Blood from a stone?

tomurban said:
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).
tomurban
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Thank you for the nice comment. Could I inquire what FPS you get with Ozark Valley? I get around 20-30 most everywhere, which is acceptable to me.

Regards,

Dave Snow
 
itareus said:
Just possible that MS SE is slowing things down, might be worth exempting the relevant Trainz forders from scanning and see if that helps any.
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I can try that, although MS SE is far less invasive than Norton. I gave up on Symantec products 2yrs ago, and don't plan to return.

FW
 
Any security program is going to take a toll on performance, often quite a lot. That's the primary reason why a lot of folks (myself included) run Trainz and other performance-intensive applications offline.

Norton's, though...ugh...
 
davesnow said:
Thank you for the nice comment. Could I inquire what FPS you get with Ozark Valley? I get around 20-30 most everywhere, which is acceptable to me.

Regards,

Dave Snow
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Dave I was averaging 4-5 FPS in some sections of the route with just a single engine in DCC mode. My main problem was a long loading time and then having boards not showing or popping up at the last minute. My educated guess is insufficient memory for all the boards and assets. I only have 2 slots with 1GB in each slot. I am toying with the idea of installing 2GB in one of the slots (for a total of 3GB), but I am not sure that my MOB and CPU will utilize the extra memory. I have posed this question on some techie sites and the general response has been probably not. (My computer is an IBM SSF work station and was not designed for more than 2GB) It is rugged, heavy and bullet proof but it does have limitations. A route that I currently run a lot is Cattaraugus Creek & Lake Erie which is similar to yours but with fewer boards. This route gives me FPS in the 10 to 20 range but does drop to 4-5 FPS in a few spots. I can live with that. I think I will download your route again and give it another shot. I never did try it in native mode. Thanks for asking.

tomurban
 
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There are a few online MOBO scanner web sites that will tell you your MOBO capabilities such as RAM and the like. I Googled for it and found a good site. If you're running anything from XP/SP3 upwards your OS should expand into the extra RAM if it needs to. If not, then the extra will be utilized by the game.

Bill
 
HiBaller said:
There are a few online MOBO scanner web sites that will tell you your MOBO capabilities such as RAM and the like. I Googled for it and found a good site. If you're running anything from XP/SP3 upwards your OS should expand into the extra RAM if it needs to. If not, then the extra will be utilized by the game.

Bill
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I tried the Crucial site and it said no. Of course Crucial does not offer a 2Gb 184 pin RAM stick with the correct parameters for the IBM.

tomurban
 
Crucial probably told the truth, even though they didn't offer the RAM stick. Your user manual (or the manufacturer's web site) might be the best place to find out for sure. Question: How much video RAM do you have? And, is it shared RAM?

Darn! Did I hijack another thread?

Bill
 
HiBaller said:
Crucial probably told the truth, even though they didn't offer the RAM stick. Your user manual (or the manufacturer's web site) might be the best place to find out for sure. Question: How much video RAM do you have? And, is it shared RAM?

Darn! Did I hijack another thread?

Bill
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I don't think so, this qualifies as trying to get blood from a stone. To answer your question, I have 512MB of video RAM on a Zotac a PCI x1 card with the nVidia ION chip. The on-board Intel graphic chip is disabled and almost useless for running TRAINZ. Your suggestion to try the MFR's web site (now Lenovo) is a good one. My concern would be that my relic is now beyond the supported time frame. It"s worth a try though.

tomurban
 
Age could very well be playing a role here. Your video card should be able to handle the graphics, but I agree that an older computer (with a newer graphics card) is only half the battle. Your computer might just be at the dividing line between just serviceable and just not serviceable for Trainz.

I got lucky and walked into the closing moments of the Circuit City store (now defunct) and scored two demo Compak towers with 3G of RAM each for just $300. I put a 1G video card into one and made it my gaming computer. It runs Win7. The other is my web computer and it runs Vista (ick).

I'm sure you'll sort it out.

Bill
 
Bill: I think we can both agree that RAM (or lack of same) is the bottle neck with larger routes such as OZARK VALLEY. If I remember correctly it is upward of 300 boards with 1,600 plus assets. With XP SP3 using approximately 500 MB, that leaves 1.5 GB for a route like Dave's. However, before spending around $95 for a 2 GB stick of RAM that may or may not work, I will do a little more research. Enjoy those Circuit City bargains.

tomurban
 
Tomurban: Before I upgraded to new computers, I ran TRS2004 on my old XP/SP3 machine. It was that machine we originally created the DHR. That route has upwards of 400 boards and encompasses around 3500 pieces of content. It runs for 54 miles and has sessions with HTML assets which load right at the beginning. It usually took around 2 minutes to load the route and another 2 to get a session going. Once it did, however, it never had a glitch or stutter except in one spot which was very dense with scenery.

I have a feeling that there might be some advantage to making sure you've stopped all the background processes you can and temporarily turned off your anti-virus. I did not turn off my firewall even though I'm behind a hardware firewall in my router. Perhaps fiddling with your OS settings like swap files and the like might give you some more RAM.

Bill
 
HiBaller said:
Tomurban: Before I upgraded to new computers, I ran TRS2004 on my old XP/SP3 machine. It was that machine we originally created the DHR. That route has upwards of 400 boards and encompasses around 3500 pieces of content. It runs for 54 miles and has sessions with HTML assets which load right at the beginning. It usually took around 2 minutes to load the route and another 2 to get a session going. Once it did, however, it never had a glitch or stutter except in one spot which was very dense with scenery.

I have a feeling that there might be some advantage to making sure you've stopped all the background processes you can and temporarily turned off your anti-virus. I did not turn off my firewall even though I'm behind a hardware firewall in my router. Perhaps fiddling with your OS settings like swap files and the like might give you some more RAM.

Bill
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I do not see any performance change (fps) when I shut down my AV software (MS Security Essentials). I did notice a change when I was using Norton, that is one reason (besides the fact I got tired of paying for a new version every year) that I gave up on Norton.

I don't think there is any way I can get around the fact that I need a new system. 6yrs and counting. That's 2x the time I had my last one!

FW
 
What do you think of AMD?
Would an AMD processor work OK with my NVidia GeForce 9800?
Is there any advantage/disadvantage with AMD?

Thanks

FW
 
I don't see any reason why not. My two computers are both running AMD dual cores with NVIDIA boards (6150SE on MOBO on web computer and GT220 @ 1G RAM in my gaming computer). Both run just fine.

Bill
 
Looks like a pretty good deal to me. Of course, the cost goes up when you add a power supply capable of driving it and all the auxiliary boards you'll need. It does have support for a PCI-Ex16 card so you can spend a lot more on video too. So, unless I wanted to start with a metal box and build from that, I'd be on the lookout for a good bargain in a already-built computer.

Bill
 
Check it out....

:cool: I throw this in on threads like this, for System Requirements Lab

Search a product by using the dropdown menu, select Trainz Simulator 2009.
You will get a fairly comprehensive analysis.

Also, installing Trainz on your Local Disk(C:\TS2009) & enabling all Trainz .exe files to access the Internet through your firewall, or run as Admin. helps greatly.

As you mention Norton, I have used Norton360 for years & the security & maintenance has been well worth the purchase(I wait until it cost about $40, then share it with two other people). It runs silently in the background unless a threat is detected. But this is not about Norton...

Anyway, System Requirement Lab will tell you what you need to upgrade.
 
AMD often has a better price point than Intel; Intel's strong point is they are better performers than equivalent AMDs. I don't have anything against AMD, but I only build with Intel for this reason, even though I usually have to build (whether for myself or for others) within a budget. But, as an example, AMD can get you a quad-core for half of the lowest Intel.
 
HiBaller said:
Looks like a pretty good deal to me. Of course, the cost goes up when you add a power supply capable of driving it and all the auxiliary boards you'll need. It does have support for a PCI-Ex16 card so you can spend a lot more on video too. So, unless I wanted to start with a metal box and build from that, I'd be on the lookout for a good bargain in a already-built computer.

Bill
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I was assuming that my 550W PSU would suffice, and I could stick my GeForce 9800GTX+ into the PCIE slot and all would be fine. All I would need is the memory, and I would go with the fastest the board could use.

But maybe you're right about the already-built system. Except that I believe my 9800 GTX will work, and that saves me at least $200 on a new card.

FW
 
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