Auran Waiting Simulator 2013

[nicky9499]

Hi guys,

Firstly, some technical information. The computer is an Intel Core i5 3570K at 3GHz with 8GB of DDR3-1333 memory and an AMD 7850 2GB video card. Windows 7 runs off a 10,000RPM Velociraptor drive while Trainz has its own WD 7,200RPM drive that's still got 118GB of free space and is regularly defragmented using Defraggler.

Right now I'm in the middle of a massive undertaking to convert one of my big routes to DLS-assets only so that it can be released. Which, as you'd expect, involves abit of mucking about in CMP. What's making this process particularly irritating now is that oftentimes I fire up CMP and nothing will load, none of the default or custom filters show anything and this appears to be the fault of the TrainzUtil black thingy (I have show process windows turned on so I can see what's going on). This is unwarranted because it's been like 10 minutes since I last opened CMP, 5 since I last launched Trainz itself, and I haven't added any, ZERO, new assets and/or edited or committed anything.

This goes on for about 5 minutes.

While we're on the topic "hurry up and wait", let me tell you about all the other glorious load times. Let's say I decide to install some new content from either the DLS or third party CDPs. So I have to:

Wait for CMP to install. That's reasonable.
Wait for CMP to commit. I can wait.
Wait for Trainz to load the routes menu. About 3 minutes.
Wait for Trainz to load my route. About a minute.

You'd think, hey I can load this awesome new [thing] and see how it looks on my route! But no!

I click on the assets tab, I'm faced with at least 3 minutes wait. God forbid I click on the trains tab, because then I'd have to leave the computer while it freezes on me for a whopping TWENTY MINUTES. And when the train tab finally appears and you put a railcar on the track and try to load it, hey, who said you could open up the products list yet, that's another 3 minute wait for you, sir!

So let's say I find an asset with a red kuid tag and I need to go out to CMP to find a suitable replacement. So I fire it up, and expect to see my list of assets and such, but hold on a dang minute, TrainzUtil needs to randomly scroll alot of text across your screen for another 10 minutes before it'll show you anything!


The whole thing kind of becomes irrelevant if the end user has to sit for an hour doing nothing or worse, decides to stop waiting and fire up Railworks for abit of actual driving.

 

[HiBaller]

Hi Nicky:

Despite the fact that you have 8G of RAM, Trainz (being a 32-bit executable) will only "see" around 2.5 to 3 Gigs of RAM. I suspect also that you have a load of content and to manage that takes time - lots of time. I also have a 64-bit system (Win7) and, yes, it does take a bit of time to load and operate CM. If you have the Process Windows set to ON, when CM 'freezes' click on each of the process windows and see what they are doing. Almost always there is a lot of activity going on in the background like clearing cache and asset verification. Every time you switch tabls in CM, a TrainzUtil.exe runs and it will do a load of Asset Verifications and THEN the content will be shown in the content window.

It's the price of having a lot of content to play around with.

Bill

 

[tomurban]

Have you checked for faulty/missing content and dependencies? It took some time, but I have cleaned up my content to the point of having zero errors/faults. As a result my cmp loads the entire database in about 30 seconds or less with no "freezes".

 

[nicky9499]

Hi Bill,

I'm perfectly fine with waiting for CMP or Trainz to do whatever needs to be done. That is absolutely necessary. However the infuriating things are all these unnecessary lockups and wait times. My point is, if there's sh1t that needs sorted out, do it at one go. If I have to leave to computer running overnight just to download and install some content, by all means go ahead. I'd have been prepared for the duration of this required "loading" time and I'll go do something else, like sleep or read a book or drive some trains in Railworks. But when I sit down and want to get some work done these lockups add up to be a significant amount of time lost. Working with Trainz is, on the whole, extremely inefficient and if the sim wants to progress this is something that definitely needs to be fixed.

Hi Tom,

There are many faulty assets in the database as all my content dates back to the very beginning when I started with Trainz. However after moving to TS12 I told myself "get your sh1t together" and so bought an FCT, made Trainz and CMP download all the possible updates and missing dependencies respectively, then disabled the rest. The complete database is far from perfect, but at least the routes I'm working on are 100% error free which is a small milestone. I also disabled all outdated content, but if it's advisable or otherwise okay to delete these then I will do so.

Cheerio,
Nicholas

 

[KenRuof]

The one thing I did to greatly improve my load times is to put Trainz on a seperate SSD drive. I know they are pricey but well worth the investment.

 

[JCitron]

What else is running at the same time?

Check that search indexing is disabled and that your antivirus isn't scanning your Trainz TS12 folders, or is set to scan all files when opened.

The reason why I ask is because I have similar config, except for 16gb and an Nvidia card, and don't see the performance problems you are having.

John

 

[boyerm25]

I actually thought you were talking about a new sim, because N3V comes out with so many crazy sims these days.

 

[tomurban]

I have a similar system to yours with an AMD 6670 and I just do not see any wait times. You might try increasing your virtual memory to the maximum that your version of Windows will allow.

 

[pdkoester]

Another fine example of why it is a good idea to go through, backup to CDP files or whatever, to another drive, CONTENT and ASSETS/ROUTES you don't use often. I learned this the hard way... upgrading to SP1 and the two patches. It just makes more sense now. I was a download whore, so to say, grabbing anything and everything that looked cool and new. Turns out, I didn't really need to waste hard drive space, making the trainz DATABASE enormous at the same time. So, I backed it all up, started to use just the stuff I was really interested in, local railroads and such. Went from being all railroads, down to about three or four main ones. Same with the routes. I had literally dozens of routes, too. Now I have reduced down to about three large ones, and a couple of small ones.

So, do me and the others favor, share your database size, that would be a great start to help look at problems you have. Just right click on the userdata folder of your trainz installation, click on Properties, wait for it, when it is done get that number and post back on here. I am interested in seeing that now. Could also be some cache cleanup is needed, too.

Write back, this would be a good challenge.

Paul

 

[nicky9499]

Hi Ken,
And SSD is something I've considered but will not work in this case since the database size (see below) makes it cost prohibitive.

Hi John,
I've checked Indexing Options and the entire drive that Trainz is on is not indexed.

Hi Tom,
The paging file is set to 12.8GB on 3 separate drives totaling 38.4GB. Windows tells me the recommended is 11829MB so I just rounded it up. Setting both to the same value "eats" up more disk space but also greatly reduces fragmentation and has been my habit of many years on every computer I build.

Hi Paul,
Thank you for the advice. In my case I'm quite abit less concerned about the disk space that Trainz uses because I have plenty. It does seem the heft of CMP's database is taking it's toll on my sanity. I'll admit there is quite abit of crappy content (some of which used to be fascinating in the past but pales against today's standards) but have never gotten round to throwing them out.

Off topic: Auran should put a "delete asset" button in the next version of Trainz so that whenever one encounters a rubbish asset it can be immediately deleted instead of having to look it up in CMP, which never happens as we all know. Confirmation can be done using some seldom-used key like Numpad/ or tilde, this prevents accidental deletion.

Anyway here is some information about my messy Trainz.

 

[matruck]

Holy Smokes Batman and i thought i was a hoarder with 200 and a bit GB of Trainz stuff you take the cake Nick..lol. Hope ya get it sorted anyway mate.
Mick.

 

[pdkoester]

Anyway here is some information about my messy Trainz.

Holy Smokes Batman and i thought i was a hoarder with 200 and a bit GB of Trainz stuff you take the cake Nick..lol. Hope ya get it sorted anyway mate.
Mick.

I don't feel so bad now, I was up to 465GB at one point, made the thing purge (like a little bolemia) and haven't looked back since. You should see things improved quite a bit after.

 

[Scottbe8]

I'm only at 154 GB, but size does matter. I've got my stuff on an SSD, and it is fairly prone to hiccups and stuff.

 

[nicky9499]

Okay, one small step for CMP, big step for Trainz database efficiency.

Question 1: There are currently 16,574 assets marked as Obsolete and Disabled. Can I safely delete them?

 

[SuperSpeedMaglev]

I saw the overhead railway ad thing for TS2013 or is that not it?

Oh btw, Nice Job Auran!

 

[tomurban]

@nickey: I see your problem. It would seem that you have reached the practical limit for database content. Unless you unload 50% of the crap, there is no way to decrease your load times. You probably already know built-in assets cannot be deleted, only disabled.

 

[nicky9499]

Hi Tom,

Paul mentioned his database was up to 465GB at some point. But perhaps his system is more powerful than mine. That's not the point anyway. So just to be sure, I can delete the Obsolete assets and everything will be fine? While I'm at it, there are also Out Of Date assets, which I've also disabled, can they be deleted as well?

Cheerio,
Nicholas

 

[shaneturner12]

Obsolete - can be deleted unless built-in.

Out of Date assets - you should install the update(s) for these assets unless you know of a specific technical reason why this is not possible.

Shane

 

[pdkoester]

So, I thought I would check my database size now, look!

It is less than 10% the size of what it once was. That explains why it runs so much smoother.

Paul

 

[tomurban]

nicky9499 take note (see above post)