Better Frame Rate

[jimisham]

There is a application I've read about here that shuts down unnecessary programs in the computer while running Trainz.
I downloaded it and it seemed to help.
But I lost the hard drive in my computer and had to install a new one.
I have an external hard drive, but I can't find it there. I can't remember the name.
Can anyone tell me what it is?

Edit: I found it. It's called Game Booster.

 

[Rail4Pete]

I did install some weeks ago Game Booster 3.1 and did not notice any significant change in the frame rate. It might give me 1 more fps or it might stay the same, it's hard to tell.

In the same location, without any move,with Game Booster I get between 20 and 24 fps, and without it, I get between 20 and 25.......So what is the catch ? Game Booster claim on my screen that performances have been increased by 44%.....For sure, this gain if ever it is a real gain, is not in Trainz.

Rail4Pete

 

[sniper297]

Programs like gamebooster and EndItAll work by shutting down unnecessary background programs to free up system resources for the game. If you're running a clean system that doesn't have junk like google toolbars and java automatic updates always loading on startup, gamebooster won't have anything to do. So it's really no help at all except for people who actually do have a bunch of "fluffware" programs hogging system resources.

 

[cascaderailroad]

Probably the best framerate adjustment is disconnecting your eithernet cable, turning off your antivius, and stopping windows startup programs such as Windows Sidebar ... someone said turn off Search (but I don't even know what and where "Search" is, so as to disable it). :hehe: Someone with more PC intelgence than I, will be able to tell you more than I can. I never really noticed Gamebooster making a vast improvement ... but I really don't know for sure.

Adjusting the trainzoptions lines with all types of lines, has never improved framerates more than a couple of FPS.

 

[JCitron]

Probably the best framerate adjustment is disconnecting your eithernet cable, turning off your antivius, and stopping windows startup programs such as Windows Sidebar ... someone said turn off Search (but I don't even know what and where "Search" is, so as to disable it). :hehe: Someone with more PC intelgence than I, will be able to tell you more than I can. I never really noticed Gamebooster making a vast improvement ... but I really don't know for sure.

Adjusting the trainzoptions lines with all types of lines, has never improved framerates more than a couple of FPS.

Windows Search and Search Indexing.

Windows Search is a service. You need to go to Control Panel for that under Services. Stop then disable this. Office might complain if it's installed they seem to go hand and hand together.

Search Indexing is done by right-clicking on a hard drive, and unchecking the box for search indexing. You might have to ignore certain files if prompted, but for the most part it works.

The Search Indexing is found on all computers with Windows XP and up. I can't remember if Win98 or NT had it. It's been too long.

John

 

[gearhead2578]

This is what Game Booster automates - it turns off all unnecessary network connections, sidebar, and anything else that isn't pertinent to gaming performance. Even on my rig I get a "reported" 46% boost but it still doesn't solve the fact that after about 10 min in driver I get a slideshow even in my untextured parts of my unfinished route. (guess that's my graphics card takin a s___?) Been using Game booster for a bit and it seems it works pretty good for other games - Was recommended by a friend who runs the paid version and it works better.

And as John said - indexing!! I shut mine down to my OS drive and won't let it run in the others. I was taking about 30 min at startup to index (I have prob. 12 million files to index litterally) and this if let run will slow everything to a halt because as we all should know by now Windows 7 is the biggest virus you'll ever get

 

[sniper297]

Java is probably the most obnoxious, every time you update Java it automatically adds jusched.exe to your services set to automatically load on startup. If you bring up the task manager and look at the processes tab when that's enabled, jusched.exe wants to check the internet for updates every few minutes, and it's a real resource hog.

Programmers are notorious for wanting to make things "easy" for the end user, the problem is they're always under the impression that their program is the only real important one you'll ever use, so no need to test how badly it affects performance in games.

Worst example of that, back in the days of DOS and dinosaurs I bought one of the first 2400k FAX/Modems and ran the install.bat file for the software. At that time there was a 640K limit to conventional RAM, and it was always a struggle to free up as much of the lower RAM as possible for games. I had mine tweaked for 610K free, after installing the FAX/Modem software I had about 350K! In addition to unnecessarily adding the modem and FAX to the autoexec.bat file, it also added something called popprint.com which took up 200K all by itself. What in blazes is popprint? Reading the docs, I found that popprint is a utility - IN CASE you have a DOS based word processor that does not support printing to a file, popprint will always be there (hogging almost 1/3rd of the memory!) ready to pop up and redirect the output from the word processor to a file instead of the printer. Get that, in the days of Windows 3.0 which had a built in word processor called Windows Write (predecessor to WordPad) the guy who programmed this thing though it would be wonderful to include a utility for outdated software AND set it up so it automatically started (hogging almost 1/3rd of the memory!) when you turned your computer on. After all, who uses their computer for anything except a word processor?

You let programmers do things to your system automatically and you end up needing stuff like game booster to run anything at all.

 

[JCitron]

Java is probably the most obnoxious, every time you update Java it automatically adds jusched.exe to your services set to automatically load on startup. If you bring up the task manager and look at the processes tab when that's enabled, jusched.exe wants to check the internet for updates every few minutes, and it's a real resource hog.

Programmers are notorious for wanting to make things "easy" for the end user, the problem is they're always under the impression that their program is the only real important one you'll ever use, so no need to test how badly it affects performance in games.

Worst example of that, back in the days of DOS and dinosaurs I bought one of the first 2400k FAX/Modems and ran the install.bat file for the software. At that time there was a 640K limit to conventional RAM, and it was always a struggle to free up as much of the lower RAM as possible for games. I had mine tweaked for 610K free, after installing the FAX/Modem software I had about 350K! In addition to unnecessarily adding the modem and FAX to the autoexec.bat file, it also added something called popprint.com which took up 200K all by itself. What in blazes is popprint? Reading the docs, I found that popprint is a utility - IN CASE you have a DOS based word processor that does not support printing to a file, popprint will always be there (hogging almost 1/3rd of the memory!) ready to pop up and redirect the output from the word processor to a file instead of the printer. Get that, in the days of Windows 3.0 which had a built in word processor called Windows Write (predecessor to WordPad) the guy who programmed this thing though it would be wonderful to include a utility for outdated software AND set it up so it automatically started (hogging almost 1/3rd of the memory!) when you turned your computer on. After all, who uses their computer for anything except a word processor?

You let programmers do things to your system automatically and you end up needing stuff like game booster to run anything at all.

Ah yes, the old days of DOS TSRs and other little goodies that ran at start up. This sounds like an issue I had with a special printer software package. The package drove an ECRM VR-30 imagesetter, which back in its day was around $34,000 used. The software alone was $7,500 back then and allowed postscript documents to image to film. The software would only run on Windows 3.1, not 3.11, and not Work groups. Just plain Windows 3.1.

The RIP PC was connected to the network via a 3-COM 3C509 thin-net network card, which required its own drives. The RIP software developers had embedded calls strictly to this card, so there was no chance we could swap it out. Now being a network printer, the device drivers had to load on top of all the network bindings and other software that loaded first. The device driver was a separate program, which was also very expensive - like $450 to turn the RIP into an AppleTalk printer.

Getting the machine optimized so that the drivers would load in the right order, so the bindings would take and the network would start was one thing, but the worst part was there was barely any room to run the RIP software. The machine came with 640K, and by the time everything loaded, there was something like 300K left. In fact there was never a CD-ROM drive included in the machine, and no way to install it because the driver wouldn't fit into memory even if we had the drive in there.

John

 

[Retro00064]

One thing that's being a pain on my computer is McAfee. It came with this computer (a Dell Studio 1537 laptop) and the subscription expired on December 3 (we still haven't renewed it or moved to another anti-virus software like AVG free, so I probably need to be whacked with a trout for that ). Before then, I could turn off the Real-Time Scanning/McShield.exe/On-Access Scanner service (which hogs memory that Trainz could be using) via the McAfee SecurityCenter. But since then, it seems, all of the options to modify any settings in the drop-downs in the McAfee SecurityCenter (such as to turn-off the Real-Time Scanning feature) are immediately grayed-out upon opening the SecurityCenter, so I can't disable the Real-Time Scanning/McShield feature from there.

Adding to the problem is that not even Windows Task Manager, even when run as an administrator, can shut down the McShield.exe process or McShield service; when I try to shut down either, it fails with the message "This operation could not be completed. Access is denied."

I guess McAfee wants me to spend my money on a subscription so bad that they're going to lock me out of ability to change settings in the SecurityCenter until I do. :n:

Regards,

Zachary.

 

[Euphod]

Are you also locked out from uninstalling the program?

 

[Retro00064]

I don't know, Ed. I'm not sure if I want to go as far as uninstalling McAfee right now, just in case we decide to renew its subscription.

I just tried to disable all the McAfee programs and services from starting upon computer startup using the System Configuration Utility (msconfig.exe). But every time I uncheck all the McAfee stuff and click "Apply", the "McAfee Firewall Core Service", "McAfee McShield", "McAfee Personal Firewall Service", and "McAfee Validation Trust Protection Service" services automatically become checked again.

Regards,

Zachary.

 

[gearhead2578]

WOW Sniper... you and John took me back haha I was one of the first in my area to get windows 3.11 'cause I had a buddy that worked at Microsuck ( I lived in Lynnwood, WA at the time N of Seattle)...hell I still had an 8086 processor and monochrome vga....... oh memories.......

 

[BobCass]

Retro00064: I uninstalled McAfee through the control panal..I think my router will block anything thats necessary..

 

[cascaderailroad]

I would not run a PC without an Antivirus program ... you can turn it off, if you turn off your internet connection first (by working offline temporarily while running Trainz) Just remember to turn your AV back on again, after exiting Trainz.

 

[gearhead2578]

Just my $0.02 on antivirus.... McCaffee never has agreed with me as it seems to be a bit dirty and has caused too many problems in the past. Personally I like Malwarebytes and I couldn't agree more about not running a PC without SOME protection. I also run Microsoft Security Essentials - both free. My XP machine runs those and Ad Aware - also free. Works great as long as you don't run around in the alleys and gutters of the net lookin at you know what and letting the kids play those "free family friendly" games like on coolmath or zwinky. I keep my router next to my "server" PC and can unplug any of the cords from the back without getting out of my chair

 

[Retro00064]

I agree with not going without protection; if I have to disable McAfee, then I'll probably install AVG Free Edition. All I really want to do is disable the Real-Time Scanning part of McAfee, which is the part that scans files when they are used. It hogs a chunk of memory, so I want to disable it to free up memory for Trainz to use. But since McAfee apparently doesn't want to allow me to change settings until I renew my subscription, and the memory-hogging mcshield.exe process for the Real-Time Scanning feature and the McShield service can not be shut down using Task Manager, it seems that preventing McAfee from even starting may be the only way to prevent that aforementioned memory-hogging process from latching on and not letting go.

Regards,

Zachary.

 

[Yskonyn]

McAfee is expensive and a resource hog. Aside from being an obnoxious brat that craves for your attention often by doing stuff you do not want it to do. It's the toddler of security programs, really. Get rid of it.
And stay away from AVG as well! It's the angry brother of McAfee!

For a decent, quiet and to the point virus scanner I'd recommend ESET NOD32. I was always a fan of Avast! as well, but their latest offering has all kinds of problems with newer games and web interfaces.
NOD32 is the good kid. Quiet and does silently what you need it to do without having to interfere all the time.
It's low on system resources as well and protection is excellent.

 

[shaneturner12]

I would strongly disagree with your comments regarding AVG - I've used it (both free and paid for) for a few years and haven't come up against many problems myself. The 2012 edition also is simpler to use, as there are less components to worry about.

Like any antivirus software though, the on-access components need to be disabled when playing games.

Shane

EDIT: The one I really dislike at the moment is Norton, as it's maker (Symantec) seems to have it's own agenda regarding tools that are not often downloaded, like my PC Information Application.

 

[johnwhelan]

Some time ago we ran some tests shutting down this that and the other. What we found was if you had enough memory Trainz ran slower with the services shut down, only if you were short of memory did it run faster.

This was found to be the case on a number of machines, for details search the forum.

Cheerio John

 

[RRSignal]

Norton's is awful. McAfee's not much better. I'll second NOD32 as the best/one of the best. Avast isn't bad though. I've been away from AVG for awhile though.



OK

All that said, you'll find a lot of gamers don't run with a network connection at all. Firewalls, A/V, A/S, and even the network itself take up valuable resources. My "gaming rig" isn't exactly anything to brag about but it does pretty well thanks to this.

My trick is that, on my 32-bit XP partition, I do have a network connection, but no A/V and a VERY lightweight firewall, Kerio 2.1.5, for basic access control. This is an ancient firewall, but it does the job well. Except as needed, the machine is normally only allowed to talk to one IP address on the planet: That of the firstclass.auran.com server. No DHCP (it's static), no DNS (that's worked out in my HOSTS file) nothing. It's something I call Restrictive Firewalling.

Generally, when I play Trainz (or do anything else that requires high performance computing) I boot into my XP-64 partition. Trainz will already have whatever dependencies a particular route needs, and I have no interest in multiplayer, so I don't need a network connection. And it's not difficult or cumbersome in any way.