Awful performance on my Dad's computer (my supercomputer is fine)

[japinard]

edit: Trainz 12


Hi everyone. I really need some help. I purchased two copies of this so my Dad and I could work together on layouts and running trains. We were very excited. Performance is fine on my extremely powerful system, but on my Dad's, with moederate-low settings the performance is abysmal.

Their specs:

* Intel Dual Core CPU OC'ed to 3.1 GHz
* 4 Gig of RAM (3 Gig usable)
* Fresh install of Windows 7 (32-bit)
* Nvidia GeForce 295 with latest WHQL authorized qualified drivers
* Two SATA hard drives with tons of space.
* Practically no extra programs running in background (everything has been removed except Canon printer) to make it as lean as possible.
* Fully updated system, mobo drivers, Ethernet drivers, Windows Updates, etc.

------------------------------

So I guess a few questions to start:

* Should we be using D3D or OpenGl drivers on this configuration? I've tried both, and both run poorly.
* Anyone have better luck with the latest NVidia beta drivers?
* Any hacks or tweaks (ini settings etc) that can improve performance without degrading video quality too much?
* Any settings in the NVidia control panel that the game favors?
* Any specific settings that geenral kills performance (ex. some games in the past have been bogged by shadows)

Anything anyone can suggest wiould be extremely appreciated. Thanks!

 

[RRSignal]

1. Did you install DX9? The August 2009 should suffice. Shaneturner has a sticky I think in either this or the General forum. I suspect this might be the main problem. You need a good DX9 install even in Win7, as DX10 and DX11 are not completely inclusive of DX9.

2. Do you have any network shares open? Those slow down performance.

3. You should shut down printer and scanner drivers running in the background i.e. your Canon. Really, you shouldn't need any such stuff. Drivers install into the OS and shouldn't be running as processes or services.

4. There's a trick you can use to allow applications up to 3Gb of memory. On XP, there's the /3Gb switch; I believe Vista and Win7 have an equivalent feature that does not require editing the boot.ini file. I don't think this will make much of a difference but it's worth looking in to.

5. Just be sure your HDD hasn't dropped into PIO mode.

I have to think there is a major hardware issue assuming all else is equal but the DX9 issue seems like it's a real issue for a lot of Vista/Win7 users. I don't know since I run XP 32 & 64. HTH

 

[japinard]

1. Did you install DX9? The August 2009 should suffice. Shaneturner has a sticky I think in either this or the General forum. I suspect this might be the main problem. You need a good DX9 install even in Win7, as DX10 and DX11 are not completely inclusive of DX9.

2. Do you have any network shares open? Those slow down performance.

3. You should shut down printer and scanner drivers running in the background i.e. your Canon. Really, you shouldn't need any such stuff. Drivers install into the OS and shouldn't be running as processes or services.

4. There's a trick you can use to allow applications up to 3Gb of memory. On XP, there's the /3Gb switch; I believe Vista and Win7 have an equivalent feature that does not require editing the boot.ini file. I don't think this will make much of a difference but it's worth looking in to.

5. Just be sure your HDD hasn't dropped into PIO mode.

I have to think there is a major hardware issue assuming all else is equal but the DX9 issue seems like it's a real issue for a lot of Vista/Win7 users. I don't know since I run XP 32 & 64. HTH

1. Thanks for the quick response. I'd gone to Microsoft's DX websetup and it refused to run stating there was a newer/current set of DX drivers and it woudl abort. Are you suggesting I have to force and over-write? If so, how does one do this?

2. No networking sharing at all. Single line device performance (broadband, but cabled - wifi is off for added security) with no background tasks.

3. Though the Canon manager shouldn't be necessary, it IS necessary for ease of use. and scanning. It uses very few resources and the following games games run fine and LOOK good (Skyrim, Star Wars TOR, Railworks-Train Simulator 12 . So a simple Canon overlay is not a problem unless the printer is doing some illicit backdoor work on the computer when I'm unaware of <--- bad joke. At any rate, it IS the game, it's settings and we much find a way to make it run well without it looking like garbage (the current state we're in)

4. No trick is needed. Windows 32 automatically uses 3 Gigs in games that allow it. Now Trainz may be very poorly programmed and doesn't allow memory use over 2 Gig. In that case we need something like we had in Fallout, Obivion, & Skyrim, the 4 Gig Mem Patch added to the game client.

5. HDD does not drop to PIO modes.

 

[Retro00064]

1. Did you install DX9? The August 2009 should suffice. Shaneturner has a sticky I think in either this or the General forum. I suspect this might be the main problem. You need a good DX9 install even in Win7, as DX10 and DX11 are not completely inclusive of DX9.

<snip>

TS2010 runs pretty well on my laptop (specifications in my signature), but I'm just curious: would having DX9 installed increase Trainz's performance? How would I check to see if DX9 happens to be already installed?

Thanks!

---Zachary.

 

[Euphod]

Anything anyone can suggest wiould be extremely appreciated. Thanks!

Check to see that "poor old Dad" is running in native resolution.

 

[shaneturner12]

1. Thanks for the quick response. I'd gone to Microsoft's DX websetup and it refused to run stating there was a newer/current set of DX drivers and it woudl abort. Are you suggesting I have to force and over-write? If so, how does one do this?

2. No networking sharing at all. Single line device performance (broadband, but cabled - wifi is off for added security) with no background tasks.

3. Though the Canon manager shouldn't be necessary, it IS necessary for ease of use. and scanning. It uses very few resources and the following games games run fine and LOOK good (Skyrim, Star Wars TOR, Railworks-Train Simulator 12 . So a simple Canon overlay is not a problem unless the printer is doing some illicit backdoor work on the computer when I'm unaware of <--- bad joke. At any rate, it IS the game, it's settings and we much find a way to make it run well without it looking like garbage (the current state we're in)

4. No trick is needed. Windows 32 automatically uses 3 Gigs in games that allow it. Now Trainz may be very poorly programmed and doesn't allow memory use over 2 Gig. In that case we need something like we had in Fallout, Obivion, & Skyrim, the 4 Gig Mem Patch added to the game client.

5. HDD does not drop to PIO modes.

As the DirectX Update Adviser on these forums (since I'm the one with the relevant thread, anyway) I can advise on the DirectX issue.

As you are running Windows 7, you need to use the Redistributable version.

See my sticky thread in the General Trainz forum for this (Title is 'Updating DirectX 9.0C - How to do it')

I can also confirm that Trainz is likely to run better with an up-to-date version of DirectX 9.0C installed, as DirectX 10/11 only contain a subset of the DirectX 9 .dll files.

Shane

 

[lewisner]

Have you defragmented your HDD's recently?

 

[whitepass]

Check that the Nvidia Control Panel is set to "Mutli-display/mixed-GPU acc. = Single display performance mode" it defaults to mutli, this will make a 50% speed deference.

 

[Irving]

Disk Clean up

I strongly reccomend running a disk cleanup program several times a day, especially after a heavy use of the internet. Note that Trainz opens a connection to Auran every time you run it. One of the things it does is to update the CM data base.

I find that this tip always helps to keep my machine running better enven though I am running an Intel Core 7i cpu and 8GB of ram. I beleve a critical cause of slugishness is that when the disk space allocated to virtual memory and the internet buffers gets full that the machine starts to do a lot of disk swapping, which always slow down any computer.

If you don't use a third party utility then open the windows start icon and type 'cleanup' in the help dialog to use the MS Windows program.

Give it a whirl.
Irving

 

[japinard]

Check to see that "poor old Dad" is running in native resolution.

* Not sure why you used that term, but yes we tried native resolution and even went to a much lower resolution than normla (1024x768). They have a CRT so vsync isn't as much of an issue as is with low refresh rate LCD displays. As mentioned, the reason we went to this program is for us to spend time together on something he loves (model trains).

* Retro00064 - this is Trainz 12 not 10 (forgot to mention that in first post).

* whitepass - thank you! I forgot to check settings after downgrading their NVidia drivers from beta to last WHQL.

* shaneturner12 - I will do that (DX9 stuff). Thank you

* Irving - I had already cleaned up their HD's and defragmented everything including the swap file.

* Which rendererer should we be using? DX or OpenGL?

 

[Gandalf0444]

Direct X or open GL is up to you. On my machine Direct X gives far more performance and looks nicer to me. While others have Open GL giving them better performance, and looks nicer to them then direct X. So try both and see which has better frames per second.

 

[Retro00064]

I went to Shane's sticky thread and downloaded the Web installer for DirectX 9; it went through smoothly (even though I have Vista and the Redistributable versions seem to be recommended for it) and installed "DirectX Optional Components" (if I remember correctly). I assume that means that I now have DirectX 9 installed?

Check to see that "poor old Dad" is running in native resolution.

I'm curious again: My laptop's LCD display's native resolution is 1280 x 800. I have TS2010's resolution set to 1024 x 768 (this is the option that I had to use for TRS2004; I just decided to use it for TS2010 as well). In the ATI Catalyst Control Center, I have the option under "Scaling" for the display set to "Centered". This means that the 1024 x 768-pixel Trainz screen is windowboxed on my display and thus uses 1:1 pixel mapping, as opposed to the Trainz screen being scaled and stretched to fill the display (which I believe may have been the default setting that I changed from).

Would setting TS2010's resolution to the monitor's native 1280 x 800-pixel resolution nevertheless provide better performance than the existing setup that I described above?

Thanks!

Apologies to Japinard for hijacking this thread.

---Zachary.

 

[Euphod]

* Not sure why you used that term, but yes we tried native resolution

Because I am a "poor old Dad" myself, and it's common for the Son to have a better PC than the Dad!

Would setting TS2010's resolution to the monitor's native 1280 x 800-pixel resolution nevertheless provide better performance than the existing setup that I described above?

I read in another thread that a user had success with his installation after he began using his monitor's native resolution, instead of a lower one. He said it provided increased performance, and I thought I would mention it as a possibility.

 

[SuperFudd]

If your video card is marginal, a lower resolution than "native" might work better. That was the case when I had a GT220.

 

[shaneturner12]

I went to Shane's sticky thread and downloaded the Web installer for DirectX 9; it went through smoothly (even though I have Vista and the Redistributable versions seem to be recommended for it) and installed "DirectX Optional Components" (if I remember correctly). I assume that means that I now have DirectX 9 installed?

If you are not sure, check in the Windows system folders (system32/SysWOW64) for D3DX9_43.dll or later. There is also equivalent numbers for D3D_Compiler, and a few other related DirectX files.

Shane

 

[Retro00064]

Hi Shane:

Thanks for the reply. I see those DLLs in C:\Windows\System32 with creation dates of 1/8/2012 (when I ran the DirectX 9 Web installer). There are also lots of DLLs with the same names but with numbers 42 and below with creation dates of 9/8/2011 (around when I installed TS2010).

Regards,

Zachary.