TRS 2009 and GForce 6800 128mg video card

Anyone using a video card with only 128megs of memory for 2009?

My computer only has AGP and it's a short lived slot 754.

There's only a few cards that would give me a slight performance boost with my current system. I'm getting by for TRS2006, but I'm not sure how this 6800 card (OC'ed to 16 pipelines) would do for TRS2009.

Specs:

Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2 (2600.xpsp_sp2_gdr.070227-2254)

System Manufacturer: HP Pavilion 061
System Model: PP164AA-ABA a810n
BIOS: Phoenix - Award BIOS v6.00P Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3300+, MMX, 3DNow, ~2.4GHz
Memory: 2048MB RAM
Page File: 315MB used, 1377MB available
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)

Here are my specs which I used when evaluating the 09 beta - performance was extremely good compared to 2006 and only slightly better than TC3.

Operating System : Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 3 (Build 2600)
Screen Size : 1680 x 1050
Ram Found : 1535 MB
Ram Free : 933 MB
Virtual Ram Free : 1689 MB
Raw Cpu Clock Speed : ~798 MHZ
OEM ID : 0
Number of processors : 1
Page size : 4096
Processor type : 586
Processor Architecture : 0
Processor Level : 15
Processor Revision : 1032
Allocation Granularity : 65536
3D-Now : Available
FP operations : Not Emulated
FP precision error : Does not occur
MMX : Available
Physical Address Extension : Available
RDTSC instruction : Available
SSE instruction : Available
SSE2 instruction : Available
------------
Test Results
------------
CPU Speed : ~2.00 GHZ : Passed
System Memory : 1535 MB : Passed
Hard Drive Space: 194.49 GB Free : Passed
OpenGL : Version 2.0 : Passed
DirectX : Version 9.0c or later : Passed
Desktop Mode : 32 bit colors : Passed
Card Type : Radeon X1600/X1650 Series x86/MMX/3DNow!/SSE2 : Passed
Video Driver's Age : 17 months old -Update : Warning
AGP Memory : 117MB Free : Passed
Total Video Mem : 512MB : Passed
Stencil Buffer : 8 Bits : Passed
Multi-Texturing : 8 Textures : Passed
Texture Compression DXT : Passed
Texture Combiners : Passed
Vertex Shaders : Version 1.1 : Passed
Pixel Shaders : Version 2.0 : Passed
Bump Mapping : Passed
Spherical Environment Mapping : Passed
Cubic Environment Mapping : Passed
Vertex Buffers : Passed

Please note that I have not purchased the actual release and only tested the beta. Various forums have told me that your card with only 128mb is superior to my x1600 with 512mb so you should get even better performance than I did.

Do you have TC? If you do, that will give a good idea as to the performance you will get.

Brian

Thanks Brian,

Yes I do have Traniz TC, but the performance was really slow.
2006 was much smoother, and 2006 on my system is smoother than
2004.

This doesn't make sense to me.

Jim,

I have dual nvidea 6800GT with graphics driver 181.22, with 4GB memory and XP Pro SP3. I'm currently beta testing with Trainz build 38285. I use it in both SLI mode and non-SLI mode, the latter often with 3 screens as I do a lot of work where screen real estate is useful.

The performance you get depends very much on the route/session you are running. I have run TRS2004,TRS2006 and TC3 routes From my point of view the TC3 S&C are the slowest, the others I've run have been between 17 and 75FPS and that at 1280 x 960 75HZ Fullscreen OGL with 2500m draw distance and all others settings full right.

Graphics wise I'm happy. When Trainz is working it is superb apart from the trees. However, bearing in mind I'm on beta software, I'm having a number of issues where Trainz is crashing. Not related to graphics card or driver as far as I can determine. More likely to be caching or interaction with some other process running in background. In other words I think the 68000GT runs rings round some of the later cards.

Thanks ianwoodmore.

If I remember right, I think the 6800 with all pipelines open is fairly close to the 6800GT.


I wonder how much the 4 gigs of memory is making a difference. My PC is maxed out at 2 gigs.

I'm just being cautious about getting 2009 if it's going to run too slow or choppy on my system.

yep,,,a 128 nvidia fx card,,way older than yours as well,,,

FPS ain't half bad in 09,,best of versions,,,got em all

but avoided this latest update,,,,many saying not to bother......and fps goes down again,,no thanks


fix cm2.0 and make it able to even download the 50 new textures like ya box/web said when ya took my money auran

Well,

I'm running a Gigabyte Motherboard with an Athlon 64 3000+, Win XP (SP3),
2Mb RAM + an nVidia 6600GT card (128 Mg AGP).
My card uses driver 94.?? - that's because later versions don't like one of the games I use - causes a dramatic reboot on exit.

That copes pretty well with 2004, though 2006 is smoother - TC3 is better (though the supplied routes are very jerky - very detailed content).

I've found that 2009 runs well on the above system, but there is a big improvement with the compatibility mode off.
Go for it - you won't be able to have all the sliders up at maximum - but it should be OK,

Colin

Thanks Colin,

It looks like your system is a pretty close match and we've had similar results with the same versions of Trainz. I'll look into the compatibility mode and see what that's about.

Camebeloc,

I'm curious about which latest update you were referring to.

Hi,

compatibility mode

Click to expand...

You'll see that many items were build for 2004/6 - these don't necessarily follow the full guidelines for 2009.

Rather than take the TC3 approach (requiring upgrades to some items), 2009 has Compatibility mode - "on" to use pre 2009 design items, - "off" - to use only 2009 compatible items.

There is an iverhead of processing time with mode "on" - so turning it off gives a better frame rate.

- and I'm using compatibility "off" - with a lot of non 2009 items.

HTH,

Colin

I'm running Trainz at 1920x1200 with a 256mb X1950; I'd suspect(given the speed of the 9800) that even with 128mb it'll be pretty quick. I can usually hit 50-60 FPS in TRS2006, and in the TS09 beta I was averaging about the same.

Great choice on the A64 3000+; I still use a Sempron 64 2800+ s754 with an x1600 512mb as my backup computer. It'll run TRS2006 at 1440x900, full everything, at probably 30fps; not too bad.

I also am using a GeForce 6800 (256 MB) but have 2 GB ram. Trainz 2600 runs fine. Still testing TRS2009, the frame rates seem ok, how do you guys measure or find this info?
Oh, dont forget you need Microsoft .Net. I have installed Versions 1,2,3 with SP's from Microsoft.com. I think there was also an option when installing Trainz 2009 to install the need version.

I am using the 6600 with 128meg and cannot complain frame rates. I get a better frame rate in trs2009. The only problem is updating the driver 180 and above bring the frame rate to .01.
The cost of a better agp card exceeds upgrading costs.

Good info

Thanks


I'm using the 7189 stereo driver for when I get the
urge to put on the 3D glasses.

No problems running 04 with my 6800

JimDep said:

Thanks Brian,

Yes I do have Traniz TC, but the performance was really slow.
2006 was much smoother, and 2006 on my system is smoother than
2004.

This doesn't make sense to me.

Click to expand...

Hello again,

Sorry I have not replied back sooner. Lots of good info here. Regarding the performance in TC, are you looking at the supplied TC3 routes/sessions compared to the routes/sessions in 06? The TC3 ones, were quite heavy in detail and I did have problems running them but the route I created in 06 which was quite choppy ran like a charm in TC3. So, basically, just wanted to mention not to judge the performance based on the supplied TC3 routes since there are not available in 06.

I have actually had to install a new motherboard since my HP one died. I am now running a Gigabyte m61pme-s2 with a phenom x3 2.?ghz processor, 4GB ram and kept my old drive and os. The on-board graphics (Gforce 6150x) is not rated very highly but gives me really good performance on the supplied TC3 routes/sessions - far better performance than on my previous system.

I can now even create normal maps....

Brian

well i run trainz 2006 on my laptop 2.2GHz 784MHz 1GB RAM 152MB Geforce graphics card Windows xp SP3 32bit 60GB HDD and it runs fine i play it alot because the route builder is so adictive its greate