10 replies to this topic

[Mr Drive]

There are a few topics about which PC is the best for Omsi. Our fav bussim has it’s limitations and that shows on the performance. Since i don’t have much time for doing something with Omsi (driving or bu9ilindg maps) the nest weeks i decided to let Omsu run in AI mode of both my computers. I nice experiment with some odd results so far.

My specs of my PC are listed elsewhere on the forum but here is a summary and the specs of my “old” pc:
New: i7 2600K 3.4. Ghz processor (overclocked to 3.74)
Nvdia Geforce GTX 560 1 GB Gpu
Creative sound blaster x-fi

16 GB RAM

WD 2TB HDD

Old: Core2Quad 3.0 Ghz processor (overclocked to 3.5)
Nvdia Geforce GT 9600 512 MB Gpu
Edirol Ua-25 external sound card
12 GB RAM
WD 1TB HDD
Both system has Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bits as OS

Both Omsi installments are exactly the same and for this test on my map they use the same Omsi settings.
The map that was tested last days was my new one: Vlietburg, a very big boy. On both PC’s i didn’t use the real time mode but started the tours at 10 A.M on 28 june 2011.
I started the maps exactly on the same moment (with thanks to Mrs Drive)

So both busses went underway. The first thing i mentioned that on my old PC the bus had much more luck with the traffic lights and made a faster progress.
But then the performance. The i7 has some higher FPS scores and peaked at 31 (the target rate setting) but was also much more irregular and dropped sometimes below 20.
On the same streets my old Pc was much steadier. Although the average FPS was lower (27) it showed a much more steady performance.

This was the case along the whole line even at the crowded center areas my old PC showed very stable.
For me it was bedtime so i leaved the PC’s behind doing their duty.

Halfway the night i was awake and did take a look. Here the results were even more suprising:
The i7 was more or less on schedule but had difficulties with texture and some white buildings and cars were the result. The C2Q had a heavy delay timetablewise but the performance was flawles with a steady FPS of 27! The i7 was even more irregular than at the start.

The next morning i looked again. The i7 stopped with an out of memory message but the C2Q was still running smoothly without any sign of trouble. At this moment (2 days later) it is still running.

That same morning i restarted the i7 and let the same line run again. Late in the evening it stopped again due a lack of memory!

So the PC with the fastest CPU, GPU and the most RAM had the most problems. Running Omsi for more than 8 hours gived a problem while the system with a lesser CPU and GPU have no problems at all. Overall the FPS was somewhat lower but without doubt is gives a better performance.

[gneb]

Wow. That was a bit suprising ! But I am still getting and i7

[Mr Drive]

Hm, no Bowdenham or WIllshire, in that case Vlietburg is also out of the question. Did you try New Berlin or my Spandau Xtreme maps?

When you drive yourself it takes some more processortime and memory and when using track-IR head movements are more irregular than that of the AI driver, so that take some GPU and CPU resources to.
Since Omsi is primairly using one of the cores it don't seems to matter how much cores their onboard but it wil come down to the Ghz of the core. Your laptop has 2 ghz and that is somewhat low for Omsi. I'll recommend 3 or higher.

For example: here at my office i have a dualcore 3.33 ghz and Omsi is running okay on that. (yes, i have Omsi "on the job")

My GPU and soundcard on this PC are sucking, but to ask a better one in favor of Omsi use seems somewhat odd i think.

There are sure a lot of things that you can't do with your laptop but a change to a mild rainy day must be possible. Don't do snow, that will give problems!

[David R]

I don't think your results are typical Mr Drive. I think perhaps you haven't disabled core parking on the i7, a tweak that is highly recommended (almost essential) when using the i7 Sandy Bridge models for gaming :-

http://ultimatecompu....php?f=7&t=3644

..before making this change, I had an average of around 26 FPS (locked) on most complex OMSI maps, but as you said, a lot of fluctuation to lower FPS numbers. After making the change, I have a solid 26 FPS (locked) with almost not a single drop below that figure.

The improvements after this tweak were even more dramatic for FSX.

I have heard other people report problems and poor performance from the GTX 560

I use an ATI HD 5770 1GB which has been brilliant so far.

I also had a Core2Quad E9650 3.0Ghz before the i7 2600k and, honestly, there's no comparison with performance. The i7 kills the C2Q.

Try the Core Parking setting, or else I think your GPU may be your issue.

[Thiago]

Mine is a C2D @ 2.4Ghz and a GT320M onboard - I was able to play in all maps until now, even though the heavy ones restrict me to frame rates close 10~12 in some clustered areas - I don't care much to this low FPS. But after some tweaks in NVidia Control Panel (VSync forced off and some optimization) I could gain some fps. Additionally (and this is strange), game performance increased when I activated elements like Antialiasing and Anistropic filter. It seems that trying to lay the graphics in a poor setting makes the game (or the GPU) work even more to deliver the graphics, that's strange. But it may be a coincidence.

I wish I could have a C2Q or a i7.

[muckijeste]

I'm running Grundorf on a Pentium 4 in school the same I'm running on my DualCore home. Bad optimization, indeed..

[gazz]

You have to remember this sim was origionaly something 2 friends made for them selves and as part of their course work,
it was started in 2007 or so, and obviousely made on the computers they had at the time,

unfortunately back then it was single core, 32 bit and 2 gig of memory was a luxuary for most,

Nowadays we're using 4 or more core machines, quite a lot of people use 64bit, and 2 gig is standard if not minimum for most,

So basically omsi is 'optimised' for older machines, i.e. the kind we had back in the mid 2000's hence as a fair few people are finding out, older machines are more stable with omsi,

hopefully M&R are not only working on a new bendy bus and map extension, but on updating the core of the game to take advantage of the modern hardware,

[Mr Drive]

A little update of this. I used the core parking tweak as mentioned by Longyear. It made really a difference. FPS is not higher but far more stable than it was. I did the same test as above the last days and with good results.

I encountered another problem this time. I have more than one Omsi installments and one of them is on a SSD. That drive is faster and have some advantage on the short run but when you use it for a longer period the performance will decrease dramaticly and textures are vanishing rapidly. It seems the file structure gives difficulties in some way. It can be a "local" problem since i had some other issues with this drive. To test this thoroughly i will bring in my second SSD into the Omsi area.

To be continued....

[gazz]

Hmmm, smoething for me to watch out for then, as i've just got a SSD.

unfortunately i have been plagued by the vanishing textures all along, so wont know if it's due to the SSD or not,

but i do love the SSD, 8 seconds to boot into win 7 from cold, omsi loads a bit faster but not that much, (railworks showed the best increase, all routes take 20 seconds to load, before they were from 1 minute to 5 minutes to load)
but i have noticed much less stuttering in omsi, which i assume is due to the ssd.