[thegrindre]

I just installed the 3.xxx from the 296.xxx about a month or so ago for testing. I'm not seeing much improvement and still have the 296 drivers around in case I do encounter issues.
The 296 drivers were a great improvement over the earlier ones, BTW.. I liked the 296.xxx drivers.
I'm running an old 8800GTX, myself.

:wallbash:

[jared2982]

Maybe a memory failure. Any performance issues?

[spud]

Jared,
that was one of my first thoughts but I have run a diagnostic and my memory checks out OK. I have no other problems with the box other than being somewhat outdated (P4 processor). What seems strange to me is that with the -mem:1024 switch it just does absolutely nothing. I click on the shortcut the XP hourglass flashes on for perhaps a second and then I watch my desktop 'til the cows come home'. No attempt by the computer to load MSTS at all. The switch used to work fine but not now. Even more strange I can use -mem:963 and it all works but -mem:964 will cause the no loading behavior again. I obviously either did something to cause this or a malfunction of the computer that is not exhibiting any other faults so of course you can see which way I tend to lean and thought perhaps someone more computer savvy than this Grumpy Old Fart (GOF) could have an idea what it is that I screwed up.
:lol2:

[jared2982]

I'm not entirely certain what would cause this. Afraid I have been out of the tech side of computers for about 8 years now. Probably not too long after that P4 came on the scene, at an affordable price anyway. It could be anything realy. As big a pain as MSTS is, and the slightest little change can bring it to its knees, one would wonder why we stay with it. I have found that when all else fails in troubleshooting this beast try a new install, which is an even bigger pain depending on your setup. If that gives you the same results though you can almost bet it is hardware related and rule out the program itself.

[R H Steele]

I have always used the memory switch set to -mem:1536 because I had found out that Bin had made it possible for MSTS to use this much memory. Is does make a difference. The upper limit for WinXP is 4Gb (well around 3.6MB) Follows is a recap of the target line switch parameters if anyone is interested:
The switches can be used in combination eg...\train.exe -mem:1536 -vm:w
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Train Simulator\train.exe"
...\train.exe for playing train sim in full screen environment
...\train.exe -mem:1536 for playing MSTS full-screen with memory allocation in megs per Bin modification
...\train.exe -vm:w for playing MSTS in a window
...\train.exe -perflog for creating a performance log file in root directory of Train Sim
...\train.exe -toolset opens msts editor

****NOTE: forwardslash used on following switches***** these are used AFTER any parameter switch containing a - minus

...\train.exe /timeacceleration opens with time acceleration feature
(Ctrl+T increases and Ctrl+Shift+T decreses time acceleration)
...\train.exe /anisotropic activates anisotropic filtering if supported by 3D graphics card
...\train.exe /fsaa activates full-scene anti-aliasing if supported. Adding this switch renders the view at a higher

resolution and then samples it back down to the resolution you have chosen--it can slow down performance quite

significantly but can also reduce jagged edges and improve the general appearance of the view.
...\train.exe /fsaa /anisotropic activates both full-scene antialiasing and anisotropic filtering. Adding this switch

improves the filtering used to render the textures, particularly on polygons that are almost perpendicular to the screen.

Note: Be aware that by using a shortcut to train.exe you bypass any options selected in the Troubleshooting menu. If you

need to reproduce the effect of these options you can add the following switches: all the parameters

/forcemaskz -- Smoke displays in block form.
/pixbias -- Text displays in block form.
/maxtex:256-- Textures are distorted.
/nofiltercab-- Seams are visible in cab cockpits.
/ttfblitfix -- Text is distorted or not displayed.
/skipsizecheck -- Skip texture size limit test.
/skipbiascheck -- Skip pixel behavior text.
/simpleclipping -- Snow causes game to crash or does not display.

\train.exe /fsaa /nofiltercab Depending on the precise implementation of full-scene anti-aliasing on your 3-D card you

may see a seaming or tiling effect in the Cab views, in which case adding the switch /nofiltercab may help.

Some of the above are from old posts on the MicroSoft Train Sim FAQ site

[markus_GE]

First of all, :lol2: to ET, Serge :pleasantry:

Going from 512 to 1024 (or even more, assuming that your Win7 System has at least 4 Gig RAM available - MSTS can use up to 3 Gig, AFAIK on a 64-bit Win7 System) might indeed solve the problem.

For every install of MSTS you have, create a shortcut to the train.exe file of that installation (right click on train.exe, send to (or similar - not familiar with Windows in English), create desktop shortcut. You can then move this shortcut to wherever you want to have it). Then, right click on the shortcut and in the dropdown menu click on properties. A properties window for the shortcut opens, with the "shortcut" (or similar) tab activated by default. In this tab find the line stating the file the shortcut references to (should be something like "C:\MSTS\Train Simulator\train.exe"). Aftre this path, insert (without the quotation marks) " -mem xxxx", where xxxx is the number of megabytes you want MSTS to use. That will do the job :)

Cheers & happy simming, Markus