Is Trainz only for supercomputers?

R

rhban

Active member
I gave up on trs22, which was OK up to a point, but then suddenly developed so many faults that it was unworkable, and I changed back to trs19.
Since then, I've been working on one new route. From the near the beginning, I've had the same 15 trains and drivers and it was alll going well as I gradually added more scenery.
Suddenly, for no apparent reason, one of my trains is appearing without a driver. In Edit Session, map view, I can see the driver clearly marked in the correct locomotive. In Edit Session (the bit where you can see the drivers' orders). there he is again with his driving instructions and in the correct train. Bu now, in Drive, he turns up in no train at all, and the train he is supposed to be in is now a danger to other passing trains.
True, I don't have a supercomputer. Mine is an iMac:
33GHz, 6 core; graphics: AMD Radeon Pro 5300 4GB; Memory 8 GB.
Just what is required to run a trains route these days?
 
Pick your content very carefully and it should run fine.

The iMac side is not as well supported as the windows side.

Generally speaking you want a 3D score of 10,000 or more on the GPU. https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_list.php Your GPU has a 3D score of 7,143 which is on the low side, GPU memory 8 or even 12-16 gigs would be my recommendation. CPU memory I'd like to see 16 gigs min these days.

I run a refurbished Dell tower workstation from dellrefurbished. I was lucky and came across one with 18 cores and an RTX4000 GPU at a reasonable price. Monitors often have dual inputs I have a Dell one set up as displayport from one computer and HDMI from a second.

Cheerio John
 
I was going to ask, what is the definition of supercomputer in your eyes? I run TRS22 better than TRS19 on my PC. For the money I could have spent on an Apple computer, I would probably have a supercomputer. By no means is what I have now a supercomputer. Matter of fact, I was running Windows 10 on the 4790K w/GTX 1080 and 32GB of DDR3 RAM at 1866Mhz on SATA3 1TB Samsung 850 Pro SSD. I migrated less than a month ago to Windows 11 and the 12400F, same GTX 1080, 32GB of DDR5 RAM at 6000, NVme M.2 2TB Samsung 980 Pro SSD. Runs cooler, more stable, and noticeably faster. I ran TRS19 for a bit on the newer configuration and got tempted after reading about TRS22 to see if was really optimized or better than TRS19. Sure enough, it seems better, and working very well. Seems like your iMac is just under spec'd from what I see. Only 8GB of memory, and your GPU is only 4GB. Which CPU does it actually have? Is it on SATA3 SSD or something else? I think I spent around $400 to update my system. I don't think I could get your iMac to be updated that well for four times the amount. I'm not bashing or dissing iMac, it is just what my experience has been.
 
rhban said:
I gave up on trs22, which was OK up to a point, but then suddenly developed so many faults that it was unworkable, and I changed back to trs19.
Since then, I've been working on one new route. From the near the beginning, I've had the same 15 trains and drivers and it was alll going well as I gradually added more scenery.
Suddenly, for no apparent reason, one of my trains is appearing without a driver. In Edit Session, map view, I can see the driver clearly marked in the correct locomotive. In Edit Session (the bit where you can see the drivers' orders). there he is again with his driving instructions and in the correct train. Bu now, in Drive, he turns up in no train at all, and the train he is supposed to be in is now a danger to other passing trains.
True, I don't have a supercomputer. Mine is an iMac:
33GHz, 6 core; graphics: AMD Radeon Pro 5300 4GB; Memory 8 GB.
Just what is required to run a trains route these days?
Click to expand...
is better you want better gravicx run trz 2017 trz 22 will be ok at low
 
I've got used to my iMac GPU rendering at a 'What The Butler Saw' kind of frame rate. Not just that, but my trains often overtake its best efforts so that they're often running (very jerkily) along the bare ballast waiting for the track to display. Bridges appear too late and scenic features may or may not pop into existence on a whim at the last millisecond. I've often thought it'd be nice to have a feature where TRAINZ can pre-render the run into a high-res, silky-smooth movie so that I can at least see how it ought to look even though it's not interactive.
 
johnnytrain said:
I've got used to my iMac GPU rendering at a 'What The Butler Saw' kind of frame rate. Not just that, but my trains often overtake its best efforts so that they're often running (very jerkily) along the bare ballast waiting for the track to display. Bridges appear too late and scenic features may or may not pop into existence on a whim at the last millisecond. I've often thought it'd be nice to have a feature where TRAINZ can pre-render the run into a high-res, silky-smooth movie so that I can at least see how it ought to look even though it's not interactive.
Click to expand...
It all depends on the content you're choosing to run. Some is more demanding than others.

Cheerio John
 
I would not abandon TRAINS. Adopt TS2019 as your N3V system. The computer industry has constructed a marketing scheme to keep people updating. Participating in that marketing process is N3V as they add "non-train" features designed to appeal visually to customers. I use TS2022 to see any great new visuals from N3V or maybe in hopes of TLR someday. As I switch between them I see no difference in function or visual presentation that encourages me to move to TS2022 permanently. As far as I am concerned N3V has chosen to market a new visual product with some new functions. But it is far from justifying a Thousand, or more, $$$ for a system to run it. Mine runs it, but at a cost of $1300.

There is also the issue of heat. Editing in TS2022 causes much more CPU heat endangering the +$1000 investment. The basic product is fantastic and a lot of fun to use - driving or drawing. Don't abandon - ADAPT.
 
boleyd said:
I would not abandon TRAINS. Adopt TS2019 as your N3V system. The computer industry has constructed a marketing scheme to keep people updating. Participating in that marketing process is N3V as they add "non-train" features designed to appeal visually to customers. I use TS2022 to see any great new visuals from N3V or maybe in hopes of TLR someday. As I switch between them I see no difference in function or visual presentation that encourages me to move to TS2022 permanently. As far as I am concerned N3V has chosen to market a new visual product with some new functions. But it is far from justifying a Thousand, or more, $$$ for a system to run it. Mine runs it, but at a cost of $1300.

There is also the issue of heat. Editing in TS2022 causes much more CPU heat endangering the +$1000 investment. The basic product is fantastic and a lot of fun to use - driving or drawing. Don't abandon - ADAPT.
Click to expand...
yes, with my *ahem* new experience with 2019 (messing around in ksc2 with tsi thomas models is fun) the lag does suffice for a nice almost real look to the game.
 
I get pauses for up to 25 seconds. Just enough to begin to panic about another "lock-up". Usually at a red signal with no other traffic on the route. That length of the red begins to make me worry that here is yet another unexplainable stoppage but then it goes green and the train moves on. It hits one more red and stops for many more seconds and then moves on. The stoppages seem a bit longer than in the past. Enough that I was replacing signals and chunks of track. But with "Trainz like patience" the red turns green and the train moves on. I am not sure if this is an attempt at reality or a chunk of software that needs attention. It may be reality and a reason for railroads being a poor investment.
 
marmalade32 said:
yes, with my *ahem* new experience with 2019 (messing around in ksc2 with tsi thomas models is fun) the lag does suffice for a nice almost real look to the game.
Click to expand...
I'll bet a few dollars for donuts that your pauses are caused by marginally bad scripts associated with the Thomas content in addition to some really overly done meshes without LOD along with oversized textures. I've seen this behavior with non-Thomas content and went on an asset search. Eventually, I narrowed the problem down to some really overly done buoys on a river. These minuscule assets that will never be seen caused an awful stutter every time I drove in their vicinity. To add insult to injury, the issue only occurred once and never again during the driving session.

After much hunting, hiding, deleting, and testing, I found the buggers and deleted them. After they were removed, the route runs fine even with the nearby busy freight yard and all the electric motors running on the tram line.
 
That makes the most sense I have seen for the mysterious stops at red. It shows that allowing everyone to create, with little care for other elements, is not so good.
At least the buoys have been shown to have, under specific conditions, a negative impact. That is a "decoration" that gets removed today.
You are like the TV stories that show the wizened detective that has kept on a case for years and finally solves it to everyone's surprise. THANKS
======================
I deleted all of my buoys but still had a mysterious stop-at-red in the yard. I really did not have much hope since my buoys were several miles from the yard. But, such diligence shows there is some hope in solving various mysteries that plague Trainz. You should get the N3V Inspector Jacques Clouseau award.
 
Last edited:
JCitron said:
I'll bet a few dollars for donuts that your pauses are caused by marginally bad scripts associated with the Thomas content in addition to some really overly done meshes without LOD along with oversized textures. I've seen this behavior with non-Thomas content and went on an asset search. Eventually, I narrowed the problem down to some really overly done buoys on a river. These minuscule assets that will never be seen caused an awful stutter every time I drove in their vicinity. To add insult to injury, the issue only occurred once and never again during the driving session.

After much hunting, hiding, deleting, and testing, I found the buggers and deleted them. After they were removed, the route runs fine even with the nearby busy freight yard and all the electric motors running on the tram line.
Click to expand...
Is there a Wiki that explains how to find assets with bad scripts, meshes with high polys and no LOD's? I would like to check thing before adding to my route.
 
mapsgame said:
Is there a Wiki that explains how to find assets with bad scripts, meshes with high polys and no LOD's? I would like to check thing before adding to my route.
Click to expand...
Step one is manage content, right click an asset and open, preview asset. That will give you the poly count and lod poly counts if they exist. Note it doesn't tell the whole story as Trainz sometimes picks up on repeats such as my 17_5 assets so their impact is less than it shows if you have a number of them in the scene.

Cheerio John
 
johnwhelan said:
Step one is manage content, right click an asset and open, preview asset. That will give you the poly count and lod poly counts if they exist. Note it doesn't tell the whole story as Trainz sometimes picks up on repeats such as my 17_5 assets so their impact is less than it shows if you have a number of them in the scene.

Cheerio John
Click to expand...
Thanks John, When an asset is previewed in CM is the poly count information and LOD poly counts automatically taken from the asset. Or is the date text imputed by the modeler? I am guessing its automatic.
 
mapsgame said:
Thanks John, When an asset is previewed in CM is the poly count information and LOD poly counts automatically taken from the asset. Or is the date text imputed by the modeler? I am guessing its automatic.
Click to expand...
The information is derived from the model. It's scary seeing the number of models with high poly counts and no LOD.

Finding bad assets, it comes down to a long-drawn-out process with a bit of sleuthing, hunches and sometimes the process of elimination. Many times, scripts don't error out and fail only when they are compiled at run time. These are the most difficult things to track down in my opinion.
 
mapsgame said:
Is there a Wiki that explains how to find assets with bad scripts, meshes with high polys and no LOD's? I would like to check thing before adding to my route.
Click to expand...
Look here and after that, look for "worst buffer count" and "worst index count". There you can find the culprits.
 
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