jjanmarine3
Active member
Sometimes while driving in a session a hour glass comes up momentarily and flutters around the mouse pointer area and the game seems to falter slightly - is there any particular known reason for this pse guys.
Is there a known reason why the hour glass comes up ?
- Thread starter jjanmarine3
- Start date
shaneturner12
Tutorial Creator
That may be due to information being read from the hard drive as Trainz does not load every single bit of data at the start of the session.
Shane
Shane
jjanmarine3
Active member
OK thanks Shane. I was not sure if it is possibly a problem on my system..
Jan
Jan
shaneturner12
Tutorial Creator
Mine stutters every so often as well especially in built-up areas. The hard drive is usually the slowest part of the loading process.
Shane
Shane
I agree with Shane on this too.
There are many things you can try to minimize the amount of disk access. Among them I recommend turning off antivirus software when driving because A/V software may decide to scan every file that is being accessed. This is caused by the settings in the program that are not always configurable.
A good drive defrag prior to running Trainz is a good idea too since that puts all the data clusters into a sequential order which will speed up the data read. Do not ever do this if you are using SD drives however because the SD drives work differently than real hard disks, and the defragmenting process can ruin the device.
John
There are many things you can try to minimize the amount of disk access. Among them I recommend turning off antivirus software when driving because A/V software may decide to scan every file that is being accessed. This is caused by the settings in the program that are not always configurable.
A good drive defrag prior to running Trainz is a good idea too since that puts all the data clusters into a sequential order which will speed up the data read. Do not ever do this if you are using SD drives however because the SD drives work differently than real hard disks, and the defragmenting process can ruin the device.
John
Not that I doubt your advice, but is that well known? I'm surprised I've not run across an article about that, I hope it's documented in the packaging, those things are too expensive to be ruined by a utility many may perform out of habit.
I expect that when the program saves automatically, you may see the hourglass as well.
jjanmarine3
Active member
While on the subject of saving - when does the program auto save - and where does the auto save record the saved info pse.
shaneturner12
Tutorial Creator
It's all to do with the type of memory an SSD drive uses. The memory used can only be written to a certain amount of times before it becomes unusable. Defragmenting increases the amount of writes to the memory parts, and as such wears it out quicker. This is why most modern defragmenter tools will not defrag SSD drives.
Shane
P.S. I will add the meaning of SSD into my blog entry later on.
jjanmarine3
Active member
Yeah..I did not even think of the defrag part - very important with all those changes taking place etc ?.
ray_whiley
Active member
The frequency can be chosen by the user.
Ray
NickieFoenshauge
New member
Don't forget to turn off indexing of the Trainz drive. And, if your Trainz drive is not the system drive C, also make sure Windows doesn't use that drive for paging.
Yes... That awesomely ugly Windows thing that can bring a modern PC to the level of an ancient 80486!
Unless you need to search for documents, or the contents of Outlook emails, Indexing is useless. Personally I've turned it off so that's probably why I forgot to add this in.
Thank you Nick for this important tip.
@Ed et al,
Here's an interesting link on SSDs and defragmenting the device.
http://upgradessd.com/should-i-defrag-my-ssd/
John
Hello to all,
After further testing of Trainz, I have noticed that if you use portals to produce trains for your route, this can also show the hour glass on screen, or in the case of windows 7 the blue swirling circle.
It happens on my system too, and the hard drive makes a rumbling noise, like it is looking for the consist to emerge from the portal.
Sometimes a slight stutter occurs just before a train comes into view to pass me, this may also show an hour glass on screen on slower computers.
Hope this helps
Joe Airtime
After further testing of Trainz, I have noticed that if you use portals to produce trains for your route, this can also show the hour glass on screen, or in the case of windows 7 the blue swirling circle.
It happens on my system too, and the hard drive makes a rumbling noise, like it is looking for the consist to emerge from the portal.
Sometimes a slight stutter occurs just before a train comes into view to pass me, this may also show an hour glass on screen on slower computers.
Hope this helps
Joe Airtime
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O..M..G.. wow thanks for that!
My hard drive is aimed at the window now, just in case that rumbling is real... phew!
:hehe:
Thanks to John for the SSD defrag snippet.
I will research it further to satisfy my own curiosity.
CheerZ!
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I see you have been attending The city college of Euphod, instead of playing peggle nights, has Ed been teaching you new ways to get your point across...:hehe:
I did not know about the defrag and SSD conflict either, well you learn something new everyday, maybe I should attend The City College of Euphod too...
Joe Airtime