Computer advice

[Retro]

Thanks Steve. That was quick.
Kind regards James.

[Retro]

Any ideas on the second shot.
Kind regards James.

[Kromaatikse]

That might be an object with the wrong shader or a high ambient setting. The lighting parameters matter a lot more now.

[Retro]

Thanks for that. The Trees and Walls are all Default on this section of the Route. I am running at Dawn so maybe this is meant to happen
Kind regards James.

[msdejesus]

Hi, James

I also get the "shimmering shadows" effect every now and then, but only with some rolling stock, and only when looking through the windshield, so you're not alone. Keep experimenting, playing with the AA and AAF settings through Nvidia control panel, to see if things get better...

Really glad you're starting to enjoy TS2012/RW3, welcome to the Dark Side

Regards,


Manuel

[Retro]

Thanks Manuel. Post much appreciated.
Kind regards James.

[Retro]

Despite the fact that this new Machine seems to run Railworks 3 very well. It never makes use of more than just under 4 gigs of memory. This is a bit disconcerting as I have 16 gigs of RAM. I have just done a 3DMark test and it says the score is low for this type of system.
Also this evening when I was using Railworks the screen went black for a couple of seconds and then came on again. It played ok then for two hours. FPS is set at 60. There are no errors in the Windows Event Log. The GPU Temp is running about 62 degrees C when running Railworks
Should I be worried.
Kind regards James.

[gptech]

RW doesn't know how to use any more of your memory; 4GB is adequate, 8 is a bit OTT and 16 is just being greedy!!
I wouldn't be concerned about the monitor blanking unless it starts doing it regularly and your GPU temp is fine.
How many passes of the 3Dmark test did you run?
What had you running when testing?
If it looks fine and runs smoothly and fast enough a benchmarking score doesn't really matter much---did you do a test to see what it performed at with just a bare operating system on?

[Retro]

Thanks for your reply. Much appreciated.
Up until now the Monitor has only blanked when running Railworks Once on the Menu Screen and once after just starting a Scenario. My old machine use do to do this occasionally but a Pop Up in the Notification Area used to say something about the Graphics Drivers and it was mentioned in the Event Log. I ran the 3D mark once and I have installed most of my Programs bar one.
One would assume that Programmers would attempt to make their Programs use the maximum RAM available as a lot of new Machines now come with 8 Gigs.
The Machine seems stable with very few errors in the logs. The errors that are their are well known ones and are listed as not important when looked up on the Web.
My other machine was so unreliable being on it's second Motherboard and countless errors in the event log I am probably a bit paranoid. I am on a backward Beta set of Drivers at the moment because of problems with the newest Drivers and Media Centre which I use quite a lot. NVidia have been aware of this for some time but seem to be doing nothing about it. All the recent Drivers have a problem with Skype Video also.
Is there any Software which will check all Hardware as PC Doctor used to do on my last machine. It came with this already installed but the software only seems to be available for Computer Manufacturers.
Thanks for your help. Any help is appreciated while I am getting used to this new Machine and Windows 7.
Kind regards James.

[Marleyman]

James, you may want to add nvidia system tools to your new PC, this is a very good tool for setting Fan Speeds on your Graphics Card based on the temp of the GPU. You can custom set the cooling.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/nvidia_sys ... _6.06.html

Info about the tool

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_System_Tools

[Retro]

Thanks for the information and links. I will give them a try.
Kind regards James.

[Easilyconfused]

All the very interesting discussion about The Sims 3 is now at http://forums.uktrainsim.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=121046 as suggested by James since it was kind of taking over this thread.

[Retro]

Thanks John this Topic can now be used as intended for Computer advice related to Railworks problems.
Kind regards James.

[Retro]

Just discovered that the Volsnap error is being caused by Perfect Disk 12.5 Defragmenting the Hard drive or Disc Clean Up. Which is the most likely culprit. both used last night and error appears. No System Restore points exist today.
Kind regards James.

[gptech]

I've never been a fan of 3rd party defrag tools, ever since the introduction of NTFS the need to defrag has diminished considerably and for the average user the built in tool does the job perfectly well.
Restore points in Win7 are created automatically when Microsoft updates are applied, a program is installed (if it follows Microsofts methodology and calls for a restore point) and at a schedule defined in Task Scheduler. This is by default set up to run daily, however no scheduled restore point will be created if one less than 7 days old already exists.