Curious..

[SHOPlanB]

Hi all,

Long time lurker, first time poster. Allow me to introduce myself. I go by the screen name SHO_|PlanB|, but I generally answer to SHO as the PlanB is a formality of sorts...or source of aggrivation depending on which side you are on..

But I digress. I have a few questions regarding performance, and I'm very hopeful the community can point me in the right direction. I undertook a project (if I could call it that? I think nightmare Train wreck), etc etc.) that has me stumped on some issues. Panel wise (I hope I'm using the term correctly), I'm around 1000+ with the max setting of 5K X 5K (if my memory serves me correctly). I know, HUGE. And requires a lot of proverbial HP under the hood (not an issue). For the most part, I have ground textures, hills, mountains,lakes and just a ridiculous amount of industries in both towns and stand alones. The issues I'm having are a seeming HUGE frame rate drop in certain areas. I've toned down the view distandce down to about 3500, and it seems like that helped. I also eliminated 90% of splines except for roads and road accessories (ramps etc). I've been running the monitor, and have been keeping an eye out for anything that was going over 25 on the buffer count (I read 35 and higher was bad juju so I wanted to give myself an extra 10). But I'm still getting it. I'm not sure if its an ultra high index count or what. I'm using a variety of content pulled off the DLS, with a majority of it being either Ish's or Drake's (kudos to those fine folks for their handy artwork!) buildings. Along with other talented creators and the built in items. I've tried limiting the speed tree instances, but it seems like even with them, the hiccups and down right make your eyes bleed and want to go slap the neighbors frame bombs. If need be, I'll post specs of my rig, but its more than suffiecient to run TS12. I had the same problem in TS2010. Oh, one crucial detail...I'll probably get a good verbal chastising from the tech gurus, and if so, I deserve it... I've been running FRAPS (for screen shot purposes...I've been doing a time line of sorts) so I am willing to suspect that as the culprit for the FPS bombs. Again, I'm thankful for all those who have posted and gave me such knowledge that I didn't have to come before the community and look like a buffoon. Which I dont mind...I don't take myself TOO serious. =)

SHO

 

[Deano5]

Hi SHO,
Do you have a lot of AI running around?
My route has 35 AI plus me all at once and only slowed down once I added a lot more complex commands to the session. With all the industry, signal, ATLS, AI and so on so on data to process I must have hit a limit to how much the CPU can handle, (Intel i7) although the CPU is a large multicore processor, Trainz can only use a certain amount of it and so I assume this is where the bottle neck occurs.

 

[airtime]

Hello Sho, and welcome to the trainz forum.

I have found at times when my trainz gets a little laggy or frame rates drop, is when an item is either faulty and then causes trainz to either lag, or if it is really bad, with too many faulty items in one area, make trainz crash out totally.

Also, certain splines (not all) can demand a lot of resources, and this can also make it laggy in places.

I have to go with what Deano5 said above about AI, too many trains with too many commands can also put pressure on the pc, and cause it to lag in places, usually if you are driving a train and just before another train is in sight, and is due to pass, you might get a slight lag, using less trains or shorter trains can solve this.

Hope this helps

Joe Airtime

 

[tomurban]

Hi all,

Long time lurker, first time poster. Allow me to introduce myself. I go by the screen name SHO_|PlanB|, but I generally answer to SHO as the PlanB is a formality of sorts...or source of aggrivation depending on which side you are on..

But I digress. I have a few questions regarding performance, and I'm very hopeful the community can point me in the right direction. I undertook a project (if I could call it that? I think nightmare Train wreck), etc etc.) that has me stumped on some issues. Panel wise (I hope I'm using the term correctly), I'm around 1000+ with the max setting of 5K X 5K (if my memory serves me correctly). I know, HUGE. And requires a lot of proverbial HP under the hood (not an issue). For the most part, I have ground textures, hills, mountains,lakes and just a ridiculous amount of industries in both towns and stand alones. The issues I'm having are a seeming HUGE frame rate drop in certain areas. I've toned down the view distandce down to about 3500, and it seems like that helped. I also eliminated 90% of splines except for roads and road accessories (ramps etc). I've been running the monitor, and have been keeping an eye out for anything that was going over 25 on the buffer count (I read 35 and higher was bad juju so I wanted to give myself an extra 10). But I'm still getting it. I'm not sure if its an ultra high index count or what. I'm using a variety of content pulled off the DLS, with a majority of it being either Ish's or Drake's (kudos to those fine folks for their handy artwork!) buildings. Along with other talented creators and the built in items. I've tried limiting the speed tree instances, but it seems like even with them, the hiccups and down right make your eyes bleed and want to go slap the neighbors frame bombs. If need be, I'll post specs of my rig, but its more than suffiecient to run TS12. I had the same problem in TS2010. Oh, one crucial detail...I'll probably get a good verbal chastising from the tech gurus, and if so, I deserve it... I've been running FRAPS (for screen shot purposes...I've been doing a time line of sorts) so I am willing to suspect that as the culprit for the FPS bombs. Again, I'm thankful for all those who have posted and gave me such knowledge that I didn't have to come before the community and look like a buffoon. Which I dont mind...I don't take myself TOO serious. =)

SHO

1,000+ panels (baseboards) with assets will choke any computer. You could try splitting it into two smaller routes and using portals to move trains from Route A to Route B. Also using DirectX rather than OGL usually improved frame rates.

tomurban

 

[ct_krogen]

what is your screen resolution

 

[tolansherwood]

Try the scene limit percent

There's a scene limit percentage in the on-screen stats in TS 12, and that is pretty useful for deciding if your route size and asset clutter is the problem, or if a faulty asset is the trouble.

If the limit percentage does not exceed about 65% during these lag problems, then a faulty asset is likely the culprit, but if you do exceed 65%, then thinning assets out a bit in that area can likely solve the problem. I have a route with over 2,000 boards, and it has no lag troubles after using this technique to smooth out the rough spots.

 

[SHOPlanB]

Deano,

I'm running about 20-25 AI trains. I did have some lag with having them clustered being clustered together in their respective yards, but moving some around to staging areas had helped alot. I couldn't help but wonder if perhaps it was the cars themselves (I was running some decent sized trains to the tune of 60 cars).

@ tomurban

Tom, I'm using DX instead of OpenGL (old habits die hard when you are a gamer). At least I got that part right. =)

@ airtime

Airtime, when you say faulty asset, are you talking about ones that are "redded" out? or ones that show up with their KUID being yellow in surveyor stats? I've seen more of those than I care to shake a stick at, and I know my route is slap full of those little buggers.

I forsee a lot of editing in the near future, but it'll be worth it.

Thank you all for the most excellent help! I'm glad to be a part of this community now. I just wish I hadn't lurked so long.