[James Ross]

longiron, on 18 February 2011 - 01:26 PM, said:

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.

Not to get in to all the complicated technical details but the size of the video card's memory can affect the amount of usable system memory if you're using a 32-bit version of Windows (which is highly likely if it is XP).

That said, it should only be an issue if system memory + graphics memory > 4GB, so with only 2GB system memory you can probably get away with a huge graphic card upgrade while continuing to use (32-bit) XP.

[longiron]

James Ross, on 18 February 2011 - 01:38 PM, said:

Not to get in to all the complicated technical details but the size of the video card's memory can affect the amount of usable system memory if you're using a 32-bit version of Windows (which is highly likely if it is XP).

That said, it should only be an issue if system memory + graphics memory > 4GB, so with only 2GB system memory you can probably get away with a huge graphic card upgrade while continuing to use (32-bit) XP.

Agreed, but in Steve's case I didn't think he was going to run into that issue.

[SVRy_Steve]

Thanks James,

That's my understanding, there's a 4Gb limit to useable RAM in 32 bit systems. I'm assuming that if I add both 2Gbs more RAM and 512VRAM, it will just lower the amount of system RAM that can be used.

Things are always a trade-off! A couple months ago, I could afford to upgrade my camera or computer, each was about the same price for what I'd want. I ended up deciding on the Canon 7d body ($1500) which I certainly don't regret.

One other reason for going the camera route, I dread re-installing all my software on a new computer! I've done this, between failing hard drives and new computers something like 8 times since 1999. I can do it, it just takes several days and is a royal pain in the bass. Then there's the things that no longer work, or require much time and effort to get them working, and the stuff you forget about, until you need it and it's not there!

Steve

[thegrindre]

Just a note: I have 4 gigs RAM and 640 VRAM and my XP 32 bit system says I get 3.25 usable gigs RAM.
Not bad, IMO.

:oldstry:

[Genma Saotome]

longiron, on 18 February 2011 - 12:42 PM, said:

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.

What's highlighted, above, is not correct. OR always displays nine tiles -- the one you are in, three ahead, three behind, and one to the right and another to the left. MSTS displays only four -- the one you are in, and the three closest to the camera.

Total VRAM for tertexes will be found by adding up the size of each individual tertex.ace files used in the nine tile area (don't multiply by the number of times the file is used, it doesn't work that way... just once is good enough).

[captain_bazza]

How Steve can upgrade his card will depend on the age of his system...he might have AGP, not the later PCIe, in which case his options are less because AGP cards are difficult to find these days.

Cheers Bazza

[SVRy_Steve]

Fortunately, it's PCI!

Steve