[SVRy_Steve]

As some of you may remember, I've experimented with 1024, 2048, and 4096 pixel terrtex aces, which allows amazing ground textures, right down to litter like beer bottles. They run fine in MSTS, in a highly populated tile, I'm getting frame rates around 18-23 with Tim's NP F-1 and a short string of high poly cars. This is on 2 consecutive 4096's with 2048's at each end.

I do get a pause while loading when entering these tiles, sometimes more like a dead stop, for a second or so. I'm willing to tolerate these for the great look.

Open Rails is another story :dance3: My record, entering these tiles is a frame rate of -527fps, You Read Right, that's MINUS! Other spots where there are only 1024's and 2048's, are not so bad, only -5 or so, eventually waking up and doing +2 or 3fps.

Now, for OR to look like some of the other, newer sims, ground textures have to get better! Much as I want a sim that runs great, the scene it runs through is very important to me, to make the whole believable. Any thoughts?

I should note the OR runs fine on my machine, running the Sumpter Valley and other routes with low detail (512 and occasional 1024) terrtexes.

Steve

[longiron]

Steve,
What's the spec on your video card? Plus how large (MB) are those 4096 textures?
thanks

[SVRy_Steve]

Admittedly, the computer is due for an upgrade, but not in the cards real soon.

AMD 64x2 3800+
2 Gb RAM
Nvidia 6600GT 128Mb Ram

Those dang 4096's are big, roughly 35Mb. The 2048's are around 12Mb But, the textures are awesome and they run fine in MSTS.

I may find time/money to get another 2 gigs of RAM, needed for my photo work. Possibly I can upgrade my video card as well, but just can't afford a new computer.

Steve

[longiron]

Steve,
It's not that Open Rails doesn't like Large Terrex textures, it's your video card that doesn't.

Open Rails uses the video memory to render the scene. So on your test area - the large terrexes use roughly 35MB + 35MB + 12MB = 12MB = 94MB of video RAM to load, assuming all four tiles are in view. There's not much left for train textures, tile textures, etc. Press F5 HUD to get to the diagnostic menu and you'll see how stressed your video card is.

On the other hand, MSTS uses your System RAM to load and manipulate all the textures. It just passes the frame to the video card for rendering - much less stress on your video card. That's why you have the long pause to load the textures, then MSTS moves merrily along.

Hope this helps explain things

[SVRy_Steve]

Thanks,

That makes sense! I'll have to see if I can't get a better video card in here. How much VRAM am I likely to need? Tim uses quite a few large textures on his locos and cars, which, of course, I'm running!

Steve

[thegrindre]

I believe that is best answered as to how much can you afford? RAM never hurt anything and the more the better. I suggest the max but what can you afford?
Don't skimp on RAM.

:sign_rockon:

[SVRy_Steve]

I'm afraid that in this case there are some limitations in my system. I'm running XP, 32 bit, so I can't make use of more than 4Gb total between video and system RAM. To go more than 2 Gb system, I have to go to 4. If I add a video card with 512Gb, I guess that limits the system ram to 3.5 useable.

Don't say new computer, no can do at this time! Since I do my Photoshop work on this computer, I could really use the extra 2 of system RAM. One of my latest images I worked on was over a Gb, and that slows things down quite a bit!

Steve

[timmuir]

So, it's Video card RAM that needs to be upped. That's interesting, but limits who can use OR, then. My system is a hybrid iMac that uses an nVidia GT 130 vid card with 512MB RAM on board, pretty much a Notebook card. OR won't run my stuff.

[longiron]

SVRy_Steve, on 18 February 2011 - 01:13 PM, said:

I'm afraid that in this case there are some limitations in my system. I'm running XP, 32 bit, so I can't make use of more than 4Gb total between video and system RAM. To go more than 2 Gb system, I have to go to 4. If I add a video card with 512Gb, I guess that limits the system ram to 3.5 useable.

Steve

Steve,
Video card RAM (VRAM) and System RAM are entirely separate. Video card RAM is embedded on your video card. You could add a 1GB Video card and it wouldn't impact the amount of System RAM your system could use. You can get a good 512MB video card for about $50 that would DRAMATICALLY improve your Open Rails experience. It might help with those large images too.

[longiron]

timmuir, on 18 February 2011 - 01:15 PM, said:

So, it's Video card RAM that needs to be upped. That's interesting, but limits who can use OR, then. My system is a hybrid iMac that uses an nVidia GT 130 vid card with 512MB RAM on board, pretty much a Notebook card. OR won't run my stuff.

Tim,
Can't run OR? You can't load it, or it just runs like an ole mule?

A 256MB video card is just fine on my "old" PC - I get 40 -60 FPS on most routes w/o DS. Turning on Dynamic Shadows has about a 30% -40% FPS reduction on average. But that's with traditional Terrex files.