Increasing the amount of RAM

I wonder if investing in increase the amount of installed RAM
under Windows XP will bring the expected improvement in frame rate.
In my case, I've installed 512 MB RDRAM PC1066, upgrading to 1 GB is
not a cheap movement, therefore anyone here who can make me believe in this decision, kindly share with me your experience.Thanks.Adam

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RE: Increasing the amount of RAM, IcyFire, Aug-02-03, 12:24 PM, (1) RE: Increasing the amount of RAM, kmanc21, Aug-02-03, 01:40 PM, (2) RE: Increasing the amount of RAM, johninchicago, Aug-02-03, 02:40 PM, (3) RE: Increasing the amount of RAM, OTTODAD, Aug-02-03, 06:04 PM, (4) RE: Increasing the amount of RAM, heffed, Aug-02-03, 06:48 PM, (5) RE: Increasing the amount of RAM, adamw, Aug-02-03, 11:20 PM, (6) RE: Increasing the amount of RAM, gfbeat, Aug-05-03, 07:48 AM, (7) RE: Increasing the amount of RAM, Stooopid_person, Aug-05-03, 10:21 AM, (8) RE: Increasing the amount of RAM, rdawes, Aug-05-03, 09:20 PM, (9) RE: Increasing the amount of RAM, OTTODAD, Aug-06-03, 09:21 AM, (10) RE: Increasing the amount of RAM, Pkman, Aug-15-03, 07:06 PM, (11) RE: Increasing the amount of RAM, OTTODAD, Aug-16-03, 08:24 AM, (12) RE: Increasing the amount of RAM, adamw, Aug-16-03, 01:59 PM, (13)

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Ram will probably not increase FPS, but rather decrease loading times, as more data can be sent to ram

Shawn Kenselaar, shawnssk@yahoo.com AIM: ShawnIcyFire
Train-Sim Forum Mod; Texture Artist for TKW & YLW
MP 96.93 on the NYO&W Port Jervis Branch

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RAM won't help your FPS. The most important thing IMHO is your processor and fsb speed. I am running an AMD Barton 2500 with 333 fsb, 512MB DDR RAM and using my GeForce3 TI200 64MB video card (used on my old 1.2 machine) and achieved a noticeable improvement in FPS. Many of the previous threads on this subject point to processor speed as the main bottleneck in FPS and my experience would seem to indicate that. So save your $'s. Ken

How did I survive before MSTS

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LAST EDITED ON Aug-02-03 AT 02:53 PM (EDT)

Faster Hard Drives have also been shown to have a significant effect on FPS. Every frame that the computer generates starts with information on the Hard Drive, or from RAM if it's already been read from the Hard Drive. Larger RAM *will* increase fps, but only up to a point (e.g., I increased my framerate by a factor of ~30% by going from 256 to 512MB). After a point--that varies with each system--you will see diminishing returns for added memory.In some sense it's all about eliminating the bottleneck. If you have fast busses that can quickly evacuate RAM, and the video processing chops to also tkae that data and render the frame quickly, then a small amount of RAM will bog down your system. But beyond the point at which the rest of the system is no longer waiting on the RAM's content to be replenished, it no longer matters how much RAM you have. At that point, you are better off investing in faster or more powerful components downstream of the RAM (e.g. video card)which can exploit the greater capacity of the larger RAM. The key point is to keep your system balanced. No sense in putting a 400-Gallon gas tank on a lawn mower. Hope tha helps.

John in Chicago

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The one piece of hardware which determines foremost what Frame Rates can be achieved is the Graphics Card. It does all the pixels numbers crunching, unloading tasks to the CPU only if it can not handle the workload itself.The more RAM the card has on board and the faster it's own GPU the better the visuals will be.You want top performance get an ATI-RADEON 9700 Pro, according to some reports here in the Forum producing superior Frame Rates ! The same is being said in the Flight-Sim mags I read.More RAM and even running Routes in a RAMDRIVE is not enhancing Frame Rates. I should know, I tried both, RAM now 1.5 Gb ! It's all down to the Graphics Card.O t t o

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I wouldn't expect to see much of a framerate increase. Unfortunately MSTS isn't written to take advantage of large amounts of system RAM. "Faster Hard Drives have also been shown to have a significant effect on FPS."Actually, the only impact HD speed on framerates in MSTS is the object load "lag" that causes the stutters when loading a dense area. This will cause a "hit" to your FPS, (how large depends on your HD) but your overall framerates will be unaffected by a faster HD. More RAM on your video card will have a greater effect than a faster HD.-Jeff

Union Pacific is my drug.

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The issue of bigger amount of RAM has been bouncing lastly on various FS9 (2004)forums.
It is not clear cut issue.
I think MSTS 1.0 is an exeption with its problem of frequent stutter while loading a new information from HD.
Actually, I've installed lastly ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128 MB and new WD 80GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache.My frame rate with all slider at maximum is in range of 36-60 FPS, but the stutter is still there. Maybe not so acute, but didn't gone.
I think I'll stop to chase the problem of stutter by investing in new and faster hardware and wait for MSTS 2, although with the latest commercial add ons from German Railroads and Pro Train I enjoy the simulation very much,I even eliminated completely Trainz of my system.Cheers,Adam

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My experience is that more RAM allows you more trains and global objects without MSTS crashing. But I never had a FPS increase because of having more memory.

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Well, even if it cannot increase your frame rate, it can still increase your chances of sending M$ that error report... }> }> }>

--You are reading my signature now, don't waste your time reading it!--
Eh, where did my signature go?
Where has my favourite LUL train gone? Maybe it was sent for bolt checking again...

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LAST EDITED ON Aug-05-03 AT 09:21 PM (EDT)

I added a SCSI card and a fast wide 10k RPM SCSI drive (68 pin) for MSTS only and the results are noticible. I'm running a PIII-600 with 512M of 100Mhz RAM. The only stuttering I get now is when an AI train is approaching, occationally. Even when I get into the low FPS (10-15) in built up areas my motion is still smooth and not the jerky motion I had before moving to the SCSI drive.Bob

Bob Dawes

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Bob, I have been thinking about doing the same with my next SIMS machine, but along came the new ATA Serial Bus for hard drives, later versions of it eventually said to be faster than SCSIs ?Decisions, decisions ! O t t o

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well, I got over one 1GB of Pc 2700 Memory , is that enought for MSTS2 and my video Card is Asus V9950 , which is 256 MB .

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More than enough, Steven !Don't know much about the ASUS Card, but 256 Mb RAM on it should speed up its pixels crunching and with it Frame Rates considerably.The next MSTS will make better use of your kit, I am sure ! O t t o

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LAST EDITED ON Aug-16-03 AT 02:00 PM (EDT)

The problem is not the frame rate, the problem is frequent access to hard disk in order retrieve information. At this point the game become choppy for the time required to execute this process.
For all owners of ATI Radeon 9700 - 9800 128MB cards and Catalyst 3.6 drivers, there is very interesting tweak published here:
http://www.flightsim.com/cgi/kds?$=main/howto/ati2004.htm
I've tried the changes in the 3D part of drivers and it brought some improvement in MSTS.Adam

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