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Author Topic: How to improve performance on BVE and openBVE  (Read 11608 times)

Offline YankeesPwnMets

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How to improve performance on BVE and openBVE
« on: February 22, 2011, 10:28:56 pm »
As our routes become more and more detailed as well as routes from many foreign countries, I want to give a little guide for users on older systems to show them how to improve performance. I took a look at some statistics while running openBVE and BVE on a older system of mine.

In all games, the resolution of your game is going to most likely have the biggest impact on performance. For users running on any sort of integrated graphics card, 800 x 600 will most likely give you any playable FPS except on the less detailed routes. In my opinion, playable FPS means its steadily over 30 FPS, because in higher graphical areas FPS might take a dip. Also, keep the draw distance down, that way your system resources don't need to be also concentrating on working to render everything far, far ahead, even stuff that you might not be able to see. Keep that down to around 300-400, which will definitely improve performance from 500 or 600.

Lastly, in both BVE 4 and openBVE, a dual core system is needed, and at least 2 GB of RAM is needed to stay away from any issues involving running out of RAM. openBVE keeps my Pentium E2200 at around 60 % load, and along wtih the OS uses around 1.65-1.7 GB of RAM. For fasting loading, you can go get a better processor, or a SSD or another hard drive for RAID. During loading, sometimes your CPU can easily load the route quickly but it has to wait for your hard drive. Sometimes your hard drive waits for your CPU. A RAID 0 will increase speeds by about 100 MB/s which will be a huge difference in application load time and Windows boot up times. A Solid State Drive on my system loads the F in about 30 seconds, but I have a strong processor to go with it as well.

A tip for people who have stronger systems is to turn Vertical Synchronization on, or VSync in openBVE. All monitors have a refresh rate, normallya at 60 Hz. Some monitors have a higher refresh rate, some have a lower refresh rate. When you turn VSync on, you are limiting your FPS to your monitor's refresh rate. For example, with VSync on with my monitor, which has a refresh rate of 60 Hz, the most FPS I can have is 60 FPS. Why do I want to do that? When VSync isn't on, your graphics card can run as fast as it can, but the bad thing is the graphics card produces more FPS then the monitor can normally happen, thus sometimes creating a visual called Tearing, which is a little like this.



For those with a good setup, then enabling VSync will improve visuals in the game.

Have any more tips? Leave them here.

Offline Dj Hammers

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Re: How to improve performance on BVE and openBVE
« Reply #1 on: February 23, 2011, 12:52:05 am »
A note about all of these things really:

While better hardware will definitely speed up BVE2, BVE4, and OpenBVE, it is important to note that there is a threshold in which the coding of the program itself acts as a barrier preventing more speed increases. This is mostly prevalent in the realm of loading times but also appears a bit more abstractly elsewhere in areas including frame rates.


However this threshold is very difficult to reach, ESPECIALLY with OpenBVE (Which IMHO is one of the most resource-efficient programs I have ever used)

In addition it is important to make sure that one's drivers (especially graphics drivers) are updated; you can have a SSD, a Core i7 980X, 32GB of DDR3 RAM at 1800 MHZ, and the fastest graphics setup available but as long as your drivers are outdated your hardware will mean nothing. It would be like trying to use a battery-operated saw to cut a foot wide hole in concrete.


But all in all that is a very helpful list.
« Last Edit: February 23, 2011, 12:55:47 am by Dj Hammers »

Offline YankeesPwnMets

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Re: How to improve performance on BVE and openBVE
« Reply #2 on: February 23, 2011, 05:11:11 pm »
DJ Hammers is right. Any stock drivers shipped Windows 7 will be bottlenecking performance of any hardware, and the drivers on CDs shipped are most likely outdated. The best place to get drivers is from the manufacturer's website.

Offline sonylr

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Re: How to improve performance on BVE and openBVE
« Reply #3 on: May 11, 2011, 08:17:00 am »
Thanks for your idea,
Its really nice way to improve compaire of existing