TRS19 & TRS22 Performance on Radeon GPU

[Rosky]

Vulkan does not work for me, in TANE SP4, in W11, with Radeon R9 Fury GPU and i7 4790k CPU, 16GB RAM....
At start it gives this warn: "Error: Renderer initialization has failed"
What can be? I tried setting all performance to Low, but it doesn't work either...

WOW! I think I just found a solution!

E2 is using DirectX 11 and a wonderful community have developed a Vulkan implementation of Microsoft's library.
Just go here https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk/releases, download the latest release and put DXGI.DLL and D3D11.DLL from downloaded archive to TRS22 folder.
And voila! TRS now uses Vulkan API which utilizes full [AMD] GPU potential without torturing GPU's copy engine.

I ran all the same tests and here are results:

Ultra settings profile: 17 FPS, 100% GPU 3D engine, 2% GPU copy engine, 10% CPU
High settings profile: 35 FPS, 100% GPU 3D engine, 2% GPU copy engine, 13% CPU
Medium settings profile: 125 FPS, 100% GPU 3D engine, 3% GPU copy engine, 17% CPU
Low settings profile: 162 - 182 FPS, 70% GPU 3D engine, 6% GPU copy engine, 11% CPU

GZ 57921 scenario for Niddertalbahn route on medium preset:
103 FPS, 100% GPU 3D engine, 2% GPU copy engine, 18% CPU.

Since GPU is no longer occupied doing unnecessary DMA transfers, trains' movement on tracks had become smoother. And default (and the only for the moment) scenario on Znamensk-Svir route has actually become enjoyable (changing the rendering API almost doubled FPS). Other routes I had terrible experience with are now playable as well.

I must apologize to Auran/N3V devs for mistaking Microsoft's doing for their attempt to screw AMD GPU owners over. MS is to blame for their crappy work on D3D11.
Guys, give me your office address so I could sent you some beer.

Anyway, switching to Vulkan API should improve rendering performance for AMD Radeon owners (and windows users, of course), but may also be useful to nVidia lovers.

 

[JCitron]

Vulkan does not work for me, in TANE SP4, in W11, with Radeon R9 Fury GPU and i7 4790k CPU, 16GB RAM....
At start it gives this warn: "Error: Renderer initialization has failed"
What can be? I tried setting all performance to Low, but it doesn't work either...

You may have broken something installing those files. Remove them from the folder and try again. If that doesn't work, you'll need to reinstall the program. You won't lose your data and you'll be able to reselect your old data folder after your install.

 

[Rosky]

You may have broken something installing those files. Remove them from the folder and try again. If that doesn't work, you'll need to reinstall the program. You won't lose your data and you'll be able to reselect your old data folder after your install.

Thanks @JCitron , I deleted the Vulkan DLLs and TANE ran fine, although with the usual problem: there comes a time when the screen goes black and I have to restart the system. Although, while the screen is black, the disk LED shows activity and the GPU continues with its fans spinning, while the mobo emits one long beep and three short ones.

I downloaded the DLLs again and copied them to the TANE directory. And repro!!

It throws the warning again: "Error: Renderer initialization has failed"

Could the new version 2.3 of Vulkan be incompatible with TANE? Because the OS and GPU work without problem in all the programs I use, and the DLLs only run and are limited to the TANE environment. And TANE WITHOUT Vulkan renders well, except for the supposed bottleneck problem that I told you about before.

 

[JCitron]

It could be because just that an older program and OS not liking the new version of Vulkan. The black screen and beeping indicates a GPU driver crash. The disk activity is most likely Windows writing a memory dump file, which can find those in your Windows directory (folder) and also a crash report that's sent off to Microsoft, although I'm not sure what they'll do with that.

T:ANE always had a bottleneck problem right from the beginning. The program ran a heck of a lot better than TS12 but not as good as TRS19 and up.

In the end, you are better off leaving things well enough alone.

 

[Rosky]

It could be because just that an older program and OS not liking the new version of Vulkan. The black screen and beeping indicates a GPU driver crash. The disk activity is most likely Windows writing a memory dump file, which can find those in your Windows directory (folder) and also a crash report that's sent off to Microsoft, although I'm not sure what they'll do with that.

T:ANE always had a bottleneck problem right from the beginning. The program ran a heck of a lot better than TS12 but not as good as TRS19 and up.

In the end, you are better off leaving things well enough alone.

Agree with you. Only that the OS is the latest version of W11 Pro 23H2 (Experience Pack 1000.22682.1000.0), that is, that is not where the error comes from.

Yes, TANE tired me out...
Since I bought it it has worked like the worst. For that reason and because they have offered me promos with codes that were not activated at the time of purchase, I did not update to versions 19 or 22.
Auran's marketing is very inefficient, like its old website. Too bad, because the simulator is the best in terms of design and similarity to reality, but its engines and renderings are very obsolete.

How can it be otherwise, that with i7 4790k CPU, R9 Fury GPU and Asus H97 mobo (all hardware from the same era as TANE) it works with square wheels????

I have a question for you, I see that you are an experienced Trainz user, do you think that with that hardware that I described, Trainz 2022 Platinum will be able to work better? Or T2019??

Have a happy new year, greetings!!!!

 

[JCitron]

Yeah, T:ANE tired me out as well. TRS19 will work okay with your hardware. I wouldn't run the program with all the settings on the highest but it'll work okay. I've run it on my old laptop i7-6800 with a GTX980 and it runs okay. You might want to post this separately for better and more advice. Being the Trainz forums, you'll get plenty of opinions. ;-)

N3V, formerly Auran, has a better website now for their promo stuff. I'm not sure if you saw it yet. Hopefully they'll upgrade the old one at some point.

Happy New Year too!

 

[Paulsw2]

Thanks for bumping this thread! Twixed hasn't been seen on this forum in over a year, but his discovery about the Vulkan DLLs has, I think, been transformative in terms of fps performance in TRS19 and 22. This information deserves more prominence! And ought to be adopted by N3V with an official 'sticky' on the forum about how to acquire and install these DLLs.

Paul

 

[Roddles]

I am running windows in a VM on a threadripper host.
I can run other games fine but Trainz 2022 was always running at around 22-30 Fps and video was stuttering badly.
I had tried this fix in my setup a while back and it improved noticeably, but it still stuttered.
I just saw they released updated libraries last month so i thought I'd try again.
Its now butter smooth locked on 60Fps with no log.
If you have AMD cards and experiencing this issue, try the latest libraries - they work a treat.

 

[davies_mike57]

Just a few tips one knows about after fiddling with the railroad application settings:
If you’re experiencing performance issues in Trainz Railroad Simulator 2019 (TRS19), there are several tweaks you can try to improve your gameplay experience. Here are some suggestions based on your system specs:

1. Performance Configurator:
   • When you first start TRS19, a Performance Configurator screen appears. Select the option that most closely matches your hardware configuration. This will help optimize settings for your system.
2. Quality Settings:
   • Go to Trainz Settings -> Dev -> Compatibility mode and select “Maximize Performance”. Note that this may cause issues with older content, so use it if you don’t plan to use older assets.
   • Lower some of the performance settings in the Launcher to reduce the load on your system.
3. Specific GPU Issues:
   • Some users have reported issues with AMD GPUs not being fully utilized by the E2 engine.
   • Try the following:
     • Delete the performance.conf file from your local data/cache folder.
     • Run TRS22.exe and choose Ultra in the configurator.
     • In the Trainz Settings, change Vsync to None.
     • Start Trainz and run Tutorial 1 to test FPS.
     • Experiment with other performance settings and compare results.
4. Other Tips:
   • Turn off Phys-X simulation and Use texture streaming if you’re playing on an older PC.
   • Ensure that your antivirus program isn’t interfering with Trainz.
   • Consider adding Trainz and its data folder to the exemption list in your antivirus program.
   • If you’re using an AMD GPU, note that Trainz may not utilize it as efficiently as NVIDIA GPUs.

Remember that performance can vary based on the specific route and content you’re using. Feel free to experiment with these settings to find the best balance for your system.

Another TIP found:
Also to help increase smoother performance on a GT 730 (2 gigabyte DDR3) graphics card what I did on my PC system is:
Turn off the GPU shaders cache in card Setup.
Delete all the information files in the NVidia graphic 3dx and OpenGL shader cache folders (stored somewhere in the Users folder in C: drive).
C:\Users\********\AppData\Local\NVIDIA\DXCache
C:\Users\********\AppData\Local\NVIDIA\GLCache
Reboot the PC.
Now turn back on the shader cache in GPU card setup.
Reset the GPU card to default.
Let the application control the video settings.
Trainz setup settings a low level, turf graphics switched off, 2x anti-aliasing only.
My copy of the TANE and TRS 2019 and all other installed games now runs a lot better and smoother using half sync in a window.

Conclusion PC computers are unique in setups.
Happy railroading!

 

[Paulsw2]

I just saw they released updated libraries last month so i thought I'd try again.

This is great news! Could you provide a link to the updated libraries?