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Since Frame rates seem to be the Biggest issue here, other then my Current system SpecsIntel Pentium 4 1.7 GHz 256 Megs of Rdram (Rambus) Asus P4T-E With Intel 850 Chip Set ATI Radeon 8500 450 W Power What can i do to get Faster frame rates, im averaging currently on the Default NEC, and Marias Pass a rate between 15 and up to 40+ in some areas, except approaching an Al train on Consist on sidings then it drops to a 7.... or lower... whohooBob Philadelphia, Pa
I read somewhere that as far as framerates go, the human eye can no longer distinguish the difference in framerates once you get over about 20 FPS. In other words if you are getting 20, you won't be able to tell the difference visually between that and 40. Your eyes and their processing unit (i.e...your BRAIN...) simply can't tell the difference once the framerate hits a certain point. It's the LOW END framerate that you should be more concerned about raising rather than the high end.As far as your system goes, you might try swapping out your Radeon 8500 with a GeForce 4 Ti4200 or even a Ti4600 if you have the bucks. If money is tight, a Ti4200 is running around $125 these days. If money isn't an issue, get the Ti4600, or even the newer Radeons (they're up to like 9800 now I think...). Price is a good indicator of how good your card rates....the 8500 is going for about $70 today compared to around $125 for the GeForce4 Ti4200.The only other possibilities would be to upgrade RAM and CPU, your mobo is fine and can probably handle any CPU you throw at it. Not to say that there is anything wrong with your RAM or CPU, 256 RDRAM and a 1.7g CPU are more than enough to run MSTS with. I run an Athlon 1.4 with 256mb DDR, and it's rare that I get anything below 10fps, even on NJC. I can usually hold a low of about 13fps in the most populated areas of NJC. If it goes lower than that, it's usually at a point where a new tile is loading which will cause hiccups on even the strongest of systems. BTW, my video is a GeForce3 Ti500, which is running about $100 these days (remember what I said about price being a good indicator...).Moral of the story: The only real bottleneck I see in your system is your video card, with a more modern card you could probably get your low-end framerates up over 10FPS, and hold about 15FPS easy. Everything I read about video cards implies that the ATI products are usually a step behind the equivilent Nvidia piece, with the possible exceptions of the newest 9700 or 9800 Radeons - which are probably in the $400+ arena.I wouldn't worry too much about the high-end framerates for the reason I mentioned above. I hear about guys with P4 2.6Ghz systems that are still getting 13FPS low-end in heavy spots. The low-end will only go so high here, that's just the nature of the beast.Jeff Leslie
>I read somewhere that as far as framerates go, the human eye >can no longer distinguish the difference in framerates once >you get over about 20 FPS. In other words if you are getting >20, you won't be able to tell the difference visually >between that and 40. Your eyes and their processing unit >(i.e...your BRAIN...) simply can't tell the difference once >the framerate hits a certain point. It's the LOW END >framerate that you should be more concerned about raising >rather than the high end.It isn't 20fps. It should be 24fps. That's the fps the movies at cinemas are played. -------------My favourite LUL train-------------
All this talk about frame rates and it just dawned on me, I don't even know how to find out what my frame rates are!! CSX-The Spirit of West Virginia Coal.
CSX Tri-State Route-Now laying track between Ironton, OH and Huntington, WV
Bob
