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JMSteven_W98 (323 posts)
Aug-20-01, 10:42 PM (EST) "Train Simulator System Memory Allocation Tool Image" LAST EDITED ON Aug-20-01 AT 10:44 PM (EST)I've mentioned that Microsoft Train Simulator requires much more RAM than you will see in the literature or on the packaging.Here's a screen capture of the MS System Monitor utility running with a ten second sample interval.I started the Editors and Tools, waited a short time and loaded a 330 tile route map with the first tile having 1300 objects to display.You will see why I say that 64 MB is not enough. This screen shows the system peak utilization was 484 MB! (Look at the entry in the status bar at the bottom of the screen capture)It's no wonder some people see the message "There is not enough memory to start DW.EXE"Jim Steven, MCSE
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Subject Author Message Date ID RE: Train Simulator System Memory A... jerseycentral Aug-20-01 1 RE: Train Simulator System Memory A... JMSteven_W98 Aug-20-01 2 RE: Train Simulator System Memory A... Motley24Crue2 Aug-20-01 3 RE: Train Simulator System Memory A... JMSteven_W98 Aug-21-01 4 RE: Train Simulator System Memory A... jerseycentral Aug-21-01 5 RE: Train Simulator System Memory A... JMSteven_W98 Aug-21-01 7 RE: Train Simulator System Memory A... Motley24Crue2 Aug-21-01 9 RE: Train Simulator System Memory A... ragmop Aug-21-01 11 RE: Train Simulator System Memory A... Familton Aug-21-01 6 RE: Train Simulator System Memory A... jeffmorris Aug-21-01 8 RE: Train Simulator System Memory A... Hoppy504 Aug-21-01 10 RE: Train Simulator System Memory A... jerseycentral Aug-21-01 12 RE: Train Simulator System Memory A... JMSteven_W98 Aug-21-01 14 RE: Train Simulator System Memory A... Lifeguard_gf Aug-21-01 13 RE: Train Simulator System Memory A... Hoppy504 Aug-21-01 15

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jerseycentral (213 posts)
Aug-20-01, 11:06 PM (EST) 1. "RE: Train Simulator System Memory Allocation Tool Image" 484MB..your kidding right..i only have 128MB + 96MB = 224MB, i only have HALF of what i need to load that many tiles (like i would! HA!) geeze..i smell memory leaks and unoptimized software, hell, when MSTS said these are the tools that Kuju used, i think they ARE the same tools, just a different version! Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
JMSteven_W98 (323 posts)
Aug-20-01, 11:14 PM (EST) 2. "RE: Train Simulator System Memory Allocation Tool Image" Well, prior to working on Windows Media Player and DVD interfaces, I supported a pure Java application.It sounded nice - platform independent, a Java Applet for Netscape and IE, and an installed client for PC's and laptop users.It required 48 MB system RAM to start up and did NOT return that RAM when you closed it. Each time someone ran the product, it ate more memory.Eventually they were using the swap file and performance went south.The Java Application Server was what shocked me. It's a Time and Expense program that requires an Enterprise class Sun server. One client's Sun ES-6500 (31 SPARC processors) reached deadlock with only 64 concurrent user connections. The same server supported 1000+ Oracle users if the Java Server was not running.But that RAM requirement for the SIM is too much!Jim Steven, MCSE
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Motley24Crue2 (13 posts)
Aug-20-01, 11:23 PM (EST) 3. "RE: Train Simulator System Memory Allocation Tool Image" heh im Glad im building a P III Machine ( Intel VC-820 Board 1ghz, with 520 Megs Rambus ) Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
JMSteven_W98 (323 posts)
Aug-21-01, 00:52 AM (EST) 4. "RE: Train Simulator System Memory Allocation Tool Image" You'll like that board. Intel sent me one earlier this year when we were evaluating Rambus technologies. I ended up buying a server-class board based on the 820 technologies though.Next year they're releasing AGP 8x and the Rambus technology will start replacing standard bus logic the way DVD's are replacing Video Tape.The next Rambus phase requires a minimum 512 MHz backplane - compared with 66 and 100 we see today.New adapter cards will be required since PCI and AGP pinouts won't work.System board speeds will be in the 2.5 to 3 GHz range and since the processors are 64-bits, it will be really fast.Jim Steven, MCSE
Sr Microsoft Windows Application Developer Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
jerseycentral (213 posts)
Aug-21-01, 01:10 AM (EST) 5. "RE: Train Simulator System Memory Allocation Tool Image" im assuming that buying a new computer yet wouldnt be so smart? Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
JMSteven_W98 (323 posts)
Aug-21-01, 02:02 AM (EST) 7. "RE: Train Simulator System Memory Allocation Tool Image" I wouldn't say that. It depends on what you want to do with the system.We're entering another evolution for personal computers. The current architecture for all computers is reaching a point where increasing processor speed won't provide the dramatic gains we used to see with each new CPU.All computers currently use a variation of the "Von Neumann Bus". That means the CPU has two data paths: One to memory and one to I/O devices.PC boards plugged into a backplane connector are managed as I/O devices - just like the printer port or serial ports.First we saw disk technologies go from 10 and 20 MB full height using MFM encoding to multi platter half heights that used RLL encoding and had higher storage.Although the IDE bus and variants (EIDE/ATAPI) improved, the overall leap was with SCSI drives. You lose the four drive limitation and gain performance. Next we saw backplane technology change. ISA cards became EISA then PCI and the video overhead resulted in a special PCI card design people call AGP. (AGP is a PCI bus with additional connector pins)So disk and backplane technology changes were simply faster clock rates.The issue resembles bridge designs: Adding lanes to move traffic is fine until more traffic arrives. Eventually you really need another bridge.Rambus is a new technology - in English that means $$$$$. There are many white papers describing it on the AGP Forum web site.Phase one is out now. It uses Rambus memory bus lines and maintains the PCI / AGP design.Phase two will replace PCI and AGP as we know them with completely different cards.An advantage of the new design is the processor bus is exposed to the outside world. Vendors can design systems where connecting two systems results in parallel processing.Recalling what someone with an Apple IIe told me: "I can only type 45 words per minute so a 1 MHz system at home is fast enough"
Jim Steven, MCSE
Sr Microsoft Windows Application Developer Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
Motley24Crue2 (13 posts)
Aug-21-01, 07:42 AM (EST) 9. "RE: Train Simulator System Memory Allocation Tool Image" Jim Believe it or not Ramous is pretty cheap (Depends on where you go), I've seen it for 89.99 for 128 megs
the only problem with Ramous is it has to be pairs pf 2 Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
ragmop (72 posts)
Aug-21-01, 09:33 AM (EST) 11. "RE: Train Simulator System Memory Allocation Tool Image" That's good news. Hopefully this new technology will spark or force a technology splurge and bring the tech stocks back up and maybe I can get a few of those thousands I lost during this stock market crunch!I went from a amd 900mhz w/ 256K 100 speed dimm to a AMD 1.2 gig 512k 133 RAM and frankly to my dismay... MSTS ran better on the 900. However on the 900 I had the latest in Nvidia drivers for my Gladiac 32mb and as of yet, I'm still running the default ones that came with the adapter. Supposedly, Nvidia is releasing version 4 this week which they say users of G3 will see the biggest improvements while us G2 users will see about 10%. Still... it doesn't cost anything... so I figure to wait til it comes out and then give it a whirl. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
Familton (193 posts)
Aug-21-01, 01:23 AM (EST) 6. "RE: Train Simulator System Memory Allocation Tool Image" Hi Jim. I have a PIII 500 with 256M RAM. The price of 512M RAM is so cheap I'm considering adding another 512M stick. Will I really see any improvement in Train Sim and FS2000 frame rates with the added 512M? Thanks and best regards, Bob. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
jeffmorris (157 posts)
Aug-21-01, 06:25 AM (EST) 8. "RE: Train Simulator System Memory Allocation Tool Image" I have a computer with 933MHZ Pentium III CPU, 512MB SDRAM, two 20GB ATA100 7200RPM, GeForce 3 SVGA card, and Windows ME. I found out that the maximum amount of system memory that Windows 95/98/ME support is 512MB. Jeffrey. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
Hoppy504 (16 posts)
Aug-21-01, 09:13 AM (EST) 10. "RE: Train Simulator System Memory Allocation Tool Image" Jim,I read your post Re memory usage with great interest. My system has 512 meg cl.2 memory running on Win ME, I read somewhere that Windows ME does not recognize installed memory over 512 meg is this correct ? If not and I installed another 256 would this improve the stuttering I occasionally get during the game.
Hoppy. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
jerseycentral (213 posts)
Aug-21-01, 10:40 AM (EST) 12. "RE: Train Simulator System Memory Allocation Tool Image" cool stuff...what else is down thet line... Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
JMSteven_W98 (323 posts)
Aug-21-01, 12:37 PM (EST) 14. "RE: Train Simulator System Memory Allocation Tool Image" There IS a limitation of 512 MB with Windows ME. It's a pointer-related issue. It's like the Windows 95 limitation of 2GB for disk systems and can best be explained by saying that the single address bit that you need to cross the barrier from 512 kB to 1 MB was reserved for internal usage.Adding RAM won't help if you're already maxed out.Someday we'll see software designed for the "Future Masses" and instead of being restrained by last year's technologies, someone will say "don't look back". Until then we're going to continue finding restrictions that should really go away.Jim Steven, MCSE
Sr Microsoft Windows Application Developer Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
Lifeguard_gf (111 posts)
Aug-21-01, 12:31 PM (EST) 13. "RE: Train Simulator System Memory Allocation Tool Image" I have allways been told that windows has a problem handling or properly using memory above 256megsGeorge Flatman
Nevada Northern Railway Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
Hoppy504 (16 posts)
Aug-21-01, 01:37 PM (EST) 15. "RE: Train Simulator System Memory Allocation Tool Image" Jim,Thanks for your quick reply,I will keep my money in the pocket and stop looking at 256 meg modules now.hoppy Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

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