Loading Time

[dzien50]

Hi
I hope I explain this to make sense.
When in driver and you switch from one train to another on a different part of the layout why does it take so long to load everything, ie buildings, signals, vehicles etc ? and why always locos last?
I have a pretty good computer and wonder what settings in trainzoptions should be used to aquire the best results.
Any ideas ?
Cheers
PJ

 

[Captain_Collins]

It's just the way trainz sends the info the graphics card, I suppose. If you think about it, the HDD can get hold of a 5KB tree or a 1KB texture faster than it can get hold of a 5MB engine shell, then more parts of the engine afterwards.

 

[dzien50]

Does everyone suffer with this then ? in extreme cases it can take up to 20 odd secs to load and your saying there is nothing I can do about it ?
I've noticed my children playing their games on playstation/x box etc and they do not have this problem, just seems strange to me. However my computer knowledge is almost zero so maybe I just don't understand how things work
Cheers
PJ

 

[Stationbeem]

The same thing happens to me. It depends on how much content you have downloaded. I have found it takes longer the more items you have installed in trainz.

 

[AB80135]

Re loading

The more memory you have the faster it works.Trainz uses a heck of a lot of memory,trainz used to take an age to load before i invested in some more memory,i have 4gb now and swapping to a different loco is more or less instant.hope this helps.

 

[dzien50]

Hi
Like I said i'm pretty dumb when it comes to computers. the system I have is as follows :

Dell Dimension 9200 intel Viiv core 2 duo 2.40Ghz
Hard drive 640GB
Memory 4096MB (4x1024)
Graphics card Single 768MB nVidia GeForce 8800GTX

I bought it in june 2007, what do you think ?
I have no idea how good/bad this is. Also its sole use is Trainz, other than internet/email and the inbuilt systems there is nothing else thats been added/downloaded.
I thought that besides the system you have how the trainzoption file is set up can make a big difference, but I don't know what config to use, again any help on this would be useful.

Any general Comments from those in the know would be appreciated.
Cheers
PJ

 

[Captain_Collins]

Hi
Like I said i'm pretty dumb when it comes to computers. the system I have is as follows :

Dell Dimension 9200 intel Viiv core 2 duo 2.40Ghz
Hard drive 640GB
Memory 4096MB (4x1024)
Graphics card Single 768MB nVidia GeForce 8800GTX

I bought it in june 2007, what do you think ?
I have no idea how good/bad this is. Also its sole use is Trainz, other than internet/email and the inbuilt systems there is nothing else thats been added/downloaded.
I thought that besides the system you have how the trainzoption file is set up can make a big difference, but I don't know what config to use, again any help on this would be useful.

Any general Comments from those in the know would be appreciated.
Cheers
PJ

This computer should run trainz very easily. It is a high spec machine. As I said above, the main problem is probably that the hard drive cannot get data to the graphics card quick enough so there is a delay in "drawing" the trains on the screen. I find the best solution is to lower the draw distance slightly.

 

[johnwhelan]

I'm thinking that an SSD (solid state drive) device might help here, the load times should be very fast but its new technology and a bit expensive at the moment so the thought would be to just put Trainz on it.

Cheerio John

 

[Captain_Collins]

I'm thinking that an SSD (solid state drive) device might help here, the load times should be very fast but its new technology and a bit expensive at the moment so the thought would be to just put Trainz on it.

Cheerio John

Problem at the moment is that the tech is not as good as it is going to get and it is still much more expensive than it is going to get. Right now I would not recommend an SSD for a couple of years. What I would recommend, though is a 10,000RPM drive. It may be more cost effective currently.

 

[Dermmy]

Hi PJ

20 seconds to cache on a view change seems extreme, specially with your specs. It would be interesting to know which route(s) you have this problem with and how much additional rolling stock is in use.

Andy...

 

[nismit]

Sure a scene can be to intense even for 768 MB graphics, content on a route may sum up to much more than 4 GB bytes.

In that case a fixed size pagefile for virtual memory may perform better than the default dynamic size determined by Windows. One to three times the size of physical RAM.

640 GB in one partition will slow down disk access & running the indexing service will cause glistches in the frame rate.

A resident virus shield should exclude the trainz folder from scanning on load.

Higher resolution involves more data.

Faulty or missing assets does not improve matters either.

/nis

 

[dzien50]

Thanks for replies, however I'm not a computer buff, far from it and I don't know about the things your suggesting. I thought the trainzoption file played a major part in how trainz run which is why I started a seperate thread to try and get some idea how to set mine up for best results.

The layout I'm currently having these problems with is " Gilby & Wallace" but I also get them on "Midwest Central" for example.
I don't really want to spend more on this system just get the best out of it, so I'm interested in other peoples Trainzoptions set ups.

I read somewhere that the resource memory should be 3/4 of the systems memory so does that mean I set it at 3072 ?
Its very confusing, I can't seem to find a document that explains in very simple terms what all the settings mean and what they do ?

Cheers
PJ

 

[Captain_Collins]

Thanks for replies, however I'm not a computer buff, far from it and I don't know about the things your suggesting. I thought the trainzoption file played a major part in how trainz run which is why I started a seperate thread to try and get some idea how to set mine up for best results.

The layout I'm currently having these problems with is " Gilby & Wallace" but I also get them on "Midwest Central" for example.
I don't really want to spend more on this system just get the best out of it, so I'm interested in other peoples Trainzoptions set ups.

I read somewhere that the resource memory should be 3/4 of the systems memory so does that mean I set it at 3072 ?
Its very confusing, I can't seem to find a document that explains in very simple terms what all the settings mean and what they do ?

Cheers
PJ

Trainz can only use 2 GB of RAM, so you should have the Resource Memory option in your trainzoptions.txt set to 2048.

 

[johnwhelan]

Thanks for replies, however I'm not a computer buff, far from it and I don't know about the things your suggesting. I thought the trainzoption file played a major part in how trainz run which is why I started a seperate thread to try and get some idea how to set mine up for best results.

The layout I'm currently having these problems with is " Gilby & Wallace" but I also get them on "Midwest Central" for example.
I don't really want to spend more on this system just get the best out of it, so I'm interested in other peoples Trainzoptions set ups.

I read somewhere that the resource memory should be 3/4 of the systems memory so does that mean I set it at 3072 ?
Its very confusing, I can't seem to find a document that explains in very simple terms what all the settings mean and what they do ?

Cheers
PJ

OK let's start with the basics. I suspect your hard drive is part of the problem. So first step is let's look at the hard drive. Click on my computer, then look at how much data is on the hard drive. If it's more than 80% full performance will suffer so delete things to bring it well below 80%. Empty the recycle bin before you start and after you have deleted anything.

Next step is to try to get the files clustered together. The perfectionist way is to copy the files onto a freshly formatted drive. DO NOT do this unless you are very confident you know exactly what you are doing. The simple method is almost as good, right click the drive and click on properties, tools then defrag. Defrag the drive.

After that it probably would be advantageous to fix the swap file. Windows calls this virtual memory, start button, help and support, enter "virtual memory" in the search window. Follow the instructions and it will guide you to the virtual memory settings. Set it to a fixed amount 1.5 times real memory is a reasonable value. Windows can spend a lot of disk activity on increasing or decreasing this file which can affect performance.

Trainzoptions.txt file varys a little in name from version to version. The entries also vary a little in their effects. The version of Trainz also has an impact. TC3 is the most efficent today. You cancopy in the .ja files from earlier versions but rename them first to put TRS2006 on the front.

-nolog will improve performance slightly.
-showkuids will show the kuid in surveyor.
-ResourceMemory=1536 seems to work on my system.

Cheerio John

 

[dzien50]

Hi
Thanks Capt. I'll try reducing it to 2048.

John
I only use this computer for trainz, it says Total size 591GB, Free Space 463GB. I defrag every week.
I found the virtual memory but all it says is Initial size 2046MB, Maximum size 4092, so i'm not quite sure what your advice is here ? can you expand please.
I have nolog, and showkuids

Cheers
PJ

 

[john259]

On paper that computer should be powerful but some Trainz layouts challenge even the highest spec machines.

We have a write-up on the various commands that can be used in trainzoptions.txt here. It's mainly geared towards TRS2004 but it might be of some use to you.

HTH, John

 

[JCitron]

Hi
Thanks Capt. I'll try reducing it to 2048.

John
I only use this computer for trainz, it says Total size 591GB, Free Space 463GB. I defrag every week.
I found the virtual memory but all it says is Initial size 2046MB, Maximum size 4092, so i'm not quite sure what your advice is here ? can you expand please.
I have nolog, and showkuids

Cheers
PJ

This is very easy to update, PJ.

Uncheck the "Let windows manage the page file automtically" option (It reads something like that, but you get the idea).

Click on Custom Size
In the little windows that open up to the right, put in 4092 and 4092. This will ensure that the page file remains the same size all the time and Windows doesn't have to continously manage the size of the page file.

I also recommend doing this after your hard drive has been defragmented to ensure that the page file is as contiguous as possible. A badly fragmented page file can cause performance problems.

Your machine isn't much different than mine with your graphics card having more memory than mine, and my hard drives are a little bigger. My biggest lag is when I first start, but after that the program runs smoothly.

John

 

[dzien50]

Hi
Thanks, I cannot see anything like " let windows manage etc" is it on the same window as the 4092 box ? Sorry I know I'm dumb !!!!
Cheers
PJ

 

[JCitron]

Hi
Thanks, I cannot see anything like " let windows manage etc" is it on the same window as the 4092 box ? Sorry I know I'm dumb !!!!
Cheers
PJ

You are not dumb. They make computers confusing to keep uninformed people from doing the job that geeks are supposed to know so you'll have to hire them at really high rates to do things like this.

I assumed you went in deeper than you did.

If you are running XP or Windows Vista:

Right mouse-button click on My Computer or Computer.
Choose Properties...
The specs come up about your PC.

In Vista, choose Advanced Settings. I can't recall what it is in XP. I think it's a tab. Anyway,

Look for the section called Performance.
Click on Settings... Then Advanced

This is where the option is to let Windows manage your page file and the rest of the instructions (or destructions if you're paranoid) are good to follow on from.

You'll need to restart your computer once the change is made.

Good luck.

John

 

[dzien50]

Hi
Thanks for that, I'll see how these new settings work and hope for an improvement. Its great that there are people like you willing to help us stone age guys !!!!!
Cheers
PJ