Improve Frame rates download?

[conrail6373]

I searched the forum and came up with nothing. Is there something that I can download to improve Trainz Frame Rates?

Dell Xps 400 512mb video card
3.0gb ram
2.7ghz processor

 

[aardvark1]

..ADD a new post or EDIT your first post with your comp specs first....

Also.... try a seach using FPS....and Trainzoptions.

Have fun,

 

[Euphod]

I searched the forum and came up with nothing. Is there something that I can download to improve Trainz Frame Rates?

Perhaps a Service Pack or two or four, depending on which version of Trainz you are running, or failing that, maybe updated Drivers for your system, or even Enditall.....

Those are the only items I can think of that you could download to improve your framerates.

 

[meatloaf747]

Change some settings......

A couple of very simple solutions, drop your screen resolution down a notch or two, & move the settings sliders more to the left. Especially the draw distances ones. (Also turn up good cloud setting)...
The game won't look as good, but you should get a better frame rate...
Cheers, Mac.

 

[rweber95]

Have you tried both graphics options, DirectX and OpenGL? What video card do you have in your 400?

Bob

 

[angelah]

background progs

Also you may find it helpful to shut down as many background progs that are running as possible, usually started when you boot up your PC.
Try EndItAll.

Angela

 

[Johnk]

Good advice angelah. EnditAll is a nice little program. As a Pro PC repairer, I was constantly astonished as to how much startup junk people were running. Unfortunately EnditAll is not the end all, but it should help. Also cCleaner is a good program to run regularly. Especially the registry cleaner section.

Nothing beats a good video card as i just proved for myself. I upgraded from a gForce 128 to a XFX Play Hard gForce 9600GT 512 GDDR3 ( http://www.xfxforce.com ). "Wow!! Cost $199 here in Oz.

Although your computer specs sound good conrail6373, I'll bet that 512mb graphics card is on board (on the mother board) which means it's eating into 512meg of your Ram plus a lot of processor resources. End result - the processor is too busy running the graphics card to give you good frame rates where it counts. Consider using a dedicated gForce card.

 

[ex-railwayman]

Although your computer specs sound good conrail6373, I'll bet that 512mb graphics card is on board (on the mother board) which means it's eating into 512meg of your Ram plus a lot of processor resources. End result - the processor is too busy running the graphics card to give you good frame rates where it counts. Consider using a dedicated gForce card.

May I ask please you 3 questions John, if your graphics card is built into your motherboard, if I wanted to upgrade, is it easy to exchange ??
And, would I need to get a new Motherboard as well, which would eat into my budget considerably....
I'm not very computer savvy, but I'm a little confused regarding your comment highlighted. Your processor will surely eat into whatever size graphics card you have installed, I would have though that logically speaking the bigger the card, the more power the processor will use, or does it not work like that????

Cheerz. ex-railwayman

 

[Captain_Collins]

Basically, if your video card is built into the motherboard, it is not interchangeable without some serious knowledge and care. The good news is that these onboard video chips can be disabled, and a standard card put into a slot on the motherboard to replace it.

If you get a different graphics card, it will have it's own processor, freeing up your main processor for other tasks. It will also have it's own memory, freeing up the main memory for other things, making performance much better.

The only problems with all of this are these:
1. What graphics slot does your motherboard have? If you don't know, then post your motherboard number here, or your computer model. I know you have mentioned a Dell XPS 400 before, but the specs I can find for that on the web are way off from what you have quoted. Perhaps you could also find out the age?

2. How much wattage can your power supply supply? Again, if you do not know/cannot find out, post computer model and age. If you are feeling adventurous, this figure will be on a sticker on the side of the PSU (Where the power cord plugs in) on the inside of the case.

3. How large is the case? If it is too small, it may not take a standard size graphics card. Again, please post computer model and age.

 

[ColPrice2002]

Hi ex-railwayman,

if your graphics card is built into your motherboard, if I wanted to upgrade, is it easy to exchange ??

The answer is "it depends" - the critical factor is which motherboard your computer uses.
(Note laptops are usually "fixed" for add-ins - there usually isn't space to add very much more)
Most computers have one of two "plugs" for graphics cards.
The old one is "AGP", the newer is "PCIexpress"

When you add a graphic card, some come with memory on the graphics card, some are designed to share the memory on the PC motherboard.
The shared ones are usually cheaper....
The good news is that upgrading from the PC "as supplied" is usually as easy as unplugging the old & inserting the new (plus a couple of power connectors!).
It's usually possible to add a graphics card to PC (if the graphics is fixed on the motherboard it may be possible to disable it - that's the BIOS options settings).

Your processor will surely eat into whatever size graphics card you have installed, I would have though that logically speaking the bigger the card, the more power the processor will use, or does it not work like that????

A graphics card will have its own processor (GPU = graphics processing unit) to interpret the codes sent to it by the main processor. However, if the graphics card shares memory with the motherboard, there's a lot of data moving between the CPU => GPU => RAM=> GPU output (screen).
The CPU manages data transfers - so it must manage the graphics data to and from the motherboard RAM. This is usually just when you want maximum performance...
It the graphics memory is on the graphics card, the main CPU dosen't get involved at all.

Johnk was referring to processor power - not electrical watts.

One problem with updating the motherboard is that it's not always easy finding one that matches your old components - like CPU/memory chips. You may have to think of new CPU, new memory to match the motherboard, then the new graphics cards use more electical power (new PSU)...

Can you post your motherboard details here?

HTH,

Colin

 

[ex-railwayman]

Thanks Gents, some interesting reading, I can give you the following info. but I'm not very technical, so apologies......
I bought my PC and installed it on 1st December 2007, the sticky label on the side of the machine says the mfg date was 6-10-2007.
It is an Acer Extensa E210, BIOS memory size is 512 KB. RAM currently is 3 GIG, but will support 8 gig in 4 slots. Processor is an AMD Athlon 64 x 2 Dual Core, Bus speed 800 Mhz.

Anything else you need to know please just shout, this info is for the community, not just me, so others may find it useful as well.

Thankz very much for your help fellas.

Cheerz. ex-railwayman.

 

[Johnk]

The guys above have answered my questions and it was remiss of me not to add additional details about my upgrade. In the past year or so there has been a swing away from AGP graphic cards to PCI. Mine is a PCI Express which is a smallish brown slot not unlike the older AGP slot. The card is quite large (and heavy) so it may not fit into some smaller PC cases. It also requires TWO power cables so the Power Supply should be 400 watts or more. I recenlly upgraded my motherboard/processer to the latest ASUS/Intel Dual Core so I had no problem fitting the card. As yours is a dual core machine you may have too much trouble either, but computers are a can of worms these days. I always purchase my gear from the same discount computer shop here in Cairns so they have all my info on their computer. They just look up my account, locate my latest gear and say "That's ok". If you are in doubt, I suggest you take the box with you when choosing a card. You don't have to pay $40 to have it fitted, but take the side off the box and make sure all is right. When you're happy, take the card home and fit it yourself. If the shop sees your setup, you have some kind of recourse if they say everything should work, but it doesn't.

Fitting the card in my case was a matter of plugging it in and loading the supplied drivers. The mother board had a built in graphics card but it switched itself off as soon as the other card was plugged in. This is pretty normal. Everything was supplied but you may need a double adaptor cable which costs about $2 if you don't have two spare power leads. Definately have the shop check your Power Supply. You may need to replace it because Acer may supply the bare minimum. That's another $30.

On the plus side, I'm running Trainz at 1280 x 1024 with all the settings at default. Prior to fitting the card there was a distinct jerking motion even at lower settings. Now the motion is silky smooth when using any of the built-in routes. My computer is a 1.60 Dual Core Pentium with SATA disk drive. The upgrade including processor, mother board, 2 gig ram, case, DVD and graphics card cost around $500 (No hard disk monitor or OS which is currently XP). The card uses no CPU memory to speak of.

Am I happy? Absolutely. I was amazed when I saw the difference.

 

[johnwhelan]

Thanks Gents, some interesting reading, I can give you the following info. but I'm not very technical, so apologies......
I bought my PC and installed it on 1st December 2007, the sticky label on the side of the machine says the mfg date was 6-10-2007.
It is an Acer Extensa E210, BIOS memory size is 512 KB. RAM currently is 3 GIG, but will support 8 gig in 4 slots. Processor is an AMD Athlon 64 x 2 Dual Core, Bus speed 800 Mhz.

Anything else you need to know please just shout, this info is for the community, not just me, so others may find it useful as well.

Thankz very much for your help fellas.

Cheerz. ex-railwayman.

Looks like you have a PCI Express x16 slot available, but only a 250 watt power supply and the basic model has integrated on board graphics. Adding a reasonable video card is fairly easy, open the case and push it in the slot, but you'll need to switch the power supply as well, something like an ANTEC 500 watt earthwatts for 45 quid from ebuyer, buy yourself an antistatic strap as well, http://www.ebuyer.com/product/138825.

Video cards Tomshardware rates ATI best at the moment but nVidea have just put Physx on their gpus which may change the entire world of sims so I'd be tempted to go nVidea at the moment something like the 8800 GT but double check the power supply is big enough.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-cards,1965-3.html

Cheerio John

 

[ex-railwayman]

Thanks very much indeed for your help John and John.......:hehe:

I am a bit confused regarding the power wattage resource, but I've taken everything on board, and will think about what to do next. The PC is still young-ish, so I don't immediately have to change things, it's cosmetic thinking rather than operationally motivated. I do remember you stating John W that video cards are changing in the computer world, so I may hang on for a while, I looked on the ATI website and the ATI Radeon X1250 card doesn't feature anymore, so maybe it has been superseded already by something more powerful. I think I'll do a bit of research before I go any further, thanks for the links to the other websites John, very helpful. However, to assist me with my Trainzing, I have altered a lot of resolution settings, changed to 1280x1024, defaulted all the sliders, and depending on the sizes of the routes I'm now playing on, amended the fog and drawer distance sliders accordingly, some of the bigger routes off the DLS now run like a dream, especially angelah's layouts, which I could hardly play on before.

Now, I did miss telling you guys something actually, sorry, I didn't buy my PC from a store, I bought it from a reputable website in the UK from a company I had previous professional experience with, so I knew I could trust them for their customer service, product variety and price. It is the first PC I have ever bought, beforehand I used a laptop, so am a bit computer illiterate technically, but I get by.....So, I am a bit loathe to take it to a dealer for them to exchange and replace spare parts, don't like being ripped off for shoddy service et al, and would obviously like to do things myself, so if there is a cock-up it's my fault, and obviously the PC is in the house all the time and not stuck in some dusty repair shop, for days on end, and of course the money aspect would bring things down much cheaper if I did things personally.
I did exchange the RAM myself on Wednesday, I did it early morning, after the PC had acquired about 7 hours rest and was nice and cold, thought it would cut down on any antistatic as well, and took very little time getting the cover off and popping the RAM card firmly into position, shoving the clips back on, blew the dust completely out, and had the cover back on within a couple of minutes, so a nice easy installation, I hope any future work will be just as quick, just as long as people give me a fool's guide on how to doing things......:hehe:

Cheerz Chaps. ex-railwayman

 

[johnwhelan]

Next time please buy and use an antistatic strap, especially with memory.

Most of the work involved in changing things on a Pc is fairly simple. The worst one to do is probably the power supply and that's not that bad.

Cheerio John

 

[Johnk]

Re Monitor Settings: I'm using 1280x1024 because I have a LG 1919s (19") which is almost square. 1024 x 768 is more common. That's for the TV Aspect ratio type monitors. Wide screens are different again. Always try to use the correct aspect ratio which should be listed in the monitor manual.

Re Anti-Static: I respect Johnwhelan's comments. An anti-static strap is perfect, but I fixed computers for over ten years without one despite being a sucker for static in a static inducing climate. If you can't afford a strap, or find yourself without one, you can do this (no guarantees of course, but it always worked for me). It's a common practice used by many in the computer industry and touted all over the Internet:

Keep the computer plugged in to the mains but switched off. (The earth is still working).

Place one hand on the Power Supply box to release static from your body.

keep the hand there.

Avoid moving your feet or brushing against anything but wood.

Use the other hand to do all the work. You get used to being one-handed after a while.

Avoid touching metalic "contact" parts on a card. That's the gold tips, silver wires going into components and avoid touching components themselves.

Complete the work and remove your hand from the power supply.

It's okay to work on warm machines, unless you're working around what looks like a capacitor. I've never had any trouble in the past, but that's me.

Finally, when it comes to purchasing computer gear, I've found it safer to use the same company for everything. If you look and ask around, you will find several OEM dealers in your area. These are usually smaller dedicated stores with massive turnover. They purchase OEM (Original equipment manufacturers) products and build computers to your specs. When i comes to purchasing cards and hard disks, hey are usually cheaper than retailers because they buy in bulk and have lower profit margins. My dealer will assemble a computer of mychoice for around $60_80 plus the bits I choose. He discusses your needs and supplys accordingly. The end product will cost around the same as an Acer or HP, but it will be significantly more powerful and only the best (not cheapest) components are used. I live in a small town where there are four such shops. Three are good, one is a shark. Thus you must look around. Over and out!

 

[ex-railwayman]

Many thanks for your responses Gentlemen, I think that rather than using one hand JohnK I will certainly purchase an antistatic strap for all my future fiddling about, one cannot be too careful, and already having experienced all of the complexity inside any PC, you do need both hands......:hehe:

Cheerz. ex-railwayman.