Frame rates

davidcoates8 · Post by **davidcoates8** » Fri Oct 11, 2002 9:14 pm

This is just a quick question. i have a camputer which was brought for me last january. i play pro train 2 a lot and have made an extensive timetable for it. the specs of the pc are.
1000mhz AMD Athlon
32Gb hard drive
128Mb of Ram
the question why is it that when leaving Dresden Hbf FPS is 5 and even if you sound the horn the game crashes. i think that it might be something to do with the graphics card.
could someone please supply an answer for me.

mikesimpson · Post by **mikesimpson** » Fri Oct 11, 2002 9:48 pm

HI David,

You did not say what kind of video card you have, however the graphics card/ amount of RAM, CPU speed, what ever else you have running all make a difference to FPS.

However even on my machine
Athlone 1800+
Geforce 4 TI4200
625 meg ram
80 gig h/drive

I can get the FPS down into low single figures in Dunedin in the NZ timber route.

Make sure you have nothing running in the background, download Enditall (you can search for it on Google), that will turn everything off before you run MSTS.

class40 · Post by **class40** » Sat Oct 12, 2002 9:46 am

Search for Enditall2 at http://www.pcmag.com/utilities/. This is a utility that will kill all unecessary tasks and programs, you can tell it what programs to kill and what not to kill. After running it and then running MSTS I generally get frame rates of 25-30.

My system is:
Abit VP6 M/B
Dual Intel P3`s @1 GhZ
1GB Ram
Geforce 3 TI G/Card with 64 MB Ram
60GB 7200 Hard Drive
Windows XP with SP1

BTW The above is not meant to start a willy waving contest

Tony.

LucaZone · Post by **LucaZone** » Sun Oct 13, 2002 10:57 pm

Hehe, mentions its possibly a GFX problem, but mentions nothing about the GFX setup he has.

Anyways, i think it could simply be the amount of ram u have. 128Mb's is a little low for the kind of power that MSTS needs. As with both MS's sim games they always require vastly more resources than stated on the box to get anything decent.

I have an XP2000, 512Mb DDR ram & a GF3 Ti500, and on the default routes my system FPS drops to low teens. Though im lucky enough to get 45+ most of the time.

Get more ram....preferably DDR or RD if ur system can take it.

qzdcg8 · Post by **qzdcg8** » Mon Oct 14, 2002 7:03 am

I can confirm that 128Mb is NOT ENOUGH RAM for half decent MSTS routes.

MidEastUK for me crawls in certain places and I am reliably informed (i.e. I believe it coz it makes sense) that you need loads of RAM to keep all the texture maps in to shuffle in/out of video memory without going to the disk.

davidcoates8 · Post by **davidcoates8** » Mon Oct 14, 2002 5:30 pm

from what i am hearing, could I put in a new 512MB of RAM on top of the 128MB. would this sort out of the problem.

LucaZone · Post by **LucaZone** » Mon Oct 14, 2002 5:40 pm

Well it will definately help for sure, but can u give more information about ur graphics card. See with PC's a tiny problem can be caused by an uncountable number of things. So making one change wont always be the cure. Really we need more detail about the problem and ur system.

ogwilliam · Post by **ogwilliam** » Wed Oct 16, 2002 10:45 am

Other things you could try to speed things up apart from those stated above:
if you are running Windows 2000 or Windows XP Home/Professional, load up Trainsim, then Alt-Tab back to desktop, press Control/Alt/Delete simultaneously to bring up Windows Security, choose Task Manager, choose Processes tab (stay with me it's worth it!), highlight trainsim.exe, then right hand mouse click on it. Choose the Set Priority option, and change this from normal to High. This should give you an extra 5-10fps (well it does for me). Bear in mind this won't work on Win98 or ME.
You can also drop the refresh rate of your monitor (display settings/advanced) down a notch which may help.

Basically though, although trainsim is generally ok, it bears no relation to other current games available in terms of FPS. It eats all resources for breakfast (again, have a look at task manager/performance when it is running - you will find your processor is working overtime just to keep up). So the only answer is to get as fast a processor and as much RAM as you can afford. I have upgraded and upgraded to an XP2000+, 512mb DDR RAM, GeForce 4 Ti4200, and the game is now just about acceptable on top display settings.

Forget it though if you are in Marseille station with your TGV Reseau and a Eurostar is arriving...
:drinking:

Suspect that by the time most people have upgraded their PC's to make MSTS run smoothly, Mr. Gates will have released Trainsim2 which will require something like a small Cray to run!

PS if you have an NVidia card, you can overclock it easily using "Coolbits" registry hack - ask if you want to know where to get it. This helps too!

*** Ah the joys of being an IT professional ***

LucaZone · Post by **LucaZone** » Wed Oct 16, 2002 11:20 am

WOW!!!!! Doing this has completely cleared the aweful jerkyness i was getting in MSTS. Now things run completely smooth, and i think the max FPS in MSTS is 59...cos ive never got any higher, and it seems to sit at 59fps most of the time. Even with all detail settings turned to max! Cheers mate, that has help tremendously!

My System ::
Case : Juno P3 MidTower
Mobo : A7V333
Processor : XP2000+ @1.67GHz
RAM : 512Mb DDR pc2100
Hard Disks : 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 512Kb ADSL Modem
Drives : 12x DVD | 50x CD | 24x CD-RW
Monitor : 21"

*update* = I got the TGV pack, went to the Marseille station with a TGV Reseau and things are just amazing. No FPS lost at all. OMG im so happy now!

darren3210 · Post by **darren3210** » Wed Oct 16, 2002 1:29 pm

I see you are speaking about frame rates i have a p4 1.7 GHZ with a Nvidia geforce 2 mmx card and 786MB ram. the frame rates jurk a little on the Modern England route but it could be down to an active hard drive because when it jurks i checked to see what the drive was doing it was doing something as the yellow light was flickering. that may also aply to your pcs i have windowws ME because i think XP is a load of rubish my dad has XP on his pc he's had no end of trouble with it chesk to see if your drive is doing something when the jurk happens.

saddletank · Post by **saddletank** » Wed Oct 16, 2002 1:32 pm

Some people seem to like XP, some don't. For me XP has improved MSTS no end - RE is now quite a bit more stable and the restore features are jolly handy (when you enable them that is

)

davidcoates8 · Post by **davidcoates8** » Wed Oct 16, 2002 2:01 pm

i have decided to get 512mb of extra ram and is going to put it in at half time in the football. thanx for all the help

Stooopidperson · Post by **Stooopidperson** » Wed Oct 16, 2002 2:50 pm

davidcoates8 wrote:i have decided to get 512mb of extra ram and is going to put it in at half time in the football. thanx for all the help

What is RAM got to do with football?

LucaZone · Post by **LucaZone** » Wed Oct 16, 2002 9:09 pm

ME better than XP? u are quite literally mental.

Windows Millenium is universally known as the worst release by Microsoft since they started back in the 80's. It is so uncompatible that only a handful of hardware actually works with it. Most people thought it was just amillenium joke...cos it is so buig riddled. It was noted that the most often question asked when people report OS problems was :: "Are u running WinME?"

Ur incredibly lucky to be able to run any decent games on it. Infact any game at all. Ive heard of people having it crash while playing minesweeper.

Have i made it plain enough yet? The only 2 operation systems from Microsoft, that are worth using on a Home PC are :: Windows 98se or Windows XP. If u have some decent computer knowledge then Win2k may creep in.

tinsley · Post by **tinsley** » Wed Oct 16, 2002 9:40 pm

I have been running ME since it came out and have very few problems with it but then I use Norton Utilities, have fixed swap drive, clean all rubbish files and registry, defrag very regularly and use Xteq Systems to keep it "tweaked".
It has run every game I have had;Flight 3, Grand Prix Legends, GP3, MS Flight Sim 2000 , Deus Ex etc... plus any demos on CD's.....I have Office 2000 Pro installed, TSM, Paint Shop Pro 5 etc...
You might be happy with XP but there are 1000's out there that aren't so I'll do what I normally do with MS products....wait for version2..after nice people like you have done all the debugging...it's only been out a few month and it's already had a massive service pack.....and to think it is based on their own stuff...why am I not impressed??
I know it has qualities that other OS haven't...but I'll wait. ME does what I want and does it well....the only problems I have are with another MS product.....MSTS!!!!
Regards
Georges.
P.S: let's not start a "mine is better than yours" argument. You're happy..I'm happy..

Atomic Systems

Frame rates

Frame rates

Other tweaks to speed things up

FRAME RATES