My video card reads that just fine. When I go to screen resolution in Win7 it does give me the option to go that high. I run both Win7 and Trainz in 1280x1024. Win7 actually says that is the recommended resolution.
Besides, think about what you are saying. My game already has stutter problems at this resolution. Changing it to a higher resolution will not help that.
I don't want to make any enemies on this forum. I appreciate the help and the community atmosphere here. But it seems as if you are all grasping at straws.
And Steve, that is an awful lot of hoops to jump through to make this work correctly.
I've been a hardware technician for close to 30 years no, so nothing surprises me anymore, and no you're not making enemies here. We understand your frustrations, and we're just trying to help you enjoy your game, that's all.
Any highly-intensive CPU and graphics focused game or program can bring a system's performance down below what we'd expect system to perform at. The stutters can be caused be so many, many issues and not just the video. The program is truly multitasking, unlike the standard games a lot of people play such as Battle Front, and Far Cry. This program has threads in it to keep the AI on track (pun intended), to keep track of scripts for scripted objects such as industries (stations too), crossings, and all of this is in addition to rendering the scenery for us to see. The graphics too can impact the performance (I'll get back to this in a second, so bear with me on this), but if all of these other things are going on at the same time, then your graphics too won't render properly, and you'll have a stuttering problem.
So having said this, check out the following items, which I will explain as I go a long and break down into the different subsystems that can impact the performance of any program or game.
Hard drive(s)
Hard drives, not counting SSDs, are by their very nature the slowest device in the computer. Being mechanical devices, there are limits to how fast they can go in the first place. In order to mitigate and make this a lesser impact on your system, utilities and hardware caching schemes have been developed to get the most oomph out of these devices as we can.
* Defragment the Hard drive often.
A fragmented hard drive can cause pauses and stuttering as it searches out the assets needed to render the scene. Remember, the hundreds of thousands of assets are stored on the hard drive and indexed by the database file controlled by Content Manager (CM). If the hard drive is fragmented, there is a big delay reading in the data that is read from the database file.
* Disk Space. Is your drive really full?
A full hard drive will impact the performance if there's not enough room to write temporary files as the program is running. Your operating system also needs room to spread out too, so if you're running really tight on space on your drive, you need to clean-up and make some room so Trainz and other programs will run better.
* Is your drive failing, getting old?
A failing hard drive will definitely lose performance as it tries to read the data when ask too by the programs or operating system. There is extra work needed to spin the hard drives, seek out the information, check the information for quality, and then send it on to the RAM for processing by the CPU. The failing drive can cause multiple reads of the same sectors (blocks) on the drive. This can surely cause the stutters as the system tries to reload the information, and with the way this program works, you are losing time trying to read the data. The information needs to loaded up quickly for processing and rendering, and if you're drive is retrying over and over, then the performance is going to be way off.
* Is Windows Search and indexing turned off.
This can really cause a system to stutter as the operating system scans your hard drive for every recently opened program and data file. Now this is fine for Joe and Linda Home User, but not for using something that's going to access the hard drive all the time. Every time you open the database, the file will be indexed. The same will happen as you open up the referenced data files for rendering, as the operating system records where the files are located so you can get to them faster at some point in the future.
*What about your drive speed? Is this drive running at 7200 RPM, or 5400 RPM? A faster drive will of course provide better performance.
Leaving the hard drive alone, how is your case ventilation?
* Heat is a computers worst enemy. A dirty case will cause your CPU and related components to slow down as your process and other boards, including your video card, are trying to keep from dying. Intel, and I think even AMD now, will slow down the processing if you components are overheating, and video cards will do the same. So check your fans and periodically clean the dust bunnies, bugs, hair, and fuzz out of the fans. I recommend using the canned air, but place a pencil or something in the fan blades to keep your fans from being ruined as the air blows through them.
General operating system issues.
* This has nothing to do with whether you are running Windows 9x all the way up to Windows 8. If your operating system has data corruption caused by malware, or in need of install, things can and will run rotten.
* Disable your malware scanner while running Trainz, or if you can disable the scan from that program. This was mentioned above under hard drives. the extra work on the hard drives doesn't helps matters much besides this one more thing running in the background you don't need at this time.
* Turn off or disable any background file sharing or utilities that have nothing to do what you really need. Skype for example will nail a system. There's no need to start this up with your computer.
Display issues
*Ensure you are using the driver that is best for your hardware. I agree the latest and greats is not always the greatest when it comes to drivers. I have found that being a version or two behind is sometimes better. Besides, drivers don't just go bad instantly they're not like food in a refrigerator!
*Run your program at the same resolution as your monitor, or if you have to, lower the display resolution to match what your game can handle. Sometimes even if your display and video card can handle 1780, 19200, the CPU and everything else can't push the data through your video card fast enough, causing stutters.
And finally, what kind of system are you running? A laptop will have a totally different baggage to add to this than a desktop machine. Laptops in general run slower due to the mobile-type processors. the i3 mobile chip is quite a bit different than the desktop version. There is less caching, and cooling an speed step-throttling is a bit different. The same with video and hard drives. With hard drives, they system will end up usually with 5400 RPM drives because of the lower power requirements.
Now there are probably more things to look at, and I'm sure others will add to this. Hopefully you find these useful things as a start in resolving your performance issues with your game.
John
