Do I have to be a computer wiz?

drats1

New member
It is a very dissapointing feature of every TRAINZ that I have purchased is that I need to be very computer savy to get the most out of the program. The sim seems to need "train loads" of information to be downloaded, put in correct folders, executed etc. For someone like me this is very frustrating, to the point of giving up. The worst parts of this is I do give up playing and secondly fall for the trap of buying the latest releases in the hope that it is FULLY playable from the instalation from the disk.
Am I missing something here, or is it really just for computer wizzes, and not as advertised, for model train enthusiasts.
Any help getting more out of the sim, without having to do a computer course, would be appreciated

drats1
 
mmm

My friends kid ( who 5 ) play with trainz 06 ok ...and MSTS ..

just install the game and run it... it's only when you get to 09 it's gets a bit pants and do not get SP1 what ever you do !!....

wait a year before making the plunge!!!
 
Well, first off... If you ever have trouble, feel free to ask for help on the forums :)

You don't need to be a computer wiz to be able to use, and get a lot out of, Trainz :)
Sometimes a creator will make it difficult (not their intention, by any means), and sometimes things can go wrong. But thats going to happen with any game.

For the most part, the info you need to be able to install is in your manual :)

But, if this has gone missing, or your version didn't come with one, here is a run down for installing content off the Download Station :
TRS04: click the download (helper) button. Should automatically bring up the download helper window and start downloading off the DLS. Will install automatically, and should bring all 'dependencies' down with it. If something doesn't work, then use Trainz Objectz. As above, feel free to ask for help. We should be able to answer any Q's you have.

TRS06/TC/TS09: Click the download (helper) button. This will open content manager plus. Once you have found all of the items you want to download, click the 'start' button in the download window of content manager plus. It will automatically install the items when it downloads them. CMP/CM2 will tell you if any dependencies are missing (if they aren't on the DLS, then normally you should just forget that item, as they can be a pain to find, and again not auran's fault).

For items you download elsewhere, it goes as follows (so long as they are in .cdp format, or a TRS04-TS09 compatible .exe file):
TRS04: Double click the .cdp file, click yes, then click install. Now run Trainz, and see if the item shows. If not, run Trainz Objectz, look for the item (by name) in the list. Right click, and check the dependencies. If any are listed as missing, search the DLS for them (or the site you downloaded from). If they don't turn up, then forget the item.

TRS06/TC/TS09: Double click the .cdp file. This will open CMP/CM2. Go to the 'open for edit tab'. Then select all of the items listed, and hit 'ctrl'+'m' to 'commit' the items. If they show any missing dependencies, then search the DLS for them (or the site you downloaded from). If they don't turn up, then forget the item.

Hope this helps.
Zec
 
Hello drats1, welcome to the forum, yes, I also agree in principal with your post, although you don't state which version of Trainz you currently have, but, many of us on this forum are over 30, some over 60/70/80, but with the experience and knowledge attained by playing with all of the Trainz versions from 2001 to the present day, we can all offer help and advice. Don't be put off by what seems like interminable computer technicalities and the seemingly lack of assistance to do the basic things, come on here and we'll all try and offer you some help and advice if you need it. Best to read the manual that came with your game version for a newbie, it can look a bit scary, but you'll get the hang of things soon enough.....Just enjoy yourself...

Cheerz. ex-railwayman.
 
It is a very dissapointing feature of every TRAINZ that I have purchased is that I need to be very computer savy to get the most out of the program. The sim seems to need "train loads" of information to be downloaded, put in correct folders, executed etc. For someone like me this is very frustrating, to the point of giving up. The worst parts of this is I do give up playing and secondly fall for the trap of buying the latest releases in the hope that it is FULLY playable from the instalation from the disk.
Am I missing something here, or is it really just for computer wizzes, and not as advertised, for model train enthusiasts.
Any help getting more out of the sim, without having to do a computer course, would be appreciated

drats1

Basically you need a certain amount of muscle on the computer and once its set up then it should run smoothly. If you know a few basic things about computers then it is possible to configure them to run a little faster.

If you give us the latest version of Trainz you have purchased and some idea of your computer we can assist.

Cheerio John
 
The original poster raises a very valid point IMHO. Am I right in thinking that for most people CMP and DLS are the stumbling blocks?
 
Welcome aboard. TRS2009 works fine straight out of the box. Provided that you don't want to go further, no computer skills of any kind are really needed. However, if you wish to take full advantage of Trainz, or any computer program for that matter, you must develop additional computer skills. If you're not prepared to develop those skills, any computer software will have serious limitations.

Having said that, the Content Manager and the DLS are far too complex. I'm still waiting for the day I can successfully download something without getting a host of error messages or assets that don't work.
 
Thanks

First off I would like to say thanks for the constructive answers.
I was affraid I would be labled a looser, lol.
I am in the 60+ group although I have had additions of TRAINZ since the first one.
TRAINZ is fun, no doubt about that! and yes it will give hours of fun straight from the box.
That said, I feel from the tone of most of the answers, that some difficulties can be expierienced by most people when you start to download additional content.
At least I now know that it is not just me!
At the moment I am running TRAINZ 2009 on a DELL XPS 420, with a Windows Experience index of 5.5, so I have plenty of "grunt"
Thanks again
drats1
 
First off I would like to say thanks for the constructive answers.
I was affraid I would be labled a looser, lol.
I am in the 60+ group although I have had additions of TRAINZ since the first one.
TRAINZ is fun, no doubt about that! and yes it will give hours of fun straight from the box.
That said, I feel from the tone of most of the answers, that some difficulties can be expierienced by most people when you start to download additional content.
At least I now know that it is not just me!
At the moment I am running TRAINZ 2009 on a DELL XPS 420, with a Windows Experience index of 5.5, so I have plenty of "grunt"
Thanks again
drats1

Unfortunately Windows experience isn't a good measure of how the machine will run Trainz. Trainz likes to keep lots of things in memory so upgrading your memory to 2.5-4 gigs will help. You need 2.5 gigs but these days it's almost cheaper to buy 4 gigs. www.crucial.com has a downloadable scan that can identify how much memory you have and the memory modules that would fit your machine. Memory is very cheap these days.

The other thing that Trainz does is draw lots of 3d models on the screen. This can be done with the cpu but normally if you can off load it onto the graphics card this helps enormously. Graphics cards have simple processors on them but lots of them called pipes. There are 4 cores on the top end cpus these days but 200 plus pipes on the top graphics cards each of which can do the same graphic calculation faster than the cpu since they are optimised to just do graphics calculations. Given the right layout Trainz can fully utilise all the processing power of even a very high end graphics card. So knowing what you graphics card is and how much memory it has can be helpful. The more memory it has the less it has to interupt the cpu to ask what it should be drawing.

Microsoft word does not fully utilise the memory or the graphics card in the way that Trainz does.

TRS2009 is a special animal that can make use of more than one core of a cpu. According to one of the Auran programmers it can spread itself over a quad core cpu. The other thing it can do is use compressed textures. In the same way as you can compress an image to be a .jpg so graphics cards these days can work with certain types of compressed textures as if they were .tga or .bmp files. The texture compression is done internally and it does require a graphics card that supports the compressed texture standard that is used but essentially means the files copied from the hard disk are only one quarter the size and the memory on the graphics card is effectively quadrupled.

On the other hand your comment about downloaded content is also true. Items that Auran provides from the DVD are reviewed so that they provide a good experience from a limited number of polys and texture files. Downloaded content is just what some one put together so often it may have far more polys that is strictly necessary or more texure files than needed, both of which impact performance. Because there is no limit the the number of polys used or how items are constructed no matter how powerful your machine I can build a Trainz layout that will bring it to its knees by carefully selecting items that have a major impact.

Towns and built up areas etc for example are areas where we ask Trainz to draw an enourmous number of polys and that's where Trainz will start to slow down unless you are very carefully with what is placed where.

Cheerio John
 
First off I would like to say thanks for the constructive answers.
I was affraid I would be labled a looser, lol.
I am in the 60+ group although I have had additions of TRAINZ since the first one.
TRAINZ is fun, no doubt about that! and yes it will give hours of fun straight from the box.
That said, I feel from the tone of most of the answers, that some difficulties can be expierienced by most people when you start to download additional content.
At least I now know that it is not just me!
At the moment I am running TRAINZ 2009 on a DELL XPS 420, with a Windows Experience index of 5.5, so I have plenty of "grunt"
Thanks again
drats1
John,
The techno stuff is:
Intel core quad cpu Q6600@2.40GHz
Mem 4.00GB
32 bit
 
Don't give up something you like to do, instead find the knowledge you need. Places like here at these forums & Google search can do wonders, for instance if you were to search Google for "How to download from the internet" you would have 99,900,000 places to find the knowledge you need. If the terminology of items like CPU, GPU, RAM & so on give you a headache, try searching for "Computer Terminology".

Main specifications for your computer are
CPU - Intel Core 2 Quad - 2.4GHz
RAM - DDR2-800 - 2G
VIDEO - GeForce 8800 GTX- RAM 768Mb

Quite capable of running Trainz & yes some more RAM (Random Access Memory) up to 4G (Gigabyte) would be nice, you would buy either 4x 1G's or 2x 2G's. RAM is the cheapest & fastest way to speed up your computer.

P.S. Poly = Polygon, 3D models are made up of lots of these, they are the surface that makes the model & can be textured (painted).

The main thing is have fun ;)
 
John,
The techno stuff is:
Intel core quad cpu Q6600@2.40GHz
Mem 4.00GB
32 bit

So I assume you're running 32 bit XP, 32 bit Vista isn't so Trainz friendly. Next question is which version of Trainz are you running?

TRS2006 will not be able to take advantage of your quad core processor TC3 can use a couple of cores but TRS2009 SP1 is the one that can make the most use of your cpu.

Any idea what your graphic card is?

Trainz uses a configuration file called Trainzoptions.txt the name varies slightly from version to version. TRS2006 looks in this file to see how much memory it can use. I'm not certain if TRS2009 does the same but adding in

-showkuids
-ResourceMemory=1536
-nolog

into this file will probably do no harm.

Of course the more pixels you are asking Trainz to draw the lower the performance, what size is your monitor?

It probably sounds as if we are going a little techie but unfortunately these things can make a difference.

So three more questions then we might be able to see what is what.

Thanks for your patience.

Cheerio John
 
So I assume you're running 32 bit XP, 32 bit Vista isn't so Trainz friendly. Next question is which version of Trainz are you running?

TRS2006 will not be able to take advantage of your quad core processor TC3 can use a couple of cores but TRS2009 SP1 is the one that can make the most use of your cpu.

Any idea what your graphic card is?

Trainz uses a configuration file called Trainzoptions.txt the name varies slightly from version to version. TRS2006 looks in this file to see how much memory it can use. I'm not certain if TRS2009 does the same but adding in

-showkuids
-ResourceMemory=1536
-nolog

into this file will probably do no harm.

Of course the more pixels you are asking Trainz to draw the lower the performance, what size is your monitor?

It probably sounds as if we are going a little techie but unfortunately these things can make a difference.

So three more questions then we might be able to see what is what.

Thanks for your patience.

Cheerio John

John
I have a NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT
Dell E248WFP (Digital) monitor
display res 1920x1200
and opps, running it on 32bit Visat (but stuck with that)
What do you mean by:
"but adding in

-showkuids
-ResourceMemory=1536
-nolog

into this file will probably do no harm."???
 
John
I have a NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT
Dell E248WFP (Digital) monitor
display res 1920x1200
and opps, running it on 32bit Visat (but stuck with that)
What do you mean by:
"but adding in

-showkuids
-ResourceMemory=1536
-nolog

into this file will probably do no harm."???

1920 by 1200 pixels is 2,304,000 pixels for Trainz to drive, compared to 786,432 pixels for a 1024 by 768 display, or basically you can expect one third of the performance compared to a 1024 by 768 monitor. 1440 by 900 is a reasonable compromise for Trainz. This doesn't mean you can't get a good frame rate it just means your system will have to work two or three times as hard. The big monitors look pretty but do take a lot of resources for sims, Microsoft word is easier on the machine. Also Dell makes more money on a big monitor than a smaller more suitable one.

32 bit Vista theoretically will hit your performance by 10% but against that the video card drivers should be a bit better.

I don't think you have mentioned which version of Trainz you are running TRS2009 with SP1 will be the one that can take best advantage of your machine.

There should be a Trainzoptions.txt file around and that can have an impact on your performance. Trainz limits itself to your real amount of memory, Vista normally says to a program take all the memory you require and uses the swap file to provide virtual or pretend memory. Trainz knows that going to the hard disk is very slow so looks at the trainzoptions.txt file to see how much real memory it can use.

adding

-ResourceMemory=1536

to this file, edit it it with notepad nothing else. Tells Trainz there is extra memory available and to use it.

adding

-nolog

says to Trainz don't bother to write a log file. Most people don't look at it and it does comsume resources to write one out.ie Trainz runs a bit faster with this line.-showkuids

Just displays the kuid number in Surveyor.Cheerio John
 
Well done John. People often overlook the monitor as being a possible source of their problems.

It's also interesting that people who post here seldom devulge what version of Trains they're using. It would be great if they could refer to their program as TRS2006 (or whatever) instead of Trainz.
 
Well done John. People often overlook the monitor as being a possible source of their problems.

It's also interesting that people who post here seldom devulge what version of Trains they're using. It would be great if they could refer to their program as TRS2006 (or whatever) instead of Trainz.

Thanks for all the info, I will certainly play with it to get a better runing sim, but rewording my my original question. Do most userers find downloading additional files aimed at making the sim more pleasurable difficult, because I sure get lost!
 
Thanks for all the info, I will certainly play with it to get a better runing sim, but rewording my my original question. Do most userers find downloading additional files aimed at making the sim more pleasurable difficult, because I sure get lost!

I think the basic idea behind CM2 in TRS2009 was to make it easier for normal people to find and use content third party content from the DLS.

In TRS2004 you needed to know a fair bit about subdirectories or folders and to be honest since you were much closer to the performance needed at the bleeding edge you did need to know much more about dependencies and hardware. Finding dependencies was a hit and miss affair often .cdps or .zips were scattered across many web sites and just locating them was often I think the major pastime.

The reworking of the DLS and the push to get more people to put content on it has helped. Today the problem is more how do I find error free content for TRS2009 and that is a major problem. I'm actually thinking about going through my items and if they are error free in TRS2009 upping the kuid2 number putting a TRS2009 version tag on them.

There is a thread
http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?t=9437&highlight=all+assets

that specifically exists to list layouts where all the assets are on the DLS to make things simpler.

Have you mentioned which version of Traniz you are running or did I miss it?

Thanks

Cheerio John
 
In TRS2004 you needed to know a fair bit about subdirectories or folders...
<IMHO>
That's very true, but I'd be extremely alarmed if anyone tried to use a computer without understanding those simple and fundamental concepts and being on friendly terms with Windows Explorer.

CMP, on the other hand, requires understanding of how to operate and repair a database system, and a very unreliable one at that. Maybe it's just me but personally I'd regard that as vastly more advanced, abstract and difficult to grasp, and a very unrealistic expectation of people who mainly want to create layouts and drive trains.
</IMHO>

John
(Personal opinion, not necessarily that of RBR)
 
<IMHO>
That's very true, but I'd be extremely alarmed if anyone tried to use a computer without understanding those simple and fundamental concepts and being on friendly terms with Windows Explorer.

CMP, on the other hand, requires understanding of how to operate and repair a database system, and a very unreliable one at that. Maybe it's just me but personally I'd regard that as vastly more advanced, abstract and difficult to grasp, and a very unrealistic expectation of people who mainly want to create layouts and drive trains.
</IMHO>

John
(Personal opinion, not necessarily that of RBR)

Shall we say the design goal for CM2 was to make it simpler and the database should be transparent. Quite a few users of Trainz are used to the TRS2004 way of doing things and that is one of the challenges of moving to TRS2009.

Forty years ago I was told the best way to imagine a computer is a box with a demon inside. He will do precisely and exactly what you tell him at a very fast rate of speed but remember he hates you and if you give him a loop hole or a chance to cause havoc he will.

Which comes back to the original point do you have to be a wizard to control a computer, no but it helps to control the demons inside.

Cheerio John
 
One problem with searching for items on DLS is that similar items are often named differently making finding hard. For instance level crossings are labeled as, xings, crossings etc. Sometimes items are in the wrong categories which does'nt help like a signal cabin in loco category! Most DLS assets are error free about 80% maybe? Items showing as faulty can be hard to correct for novices I guess and unless it's something you really need probably better to delete it. Have noticed that each new edition from TR2006 finds new errors in assets that didn't show in previous editions. IMHO versions later than TRS2004 are OK if you want to do nothing more than run whats in the box, but to do more than that, build your own routes with DLS items and run trains on them requires a lot of stuffing around with CMP, error checking etc. Delete files when CMP wont open and all the rest, all this takes a lot of enjoyment out of it for me.
 
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