RRT3 very slow (lags?)

[SCUD]

hi all,

i've a problem with RRT3. Everything is OK for some time, but if i run 8 or more trains, the game slows more and more down. like lags.

what can i do to fix it?

my system:

Intel core2quad @ 4x2,66 GHz

2 GB DDR2 RAM

GeForce 8800Ultra 768 MB Graphicscard

Windows XP Home with all updates

all effects in the game are on maximum.

i hope someone can help me with this problem.

SCUD

(PS. i'm sorry, cause my english isn't so good at all. I hope you understand what i mean ;-) )

[Hawk]

With that system you really shouldn't be experiencing any slow downs until you hit the 100 train mark, or more.

[Gwizz]

Try cleaning out what is running in the back ground.  Cookies, temp. folders, files, etc.

Also try removing some of the programs from the start menu, the ones you don't use very often.  If you need to run one of these programs, start them manuelly from the desk top or from within the program folder itself.

Also check that you don't have too much reserved space set aside on your hard drive.  I try to keep over 50% of the hard drive free for processing.  The more the better.

[SCUD]

thanks for the fast reply's.

i'm working as an IT-Fachinformatiker, thats building, rapair, upgrade, programming of Servers and clients.

i tried nearly everything, including a fresh winXP install. nothing helps.

there are no processes or programs in the background, which can cause such a slow down.

yesterday i tried to play and it didn't get slow down. i run nearly 20 trains. *lucky*

but after i end the scenario to play another, the game get back to the "slow down" mode. i run only 4 trains.

Version:

CtC + 1.05 patch & unofficial 1.06 Patch

CPU shows me 100% on all four cores. What the f*** happend here???

@ gwizz

2 GB DDR2 Dual channel (Corsair)

4 GB virtual RAM

The systempartition remains 20 GB of free space.

The gamepatition remains 300 GB of free space.

[Hawk]

What screen resolution do you run for your desktop and for the game?

[SCUD]

1280x1024 desktop & all games

it's the native resolution of my TFT Screen...

all effects are on maximum

[Gwizz]

I wonder if one of your memory chips is not seated solidly.

You might try pulling them out and then reseating them.

On my old computer I was able to speed it up by turning off the internet.

I doubt that you have that problem since nothing is running in the back ground.

Somewhat unrelated:

The computer in my jeep was doing strange things. 

I cleaned the battery posts and reconnected the wires.

I seem to have solved the problem.  Everything is working correctly now.

It was just a bad connection.   

[SCUD]

memory = OK memtest 10h running without any errors...everything OK here

connections = all cables checked...OK here too

it appears only in rrt3...the rrt2 crash seems to bee fixed...the nocdpatch was the reason of the crashes...now i play with CD ^^

all other games don't have this troubles

[SCUD]

Hi all,

the problem is still up-to-date

some kind of ironie...my old PC (p4 2 GHz, 1GB ram) there lags nothing...until i'm running more than 50 trains...

please, i want to play rrt3...*sniff*

edit:

I've upgraded to 4GB of RAM (full Dual Channel), but the game still slows down.

[Gwizz]

Each map has different memory requirements.

The more tests the game produces (active hidden events) the more memory is needed to run the game.

One map may lag and the next may lag less.  You can look in the editor and see if the event list is long.

If an event tests monthly or will cause 12 times more memory usage then if it tests yearly.  The more things that it tests against can also increase memory usage.  In beta we had a problem with excess memory usage. I don't remember how it was solved.  But with bigger memories the problem should now be none existent

With your computer you shouldn't have much of a slow down.

You may have a loose solder connection on the graphics card or some place else.

But normally heat effects this type of bad connection the most.

Either improving the connection or making it worse.

I watched a simple card being assembled, the solder dipping process was so fast

I felt a speck of dust could block a joint from being soldered correctly even in that clean room.

The cards were all tested after soldering.  I didn't see any that failed the test. 

Another thought:

You might try logging your memory usage while playing the game.

Kimkomando.com  or  komando.com

She use to have a free real-time memory logging program that ran in the corner of the screen.

It had a small graph that tracked memory use as the computer was running.

She has many free programs that are worth a look.

[SCUD]

my system:

Intel core2quad @ 4x2,66 GHz

2 GB DDR2 RAM Upgraded to 4GB of RAM, Full Dual Channel

GeForce 8800Ultra 768 MB Graphicscard

Windows XP Home with all updates

MB: ASUS P5NT WS

Since SP3 and the upgrade to 4GB of RAM the game lags not so early....i'm running now ca. 20 Trains until it gets slower.

Memorytests:

Windows Memory diagnostic = no errors

memtest: after 10 hours, no errors

Allconnection checked, everything OK here. And all other games run without problems. I'm playing Crysis on maximum effects with a resolution of 1920x1200 without lags...and i think that game needs more ressources as rrt3 ^^

SATA cable to the Hard disk drives (all 7) changed to new ones

I've cleaned the PC a few days ago. No Problems with heat.

The Problem of the Memory Usage could explain everything...bur i Think 4 GB had to be enough, didn't it?

I've played for testing yout theory of events, the german map and I've deleted all events in the editor.

The problem seems to be still there.

@ Gwizz

This logging tool from kimkomando.com seems to be interresting, but i can't find it on her site.

Do you have a direct link to it or maybe a direct link for downloading?

I've got a savedgame of a friend of mine...with nearly 150 trains...until i load it, the framerate goes down to 0. first i thought the game freezes, but it runs so slow, like the slowmo effects of Matrix *lol*

I wanna play rrt3 without this problem...

[Hawk]

Just grasping at straws here, but are you playing an installed from cd game or a downloaded version?

Try this. Reboot your machine then hit 'Ctrl+Alt+Del' and see how many instances of 'svchost.exe' are running.

Then fire up RRT3 and do that again and see how many instances of svchost are running.

[Gwizz]

It looks like there are a possibility of 4 or 5 programs that might help you discover your computer problem.

I believe this is the program I used.

http://www.komando.com/downloads/category.aspx?id=5344

edit,

PS:  I think I used a different program.  This one still might work.

[Hawk]

I might give that one a shot myself.

[SCUD]

@ hawk

5 instances of svchost.exe are running...no new instances are started up during play.

The game is from CD and original...no copy or something else, but i run a noCD crack cause, i hate changing CD's and i get mostly trouble with some Server applications I'm running on my maschine... e.g. all games with securom copyprotection can't startup, cause one of my services, i need them for working, kills the securom task. So i can play some games only with crack or nocd hack ^^

@ gwizz

thx, I'll try it as soon as i'm at home ;-)

[Hawk]

With everything you've said, the game should be running without any problems.

I only have 2 GB DDR2 Dual Channel 667 Mhz of RAM and an AMD 4300+ Dual Core processor with an NVidea 7600 GT KO 256 MB RAM card on XP SP2 running at 1280 X 1024 X 32 and I don't have the problems you do.

This is strange!  ???

Did you have this problem before SP3?

Edit 1:: I see now you said it was worse before SP3, but that also included the upgrade on RAM.

[sindjilic]

hey guys, here is my story. I've been playing rrt3 for years now and i always had this problem. Once I get to 120 trains approx the game slows down way too much. It might be the fact that the game cannot simply endure that much. I play on Vista 64byt and the version of the game is 1.04. I have a quad core pentium 2.50 with a 8g RAM and Nvidia 9600GT 512. someone please help. my resolution is 1360x768. I tried lowing down graphics and resolution but no help.

[Gwizz]

When I beta tested RT3 it did have this problem; But I'm sure it was fixed or patched.  Your computer should be able to more than handle the biggest maps.  Vista does have some problems; But, I don't use Vista.

I'll assume you had the problem before you started using Vista.

I would first try a program like "emule" and see what you have running on your computer.

Many small programs run in the back ground even if you have blocked outgoing info.

These programs can continue to try to call home without you knowing it.  I just looked at my machine and had 15 or more new programs running in the back ground.

Last week I removed over 100 of these pests.

Since you have had this problem for awhile, try unseating the graphics card and re-seating it.  These contacts are normally gold plated and shouldn't cause a problem. Use care when doing this so nothing breaks. 

You could have a bad chip or some other connection that is not making contact.  I have unplugged and re-plugged everything looking for a connection problem.  I no longer fix computers on a regular basis; so there maybe something I don't know about that could cause this problem.

Report back on what you find.  Good Luck 

[Hawk]

For some help on a lot of the stuff running in the background that is dragging down performance, check this site out.

http://www.blackviper.com/WinVista/servicecfg.htm

There's also a section for XP users.

http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm

[johnfox]

I'm using Windows 10, 16GB RAM, Intel(R) Core i7-6700HQ CPU 2.6 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950M

The game works really smooth until I reach about 150 trains, when it's more than 200 it becomes basically not playable, FPS drops down to about 0.5. (Yeah, one frame every 2 seconds). In this point CPU usage doesnt go under 90% at any time so I think its basically train calculations that mostly affect performance. We need to wait for quantum CPUs in order to play without trains limit, I guess. 

200 trains is not that much if you play "Coast to Coast" scenario for about 6 hours, which is basically what I just did - continuously, screenshot below.
Time to sleep. See ya guys in like ten years. 

[jeffryfisher]

Does the game suffer even after saving, rebooting and reloading?

Is the game actually utilizing your graphics card? Sometimes there are so many years between game and hardware (and drivers) that the CPU ends up doing all of the rendering. When this happens, you need to research things like legacy DirectX support so you can use hardware rendering (freeing up CPU).

What graphics settings are you using? Can you give up on anything like shadows or showing trains at all zoom levels?

How many CPU cores do you have? Have you tried reserving one core and then launching the game on that core?

How much RAM does your game actually use? If less than 2GB, try patching the executable file (after backing up) to access 4GB.

Sorry I can't offer anything more specific. I have RT2, not RT3. I've also learned some lessons from SimCity4.

Good luck (and thinks for dropping a pebble into this very still pond)!

[Silverback]

RT3 doesn't seem to like graphics cards with a lot of memory being a game from 2003 - the best resource to search for solutions is probably Hawk's site http://hawkdawg.com/forums/index.php?

There are lots of ideas for things you could try there but one is to turn down the graphics details in the settings. I also think there are issues with Nvidia cards which require T&L to be turned off so it will run in the first place. This puts more load on the CPU. There are some workarounds on Hawks site, but I've not tried them.