Blood from a stone?

A

Approach_Medium

Trainz Addict
Better performance from boot drive install?

Hi;
I've got a 6yr old system with the following specs:

Asus P5AD2-E Premium mobo with Intel 925 XE chipset
P4 3.4Ghz single core (socket 775) 800Mhz FSB

BFG GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB

Antec True Power 550W PSU

Memory: 3GB 533Mhz DDR2 (Crucial)

Main HDD: WD Caviar 500GB SATA 7200RPM, 32MB buffer configured as single drive (no RAID) on SIL3114 controller.

Monitor: Samsung 2494HM 24" running at 1920 X 1080.

Windows 7 Ultimate 32bit.

Trainz TS2010_SP3 settings:
Display: OpenGL mode, 1920 X 1080, 32bits color, fullscreen mode.
TS Options in Surveyor/Driver set as follows:

Draw Distance: 3Km or higher
Texture detail: High
Train Detail: High
Scenery Detail: Normal

Is it at all possible that performance of TS2010 is lower when it is installed on a logical drive that is not the boot?
I have TS installed on the same physical, but different partition/logical drive than the boot.
I experience a lot of jerkiness that does not appear related to frame rate, as I see the same low frame rates in other games, but do not have the jerkiness. The other games are installed on the boot drive.

Thanks

FW
 
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I recently sold my 7 year old PC complete with monitor and peripherals on Ebay for £65 whereas it cost me about £650 in November 2003.
Sounds like time to splash out on a new PC tower.
Or, regarding what Whitepass said, a new motherboard/CPU and another gig of RAM since your other specs seem reasonable.
 
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Maybe I'll go for just the mobo, CPU, and memory. I think my PSU can handle the new dual-core CPU, and I would be keeping my GeForce 9800 GTX+ for now, and that is a major power consumer, and would not be changing.

My case should be fine. It's a full tower, with plenty of cooling.

Interestingly, Railworks 2 plays a lot more smoothly. I guess it's partly their code, and the fact that there isn't as much going on inside the game. I like to drive multiple trains in Trainz, so that is also hogging a lot of CPU.

So I guess if I upgrade, I would go for at least dual core (is there an advantage to quad in TS2010?), at least 4GB of the fastest RAM the board will support.
I'm not sure which board to get. Maybe another Asus, or maybe Gigabyte, or I don't really have much info on boards right now. I have to do some research.

I'll also need to look for things in my attic to sell on Ebay to help offset the cost:hehe:

FW
 
Need to read or start your own thread in the 2010 Forum, it's off topic for this Thread. You also will need to post exactly what problem you are having and your PC specifications.
 
Apology from Newbie.

:eek: I apologize for mistake.I am brand new to this, and I will take the advice.However, I fixed my problem by reading another post.Root cause was that I needed to change from Open GL to Direct X in my options.Everything is running good.I evened moved my Engine out, switched a junction and reparked it.Plus with help from the MAP, this seems like a very good program.Be safe and have a nice day.
 
Approach_Medium said:
Is it at all possible that performance of TS2010 is lower when it is installed on a logical drive that is not the boot?
I have TS installed on the same physical, but different partition/logical drive than the boot.
I experience a lot of jerkiness that does not appear related to frame rate, as I see the same low frame rates in other games, but do not have the jerkiness. The other games are installed on the boot drive.

Thanks

FW
Click to expand...

Other games are probably not as CPU intensive as Trainz, it shouldn't make any difference where it installed be it a separate partition or another physical drive, depends on the speed of the drive, access times etc.
A quicker drive a good access times would have faster load times but shouldn't affect the actual game, a single core CPU will however perform worse than a muticore one.

You may get rid of the jerking by running an EDR and a defrag, used to improve things quite a lot on my older PC.
 
clam1952 said:
Other games are probably not as CPU intensive as Trainz, it shouldn't make any difference where it installed be it a separate partition or another physical drive, depends on the speed of the drive, access times etc.
A quicker drive a good access times would have faster load times but shouldn't affect the actual game, a single core CPU will however perform worse than a muticore one.

You may get rid of the jerking by running an EDR and a defrag, used to improve things quite a lot on my older PC.
Click to expand...
I haven't run EDR in a while, but do defrag often, especially after adding, moving, or removing files.
Also, do you think that if content has warnings, it will cause performance hit, or would that be only in load time?

FW
 
I have a similar spec and vintage machine except for the CPU which is a Dual Core P4 running at 3.0 Mhz. It runs TRAINZ 09 and most routes quite smoothly except for Davesnow's OZARK VALLEY which is quite intense (and beautiful). Would the Dual Core P4 make that much of a difference or is it a case of 09 vs 2010.

tomurban
 
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Approach_Medium said:
I haven't run EDR in a while, but do defrag often, especially after adding, moving, or removing files.
Also, do you think that if content has warnings, it will cause performance hit, or would that be only in load time?

FW
Click to expand...

I don't think warnings actually have much if any effect, or they don't seem to here.
 
I'm going for the cpu as your block.
Had a p4 3.4 cpu on socket 775, turned out that was my problem after replacing everything round it.
Still on socket 775 with a core duo 3.16ghz, much better.
I run trainz off a seperate drive, whether its better or not I dont know, just the way I do it.
It (fps) also depends what stock/locos you run, I've managed to drag mine down from 30-45 fps to 15-25 just by that alone. I've got it below 15 by changing the trees and shrubs.
 
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fran1 said:
Did you notice what they want for postage on that, ttp, thats what that is.
Click to expand...
That's one thing I hate about Ebay. You look at the item cost, and they hope you forget to notice the shipping!
I was told that sellers do that so to avoid the Ebay fee, which is dependent on the price the item sells at. Ebay should do something to prevent that, but until they do, we have to be wary.

FW
 
lewisner said:
Just wondering Approach Medium, have you increased the Page File Size on your PC?

http://forums.techarena.in/tips-tweaks/1177754.htm
Click to expand...
Page file isn't going to do any good on Windows 7. It handles it quite well, and I have checked the PerfMon, and I am never maxing out on physical memory.
The pagefile would actually slow things down, since swap to HDD is much slower than physical RAM.

When I run Trainz, the only other app that is running is MS Security Essentials.

I am building a new, and smaller route to see how much the route size has to do with things.
I have also noticed that the consist of the trains affect the FPS. I like the Jointed Rail locos, but maybe they do take more resource to run. Still, there is really no way around the fact that I need a new system, or at least the main parts. I think I can get away with keeping the GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB for a while, so I only need the mobo, cpu, and RAM. MY main HDD is 512GB with 32MB cache running on SATA. Maybe even disk access would be a lot faster with a better mobo.

All this just to play Trainz! Trainz, occasionally Adobe Photoshop, TrakAx (audio/video processing) are the only apps that could use more processing than I currently have. Even now, everything runs, it just takes more time for the processes. Not so bad in the other apps, but with Trainz it really annoys me.

I would like to be able to load up a 1,000 car yard with stock and locos, and run 4 trains at one time on the mainline, and have a decent amount of scenery.

And one more thing: I actually purchased the licensed version of FRAPS, so that I could create videos in Trainz. But what a joke that was. When I run the movie recorder, the FPS drops from 15 down to 5, and the video is useless.

FW:'(
 
Approach_Medium said:
That's one thing I hate about Ebay. You look at the item cost, and they hope you forget to notice the shipping!
I was told that sellers do that so to avoid the Ebay fee, which is dependent on the price the item sells at. Ebay should do something to prevent that, but until they do, we have to be wary.

FW
Click to expand...
I use it for my van parts but am finding it cheaper at a parts wholesaler (general traffic) for instance.
And never buy second hand unless you can see before you buy.
 
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