Very Bad FPS with MSTS in Vista

[NorthShore_364]

Hi all,

I recently tried to install MSTS on my laptop (which has Vista installed). While the program itself works fine, the frame rates are simply pathetic. I've been getting 10 FPS with the sliders maxed out on default routes. Just for laughs, I set the resolution to 640x480 and completely killed the sliders. That did practically nothing as the frame rates still hovered around 10-20 using the same default stuff. The computer was purchased mostly for non-gaming purposes and it certainly won't win any speed records (it has around 1.7GHz and 2GB of RAM), but seriously, I got better frame rates using MSTS on Windows 98 with far worse specifications! I have a feeling I am missing something quite obvious, otherwise MSTS will quickly find itself in the trash again. Any ideas on what I am doing wrong? FWIW, I have the program set to run as administrator (though I am not sure if that helps performance much if at all)

BTW: Sorry for the (somewhat) rant, this is just getting quite frustrating to say the least.

Thanks in advance!

[OTTODAD]

Yes, Austin, the same here !

But mine is a cheap VISTA Home Premium computer with a SIS on-board graphics chip for Internet use only and have MSTS installed on it for testing the default routes and other issues members experience under VISTA.

There is not much which can match the performance of MSTS run on a top grade WIN-XP computer at reasonable costs ! ;)

O t t o

[NorthShore_364]

Strangely enough, I tried loading the game again today and it ran absolutely fine! I've been getting some slight stuttering in a few areas, but with NEC4 and default equipment (I haven't got around to downloading replacements yet) it's running in the 30-50 range with sliders maxed. Maybe I just needed to restart the computer or something. I never remember needing to do that on previous MSTS installations, but it certainly is a possibility.

I guess I owe my computer an apology for screaming at it and threatening to throw it out of a window. :o

[OTTODAD]

No such luck here, Austin ! :(

But like I said, it's a cheap VISTA computer, with an INTEL Dual CPU E2140, 894Mb Ram and an on-board SiS graphics chip, getting me at best 10 f.p.s. in the USA1 at Baltimore, stuttering all the time !

No problem, the main MSTS computer being a WIN-XP high specs computer. ;)

O t t o

[chucksc]

No such luck here, Austin ! :(

But like I said, it's a cheap VISTA computer, with an INTEL Dual CPU E2140, 894Mb Ram and an on-board SiS graphics chip, getting me at best 10 f.p.s. in the USA1 at Baltimore, stuttering all the time !

No problem, the main MSTS computer being a WIN-XP high specs computer. ;)

O t t o
I have no trouble running MSTS on vista64 and I don't understand why you do Otto - all frame rates are above 50 and little or no pausing...

Intel QX9650
4 Gb Corsair XMS DDR3
2 WD-16 320 GB drives in raid 0 configuration
eVGA nVIDIA Geforce 8800 gts-640

All you've got to do is hit it with a big enough Hammer

Next upgrade will be a Beowulf cluster - ROFL :)

P.S. Testing the PRR-Eastern convinced me that I needed something bigger than my old AMD X2 4800+ with a Geforce 7950 x2 and 2 gn of DDR 400 memory.... with a single 250 gB drive to meet my performance goals of running with all sliders maxed in order not to miss anything Maia and de boyz did....

[djt1]

All you've got to do is hit it with a big enough Hammer



LOL,

You can hit it with a mallet Chuck and it will still never perform anywhere near what we’ve expected of other games/sims from the last six years or more. In other words you can throw all the hardware you want at it and you will still get unsatisfactory results.


ASUS P5E3 PREMIUM/WIFI-AP (Intel X48 chipset)
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770
OCZ Platinum 4GB(2 x 2GB) 1600 (PC3 12800)
Evga 8800 Ultra “Superclocked”
Creative X-Fi Fatal1ty
2x WD 10,000 RPM Raptors (74GB) (RAID 0): Windows Vista Ultimate 64 Bit/SP1
2x WD 10,000 RPM Raptors (74GB) (RAID 0): Windows XP Pro/SP3 RC2
PC Power and Cooling 1000Watt SR
LIAN LI PC-A70B

Asus Maximus Formula (Intel X38 chipset)
Intel Core 2 Duo E8500
OCZ Titanium XTC 4GB (2 x 2GB) (PC2 6400/C-4)
VisionTek Radeon HD 3870 512MB
Creative X-Fi Fatal1ty
2x WD 10,000 RPM Raptors (150GB) (RAID 0): Windows Vista Ultimate 32 Bit/SP1
SilverStone 1000Watt OP
SilverStone TJ-09B

[chucksc]

Looks like you and I are up to small jack hammers....

:)

[dirkjesje]

A hammer won t help.

I got for my retirement A Vista power pc :

- Quad Core Intel / E5430 2x6Mb Cache, 2.66Ghz 1333Mhz FSB
- 3GB 667MHz FBD
- 3 x 146GB, SAS,3,5 inch Hot Pluggable, 15000 rpm Hard Drive in RAID1 config

Well MSTS runs quiet the same as on my old(?) laptop, dated jan07 a HP,Compaq nc6400 with 2Gb.
FPS : about 32 or higher.

But on my laptop the OS is XP sp2, and on that power pc it is Vista Ultimate.
Vista has been in development for more than 5 years. Formerly codenamed Longhorn.
It s full of security features that makes Vista safer than all earlier versions of Windows.
But all those features cost processing time...

I do not recommend Vista, it has really nothing better than XP with a good VirusProtection ( McAfee, etc.. )
Vista is just an OS that the hardware market needed. More RAM, More processing speed, more video ram, more...

And a hammer just won t do...

Frndl Grtngs.

[djt1]

A hammer won t help.

I got for my retirement A Vista power pc :

- Quad Core Intel / E5430 2x6Mb Cache, 2.66Ghz 1333Mhz FSB
- 3GB 667MHz FBD
- 3 x 146GB, SAS,3,5 inch Hot Pluggable, 15000 rpm Hard Drive in RAID1 config

Well MSTS runs quiet the same as on my old(?) laptop, dated jan07 a HP,Compaq nc6400 with 2Gb.
FPS : about 32 or higher.

But on my laptop the OS is XP sp2, and on that power pc it is Vista Ultimate.
Vista has been in development for more than 5 years. Formerly codenamed Longhorn.
It s full of security features that makes Vista safer than all earlier versions of Windows.
But all those features cost processing time...

I do not recommend Vista, it has really nothing better than XP with a good VirusProtection ( McAfee, etc.. )
Vista is just an OS that the hardware market needed. More RAM, More processing speed, more video ram, more...

And a hammer just won t do...

Frndl Grtngs.


You can’t blame an OS for a dated old game’s lackluster performance or graphics.

I don’t own one game/sim yet that now doesn’t perform as well on Vista as it does on XP. A few of them even perform better now with Vista 64 than they did on XP.


Asus P5E3 Premium/WIFI-AP (Intel X48 chipset)
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770
OCZ Platinum 4GB(2 x 2GB) 1600 (PC3 12800)
Evga 8800 Ultra “Superclocked”
Creative X-Fi Fatal1ty
2x WD 10,000 RPM Raptors (74GB) (RAID 0): Windows Vista Ultimate 64 Bit/SP1
2x WD 10,000 RPM Raptors (74GB) (RAID 0): Windows XP Pro/SP3 RC2
PC Power and Cooling 1000Watt SR
LIAN LI PC-A70B

Asus Maximus Formula (Intel X38 chipset)
Intel Core 2 Duo E8500
OCZ Titanium XTC 4GB (2 x 2GB) (PC2 6400/C-4)
VisionTek Radeon HD 3870 512MB
Creative X-Fi Fatal1ty
2x WD 10,000 RPM Raptors (150GB) (RAID 0): Windows Vista Ultimate 32 Bit/SP1
SilverStone 1000Watt OP
SilverStone TJ-09B

[dirkjesje]

A closer look to your hardware ...
It s the top.
Devide everything by 2 - and run than Vista.
Sometimes ... you re limited to upgrade.
That s the point I was making, Vista performs 'less' with the same hardware.
If some of your applications perform the same or even better, it was only because of your 'high specs'.

Frndl Grtngs.

[djt1]

If some of your applications perform the same or even better, it was only because of your 'high specs'.


Well then I don’t know how to explain the excellent performance I’m getting out of my laptop that I just installed Vista Ultimate SP1 on?

The laptop is low spec compared to my desktops (Dell XPS M1710) Intel Core 2 T7600G, 4 GB 667MHz RAM, Nvidia GeForce Go7950GTX, 160 GB 7200 RPM Hard Drive and a Creative X-Fi Extreme Notebook sound card.

[CSX4878]

I just like to through in my tid bits..

MSTS Bin with Windows Vista, from what I have expierenced, tends to bog your game down unlike when installed on XP.

I'd rather put up with this low frame rates then dealing with "non" realistic operations like the Bin gives us. :)

[OTTODAD]

MSTS Bin with Windows Vista, from what I have expierenced, tends to bog your game down unlike when installed on XP.

I have a test default routes MSTS installed on my VISTA Intenet only computer and have a job trying to place the mouse pointer over options I want to select in MSTS menus and am lucky to get frame rates in excess of 10 p.s. ! :(

I'd rather put up with this low frame rates then dealing with "non" realistic operations like the Bin gives us. :)

What "non realstic" MSTSBin operations are you talking about ?

MSTSBin has made MSTS the most realistic Train Simulator on the market, starting with 100% working couplers front and aft, multi-cab / loco driving in activities and a host of other improvements.

O t t o

[djt1]

I
MSTSBin has made MSTS the most realistic Train Simulator on the market,


I’m wondering how Bin is going to make MSTS “more realistic”. Where does it say that it was intended to make MSTS more realistic to begin with?

[OTTODAD]

MSTSBin - Where does it say that it was intended to make MSTS more realistic to begin with?

Here: http://mstsbin.uktrainsim.com/eng/eng.html / News

O t t o

[pstraten]

" You can’t blame an OS for a dated old game’s lackluster performance or graphics. "

No. But you can blame an OS for being a resource-hogging, bloatware piece of junk! :)

I suppose the reason people are so adamant about defending it is because they bought it and have to live with it.

Did you love Millennium Edition too?

[djt1]

Here: http://mstsbin.uktrainsim.com/eng/eng.html / News

O t t o

Again I ask what features in Bin make it more realistic?

[djt1]

I suppose the reason people are so adamant about defending it is because they bought it and have to live with it.


LOL,

Who has to live with anything? If you look at my specs you’ll see that I’m running XP and Vista on the same machine.


Asus P5E3 Premium/WIFI-AP (Intel X48 chipset)
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770
OCZ Platinum 4GB(2 x 2GB) 1600 (PC3 12800)
Evga 8800 Ultra “Superclocked”
Creative X-Fi Fatal1ty
2x WD 10,000 RPM Raptors (74GB) (RAID 0): Windows Vista Ultimate 64 Bit/SP1
2x WD 10,000 RPM Raptors (74GB) (RAID 0): Windows XP Pro/SP3 RC2
PC Power and Cooling 1000Watt SR
LIAN LI PC-A70B

Asus Maximus Formula (Intel X38 chipset)
Intel Core 2 Duo E8500
OCZ Titanium XTC 4GB (2 x 2GB) (PC2 6400/C-4)
VisionTek Radeon HD 3870 512MB
Creative X-Fi Fatal1ty
2x WD 10,000 RPM Raptors (150GB) (RAID 0): Windows Vista Ultimate 32 Bit/SP1
SilverStone 1000Watt OP
SilverStone TJ-09B

[pstraten]

Nice that to see you still have XP for some reason. So because you have the latest hardware toys, you can run Vista just dandy.

Then so what? It doesn't affect my point: Vista is a piece of resource-hogging bloatware. Years ago I read about the development of Windows by people who'd been involved with working on it (maybe Win98-to-XP or 95 to 98--don't remember). Anyway, the point was, each new version is loaded with old code that has been either no-opped or otherwise orphaned some way--even if it doesn't end up getting called and aborted or redirected, it swells your hard disk (not greatly important these days, admittedly).

In short, Windows (and probably any Microsoft product) could benefit from a real, good, thorough housecleaning. It makes the notion of "spaghetti code" look simple. And THAT is what people are hoping against hope that Windows 7 might make a start on. That is, IF Microsoft won't decide that ever faster hardware and bigger storage will just keep covering up their sins of omission.


P.S. I admit, I used to really like Microsoft, and really enjoyed DOS, but since then I have become more and more disenchanted with them. So you have to take what I say with a grain of salt. I've been playing around with Linux the last few years and recently installed the latest version of Ubuntu on my old computer. If I ever figure out how to run MSTS on Linux, then goodbye Windows forever!

[djt1]

Nice that to see you still have XP for some reason. So because you have the latest hardware toys, you can run Vista just dandy.


Nope, I also have a laptop with relatively weak specs compared to my desktops. Dell XPS M1710, Intel Core 2 T7600G, 4 GB of RAM, 160 GB 7200 RPM Hard drive, Nvidia Go 7950 GTX video card.

I reformatted just recently with Vista 32 Bit/SP1 with all the latest drivers for my hardware, it performs great.

[Kenny1234]

I suppose the reason people are so adamant about defending it is because they bought it and have to live with it.



Well, live with it until Microsoft decides its time for Vista users to upgrade and says "Alright....Everyone out of the pool!"

What ever happened to the days when hardware physical breakdown defined the longevity of a computer??

Microsoft, the biggest company to apply an expiration date to non-commercial home software and call it an improvement.