Nice Hello from Austria, .....gridsize, groundtexture, boardsize, Trianz HD

[Chris1044]

Dear Trainz friends,

i'm sorry, i speak german and only little bit english, .....but i want deposit the information: We need more as 16 groundtexture in Trainz HD.
Many users in europe are very, very angry about this max. 16 groundtexture rule in Trainz HD. Many user in europe quit Trainz in the last years about this.
We want a changeable gridsize with 0,125, ....0,250 .....0,500m with changeable 16, 32 or 64 groundtexture. The step 0,125 or 5m gridsize is to big.

An other option if there is no technical way to change the grid size with more grondtextures is to make changeable board size when starting a new map, 720mx720m or 360m x360m or 180m x 180m. We don't know what is technical posible, but the situation now in Trainz HD with max 16 textures is no soulution for many many european users. .....and the not stable unterground in european montain routes is the other big problem for us in Trainz HD.

We know we need a RTX 4090 or RTX5080 to get a good performance if we want build high quality Trainz HD Map. This is no problem, we have this. I use HighEnd PC for 7.000,- Euro.
If you make your game only for low and midclass computer, we have to look for a other game.

Best regards
Christian

This picture is make based on TRAINZ HD: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbi....3441245509375400&idorvanity=1128504953982812

I make last years lot of positiv marketing for TRAINZ in Usergroups with lot of Train interesst people. But i will stop all this 2026, because N3V not fix the Trainz HD problems:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1128504953982812/user/100009928756273/

 

[Forester1]

Unfortunately, as I understand it, this is not up to Trainz but the actual current graphics drivers or something. Someone else can probably explain it more technically, but it is not something Trainz or anyone else can do as I understand it. To quit Trainz over it is not a reasonable response. Here is a post from Zec Murphy that mentions the current limits: https://forums.auran.com/threads/hd-terrain-and-transdem-textures.174751/post-1984271

 

[pware]

@Forester1 is correct. The 16 texture limit per baseboard is a hardware issue, not caused by Trainz.

Other games and sims that use HD or its equivalent have the same problem. Some sims restrict you to even fewer textures, 8 for example.

Note that it is 16 textures per baseboard and not 16 per route. Each baseboard can have 16 different textures, the same textures or have other different textures added to the 16.

Trainz HD also has a colour effect layer that allows you to add unlimited colour tinting to the baseboards that can help overcome this restriction.

 

[grazlash]

Even with 5m or 10m grid and more textures available with multi pass rendering, I dont think I would ever have used or needed more than 16 separate textures on a 720x720m tile/baseboard over the hundreds of baseboards I have textured.
I think Chris definitely has his wires crossed and thinks it is 16 textures over the entire route.

 

[pware]

Even with 5m or 10m grid and more textures available with multi pass rendering, I dont think I would ever have used or needed more than 16 separate textures on a 720x720m tile/baseboard over the hundreds of baseboards I have textured.

The first time I upgraded a 10m route to HD using the Upgrade option from the main menu, it reported only a single baseboard, out of hundreds, that exceeded the 16 texture limit. Another equally large route that I upgraded had no baseboards over the limit.

So I agree. 16 textures per baseboard (and remember that they can be 16 completely different textures on each baseboard) can be more than enough for most purposes.

 

[JCitron]

The first time I upgraded a 10m route to HD using the Upgrade option from the main menu, it reported only a single baseboard, out of hundreds, that exceeded the 16 texture limit. Another equally large route that I upgraded had no baseboards over the limit.

So I agree. 16 textures per baseboard (and remember that they can be 16 completely different textures on each baseboard) can be more than enough for most purposes.

This is true for my own route building, however, the color limit impacts TransDEM topographic map textures. Using the UTM tiles is fine for those that aren't rebuilding historic lines that have been buried over by reservoirs or other raised land. Older topographic maps will still show the riverbed for instance on top of the flattened water surface behind a dam. Using the 5 meter grid, a user can easily dig out the flat water and bring that down to the original riverbed height by translating the measurements and using a bit of artistic license. With HD terrain, these textures are either missing or become schmutz on the surface making interpolation and interpretation impossible for these lines because they limited to the 16 textures per baseboard.

 

[pware]

the color limit impacts TransDEM topographic map textures

But even so, it is a hardware issue not a software issue. So unless a programming genius somewhere can come up with a brilliant software work-around we will be stuck with the limitation until hardware and computer manufacturers can provide more advanced hardware that will fit into a desktop chassis (or even better, a laptop that doesn't break your knees). No doubt such a solution will be expensive.

 

[JCitron]

But even so, it is a hardware issue not a software issue. So unless a programming genius somewhere can come up with a brilliant software work-around we will be stuck with the limitation until hardware and computer manufacturers can provide more advanced hardware that will fit into a desktop chassis (or even better, a laptop that doesn't break your knees). No doubt such a solution will be expensive.

Yup. It is a hardware issue making the HD terrain useless where it could be most useful. Perhaps when we have processors and video cards that are many times faster and capable of processing the higher number of faces and textures needed for HD terrain, we'll be able to use it with programs such as TransDEM.