BVE 4 versus BVE 2 (performance issues again)

[Boxcars]

I need help with BVE4. In Tom’s post in the below thread in The Transport Forum (of which I’m not a member) another Neil (not me, I am “Boxcars” Neil) quotes his system specs and Tom replies “128mb ram isn't ideal and integrated graphics I'm afraid kills BVE.”

http://billz1064.proboards1.com/inde...ead=1126340411

Transport Forum Neil then says … “I'll have to buy a new PC, as I can only play the Cross City South Route route in v2.6, routes are unplayable in v4 on this PC!”

Here are MY system specs …

http://www.packardbell.co.uk/products/node1601.asp?PartNumber=P851008225

It seems I have integrated graphics too.

I have really enjoyed the BVE version 2.6.3 experience and even with my “integrated graphics” (whatever that means) it’s been, on the whole, the best railway sim I have ever used.

BUT I, like (the other) Neil has experienced, find that BVE4 doesn’t perform well at all and it absolutely and literally HALVES my framerates and , quite honestly, really spoils the fantastic experience of driving a train. Without having to buy a new PC, which is my first ever, can you please tell me what to do/how to/add or basically improve my framerates. As I’ve just mentioned, BVE4 halves my fps although BVE 2.6.3 performs well.

For both BVE 2.6.3. and BVE 4 I restart, disconnect from the Interent, disable Norton completely, select “adjust for best performance” from Control Panel/System/Advanced, and then remove my wallpaper and remove desktop icons BUT STILL BVE 4 is disappointing in the way it performs.

Without changing my Packard Bell Ixtreme 6052, can anybody suggest how I can UPGRADE, and with what product, my system to improve the way BVE 4 performs?

Thank you from Neil (in Cambridge)

P.S. Oh yes, I forgot to mention, Anthony’s new, as yet unreleased, routes are why I’m getting worried (I’m SO looking forward to them) … and to go back to Neil’s post on the Transport Forum …… “I'll have to buy a new PC, as I can only play the Cross City South Route route in v2.6, routes are unplayable in v4 on this PC!” I’m still having ongoing trouble with BVE 4 performance. I just wish I had bought my first PC BEFORE I had discovered the Boso View Express (and I wish I was 30 years younger) … I definitely would have made my career on the railway.

Cheers guys.

[Simon_G]

RE: BVE4 versus BVE 2 (performance issues) + Transport Forum post from Neil + framerates +

Hi Neil

First off, as far as I know, just about *everyone* reports disappointing performance with BVE4, in particular the jerkiness and periodic freezing. This is not a pure 'framerates' issue, but seems to be related to memory management and can probably only be cured by Mackoy.

Second, your system looks, to a non-techy like me, pretty capable (the real experts will be along soon to discuss the merits of your motherboard). It was clearly also sickeningly cheap

There are two obvious things you could do to improve it for BVE4:

1 - expand the memory

2 - you have an 'AGP' slot on the motherboard, which will take a good quality graphics card - again the real experts will tell you precisely which one is most suitable, but those using the nVidia 'GeForce' chipsets are said to work best with BVE.

Cheers
Simon

[Boxcars]

RE: BVE4 versus BVE 2 (performance issues) + Transport Forum post from Neil + framerates +

Thank you for the helpful reply Simon. At least it seems I'm not the only "sufferer". I've already printed it off and will consult my colleagues in the Automation Department at Cambridge University Library about your suggestions. Any more replies from anyone would be equally and gratefully received ;-)

Many thanks.

Neil

[eezypeazy]

RE: BVE4 versus BVE 2 (performance issues) + Transport Forum post from Neil + framerates +

I invested £60 in installing a graphics card to replace the "integrated" graphics that were on my PC, and frame rates improved dramatically on my relatively inexpensive PC.... On Cross City South for BVE 4, frame rates of between 20 and 30fps are the norm, except, of course, on the approach to New Street, where it falls to about 10fps.

This has influenced how I build my routes. I aim to achieve a minimum frame rate of about 20fps in most parts of my Tyne Valley route running on my pc. The best frame rate I've achieved is 44.4fps, on the more rural part of Tyne Valley and on Chris Lees' Plymouth route.

Regards

eezypeazy

[leezer3]

RE: BVE4 versus BVE 2 (performance issues) + Transport Forum post from Neil + framerates +

Youch
While a GFX card will certainly improve things a little, my reccomends would really be to invest £30 or so in an extra 512mb RAM- 512mb of RAM is really the minimum that WinXP needs to exist happily. Then I would probably spend another £30 or so on a cheap GFX card, such as this one: http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=63911

As such, my secondary system is pretty similar to what I'm reccomending :7 (2.6ghz, 512mb RAM, 128MB Saphire Radeon 9200SE), and this will run the High-Detail XP routes without any real hitch, as long as I remember to drop the draw distance a little.

Cheers

Chris Lees

[Boxcars]

RE: BVE4 versus BVE 2 (performance issues) + Transport Forum post from Neil + framerates +

That's great ... thanks for the suggestions and links eezypeazy and Chris. One thing you said made me think Chris. I ALWAYS have my drawing distance set to 600 metres. It never occurred to me to try BVE 4 with the distance at a lower setting ... doh x(

Cheers,

Neil :-)

[ChrisCooper]

RE: BVE4 versus BVE 2 (performance issues) + Transport Forum post from Neil + framerates +

I've got a desktop and a laptop, both with pretty much the same system specs, but the laptop has integrated graphics wheras the desktop has an old-ish geforce4. The difference in performance is pretty noticable, in particular since I have trouble with transparencies on the laptop so have to run 16bit colour. Even on the desktop BVE4 is quiet jerky at times though, not in the way of FPS, but just freezing for a second or two. It has been the case though with all big BVE graphics improvements though that performance has dropped considerably, but then in later upgrades has improved. This was very noticable when full screen cabs came out (on my old computer, frame rates went from over 20fps to around 10fps), but it did inprove after a few updates. Mackoy definitly seems to work on the visual/features upgrades first, then bug fixing, and finally optimisation/performance. I wouldn't be suprised if that isn't what he is working on now, since 4.2 was definitly a big fix, so hopefully 4.3 when it comes out will work much better.

[Rohan]

RE: BVE 4 versus BVE 2 (performance issues again)

A new graphics card will definately improve your framerates, especially if you buy a decent one.

With my GeForce 6600GT, I get 45FPS+ most of the time in BVE4, rarely drops below 30FPS. The same (if not higher) with my Radeon 9800 Pro card and the Radeon Mobility 9700 on my laptop (which has only 256mb of RAM and only 1.6Ghz processor, yet the framerates are still as high).

However all of those cards cost £80+ new which is probably more than you want to spend. A cheaper card should still improve performance over integrated graphics but not as much as an expensive one.

[TomBeevers2000]

RE: BVE4 versus BVE 2 (performance issues) + Transport Forum post from Neil + framerates +

I'll second this - I have a laptop with a decent graphics card which runs BVE4 like a dream, another laptop I used exactly the same spec but integrated graphics was appauling.

BVE4 is excellent if you're system is above the metaporical bar - but if it's below that, you'd probarbly be better off using BVE2 unless no such route exists (like the Picc).

--
Tom Beevers
http://brj.rr.nu - Picc v5.2 *released*!

[lankylancaster]

RE: BVE 4 versus BVE 2 (performance issues again)

I have a problem, I recently upgraded my PC with more memory and a graphics card. It had 256 ddr memory, which I've now upgraded to 768 ddr memory. The graphics were SiS 650 integrated, which i put a Radeon 9250 256mb graphics card in. I have a 2.6GHz intel celeron processor. How come my frame rates are still the same as before on Bham X-City south (around 10fps). Oh and yes I have disable the SiS graphics chip!

[Rohan]

RE: BVE 4 versus BVE 2 (performance issues again)

Did you install the latest drivers from http://ati.com ?
They should improve performance.

Also, the Radeon 9250 is a basic graphics card which should show an improvement over SiS graphics, but not necessarily a huge improvement compared to more expensive cards such as a Radeon 9600 or 9800.

If you run a virus scanner, you might want to try disabling/closing that (and other background processes) while you play BVE as they can sometimes cause a performance drop

[TomBeevers2000]

RE: BVE 4 versus BVE 2 (performance issues again)

The upgrade of RAM from 256Mb to 768Mb should have helped, do you get 10fps everywhere or just intensive areas such as BNS? Have other routes improved?

--
Tom Beevers
http://brj.rr.nu - Picc v5.2 *released*!

[lankylancaster]

RE: BVE 4 versus BVE 2 (performance issues again)

I get it everywhere on X-City South. I always got about 10 fps with my old SiS 650 chipset, apart from in BNS where it was 5 fps. It is still 5 fps now at BNS, and about 10 fps everywhere else on the route. I don't know what to do, the idea of this upgrade was to make BVE run better, well my whole PC in general, but particularly BVE.

[Rohan]

RE: BVE 4 versus BVE 2 (performance issues again)

RAM upgrades should help to a certain extent, but in my opinion, it is your graphics card that is causing the performance "bottleneck" in your case.

[Boxcars]

RE: BVE 4 versus BVE 2 (performance issues again)

I find it very strange that lankylancaster has framerates as low as 10 for Birmingham X-City South on BVE 4 after his recent upgrade. When I started this thread I didn’t realise that what I was experiencing with framerates and stuttering was as common as it seems to be. I’ve found all this feedback very helpful and I now know what I have to do to improve things with my machine. I have the same adapter type as lankylancaster (i.e. SiS 650) but I’ve shown below what my typical framerates are when I run this route. These fps are what I experience AFTER setting my machine up as follows. I mentioned some of this in the first post in this thread but I think it’s worth mentioning again in case others with machines like mine can benefit (or anybody for that!). It only takes a minute or so to do. Before running either BVE 2.6.3. or BVE 4 I restart, disconnect my modem, disable Norton Internet Security completely, select “adjust for best performance” from Control Panel/System/Advanced/Performance, and then also remove my wallpaper and remove desktop icons.

Also I right click on the Desktop, then select Properties/Settings/Advanced/Adapter/List All Modes ... then select 640 by 480, High Color (16 bit), 75 Hertz (75 Hertz is best for my monitor anyway).

Now, after doing all this, here are some examples of my framerates with BVE 4 using this computer
http://www.packardbell.co.uk/product...ber=P851008225 with SiS 650/651 graphics.

Using (for example) High Detail - 323- Summer 2002 09.31 Dry Clear, they are as follows …

At Redditch, with the viewing distance set at 600 metres I get 10 to 11 fps approximately.

At Redditch with the viewing distance set at 400 metres I get 12 to 13 fps approximately.

At Redditch with the viewing distance set at 200 metres I get 15 to 16 fps approximately.

At Five Ways with viewing distance set at 600 metres I get 9 to 10 fps dropping to 5 fps at BNS.

At Five Ways with viewing distance set at 400 metres I get 11 to 12 fps dropping to 5 fps at BNS.

At Five Ways with viewing distance set at 200 metres I get 14 to 15 fps dropping to 7 fps at BNS.

With BVE 2.6.3 I have achieved framerates of 30 fps with a 600 metre viewing distance (which must be the absolute maximum for my SiS 650/651 graphics because I have never seen a 31 or more).

I feel quite envious of Rohan when he says …

“With my GeForce 6600GT, I get 45FPS+ most of the time in BVE4, rarely drops below 30FPS. The same (if not higher) with my Radeon 9800 Pro card and the Radeon Mobility 9700 on my laptop (which has only 256mb of RAM and only 1.6Ghz processor, yet the framerates are still as high).”

I can’t imagine seeing any version of BVE running at 45 fps. It must be like watching a driver’s eye view video on the tele. No, far better of course, because I would be in total control.

Neil (in Cambridge)


:-)