I have eliminated all graphics shuttering problems with Trainz.

F

fen_tiger

Building the Wisbech line
I've somehow managed to eliminate all previous graphics problems I have had with my copy of Trainz by re-installing it onto a SANDISK 32gb flash drive and not again onto the PC's own hard drive. I've not altered in any way the Intel HD graphics settings nor tweaked the trainzoptions.txt file and now have the trainz options all at maximum (5000m draw distance, etc) with no loss of graphics re-drawing and no visual tearing / juddering as previously encountered. Frame rates and graphics re-drawing is controlled by the HDD's RPM and it's read/write times. * I have a 'Zoostorm' gaming PC with only 2.0Gb of ram and 788mb of graphics (virtual) RAM.

Installing Trainz onto my 32gb Sandisk took a lot longer to to do that straight to the HDD, so patience is a virtue. Just hoping that the service packs will also successfully install onto the flash drive with no problems.

As Trainz reads off the PC's Hard drive all of the time, this will cause visual tearing and poor frame rates, but running Trainz from a direct USB flash stick has none of these problems. I will have to further carry out full tests on the pros and cons of running Trainz straight off a USB flash stick and not off a physical Hard Drive. The only downside so far by running Trainz this way, pre-built routes and user routes will take a bit longer to load up than normal if Trainz is otherwise installed onto an HDD.

My Zoostorm has 2.0 USB ports and my Sandisk 32GB stick is also 2.0 ready. I won't have any more problems running Trainz this way than if I was to have it installed on my PC direct. I cannot guarantee that this way of running Trainz will work for everybody as it depends entirely on the type and make of USB stick used, its Gb capacity, its read/write capabilities and whether or not it and your own PC is 2.0 ready.

Andy.
 
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This is an interesting observation.

Regular flash drives have a much lower I/O rate than internal hard drives. Assuming you're using USB2, the max data rate is 480 MBit/sec. The old but common SATA2 standard allows for up to 3Gbit/sec or 3000Mbit/sec. Even the much older IDE/PATA drives can get up to 1116 Mbit/sec.

Still, good to hear that you've got it all sorted out.
 
You will probably have a problem as 32gb will be too small after a while.
What you really need is a SSD.

just a warning.

Ken
 
My T12 takes up 2/3 of a 1TB drive, that's 573GB with 328,000 assets. The coast of a SSD will need to come down to a more affordable price.

John
 
I'm suprised a stick is quick enough, although the files trainz has to load in game generally arent big enough to be affected by the speed so I guess it makes sense, just never thought of it! I do second getting a SSD drive instead though as it will be far quicker (especially in other applications) and 32gb really doesnt go far these days.
 
I consider Sandisk Flash drives to be very robust and reliable when it comes to storing any type of file for later retrieval. So it comes to no suprise that I never before until now even considered installing Trainz onto one of these USB sticks. Previously I would I have had Trainz on my Zoostorm's HDD, but this caused a few niggles with v-sync tearing and graphic juddering as the HDD catches up with loading the next section of baseboard / scenery along whatever route I happened to be on. But with putting Trainz onto a USB stick, and ramping up all of the sliders in the game options, everything runs smoothly as if my PC was a top-range gaming machine when in fact it is lower down in specs and has an on-board Intel HD (3D) graphics card.


I use a couple of top-range 32Gb sandisk flash drives for storing all of my iTunes music files and all the unique iTunes user playlists I created, so I know already how good these USB drives really are. I'll hope to buy a 64Gb stick soon and transfer all of my Trainz stuff over to it from the 32Gb drive in due course.

Having Trainz on one of these sticks will slow down the loading of in-built and user routes and content, but the upside is the game no longer glitches with judders and the in-game options can all be ramped up to their maximum settings. However, I cannot guarantee this use of Trainz will work for everybody, so I can't really recommend this way of doing things unless you have the same type of flash drive as the ones I use for data storage.

 
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This is repeatable with solid state drives. What is occuring is that performance is hit once the HDD becomes a bottleneck. The time it takes for the read head of the drive to locate the required information as it were, in this case the assets. Usually the drive simply takes too long, even on performance drives such as my Western Digital Caviar Black, resulting in delays in loading the scenery, which in turn results in frame drops. This causes screen tearing due to the frame rate of the game and the refresh rate of the monitor no longer being in sync.

The simple benefit of being able to read from multiple flash chips all at once as opposed to whatever limitations are imposed on the design of an individuals drive read actuator and platter mechanism, which will always be a slower solution.
 
@ LNERlover5

Exactly the same issues with poor game frame rates and v-sync tearing if I have Trainz installed on my PC. No matter how low my in-game options are set, sooner or later the juddering starts up and occasionally the game freezes until the HDD catches up and draw the next baseboard and any scenery, track, locomotives. Trainz on PC is limited by the RPM speed and read/write capabilities of the HDD, not whatever graphics card the PC has. Everything on Trainz has to be read first by the HDD before the data (images and framerates) is sent from the HDD to the graphics card and thus displayed on the monitor. As the HDD is constantly searching for certain scenery, etc, this will slow the frame rate down and occasionally the game will freeze briefly until the portion of scenery data required is found and sent to the graphics card.

USB flash drives are slower in reading/writing data as the information is stored and also accessed on and by the USB drive's memory chips. HDD's read and write data by magnetic means onto a rotating disc at a pre-determined RPM speed. In my case, 7200RPM is the speed of my HDD, probably too slow for Trainz to cut out the judders and v-sync problems.

Going digital storage as opposed to magnetic storage for Trainz and its content means less wear and tear on the HDD and also if my PC goes up the creek for any reason I have not lost any work I have done on my route or lost any downloaded content. As with backing up all of my iTunes music files and playlists onto USB sticks, I will use that knowledge and apply it to Trainz and use the same principles of backing up content, routes, etc and running trainz digitally and not risk magnetic data format storage - in case of loss of data through power cuts, etc.
 
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Deane, John, me 2!
I run for a long time now 180GB and 520 SSD only but draw distance, hickup little one's still are part of the game.....
would be something funny if this is not a hoax.
John you could try this put your teeth in.

Roy
 
I bought a brand new 240GB Intel 530 last week for S$174 (US$140) and it's plenty sufficient. Here's why; although my TS12 install is well over 500GB, I've put my "slim" testing install which is basically just bone-stock + my route and deps, so I get all the content I want on the "main" TS12 running on a good ole spacious spinner while I switch to TS12B on the SSD when I want to do some smooth driving. Best of both worlds with none of the compromise.
 
Hi

When I first fitted an SSD a couple of years ago I ran some tests with the ECML route as I still had Trainz installed on the old hard drive. I was surprised to find that there was very little difference when actually running Trainz in Driver. There was a very slight stutter when running from the HDD but it was hardly noticeable.

Where the SSD scores though is in such things as installing Trainz, patching it, running EDRs, starting the game and loading routes. It has saved me many hours of sitting waiting for these things to complete.

The OP states that he is using USB 2.0 so I find it hard to believe that a USB stick can be as fast or faster than either a HDD or an SSD. It seems more likely that the results he is seeing are perhaps to do with his hardware as he states that he has 2Gb of ram fitted which won't leave much after the OS has loaded.

Unfortunately I don't have a USB stick big enough to be able to check his findings.

Regards

Brian
 
I have already admitted that my Sandisk is slower reading and writing Trainz game data than if using my computer's own HDD. But by using the external device to run the game from, my Trainz doesn't suffer any lag nor occasional game freezing anymore.

Here's a question for any of you who are probably doubting that I can successfully run Trainz from a USB stick without any lag or framerate problems -

If your game is having slow frame rates or lagging if on a route with loads of scenery, etc, check how often your HDD light is flickering or flashing when the game needs to update the scenery, etc depending where you are progressing on your route or wherever you are within your game environment.

My Sandisk will be slower in loading game routes and content, but at least my HDD light barely registers a flicker now for not having to constantly search for and load up the data required to enable the new portion of scenery to load within the route.

Previously, trying to run the Glasgow route on Trainz 2009, my game would suffer quite badly with frame rates and juddering as soon as the scenery built up and whenever more than two trains were displayed in the same area of track. But by running this Glasgow route from my Sandisk, it is as my computer is a £1000 gaming machine and not a budget range model under £300 as it is instead. Not one frame rate issue or game freezing or lag occurs by having Trainz loading off its flash drive installation.

My HDD will not have to constantly keep up with the game in order to search for and load the data required to update the scenery, frame rates for the location I am at in the Trainz environment, thus preventing excessive wear and tear. Trainz is excessive in using the HDD, but with a 2.0 Flash drive running the game exclusively my HDD light barely flickers now ( unlike before when it was like christmas tree lights going flicker crazy) except to update and refresh the graphics virtual RAM. This new method of running Trainz works for me and is easier on my PC.
 
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Usually, HDD's connect via a SATA cable to the motherboard whereas a USB stick is a direct interface connection (USB memory chips - motherboard) with no in-between cable. For a HDD to load data it has to first locate and index the required data before reading it and then sending the data to the graphics/audio portions of the motherboard. This could explain as to why Trainz performs better in all aspects off my Sandisk than if installed in a cluttered HDD full of Windows programs, etc.

Whenever I play Grand Theft Auto on the Playstation2, the game disk is constantly loading all of the time just to keep the game running. But if I take the disk out of the PS2, the game will immediately freeze up and become un-responsive. And the only way to get round this issue is to re-load the game again. Think of your computer's HDD as the physical game disk (not just as a storage unit), as akin to the game disk used to install the game in the fiirst place on your PC. Even when playing GTA SA sometimes the game will slow down and freeze very briefly until the PS2 disk has time to catch up with the action and be read some more to progress further in the game world. My Playstation2 has to work overtime when I am on Grand Theft Auto. Trainz is no different in my opinion to any of the PS2 GTA games or even the Sims2 games. They also need heavy, constant loading by the PS2 to keep them running in order to progress with their game play.
 
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If a new, bare, PC that has nothing on it but Trainz (no documents, no downloads, no pictures ... etc ...) ... Would Trainz play smoother framerates ?

If Trainz was installed on a standard external hard drive, and it was connected to this barren PC using a standard USB cable ... would this improve Trainz performance ?

Would this allow lower end laptops to have better framerates ?

Would indexing, and compressing Trainz improve performance (either on your PC hard drive, or on an external hard drive) ?
 
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Not everyone would benefit from having Trainz run direct off a USB drive. Everybody's computer is different in its operating specs and parameters. It could be a case of this method of running trainz off a Sandisk flash drive (plugged staight in to a spare USB 2.0 port) works well for me in this instance. I can't be sure that the method of running the game externally from a USB drive as how I am doing it now will work in the same manner (no lag, no poor fps, no freezing) or not with any other computer other than mine.

At least I won't knacker up my PC's HDD by subjecting it to the same constant, heavy data loading as my poor Playstation2 has to put up with when playing Sims2 Castaway or GTA SA on there...





*HDD space shown is what is currently available and remaining after successfully installing the game only to the Sandisk USB flash drive.
 
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