Why Are High-End Users Being Penalized for Memory Management?
Back in 2020, I built what I thought would be the ultimate Trainz machine. Two years of planning, $15K later, all for one purpose — to run Trainz at its absolute best.
Here are the specs:
- CPU: AMD Threadripper 3970x (Gen 3)
- RAM: 256GB DDR4 @ 3600MHz
- GPU: RTX 4090
- Storage: Multiple SSDs and hybrid drives (basically data center levels of I/O)
- PSU: 2x EVGA P+ 1600w
I knew Trainz was a resource hog — especially with massive routes, detailed locos, and tons of 3rd party content. That’s why I built this rig. My thinking was simple:
if I throw enough horsepower at it, I’ll be able to crank Trainz up as far as I want.
But here’s what I’ve come to realize: the settings I see in Trainz aren’t always the settings I’m actually getting. N3V has memory management running in the background, within the limits of Windows memory management, that overrides user settings.
Paul Olsen pointed out that some routes and locos can hit memory ceilings very quickly. That leads to memory swapping to disk — which tanks performance. Okay, fair enough. But instead of tackling the
real issues (like broken assets, bad scripts, or obsolete script overhead), N3V seems to have applied a blanket throttle to everyone through forced memory management.
The problems aren’t new:
- Obsolete scripts are still supported for compatibility, which adds overhead.
- Poorly written scripts that never terminate can eat cycles forever, which is why timeouts were added in the first place.
- Some content creators just bump the build number instead of fixing problems, leaving performance-killing assets in circulation.
Instead of dealing with that legacy baggage, the answer seems to be “cap Trainz so nobody breaks it.” And the result? Even with a workstation-class PC built specifically for this sim, I’m being treated like someone running on a 10-year-old laptop with integrated graphics.
That makes the in-game settings feel redundant. Why pick 5km draw distance if the back-end quietly clamps it lower? Why build a system with 256GB of RAM if Trainz refuses to use it?
Until N3V explains exactly what their memory management system is doing, I’m holding judgment. But right now, it feels like paying for
Plus Gold actually gets me
less control and
worse performance on hardware that could easily handle more.
Why should high-end users be penalized for bad assets and decade-old machines? At the very least, give us an
Advanced Mode with transparency (tell me if you’re overriding my settings) and a true override option (let me use my hardware to its fullest, and if it breaks, that’s on me).
I built this system for Trainz. I pay for the top subscription tier. I expected the freedom to run the sim at the limits of my hardware. Instead, I feel like I’m being held back by decisions aimed at the lowest common denominator.
Anyone else here feel the same way?