Large route makes Trainz unstable

[rwk]

I tried loading a large route that is incomplete but is DEM based, and sometimes the side icons for the different menus disappear. The route is about 185 MB. When is a route too large? Does it depend on your computer? Would a high end gaming PC handle large routes better without Trainz becoming unstable and the route taking forever to load and save? Oh, and an NMVe SSD? I have one I got used on ebay last Oct. 10 with Win 10 on it, the old computer with Trainz on it has Win 8.1 and a 3GB GTX card, the other computer has an 8GB RTX 2070 card.

 

[martinvk]

Size matters, as does the hardware you're using. I'm loading a 2478 MB route but it's on a 64 GB computer with a RTX4060 and it's pretty fast. All this using TRS22PE 129335

 

[rwk]

So a beefier graphics card would help with large routes? I have a second computer with Win 10 and an RTX2070 Super for games that require DirectX 12 and Win 10 minimum and beefier graphics card, like Planet Coaster 2 by Frontier which is in the UK. Also, I have a smaller version of a route that I could merge with the other route, using DEM to bridge the gap, the two routes are Reading and Northern 19 post-2020 on the DLS and NS Reading Line by Rooneth Josh Drumm. The problem is the NS Reading route is a lower elevation than the Reading and Northern route, the elevations don't match north of Reading, I did raise a copy of the NS Reading route over 10+ years ago to match an older version of Reading and Northern using TransDEM but I don't have it anymore, I would have to buy a newer version and apparently you can't raise and lower routes in newer Trainz versions. I can't find a copy of the NS Reading route by itself with elevation raised in TS12 or TANE to merge with the newer Reading and Northern route in 19. I do have a Manville DEM route though which is blank DEM from Reading, PA to Bound Brook, NJ including branch lines and I could merge that with Reading and Northern 19 by trimming some baseboards off DEM I added from Hamburg to north of Reading at the southern end north of Reading to merge it. I did nothice though that the Manville DEM Tiger lines are off a bit compared with the map overlay on the DEM I created in TransDEM 10+ years ago from Hamburg to north of Reading. That's probably because TransDEM DEM's are more accurate and Fishlipsatwork's and others blank DEM's were made with HOG and are not as accurate and their lat and long can be off. So, a merge between a HOG DEM and a TransDEM DEM might not match exactly at the merge point. TransDEM had a tool to shift the lat and long of routes but I no longer have access to that at this time.

 

[pware]

My largest route is 425MB in size (and still growing). It runs without any issues on a 16GB system with an RTX3036Ti GPU. It also runs equally well on an older 16GB laptop with a GTX1050Ti GPU.

I restrict my choice of scenery assets and ground textures down to a reasonable number and I keep a careful watch on how many high poly assets are used in the same scene. Towns are where you can easily go "overboard" with buildings so I restrict the higher poly assets to close to the track and populate the more distant areas with low poly versions that are often repeated - it is amazing what you can hide with foliage. These measures help enormously.

When I use TurfFX and Clutter I keep them mostly close to the track - there is no benefit in painting these effect layers out to the distant hills as you sometimes see in some routes.

 

[ajrf]

My largest route is 425MB in size (and still growing). It runs without any issues on a 16GB system with an RTX3036Ti GPU. It also runs equally well on an older 16GB laptop with a GTX1050Ti GPU.

I restrict my choice of scenery assets and ground textures down to a reasonable number and I keep a careful watch on how many high poly assets are used in the same scene. Towns are where you can easily go "overboard" with buildings so I restrict the higher poly assets to close to the track and populate the more distant areas with low poly versions that are often repeated - it is amazing what you can hide with foliage. These measures help enormously.

When I use TurfFX and Clutter I keep them mostly close to the track - there is no benefit in painting these effect layers out to the distant hills as you sometimes see in some routes.

The one I'm building right now is around 1.5-1.6 GB (i don't remember the exact figure right now). And it's still a WIP.

 

[JCitron]

There is definitely a route size limit that puts a load on your hardware. I found that if you increase your Windows page file to at least 1.5 times the size of your installed RAM. This will give Windows a chance to swap stuff out of memory to all Trainz to operate better. The more physical RAM of course is better. Even with this increase, you are eventually going to hit a brick wall and the only solution is to increase the physical RAM if you can do that.

The other issue is in fact the program gets goofy. I noticed with my really large route that the AI can have issues navigating over the length of the route. The operation starts out fine in the beginning but over time as drivers enter from portals and the route becomes busy, things start to fall apart even with the changes N3V made with the segment loading. AI trains will start stopping at signals and staying there even though the signal is green but move when manually driven beyond the green signal, they may skip track marks and run signals, or later on refuse to budge at all even when urged along.

 

[martinvk]

I wonder if internal tables and to-do lists are overflowing in those cases.? Plus the more alternatives to a given destination exist, the more paths that have to be evaluated to find the optimum one.. And if other drivers pick the same path, those conflicts have to be resolved.

 

[JCitron]

I wonder if internal tables and to-do lists are overflowing in those cases.?

That's very possible. I had spoken with the QA Team about this ages ago and they said that it's due to all the threads that need to be kept track of. I'm sure the internal tables too are part of this. It makes sense.

 

[rwk]

I found a smaller version of the NS Reading route with DEM attached to Hamburg, PA to merge with the Reading and Northern route that I could try.

 

[martinvk]

Don't forget that when you start to merge, the total map size will also increase and you might end up back where you started with a too large map for your computer.

 

[rwk]

I'm going to try merging and then save as a CDP to see the MB size. I would like it to be under 200 MB if possible. I'm also not going to finish all the blank areas, like the unfinished Reading and Northern branches. Maybe lay some track and do sparse scenery.