A Vista(?) Instability

[Zatnikitelman]

Having switched to a new computer with Vista, I noticed that MSTS was unstable. Initially it would freeze and CTD after about 5 minutes running explore or an activity. I did some Googling and searching myself and the only thing I found of much worth was to limit the memory MSTS could use to 2Gb (I have 8Gb). This stabilized Explore, but running any activity causes a CTD after around 10 minutes.
This was without any addons installed (have since installed several) and I have the latest version of bin.
Right now I'm not at my home computer so anything even more detailed will have to wait. Other programs run fine though none from MSTS's era admittedly

Detailed Comp. Specs:
Vista Home Premium 64bit
nVidia 9800GTS
8Gb RAM
Intel Core 2 Quad 2.6 Ghz

If I've missed something, please just point me toward the information.
Thanks for any help,
Matt

[TacomaSailor]

Discussed at length in PC Tech "Memory and Caching Issues"

Discussed many times at great length in the PC Tech forum

"Memory and Caching Issues" 9-11-2009 cododd

https://www.trainsim.com/vbts/showthread.php?t=285807

YES - there is an issue with MSTS and VISTA. It appears that under some very specific circumstances MSTS tries to address physical memory that is outside it's allowed area.

MY (I repeat MY) experience (VISTA32/SP2/Bin 1.8, 4GB RAM) has been:

- Limiting VISTA/MSTS to just 2GB physical does not prevent the problem - I consistently experience the same error when I use 2GB, 3 GB, or 4 GB real memory. Use of the memory option on the MSTS start parms does not change the occurrence of the error

- Only certain routes generate the problem under very specific circumstances. For example, I can run the PRR on almost all activities with no problem for as long as I want. However, the "Driving the Congressional" activity will consistently generate a freeze or CTDT with an address exception. The problem is NOT the fault of the route or the activity - it is due to bad code in MSTS

- Saving an activity, shutting down MSTS, and restarting MSTS and the saved activity will prevent the problem from occurring. The problem is knowing when to save and shut down MSTS

- Using Process Explorerer to monitor the train.exe working set allows you to predict when the crash will occur. When the train.exe Physical Memory exceeds 900,000 K (approximately - may vary on your system) I know that a crash will occur within several minutes. It seems to depend on how many different views I invoke.

- Once I determine where in a route/activity the problem occurs I can be almost 100% certain the problem will occur at the same spot every time. UNLESS, I save, exit train.exe, restart train.exe, and restart the saved activity or explore.

There are many more details in the "Memory and Caching Issues" discussion

[chucksc]

also the shareware untility cacheman by outertech located here http://www.outertech.com/?_charisma_...b4cf3a3083cbbf seems to push it back into the woodwork and also improves performance according to my testing - I have used it for years and their version 7 will run on XP Vista or Win7 both 32bit and 64 bit versions

This utility seems to vastly improve Large Memory and Cache management beyond the MS "as delivered" state - in fact it appears to improve or at least smooth out frame rates

[ronaldparkin]

post subject

Hi Matt, I have Vista Premium and I don't have any trouble.
Have a read at this.

https://www.trainsim.com/vbts/showthread.php?t=269559&highlight=run+Vista+administrator

and this.

http://forums.uktrainsim.com/viewtopic.php?f=273&t=66143

that sorts out all sorts of things.

Regards

Ron P

[TacomaSailor]

Problem seems to occur on only some VISTA systems

I have carefully followed all the directions specified in all the links posted and still consistently suffer the CTDT or freeze (crash or freeze depends on which nVidia driver I am using). Use of WinDbg (the real time or dump analysis program) shows that the address exception always occurs in a module used to prepare or pass data to the graphics card. So - maybe occurrence of the error depends on which graphics driver is in use.

The problem is very infrequent and only occurs on a couple of the very resource intensive routes. It occurs so infrequently I usually have to experience it once before I remember to do more frequent saves.

It is easy enough to avoid the problem by just monitoring real memory usage in real time. I have two monitors and can detect no decrease in frame rates while running Process Explorer in a 5 second update cycle.

VISTA32 Home Premium SP2

[weejam]

I had the same problem to where nothing worked that I found in the forums. I have to run MSTS in compatability mode for Windows 95. That cured my freezes and crashes. If you look at task manager and what cpu MSTS is using, with Win95 it's only using one. I am sure that has something to do with it. If I try to run in XP mode, or any other, it never fails to freeze after about ten minutes.

[ronaldparkin]

post subject

Hi, Try turning your sound down to medium in the Options menu.

Regards

Ron P