System, Graphics, frame rates?????

Jonnie1972 · Post by **Jonnie1972** » Thu Sep 12, 2002 9:08 pm

Hi
Me again, love asking questions, as some of you already know....lol

Do all of you suffer from a substantial loss in frame rates when appoaching large cities, say Kings Cross, Manchester on the ME3 route or Peterborough on the ECML, I know frame rates will drop when in built up areas, but, well how can I say this, whats the lowest you get????
Whats going to make MSTS perform better system or graphics?
I run an oldish system, well as the comp world goes it is. I have a P3 800mhz running on an old Intel BX chipset (ABIT BE6-2 M/Board) with 1x 512MB Dimm of SDRam and 7200rpm HDrive on a UDMA66 cable and graphics card is a Hercules Prophet 4500 64MB (SDRam), and must admit lowering the settings, makes it still lag.
All I`m after is some discussion about this.

LucaZone · Post by **LucaZone** » Thu Sep 12, 2002 9:33 pm

Im running a beasty system and i get lag constant, and only in MSTS. I cant yet figure out why either. :/ I do have all settings to max, but then even if i set them all to min and run at 640x480, i get this odd lagging.

Im on ::

Case : Juno P3 MidTower
Mobo : A7V333
Processor : XP2000+ @1.67GHz
RAM : 512Mb DDR pc2100 fsb333
Hard Disks : IDE ATA133 = 40Gb | 80Gb
Graphics : GeForce 3 Ti500 64Mb
Sound : Soundblaster 64 PCI (dont remind me, i working on it)
Extra's : WinTV Theatre (Video/Audio Capture)
Network : 3com 100/10 NIC | Alcatel 576Kb ADSL Modem
Drives : 12x DVD | 50x CD | 24x CD-RW
Monitor : 21"
Other : Intelli Mouse | HP5400c Scanner | HP1000 Photo Printer | FujiFilm S602 DigiCam | Sony High8 VideoCam | HeadSet (Voice Coms)

FrameRate from Cam4 on Northeast Corridoor route = 40+

asalmon · Post by **asalmon** » Thu Sep 12, 2002 9:35 pm

Whats sort of HD - eg UDMA, ATA 100, etc.? Is it on the same chanel as any of your cd/dvd/etc. drives?

Jonnie1972 · Post by **Jonnie1972** » Thu Sep 12, 2002 9:39 pm

Hi
The HD is all on its own, its UDMA66 running on the correct IDE cable, into the UDMA66 slot on the board. Like the last post it has to be said its MSTS, I can put on any game and all runs fine, very quick.
Just have to live with it.

LucaZone · Post by **LucaZone** » Thu Sep 12, 2002 9:45 pm

CD is on seperate channel to HDD

madmardy · Post by **madmardy** » Fri Sep 13, 2002 5:43 pm

that really won't make that much difference in any at all.
to be honest i think your getting normal tile load stutter
actually time the pauses with a stopwatch i'm betting that they are no where near two seconds long and also 40 fps on NE route is pretty good
but camera 4 is static and doesn't have top load that much in, a better way would be to use cam 2.

LucaZone · Post by **LucaZone** » Mon Sep 16, 2002 12:02 am

argh its NOT 2 seconds!!! its 2-3 times a second! ie constant.....

Plus cam4 might be static but it follows the train so it still moves horizontally.

yourdomingo · Post by **yourdomingo** » Mon Sep 16, 2002 12:21 am

am i the only person struggling by on 256 SDRAM?

it's in two banks of 128 too...

my computer lags horribly, but i like my eye candy, and i'm prepared to put up with it. it's only a poor old Athlon 1200 with a GeForce 2 GTS...

i think the lag is mainly caused by MSTS being badly programmed, making it much more graphics intensive than a better programmed game. i used to play a lot og quake 3, and i gould get easily 100fps out of this system, but lag has become a major problem with this game. i know it's newer, but i should still be able to get decent performance...

there's nothing anyone can do if its badly programmed!

LucaZone · Post by **LucaZone** » Mon Sep 16, 2002 12:25 am

Yeah u wanna see the other topic on this subject :: 2 Annoying Problems. A large amount of possible causes of visual lag, and ways of improving it have been highlighted sofar. U might wanna see if there is anything in there that may help u.

256 should be enough to get a smooth framerate in this game, but it all depends on the res u have it at.

MichaelGreenhill · Post by **MichaelGreenhill** » Mon Sep 16, 2002 8:05 am

Hehe I've probably got the worst comp here (256mb RAM, 40gb HDD, 700mhz Athlon processor, TNT2 Ultra 32mb)

Still it does the job and i can play every game i've got except for GTA3 no worries.

Fodda · Post by **Fodda** » Mon Sep 16, 2002 10:56 am

LOL! 700 MHz! I DREAM of 700... I'm stuck with a P3 500 MHz and GeForce 2 400mx. Although I do have 80GB of HDD and 390MB odd of RAM.

I have the train textures on full, other detail and texturing on about half way setting, and precipitation and shadows off. I get 25 fps on a good day and <1fps on a bad day. average I'd say on MidEast or FictECML is about 10fps.

We have a home network of 2 pooters and the printer's attached to the MSTS capable machine. Mrs Fodda will insist on sending documents to print just as I'm about to stop at a staion, or back up to a load for shunting. You ought to see the frame rates drop then! We're talking about 5 seconds a frame then!

MichaelGreenhill · Post by **MichaelGreenhill** » Mon Sep 16, 2002 11:09 am

At least you've got a better graphics card and more RAM then me

bjdick · Post by **bjdick** » Mon Sep 16, 2002 4:45 pm

Watch this space.I've decided to try supercooling my XP2200+ to -50C,and perhaps a mild OC to speed up those electrons.Any improvement to MSTS will be reported,as will any failed processor.

asalmon · Post by **asalmon** » Mon Sep 16, 2002 5:29 pm

LOL Fodda! Isn't it worth buying Mrs Fodda her own printer - or convince her you need an upgrade to cope with her work!

-Alan

bjdick · Post by **bjdick** » Mon Sep 16, 2002 5:58 pm

He's lucky to get frame rates at all.A printer usually demands 100% CPU usage whilst printing,due to its software constraints.