why is TS2009 so slow loading in VISTA

[sirgibby]

Hi Guys

Just need some suggestions if possible please. I have just purchased a new computer with Vista 32 bit on and I am having some slow loading issues with TRAINZ.

Its a very fast machine and once the Surveyor/Driver menu screen is up the routes load lightening fast.
However getting the program going is abysmally slow (most of the time) ....taking up to 10 minutes to load from the TRAINZ startup menu.
To confuse the issue every so often it will load the program in seconds.

As I am new to VISTA it may just be some settings somewhere that I need to adjust.

(Not sure if this means anything but I went to copy some files to a memory stick and my old laptop with XP was 5 times faster copying the same files than the new Vista machine)

Any suggestions greatly appreciated.

system specs

O/S: Vista Home premium
MB: ASUS extreme II gene motherboard
CPU: Intel i7 2.66 GHz
Graphics Card: Nvidia GTX295
HDD: 2 x 1TB WD in raid 1 ... 3 Gb/s 7200RPM 32mb cache

 

[Rusty1955]

Have you run a defrag on your system?? I was having problems like that and ran my defrag program on it and it was like night and day!

 

[john259]

Have you checked in Device Manager for any reports of problems?

Just a vague thought from long ago that experts who are more up-to-date might be able to expand on or dismiss as irrelevant - are the hard disks set to use DMA?

John

 

[itareus]

Hi Sirgibby,

I too am using Vista 32 bit HP on a new machine, not quite as high spec as yours but still fairly beefy. My initial load times with TS2009, build 38411, do vary but nowhere near as long as 10 minutes.

One thing worth checking might be to see if the Auran 2009 folder is indexed (for searching). Is your Auran local folder very large?

Another thing that comes to mind is that another program or programs are working in the background whilst Trainz is initially loading. If you boot the machine up from "cold" and wait for the CPU usage to settle to 0 or 1% (check this in Task Manager or with the inbuilt gadget) and then start trainz does this make any difference?

On the same lines do you have loads of other programs loaded onto the machine? It is my undertanding that Vista tries to "preload" some parts of ram with frequently used programs, "second guessing the user!" but wll not recognise all programs for this operation. (n.b. this paragraph is a big over simplification of a complex issue).

There could also be conflict with a specific "other" program - worth checking if the long load times always occur when you have just used "XXX".

If your copy of Vista came with the offer of a free upgrade to Windows 7 in October then take up the offer!

If you need to check specific Vista settings then I'll happily check against my setup for you, although it's pretty much a standard factory installation (by Dell).

Cheers

Chris

 

[axe1970]

I just installed Vista64 and I also installed GTA IV I noticed that when I start TS2009 it was taking forever to load to the main menu in trainz.

I noticed that GTA IV had a program loaded called "Rockstar games Social Club" this program was running in the background, and once I closed this TS2009 was starting very quickly.

I don't know if that helps, but I thought I would mention it, just in case.

Regards

 

[Johnk]

Compared to XP, Vista is memory hungry and very slow when dealing with a lot of tasks. As some of the guys above suggest, find out what programs are running in the background. One simple, but not the best way of doing this is to look at all those little icons on the bottom right of your screen. each one of those is a running or partly running program. Right click each one and turn them off. Leave your anti-virus and firewall on if connected to the Internet. Any Norton's program is a dead set cert for slowing your PC down. Get rid if it ASAP and replace it with AVG or similar.

Defraging as Rusty1955 suggests is almost as worthless as udders on a bull. I've been fixing software issues since 1983 and I only defrag my machine once a year, if that. What you should have done was defrag your disk before installing Trainz, not after.

Download and run CCleaner, especially the registry part. Registry problems account for 90% of slow or stalled computer problems.

Where did you install trainz? I read somewhere (don't recall where) that you will have all sorts of problems if you installed it in C program Files. I have a complete partition on my hard disk just for Trainz and it runs fast enough. I am using XP however.

Maybe all our problems will be over by this time next year when Google releases its much awaited Google Chrome Operating System which looks like being free. I just hope that Trainz and many of the programs I currently use will work on it. It's a Windowed version of Linux without any of the overheads experienced with XP, Vistor and 7.

 

[elgato]

Hi Sirgibby,
Since you also mention that copying is much slower with Windows XP, have you installed all the updates including Service Pack 1 (via Windows Update) ? This should help quite a bit. And do not forget that after applying SP1, it takes 2 or 3 days for Vista to gain full speed as all the data for Superfetch is erased and then rebuilt.
Cheers
Gilles

 

[zuluking]

When Vista was released a number of "speedups" were listed in computer mags.
One was to turn off the Aero screen. PCFormat if I remember correctly gave a number of tips.

 

[StorkNest]

I run Vista.
Want to see a decent improvement in TS2009 load time?
Before running, choose Options from the Launcher menu and remove your ID and password. Once you deny TS2009 the ability to connect to the Internet, it loads faster.

 

[saintjimmy]

Don't forget Service Pack 2 also! It might not make much of a difference, but also make sure you have all the updates for the computer.

Kyle

 

[sirgibby]

Hi guys .. many thanks to ALL of you for taking the time to give me your suggestions.
I will work through them and let you know the results



some further comments ...

- CPU usage is at 1% ​

- memory usage is at 1.22GB (3GB memory installed)​

- only obvious background programmes that I have running, apart from driver programmes, are Nero Backitup / AVG / download accelerator / Google toolbar notifier / Adobe acrobat.. .and probably a program managing the RAID 1​

- resource overview (I notice that the DISK USAGE keeps spiking even with AVG and Download Accelerator off)​

- not sure that defragging would help as its a brand new computer system but will give it ago? ​

- Windows Vista Service Pack 2 is installed but will run windows update​

again many thanks
Michael

 

[Johnk]

Defraging will be a total waste of time,but that's all it will be. To some people it's the Holy Grail and they're not happy until they've done it. You never mentioned where Trainz is installed, that's probably more important, as is a cleanup of the registry. To push this point home, a weekly cleanup can produce upwards of 100-150 errors, so being a new machine you may expect as many as 500. That's a lot of problems you can eliminate. That disk activitey which is Windows doing some housekeeping,should also be signicantly reduced.

Keep in mind that the millions of experts who gave Vista the thumbs down didn't change their minds overnight. It's still a load of rubbish, thus the reason for 7 being rushed out. XP is still the best OS Microsoft made, and it's mainly XP users moving to Vista who notice the sluggish performance. As it's a new machine, it's probably twin core, but Trainz may only be running on one. I don't know how SP1 works, but there may be a tweak or two buried away there. I did hear SP1 was going to have features to run dual core but I don't know if they operate automatically.

And what about the graphics card, is that up to scratch?

 

[itareus]

Michael,

Following up on the running processes issue.

Try going into Task Manager, select the processes tab and click on the CPU column header (twice I think) this will sort the processes by the percentage of CPU usage. Observe this for a few minutes and see if you can identify what processes are running. Trouble is that because this is always changing (and probably very quickly) the display may be just too brief to see!

If you can identify a process thats running and you want to check it out then re sort the list by name (click the "Name" column header), find the process and right click on it and select "Properties" from the context menu. This will give details about the process. Google to get more info about the process.

You can also identify running processes via the Resource Monitor.

I would also consider if you need to have any of the following running in the background:

Nero Backitup / download accelerator / Google toolbar notifier / Adobe acrobat.

Chris.

 

[john259]

Try disabling indexing for the relevant hard disk drive, or all drives.

John

 

[itareus]

Try disabling indexing for the relevant hard disk drive, or all drives.John

Certainly worth a try although it will slow down searching. I was wondering if Trainz was building some kind of an index of the Auran folder at startup though (see para 2 of my first post).

Chris.

 

[Johnk]

Hi Chris, You are right about those annoying items. That's why I suggested SirGibby turn them off at the bottom right. That's only temporary of course, but I'm reluctant to send people to MSCONFIG to make more permanent changes. There are some good Startup managers around but I've never tried them, preferring the more drastic "kill forever" and shoot from the hip personal approach as I do. On looking at his specs, which I forgot to do the first time, they all look fine.

I wish I could find the post about installing in C: Program Files. It was a goodun'.

I'm just praying that Microsoft and Windows are on their last legs with Google Chrome OS looming.

Regards

John

 

[teddytoot]

....Maybe all our problems will be over by this time next year when Google releases its much awaited Google Chrome Operating System which looks like being free. I just hope that Trainz and many of the programs I currently use will work on it. It's a Windowed version of Linux without any of the overheads experienced with XP, Vistor and 7.

As I understand it Google Chrome is a version of Linux (but they keep that quiet because of the negative associations to many people) so, if that is correct, we shall still be having problems of one sort or another.

 

[Johnk]

You're right there. I did mention that in my earlier post. It's a windowed version of Linux, open source and probably free. it's being developed for Atom powered netbooks initially, but it will also be available for PC's. What exactly a "Windowed version" means is anybody's guess, but I'm assuming it will emulate Windows.

Many programs are being ported to Linux and once Google Chrome OS gets its market share, the will be many more. On the brighter side, we won't have to worry so much about virus attacks because Linux doesn't have any vulnerabilities to speak of.

It's early days yet, but I wouldn't keep my hopes up with Windows 7. I've always said, and I still believe that Windows XP was the last of the acceptable "Yank Tanks!

 

[sirgibby]

hi

I am following what you guys have been saying and have tried a number of the suggestions but have not been successful yet.

I downloaded CCLeaner and cleaned the registry but there where very few problems showing.
Indexing was already turned off and there are very few background programs running .... but still a lot of disk accessing.

I was particularly interested in the PCFormat magazine.
It has a complete article with detailed instructions for speeding up vista

Try going into Task Manager, select the processes tab and click on the CPU column header (twice I think) this will sort the processes by the percentage of CPU usage.

Itareus, I tried this and was interested to note that after the launcher finished and TRAINZ started, the TRAINZ processing dropped to about "0%" and everything else was "0%" apart from "system idel process" which was at 99%
Once TRAINZ gets to the main Surveyor/Driver menu screen the CPU usage is sitting on 15-18%. (As a side I notice that while just sitting on the menu screen doing nothing the disk drive is whirring away)

Is it posible the RAID 1 could be causing a problem. (I'm new to raid setups)

Anyway I will keep looking.
In the end theres always the choose to go back to good old XP!!!

cheers
Michael

 

[Johnk]

Michael, this isn't going to help you one bit except let you know what you're up against. A friend and I both have XP SP2. My machine just sits there waiting for me when I'm not doing anything. His machine's hard disk never stopped grinding its teeth off, plus the machine was dead slow. I formatted his HD and did a full install of SP2 and guess what? The HD still keeps grinding away but the machine is a bit faster. The system idle process continues to confuse me and I've read a lot about it. From what I have read, it's a useless process that does little to improve anything. The only reason I think that I'm not plagued with it is because I have heaps more RAM and just about everything switched off in MSConfig.

You still haven't said if you've run CCleaner. The registry can begin playing up immeadiately after Windows is installed. Different combinations of registry errors can create different problems. Here's the trick: You run the registry cleaner and get rid of the errors. Then you run it again and get rid of any additional errors. Then you run it for the third time. By now you should receive a message "No More Errors". The registry can have errors up to three levels deep and you must get rid of them all. I have seen machines quadruprle their speed from such a cleanup and I've seen technitions charge $150 to do what takes 5 minutes of your time and a free program to do it with.

If you already have CCleaner, the registry cleaner is the second item in the menu on the left. The first item just removes junk and doesn't improve speed.