Jerky movements when running Trainz12

Hi,

I have a situation where Trainz12 is very jerky when running. I feel that I may need to upgrade my video card, but as there are so many on the market I have no idea on which to purchase.
My computer specs are:
Intel (R) Core (TM) 2duo E7500 @ 2.93Ghz 2.93Ghz
4 GB Ram
Win 7 64bit Home Premium
Nvidia GeForce 8800GT 512Mb ( i also have an Asus EAH5450/DI/1GD3) which I have tried but this runs slower than the Nvidia)

Using the Windows 7 Experience Index the following results are noted with the Nvidia GT8800 512MB Card installed.
Processor 6.5
Ram 6.5
Desk top performance for windows aero Graphics 6.9
3d business and gaming graphics 6.9
Hard Disk 5.9
OVERALL SCORE 5.9

Using the Asus EAH5450/DI/1GD3 the following results are noted.
Processor 6.5
Ram 6.5
Desk top performance for windows aero Graphics 5.0
3d business and gaming graphics 6.2
Hard disk 5.9
OVERALL SCORE 5.0

I am also considering getting a SSD drive to replace my primary HDD.

Can some kind soul please help me get something suitable that will not kill my bank. (btw I am on a government pension due to an accident and don't have a vast amount of cash available)

Thanks in advance. Ray

FWIW I have an AMD Athlon II X4 and a GTX550 video card and I get those annoying split second pauses... May not be your hardware.

Run Trainz on an SSD, that is the only way. Solved all my problems with the "stutter".

Harold

Aha - but I run trainz on an SSD and use TS10 because I couldn't get rid of the stutter in 12. There is 'something' going on that applies to some of the systems some of the time. To be fair I think I have isolated the issue to a spline grass that I used to use on all my routes, but the point is don't assume a hardware/software upgrade is the fix! Things like this in Trainz are a troubleshooter's nightmare and throwing money at the problem is not necessarily a fix.....

love to see a list of "safe" splines some day...

Try adjusting the video settings in driver, see if you can reduce the stutter.
Something a bit odd in your scores, using the 8800 the hard drive=5.9. Using the other card=5.0. To my mind it shouldn't change unless it's a typo.

frogpipe said:

love to see a list of "safe" splines some day...

Click to expand...

The bad list would be shorter.

Hi

Upgrading the graphics card isn't always a cure for these problems. My old system was an Intel E8400 CPU with an ATI 4850 512 Mb graphics card which ran reasonably smoothly. I started getting graphics problems which made me suspect a problem with the card so I upgraded it to an ATI 6870 1 GB card and saw very little improvement in smoothness or framerates. However, when I upgraded the motherboard and went up to an i5 processor the new video card came into its own with greatly improved smoothness and framerates. It would seem that the video card was being throttled by the old motherboard and CPU. Unfortunately I had binned the old graphics card so I couldn't put that in to the new system to see if it improved performance with the new setup.

I also fitted a couple of SSDs when I upgraded the motherboard and CPU. One of them is dedicated to TS12 but I had the old installation still installed on an old Sata I HDD which meant I could try the performance of each type of drive. To my surprise there was hardly any difference between the two when running the same built in route on each drive. Where the SSD drive really scores though is in such things as installation, patching and startup which were very fast. Also an EDR takes only minutes now on the SSD while it takes a couple of hours on the old Sata HDD.

I just wanted to make you aware that a new graphics card does not always improve matters on an older system.

Regards

Brian

fran1 said:

The bad list would be shorter.

Click to expand...

Ok...

I'd love to see a list of good splines some day.

I greatly fear splines...

fran1 said:

Try adjusting the video settings in driver, see if you can reduce the stutter.
Something a bit odd in your scores, using the 8800 the hard drive=5.9. Using the other card=5.0. To my mind it shouldn't change unless it's a typo.

Click to expand...

sorry it was a typo and should have read 5.9.

I am not sure on what to change in the video settings as the changes I have tried seem to make no difference. so I reset to default.

I will try again by changing the video size. I have a 1600x900 display setting currently and will experiment.

Thanks for your suggestion.

Don't forget about Changing from Open GL to Direct X..It sometimes helps..

Windows 7 64 bit reports a Windows Experience Index of 7.7 for my rig.

So far, when my route stutters, it has been due to grass or forest splines to close to the track. I try to use static grass or trees instead which helps out alot. Also try messing around with the display or graphics settings. That helps me out. I saw a Newegg video the other day and one thing I learned is, if you purchase an expensive video card and use it on a cheap motherboard, do not expect good results. I am about to build my computer. I hope a superclocked GTX 550ti will run trainz flawlessly.

malikrthr said:

So far, when my route stutters, it has been due to grass or forest splines to close to the track. I try to use static grass or trees instead which helps out alot. Also try messing around with the display or graphics settings. That helps me out. I saw a Newegg video the other day and one thing I learned is, if you purchase an expensive video card and use it on a cheap motherboard, do not expect good results. I am about to build my computer. I hope a superclocked GTX 550ti will run trainz flawlessly.

Click to expand...

Once you get up to a decent 500 series video card with a comparable CPU/Motherboard with good memory then the old billboard style treez become what drags down your frame rates. Since the speed treez are rendered in the video card they no longer cause the kinds of performance hits you see with slower systems.

As far as stutter goes, you really can't beat running this game on an SSD. With the game on an SSD the routes load much faster plus you can quickly zoom out to sat view, zip around any size map (like UMR) then zoom back in and it's totally smooth. Switching camera views is also smooth and stutter free. The difference is amazing, even compared to running 2 hard drives in a RAID 0 array.

You can try inserting a couple of lines of information into your Trainz Options file as well to maximize the smooth display of frames. I just don't happen to remember what they are! Frame rates maximum, and frames to average I think.

From memory:

-framerate=25
-framestoaverage=16

The framerate value can be adjusted to suit.

Shane

I knew someone would come along and correct me, thanks.