What can I do to improve my system performance in RW?

[devonl]

Hi,


I would like to upgrade my pc, one of the main reasons being that I would like to see increased performance in Railworks.

Before running Railworks I always disable my antivirus software and use a program called EndItAll to close all applications. Furthermore I regularly defrag using another program called Auslogics Disk Defrag. My graphics card settings are also setup as per the Nvidia settings thread on the forum. Even with doing all of this my average frame rate for Railworks is 17-19.

My system info is as follows:

Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GS
OS: Windows XP Professional 2002 version
Computer: Intel Pentium 4 CPU 3.2GHz & 2GB of DDR ram.

Various people suggest different reasons for the slow performance and suggest more ram, get newer version of Windows, new processor etc. Based on the above specs, I was wondering if someone could possibly explain where the problem could actually lie and what would be the item that would most improve the game performance?

Regards,

Devon

[RudolfJan]

Your specs seem OK, though I do not know about the video card. One thing that might help is very simple: Clean the case of your PC with a vacuum cleaner (inside, fans). Dot not for get the ventilation openings. My system has a half open front, something like woven textile. If this is dirty, performance is reduced quite a lot. You also may check if all fans are working properly, overheating or bad fans may cause the system to run at lower performance.If your system makes a lot of noise, this may be an indication of a broken fan. More RAM or another CPU is not necessary as far as I can see. This should work.

[Basherz]

As far as I can see, your gfx card is poor, by todays standards, and a more up-to-date one would certainly be of benefit. But as you have a single core machine, would I be right in saying it is possibly 4-5 years old, and thus an AGP slot for your card? If so, then you may be a bit limited in your search.

Assuming you are also running a 32bit o/s, then an extra 1Gb of ram would be useful, but again, this depends on whether your motherboard can take it. This would have slightly less boost vs. being able to replace the gfx card.

[alanch]

As far as I can see, your gfx card is poor, by todays standards, and a more up-to-date one would certainly be of benefit. But as you have a single core machine, would I be right in saying it is possibly 4-5 years old, and thus an AGP slot for your card? If so, then you may be a bit limited in your search.

Assuming you are also running a 32bit o/s, then an extra 1Gb of ram would be useful, but again, this depends on whether your motherboard can take it. This would have slightly less boost vs. being able to replace the gfx card.

I suspect your graphics card, coupled with only 2Gb of memory, are the main problem, but your processor could be limiting as well.

To be honest, I think an upgrade might be a waste of money. It obviously depends on how much you want to spend, but by the time you have replaced your motherboard, processor, graphics card, power supply and memory, there wouldn't be much left worth keeping. Bets look for something new.

[LoneWolfDon]

Your computer specs are somewhat similar to mine, though I have a bit more RAM and a better graphic card, and Railworks runs fairly good on my old machine.

A couple of nice free utilities for helping to clean up registry and also for helping to tweak some things that may improve performance are:
http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner

http://www.glaryutilities.com/gu.html

Of course it's always wise to make a backup of your registry or a system-restore checkpoint in case you had to revert any changes. That being said, these utilities are well established and work well for most users without any problems.
There are several other tweaks and settings you might adjust to help improve overall system performance with Windows too.
Read through the various entries in my old blog (be sure to check through the archived entries too) for many more tips and tweaks that may help as well:
http://tweakmycomputer.blogspot.com/

[gavo01]

Personally I'm sceptical about using these registry cleaners prefering to reinstall my OS every 6 months or so, even though it means redownloading those important programs.

[devonl]

Your specs seem OK, though I do not know about the video card. One thing that might help is very simple: Clean the case of your PC with a vacuum cleaner (inside, fans). Dot not for get the ventilation openings. My system has a half open front, something like woven textile. If this is dirty, performance is reduced quite a lot. You also may check if all fans are working properly, overheating or bad fans may cause the system to run at lower performance.If your system makes a lot of noise, this may be an indication of a broken fan. More RAM or another CPU is not necessary as far as I can see. This should work.

Thanks for this, I have tried to keep the fans as clean as possible as I am aware that their is a link between overheating and performance, but unfortunately this hasnt helped. Thank you for the advice though.

As far as I can see, your gfx card is poor, by todays standards, and a more up-to-date one would certainly be of benefit. But as you have a single core machine, would I be right in saying it is possibly 4-5 years old, and thus an AGP slot for your card? If so, then you may be a bit limited in your search.

Assuming you are also running a 32bit o/s, then an extra 1Gb of ram would be useful, but again, this depends on whether your motherboard can take it. This would have slightly less boost vs. being able to replace the gfx card.

Its a PCI slot for the graphics card, but like you I was starting to suspect that due to the age of the card, it might be hindering the game.

As far as I can see, your gfx card is poor, by todays standards, and a more up-to-date one would certainly be of benefit. But as you have a single core machine, would I be right in saying it is possibly 4-5 years old, and thus an AGP slot for your card? If so, then you may be a bit limited in your search.

Assuming you are also running a 32bit o/s, then an extra 1Gb of ram would be useful, but again, this depends on whether your motherboard can take it. This would have slightly less boost vs. being able to replace the gfx card.

I suspect your graphics card, coupled with only 2Gb of memory, are the main problem, but your processor could be limiting as well.

To be honest, I think an upgrade might be a waste of money. It obviously depends on how much you want to spend, but by the time you have replaced your motherboard, processor, graphics card, power supply and memory, there wouldn't be much left worth keeping. Bets look for something new.

The answer I dreaded to hear but quite possibly the closest to the truth, I think that with the cost of the new graphics card, motherborad etc, that I might as well start thinking about replacing the system.

I really appreciate all of the feedback you have given (even if its not all what I want to hear) , but thank you all helping to point me in the right direction.

Regards,

Devon