I also have my swap/page file on a second drive other than my main. I've always moved mine, windows and apps run better and my art programs render faster that way.
Say, I have an 800 watt p/s for my rig as I run alot of hard drives on and off. Have you looked at the Nvidia system monitor and looked at the Video card's power use? I know you have the extra power applied to it, but maybe the video card needs more power at times? Just a thought.
Soon, the Page/Swap file will be removed from windows, game dev's are screaming for a fix. The swap file was from Win95, that was when ole' Bill said we could run the world on 64mb of ram. He cheated as his system grew and hid the extra virtual memory his app really needed. Vista wants almost 500mb for itself, and after a year of updates I'm sure it will be using that much. Standard motherboards will have to have enough memory slots for 8gig. I wish they would come out with DDR3 cards for systems and not just for graphics cards.
SMR & Shadows
Is there anyone else out there who does not see even a little stutter when moving across mountainous areas, or who sees any stuttering at all anywhere?
And considering that Vista was supposed to be a fix for XP which was a fix for 98SE which was a fix for 98, don't nobody hold your breath, they've already applied for permission to do Windows 7 which will be a fix for nothing more than their pockets
But we're talking about 'stuttering' here......
And considering that Vista was supposed to be a fix for XP which was a fix for 98SE which was a fix for 98, don't nobody hold your breath, they've already applied for permission to do Windows 7 which will be a fix for nothing more than their pockets
But we're talking about 'stuttering' here......
I'm correct 97% of the time..... who cares about the other 4%....
One thing i shouldve probably clarified better regarding stutter is there are 2 types of stutter in the game which are differnt from one another.
1. Camera panning accross a map, passing a group of trees even on low trees setting, the screen will stutter hard. panning, stop, panning, stop etc. At times its so harsh, the camera will stop and then after a bried pause will actually jump as if to catch up to where the camera shouldve been had it not stoped to stutter. In addition to this i have noticed the further out your camera is when panning, the more it will stutter.
example: launch default map "SOUTHWEST - US" 1850-1950. AI or no AI. Zoom out your camera and move it to the farthest upper left corner of your screen. Now move your mouse to the lower right corner of your screen so that camera will pan by itself from the one corner to the opposite. On my system anytime you see trees in the view it will stutter(repeadetly10-15 times as it crosses a group of trees. It gets espically bad arround the Phoenix/Eloy forest area. Than after doing that, turn trees off and repeat the process. On my system no trees = no stuter.
2. With the camera not moving, focused in anywhere on the map but not moving, you will periodicly see trains etc begin to stutter and than after a few moments it will clear up and begin traveling smoothly. This type of behavior will repeat itself many times while playing and if it gets bad enough, lasts long enough, will most likely cause a CTD. This is usualy noticed when the AI is doing something like purchasing your stock, updating its own trains etc.
Personaly my system is effected by both of these types of stutter. So far i have tried the following.
1. Reinstall WinXP Pro 32bit
2. O/C my CPU to 3.0GHz (quad core)
3. Install additional OCZ SLI-Ready RAM (4 gigs)
4. O/C my RAM modules and redcue memory timmings
5. Install a faster SATA RPM drive with better performance specs
6. O/C my 8800GTX GPU Clock, MEM Clock and Shader Clock
7. Move Windows swap file to seperate drive
8. Installed many differnt video driver versions
9. Monitored temps during O/C of cpu,mem and video
10. Ran benchmarks and stress tests over and over.
11. Set the game to use 1 than 2 than 3 than 4 cores of my CPU.
12. Tried differnt resolutions from 1024x768 to 1920x1200
13. Tried various differnt AA and Shader settings
14. Tried changing differnt advanced options in NTune CP specific to SMR
15. Installed the most recent DirectX (March 2008)
16. Defraged all NTFS hard drives
17. Closed out any uncessary processes
18. Disbaled Network to avoid any outside activity interuption
The only thing i have left to do at this point is purchase a larger power supply which i am going to do today. It may not be necessary but adding extra drives and having the power for future QUAD SLI shouldnt hurt. Therfore i am picking up a Thermaltake 1000W or 1200W depending on availability.
In addition to this the one thing i havent tried yet is a differnt 8800 GTX card. But for now i will hang on to the one i have as it performs very nicely for all my other games. Possibly down the road i will look at seting up SLI but not right now.
Bottom line as near as i can tell is this game just has an issue with stuttering. It is possible that there is still something i have overlooked but at this point i surely cant think of it. So for now i will just live with it as best i can and instead feel like rewarding myself with another new purchase.
A TMG ND4 to plum into my already established water cooled system thus allowing me to water cool my GTX8800 which runs a little warmer than i like anyway.
So there ya have it unless anyone else has some thoughts on why my system might be having an issue with SMR but not 100+ other games i have thrown at it, i am all ears.
1. Camera panning accross a map, passing a group of trees even on low trees setting, the screen will stutter hard. panning, stop, panning, stop etc. At times its so harsh, the camera will stop and then after a bried pause will actually jump as if to catch up to where the camera shouldve been had it not stoped to stutter. In addition to this i have noticed the further out your camera is when panning, the more it will stutter.
example: launch default map "SOUTHWEST - US" 1850-1950. AI or no AI. Zoom out your camera and move it to the farthest upper left corner of your screen. Now move your mouse to the lower right corner of your screen so that camera will pan by itself from the one corner to the opposite. On my system anytime you see trees in the view it will stutter(repeadetly10-15 times as it crosses a group of trees. It gets espically bad arround the Phoenix/Eloy forest area. Than after doing that, turn trees off and repeat the process. On my system no trees = no stuter.
2. With the camera not moving, focused in anywhere on the map but not moving, you will periodicly see trains etc begin to stutter and than after a few moments it will clear up and begin traveling smoothly. This type of behavior will repeat itself many times while playing and if it gets bad enough, lasts long enough, will most likely cause a CTD. This is usualy noticed when the AI is doing something like purchasing your stock, updating its own trains etc.
Personaly my system is effected by both of these types of stutter. So far i have tried the following.
1. Reinstall WinXP Pro 32bit
2. O/C my CPU to 3.0GHz (quad core)
3. Install additional OCZ SLI-Ready RAM (4 gigs)
4. O/C my RAM modules and redcue memory timmings
5. Install a faster SATA RPM drive with better performance specs
6. O/C my 8800GTX GPU Clock, MEM Clock and Shader Clock
7. Move Windows swap file to seperate drive
8. Installed many differnt video driver versions
9. Monitored temps during O/C of cpu,mem and video
10. Ran benchmarks and stress tests over and over.
11. Set the game to use 1 than 2 than 3 than 4 cores of my CPU.
12. Tried differnt resolutions from 1024x768 to 1920x1200
13. Tried various differnt AA and Shader settings
14. Tried changing differnt advanced options in NTune CP specific to SMR
15. Installed the most recent DirectX (March 2008)
16. Defraged all NTFS hard drives
17. Closed out any uncessary processes
18. Disbaled Network to avoid any outside activity interuption
The only thing i have left to do at this point is purchase a larger power supply which i am going to do today. It may not be necessary but adding extra drives and having the power for future QUAD SLI shouldnt hurt. Therfore i am picking up a Thermaltake 1000W or 1200W depending on availability.
In addition to this the one thing i havent tried yet is a differnt 8800 GTX card. But for now i will hang on to the one i have as it performs very nicely for all my other games. Possibly down the road i will look at seting up SLI but not right now.
Bottom line as near as i can tell is this game just has an issue with stuttering. It is possible that there is still something i have overlooked but at this point i surely cant think of it. So for now i will just live with it as best i can and instead feel like rewarding myself with another new purchase.
A TMG ND4 to plum into my already established water cooled system thus allowing me to water cool my GTX8800 which runs a little warmer than i like anyway.
So there ya have it unless anyone else has some thoughts on why my system might be having an issue with SMR but not 100+ other games i have thrown at it, i am all ears.
Did you say you were using the updated EXE for the memory fix?
I could see a tiny bit of stutter when traveling across the maps...but not when riding the trains or just watching them...that for me is smooth...no stutter. When the camera travels across the maps on mine it has never stopped and then darted over to the spots. It doesn't stutter either...it travels smoothly across the screen.
I have a friend who has the same motherboard and setup as I built it...and his has the stutter. Even when just sitting and watching...it's a tiny stutter but enough to bug me and I've been working on his system to fix that. I'm not sure if my systems haven't been altered because of my LightWave and other 3D apps, I've had to add tons of visual basic and C++ stuff to my systems, so maybe I've "fixed" mine without knowing what.
I could see a tiny bit of stutter when traveling across the maps...but not when riding the trains or just watching them...that for me is smooth...no stutter. When the camera travels across the maps on mine it has never stopped and then darted over to the spots. It doesn't stutter either...it travels smoothly across the screen.
I have a friend who has the same motherboard and setup as I built it...and his has the stutter. Even when just sitting and watching...it's a tiny stutter but enough to bug me and I've been working on his system to fix that. I'm not sure if my systems haven't been altered because of my LightWave and other 3D apps, I've had to add tons of visual basic and C++ stuff to my systems, so maybe I've "fixed" mine without knowing what.
Well, I got a reply from 2K........
Restart the computer in safe mode.
To do this, go to Start > Run and type in MSCONFIG. Once this has loaded click on the boot.ini tab. Select the safeboot option, click apply, close and restart the computer. If prompted when restarting, select safemode.
Once the system has loaded back up, try to install the game again.
To get back out of safe mode you can go back to Start > Run > Msconfig > Boot.ini and deselect safeboot. Apply, close and restart.
I think tho, what is going to stop it the best is SAMs and CICs...... I hope....
Restart the computer in safe mode.
To do this, go to Start > Run and type in MSCONFIG. Once this has loaded click on the boot.ini tab. Select the safeboot option, click apply, close and restart the computer. If prompted when restarting, select safemode.
Once the system has loaded back up, try to install the game again.
To get back out of safe mode you can go back to Start > Run > Msconfig > Boot.ini and deselect safeboot. Apply, close and restart.
I think tho, what is going to stop it the best is SAMs and CICs...... I hope....
I'm correct 97% of the time..... who cares about the other 4%....