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Thank you very much for sharing your experiences.Going to Mac mini M4 Pro from a M3 MacBook Pro as expected Trainz sucked the life out of the battery and needed to be plugged in while using Trainz.
@pdkoester Not sure how you feel but - Personally - I feel Trainz 22 Plus is not programmed with any Apple silicon machines in mind and it is holding all Apple silicon machines back from running to their full potential. Not sure of this but there aren't many Trainz updates or betas for Mac OS and I can't find any kind of version Change logs or sales/ad statements specifically mentioning Apple silicon on website. Not sure about same on Steam as I don't use. Also, it is worth noting that I am running Mac OS 15.2 Sequoia Beta 2 and after all it is a beta. This is not a Trainz Only machine and is almost a direct copy of my M3 MacBook Pro. I am debating on moving Virtual Box w Linux Distros, Plex and some File Servers off my 2011 Mac mini server, which is running Sequoia via OCLP but it runs smooth as butter as a "headless" server... This 2011 Mac mini server (there was a reg and a server version).. won't die folks. LOL.
After a weekend of testing using Kickstarter County (TRS 22) for several hours at a time I found the "sweet spot" utilizing the machines SSD over RAID0 and an external SSD.
I have everything maxed out except Shadow and Post Processing which I set to High. Personally I demand 8x anti-aliasing over FPS, by choice, but still managed to stay in the range of 30-40 fps, as per the Trainz Profiler function. I will not give up 8x anti-aliasing so FPS takes a hit. I utilized between 14-20% CPU and 5-6GB RAM. In Route/Session Settings - Scenery Detail, Tree Detail and Post Processing are set to High.
For 5x5x2 box with all its power that only uses 140w at max and 5w at idle..you can't beat it.
Is Kickstarter County (TRS 22) a "machine buttkicker" or do I need to try another route that is more demanding?
it will certainly run a lot cooler. i use the mac pro to warm up the back of the house in the cooler Australian seasons as we have good insulation, it works a treat, and as I'm using the power anyway its killing two birds with one stone, of course the obverse applies in the summer, it gets the computer room rather hot !! a Mac mini would be handy then !Thanks for taking the time to test and report your findings.
It looks to me like the Mini M4 Pro will meet my requirements. I build and operate my own route, designed to run relatively smoothly at mid settings on a 14-year-old Mac Pro. However, running more than one consist causes the frame rates to drop too low. The Mini M4 Pro should be able to handle it and then some. Like dangavel, I’ll be 73 in January, so I expect this to be my last Mac as well (the 6th since 1984). If, at some point in the future, Trainz requirements become too demanding for the M4 Pro, I’ll just stick with whatever version works.
Still need to get my head around the fact that this little mini package will replace my big beautiful tower.
OlWhat screen resolution are you using?
Thanks for the info.
casey
Excellted above I am all "dialed in" and it runs well on Sequoia 15.2 Beta 3. All in all.. I am very happy with it all now and don't mean to sound negative.Trainz has had Metal and ASi code since Trainz 19 SP3, however required Big Sur at a minimum since then. This did improve the frame rates. One thread at the beginning of ASi support. I don't think they have added further optimizations.
Like I said, I don’t think they have done any further optimizations. It was that version that we finally got Metal optimizations. I think they were able to do ASi so fast as they already had iPad and iPhone code.Excellent info but from 2021..Thanks for thinking about my question and posting the link. I am very happy it says Trainz is running on native code vs an emulator. Up to date native code or from 2021? There have been 4 new Mac OS's since Big Sur/2021. To be fair, I guess there are some that still able to run Trainz on Windows 7 and a majority of Trainz users don't use Macs. I do look forward to using the next Trainz Mac Beta to see if I and others get full better performance within the game from today's higher core CPUs and GPUs.
I need to check if the Windows side gets full use/performance of higher core CPU and GPUs in Trainz now? What results are they getting? Personally, I couldn't care about high FPS, as long as it's reasonable, I'm ok. I do demand AA 8X which I am getting now and very happy with. Maybe I am over zealous but as I stated above I am all "dialed in" and it runs well on Sequoia 15.2 Beta 3. All in all.. I am very happy with it all now and don't mean to sound negative.
NoyyyyBest thing to do is submit a request to them with your findings and what you want them to improve.