[mopacfan]

Hi,

I recently reinstalled the drivers for my Nvidia 650 Ti Boost. I mainly run OR these days compared MSTS. Which Nvidia settings do you recommend to run OR for high visual quality?

[33lima]

I have a 560 TI and I use these, set in Nvidia Inspector. The supersampling seems to reduce moiré effects on areas like sleepers or rooves, as well as minimising the shimmer ('Z-buffer fighting'?) along the sides of move distant coaches when viewed at a shallow angle:

http://image.ibb.co/fD2YVn/NV_Inspector_OR_profile.jpg

[Rigo]

If I may piggyback onto this thread, what is a decent FPS value? I'm running OR on an older machine and I get as low as 20 FPS at times or maybe mid-forties at best. If I bought a new machine (in the plans for this year), what might be some desktop-machine-compatible video card recommendations?

Current (older) machine: Acer Aspire M3970 with 6 GB Ram, intel Core i3-2100 CPU @ 3.1 GHz. Windows Experience Index = 5.2. Intel HD Graphics on the MB. I probably have room on the MB to add a video card if that would be all I really needed...

[Hobo]

Don't buy a video card right now because the prices are the highest they have ever been . The supply is down so the vendors are putting prices up away over MSLP .
Wait until the prices come back down some . The current prices will scare you unless you just won a lottery .

[vince]

Same card as OP. Direct compare with Nvidia 9600 --- 10fps, Nvidia GTX650 --- 70 fps same location on LIRR route used, Sunnyside Yards.

regards,
vince

editadd; Putting things in perspective. Both are (were) desktop mach 1st was pentium dual core 4gig ram, the new machine is an i5QuadCore 8 gig ram.
Pardon for omitting relevant information.
v

[Genma Saotome]

AFAIK unless you've got an old clunker of a GPU (and/or hardly any ram) you are probably better off looking into a faster CPU and/or overclocking.

Generally speaking fps is the number of times per second your CPU can send data over to the GPU. Anything at 60 or more (for most monitors) is all you need because most monitors cannot display more than 60 frames per second. Anything under 60 indicates something somewhere is bottle-necked. For a content heavy game like OR the bottleneck is very likely to be the CPU (on desktops). It could also be ram and/or vram on desktops or the embedded GPU on laptops.

GPU's for quite a few years have been able to deal with many hundreds of millions to billions of polys per second. If you are running under 60fps odds are high it's not your GPU causing the problem.

[Mike B]

I'm going to differ very slightly from Genma. Yes, the CPU and RAM are important, and enough of both are necessary. I'd say an i5 or i7 (4 real cores, not 2 with hyperthreading) at 2.5 ghz or better, and at least 4gb of RAM (preferably 6-8 with Win10), is a practical minimum spec. After that, replacing the built-in Intel graphics will help a lot, and a SSD for ORTS and the routes/trains will boost performance considerably.

The target frame rate should be the refresh rate for the monitor or a tad higher. Most flat-panel monitors use a 60 hz refresh rate, hence the advice that fps rates beyond that don't matter. Special gaming monitors are available ($$$$) that can do 120 hz or even a bit more, and old CRT monitors can be all over the place (my old Dell/Trinitron runs well at 1280x1024, 75 hz). So for futureproofing I'd look to get a "raw" fps in the 80s or 90s, then lock it to the refresh rate which will probably reduce power demand and heat production.

Regardless of CPU, Intel graphics limit things - really, they just can't cut it. If you're running a desktop that otherwise has acceptable specs (CPU, RAM, possibly SSD), add a low-mid-line AMD or nVidia GPU and you'll probably see "raw" fps jump from 15-20s to well over 60. At that point, disk access is probably limiting things requiring a SSD to do much better. If you have a laptop, though, and it doesn't have a separate GPU (not Intel), then you're probably SOL.

With GPU pricing what it is, you might decide you can live with a low frame rate for a while. The *coin miners have sucked up all the GPU supply, driving prices to stupid levels if cards can be found at all. The GPU makers haven't exactly complained about that - they're selling all they can make, at full list price (middlemen are getting a markup over that). You might still find low-end cards, and if you can afford one (my 750ti, for instance, sold new for about $120; current price quotes for new-old-stock run (or "refurbs" AKA used mining GPUs) from about $100 to over $500 with most clustering between $150-250 - which is stupid for a 5-year-old discontinued model) it can still provide a useful improvement over Intel graphics assuming the other system specs are robust. Happy hunting!

[Mike B]

Rigo, on 01 April 2018 - 04:32 PM, said:

If I may piggyback onto this thread, what is a decent FPS value? I'm running OR on an older machine and I get as low as 20 FPS at times or maybe mid-forties at best. If I bought a new machine (in the plans for this year), what might be some desktop-machine-compatible video card recommendations?

Current (older) machine: Acer Aspire M3970 with 6 GB Ram, intel Core i3-2100 CPU @ 3.1 GHz. Windows Experience Index = 5.2. Intel HD Graphics on the MB. I probably have room on the MB to add a video card if that would be all I really needed...

The Intel graphics is holding you back, but the i3 is a problem too. ORTS really wants at least a 4-core processor (yes, it does run 4 main threads). AFAIK there aren't any quad-core i3's (some may have hyperthreading for 4 "logical" cores, but it's not the same thing). So you have 2 main problems: the CPU and GPU. I wouldn't put much money (and prices right now are crazy) into the GPU unless you expect to also replace the motherboard and get a better CPU in the near future.

I've found that in moderate-low-detail routes with moderate-low traffic activities, a machine (old laptop in my case) with Intel graphics can be quite playable in ORTS at around 20 fps reported. Not great, but playable. You might want to stay away, though, from things like the Surfliner 2.2 scenery upgrade - fps in my machines takes a big hit with it, and in the laptop (Gen1 i5, 3ghz, 4GB RAM) it pushes fps down toward 10 which does trigger playability problems in ORTS.

6 gb RAM is enough for ORTS in Windows 10. Not generous, but enough. 8 would be better but isn't (yet) absolutely necessary. If you get a new machine or motherboard, though, try to get at least 8 - you'll be happier having the headroom.

[Genma Saotome]

Minor nit: Disk reading has it's own thread, which you can monitor in the last window of f5. I've never seen the CPU percentage for that go over 40%, but that's my machine, your may be quite different. If it's hitting above 80% it is probably a problem and going to a faster disk (of any kind) will help with that. It's not the sort of thing that's going to have an effect on performance when it's not doing anything... and IMO will seldom cause a problem when it is. But as I said you can monitor that yourself and figure out whether it is an issue or not.

The updater thread is the game loop -- everything that is moving is handled there. I seldom see that above 40-60% on my machine... again, YMMV. Check it out.

Which leaves the rendering thread. Here is where I see my problems: It's almost always at 99-100%. I'm running VERY HIGH content numbers so maxing out this thread comes as no surprise to me. This is the thread that passes everything you see over to the GPU.

[Hamza97]

Due to recent uprising of AMD in form of Ryzen & Threadripper processors, Intel`s 8th Gen Coffee Lake Core i3 now feature 4 real cores, i5 6 real cores and i7 6 cores with hyper threading... The good contender for an OpenRails CPU might be the Core i3 8100 (3.2Ghz 4C/4T) or 8350K if someone`s interested in overclocking, unfortunately these newer CPU requires the new 370 series chipset mobo, which are currently only available in form of high end Z370 chipset. Though B & H series are expected later this year.... I actually have the Core i3 8100 in my mind when I will be upgrading later this year, but the increased GPU prices derailed the whole plan... :furious: