or better than XP (and if does it'll be a serious departure for Billy Boy's traditional approach of negating Moore's law)