Performance and pauses, sometimes "freezing".

[sniper297]

Issues with frequent "pausing" in 2009, 2010, and 12 (latest builds on all three), sometimes lasting longer than the usual 3-5 seconds, which usually leads to total lock.

System specs;

Operating System: Windows XP Media Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 3
Model: Dell DXP051
CPU: Intel(R) Pentium(R) D CPU 3.40GHz (2 CPUs)
Memory: 2GB Crucial Ballistix
Video: NVIDIA GeForce GT430 1GB
Sound: SB Audigy
Hard Drives:
C:Western Digital WD5000AAKX-001CA0 462.0 GB 7200rpm
F:SanDisk SDSSDH120GG25 114.5 GB solid state drive

Trying out a new utility recommended by JCitron from http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653

That's what I got running at startup, no fluff allowed. Fire up Trainz in windowed mode, select a route and session, drive;

That's the usual, 60-80 percent CPU usage for trainz.exe. Switch to #4 view and roam around is usually the quickest way to trigger the pause in driver;

And that's what I get, trainz.exe drops to 0% CPU, TADDaemon jumps up to 50% CPU, after a few seconds TADDaemon drops back to 0% and trainz.exe starts running again. Happens a lot more frequently in surveyor, even on brand new routes with little to no detail.

 

[norfolksouthern37]

Sparky, you should get Marc Nelson started on JET sometime, lotsa fun. :hehe: Robert, no. I spent two years throwing money at the problem, along with uninstalling and reinstalling XNA and .NET Framework and every driver possible, completely uninstalled the antivirus to see if that was a suspect - in short, yes I DID consider the problem might be on my end, which is why I spent money I couldn't afford to upgrade to minimum (CPU) or better (everything else) trying to overpower the problem. Next step, not showing in my station stops because it's registered in my son's account, I bought TRS2009. Why?

Specification

Minimum Specification
OS: Windows XP SP3
Memory: 1GB
Graphics: 64 MB 3D Graphics Card
Processor: Pentium 4 - 2.2Ghz
Hard Drive: 3GB Free Space

Recomended Specification
OS: Windows Vista
Memory: 1.5GB
Graphics: 128 MB 3D Graphics Card
Processor: Pentium 4 - 2.2Ghz
Hard Drive: 4GB Free Space

I beat the pants off of those specs even before throwing all that money at hardware

You threw money at 'upgrading' to meet minimum specs? you dont 'beat the pants off' this. no matter what with a pentium D you are not going to get good performance.

Sniper (Jim),

I think your biggest bottleneck is you CPU and RAM on your system.

Pentium D 2.8 / Pentium D 3.4
1gb RAM / 2gb RAM

The Pentium D, no matter how fast they made the chip, does not have the bus width or the cache to handle the information it is supposed to process. Now adding in a smaller amount of system memory at 1-2GB you're seeing a system that is going to cache a lot of its programs to disk. This causes a much bigger drop in performance as now the disk is kicking in too often. If you could bump up your RAM to 4.0 GB, you'd see better performance, but not a super, super increase because that Pentium D still doesn't have a wide enough bus or cache to handle the huge amount of data it is being fed.

That is exactly right... not much more to be said or repeated here.

By rights 2009 should run reasonably well on a P4 2.2 because that's what it says on the box - a Pentium D is way faster than a P4, so it should run like a dream instead of waddling like a crippled pregnant turtle. Why it doesn't I have no idea, why three versions of Trainz run so badly while all my other video games run great I have no idea, what exactly TADDaemon is supposed to be doing or not doing I don't care, I've seen it on task manager and I have used internet port monitors, along with memory tests and CPU and GPU temperature monitors, whatever it is I'm tired of troubleshooting after two years, I just wanna play the blasted game and have it work. On this system, which however old it is meets or exceeds specifications for the game. If it was designed to require win 7 64 and an i7 CPU it should have said that on the label.

as explained above, no it isnt better. I also find it very hard to believe that everything else runs great - except trainz. Like i mentioned before. i have a Pentuim D that i use as a server and is connected to my livingroom TV. My son plays games on it sometimes. Do they work? Yes. Do they work really well? Not Really. Minimum specs mean it will work with this. doesnt say it will be a mindblowing wonderful experience, and never should you expect it to be on bare minimum. this is not just true for Trainz but everything else too...

Frankly, I can't believe you're commenting on how we need to throw more computer at a simulator that hasn't changed a whole lot in ten years.

You seem to say that it has not changed in years yet say that it changed so much it wont run anymore... so which one is it?

Same content, same hokey tracks, just now we have SpeedTrees and if you want to access the DLS, deal with it.

As a matter of personal pride...Bullsh!t.

 

[NickyVeee]

Minimum specs mean it will work with this. doesnt say it will be a mindblowing wonderful experience, and never should you expect it to be on bare minimum. this is not just true for Trainz but everything else too...

That ^

(10)

 

[sniper297]

Well, maybe I'm all befuddled here. I was under the impression that the Pentium 4 was the last of the single core series, Pentium D was the first generation of dual core, so if the RECOMMENDED specs call for a Pentium 4 2.2, then a Pentium D 2.8 should make it run like a dream. Apparently I had it backwards, a Pentium 4 is better than a Pentium D? I'm totally lost on the TADDaemon thing too, everyone is telling me TADDaemon never pops up to grab CPU cycles while the game is running, so apparently I hallucinated the third picture in the first post.

Thanks, I'll sleep better now that I've had all that cleared up.

 

[norfolksouthern37]

well you can clearly see it did, probably because it was cached somewhere due to other programs running.

 

[sniper297]

First pic shows what processes were running at the time I started Trainz. No other programs other than the process explorer utility.

 

[norfolksouthern37]

probably between trainz and anything else windoze is doing with the CPU, when TADD is inactive its getting pushed to the side, suddenly requiring use by trainz it has to come back. you can see the monitor program is showing this.

i am very sorry. i know from your responses that this is not how you want the answer to be, but the CPU+hardware cant do it. it isnt the program you are running, it is what you are running the program with.

i have also tried this monitor program, and it is very informative. analyze what it is saying about tadd while it is running, notice it is not using the network when these pauses are happening. your window shows a spike in disk access. also i notice that tadd and trainz are never using cpu at the same time, probably because the cpu does not allow them to. on my system using this program, they always have a number next to them and are always active. during a test run Trainz was using 24.5% cpu and TADD said 0.03 most of the idle time, then jumped to 23-25% at times and back again. this made no noticeable change in performance or game play.

 

[sniper297]

Well, I think you're misunderstanding what I'm getting at - unless you know something I don't about the Pentium D, I would EXPECT that any game calling for a Pentium 4 2.2 (single core) as recommended would be happy with a Pentium D (next generation, dual core) 6mhz faster, and I should theoretically be able to run that game full tilt boogie with the sliders maxed out. It don't. TS2010 on the other hand doesn't call for a Pentium 4 2.2 recommended, it calls for a Pentium D 3.4 as a minimum - so there I would expect it to run reasonably smooth with all the detail sliders set to bare minimum since I have a Pentium D 3.4. It don't. A LITTLE stuttering and OCCASIONAL pauses when loading scenery would be understandable even at minimum detail and quality settings, but this is WAY beyond reasonable. I never expected it to run smoothly at the highest detail settings with my system, that's light years away from what I'm talking about here. And there have been others with much better specs than mine reporting similar problems, the whole purpose of this thread is to figure out what we have in common - example, maybe all the people having the pauses and freezes have .NET Framework 2.0 Service Pack 2 installed, and all the people without problems have some other version.

 

[norfolksouthern37]

Well, I think you're misunderstanding what I'm getting at - unless you know something I don't about the Pentium D, I would EXPECT that any game calling for a Pentium 4 2.2 (single core) as recommended would be happy with a Pentium D (next generation, dual core) 6mhz faster, and I should theoretically be able to run that game full tilt boogie with the sliders maxed out. It don't.

what game are you referring to here?

TS2010 on the other hand doesn't call for a Pentium 4 2.2 recommended, it calls for a Pentium D 3.4 as a minimum - so there I would expect it to run reasonably smooth with all the detail sliders set to bare minimum since I have a Pentium D 3.4. It don't.

Again meeting minimum isnt intended to give you a good show, it is to set a minimum level for operation. congratulations you can start the game.

I never expected it to run smoothly at the highest detail settings with my system, that's light years away from what I'm talking about here.

That is wise, seeing that it is impossible by any stretch at your specs.

And there have been others with much better specs than mine reporting similar problems, the whole purpose of this thread is to figure out what we have in common - example, maybe all the people having the pauses and freezes have .NET Framework 2.0 Service Pack 2 installed, and all the people without problems have some other version.

okay, that is fine, but that isn't how i remember getting here. it was that the TADD program was somehow doing something wrong by checking the download station by forcibly devouring CPU and should be written better and changed so the lead motorcycle could move. so far there has been the total misunderstanding of what the program does, and because you dont know, it must be the problem. if you would like to continue on and hear the other forum users with the same problem you have then that is very well. i will stop trying to tell you why it is happening to you.


Let's begin by listing the reccomended specs for the trainz builds

TS2009:

MINIMUM SPEC
Pentium IV 2.2GHz (or equivalent)
1GB RAM
64MB 3D Graphics Card (NVIDIA GeForce2 or equivalent)
Windows XP Service Pack 2
1024x768 display resolution


RECOMMENDED SPEC

Intel Core 2 Duo (or equivalent)
2GB RAM
256MB 3D Graphics Card (NVIDIA GeForce7 Series or equivalent)
Windows XP Service Pack 2
1024x768 display resolution



TS2010 and 12:

MINIMUM SPEC
Windows XP (SP3)
1GB RAM
Pentium D 3.4GHz (or equivalent)
nVidia Geforce 7200/128MB (or equivalent)
15GB Free Hard Drive Space


RECOMMENDED SPEC
Windows Vista/Windows 7 (64bit)
2GB RAM
Core 2 Duo (or equivalent)
nVidia Geforce 8600 (or equivalent)
15GB Free Hard Drive Space

 

[sniper297]

We might be looking on different pages;

http://www.simulatorcentral.com/index.php/trainz-simulator-2009-world-builder-edition.html

Possibly that's a misprint and they meant to say core 2 duo instead of P4 2.2. As for the evil Daemon, no, I don't know what it does, I was taking a guess based on test results. Money mysteriously disappears from the bank vault overnight on the 9th, 12th, 14th, 18th, 23rd, 27th and 29th of Janutober, Danny Daemon was seen near the bank on the nights of the 9th, 12th, 14th, 18th, 23rd, 27th and 29th of Janutober, who will be your first suspect? At the moment I don't HAVE any other suspects since nothing else is showing up when the pauses hit. Someone in the other thread mentioned McAfee again, again I say unto thee McAfee was my first suspect so I completely uninstalled it to run tests for several days, and conclusively proved to my satisfaction that McAfee has zero effect on performance or the problem.

And yeah, I get that I need a new computer, I need TWO new computers since my son also runs Trainz, but that's not gonna happen for years, if ever. That's why I bought 2009, under the assumption that it had lower requirements and therefore would run better, but once patched to SP4 it has the exact same problems as 2010 and 12. What does 2009 SP4 have in common with 2010 and 12? There we are back to the same suspect. I would buy TC3 if I could find it new (don't trust used copies on Amazon since most are warez crack stuff) to see if it has this problem;

http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?81860-Well-that-was-a-bust

Can't go back to 2004 since that don't have the new type of AI traffic setup, which from what I understand was introduced in 2006.

Again I am NOT flaming the product here, if I didn't like it I would do what I did with Railworks, give up and delete it without any fanfare or "I'M LEAVING!!!" announcements. I'm looking for solutions that don't involve spending money I need for a new furnace, but if Trainz Classics 3 says it recommends a Pentium 3 1.5ghz and actually won't run on anything less than an i7, they should be a little less optimistic about specifications in their advertising. Regardless how fossilized a Pentium D 3.4 is, if the label says 2010 will run on a D then it should run on a D.

 

[clam1952]

I got TC3 as a digital download, dirt cheap from GameStop, has a downloader launcher thing, however just remove the TC3 folder from it and bin the thing. All fully legal and working and registered here ok.

I got it as the only thing that would run on my Core Duo laptop, Intel graphics kill it, but something to play with when not at home.

 

[sniper297]

Thanks, found it; http://www.gamestop.com/pc/games/trainz-classics-3/92277

I'll have to wait until next week, I got 3 bucks left in checking.

 

[barryg]

Hi Jim. Have you tried blocking TAD in the windows firewall and testing? Although TAD would still be running on your system, it would only get as far as your firewall and not pinging home waiting for a reply then processing the reply etc. Coupled with possible internet lag duration, it may prove and reduce the time TAD is taking away from the Trainz exe. If it works then it helps, if not then it's no problem to allow TAD to access the internet. Every little millisecond helps

F.W.I.W, i have much less (if any), pausing with 2004-TC3 than with 2010-2012. I have a 560Ti card and see little difference between that and my old 9800GTX+. Unfortunately Trainz looks to still be a CPU bound game. There's no difference between my Q6600 and E8400 CPU's at default clocks. But if i o/clock my E8400 from default 3.0 to 4.0, i get an additional minimum 10fps. From my personal tests this shows me (on my system), that my 9800GTX+ at half the performance of my 560Ti, makes no difference. CPU power is required more so than GPU. And as the 2010-2012 versions of Trainz have that less-than-desirable graphics limiter, pausing would appear to be a 'built-in' feature.

Tested with XP Pro and Win 7, both x32bit.

Regards Barryg

 

[sniper297]

Not talking about framerates, obviously I would LIKE to have better FPS, but look at the first pic in the first post - nothing wrong with 23FPS, that can look smooth enough provided it's constant. I'm talking about the game actually stopping for 3 to 5 seconds, understandable if you're moving at high speed and it has to load a lot of scenery coming up on the next group of baseboards, and it's trying to find all that on a 5400rpm IDE drive, you would expect a pause in that situation. I'm talking about rotating the view while standing still, or moving the camera center a few meters, and it's running off a solid state drive. Adding TADDaemon to the firewall permissions actually improves it a little, blocking it with the firewall doesn't increase the frequency (how often it happens) but does increase the duration, and makes the freeze when changing tool tabs in surveyor last almost twice as long (on average, the freeze while changing tabs is so random it's impossible to actually measure anything). Unplugging the cable and uninstalling McAfee to test with no internet connection at all last year I got more of this;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgOE2dnJU2M

Altho that was on the Maxtor 360, which had that problem to a lesser degree even with everything hooked up normally.

 

[norfolksouthern37]

Adding TADDaemon to the firewall permissions actually improves it a little, blocking it with the firewall doesn't increase the frequency (how often it happens) but does increase the duration, and makes the freeze when changing tool tabs in surveyor last almost twice as long (on average, the freeze while changing tabs is so random it's impossible to actually measure anything).

because it has absolutely nothing to do with TADD going online for anything. and the freeze while changing tabs is not random. i have already covered both of these supposed causes in other posts.

 

[sniper297]

It's random on my system, sometimes it does not pause when I expect it to, sometimes it pauses when it logically should not - example, open static scenery tab, place a few objects, change to track tab, then change back to static scenery tab and get the pause. Shut everything off and reboot the system, repeat the exact same steps, no pause this time. Shut down reboot repeat, now it pauses. Shut down reboot repeat, now it pauses. Shut down reboot repeat, now it pauses. Shut down reboot repeat, now it does not pause. Shut down reboot repeat, now it pauses.

This one is not intermittent;

http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?59346-System-hangs-when-painting-ground

I can duplicate that every time in TS2009 SP4, TS2010 all build versions, and TS12 all build versions. It does NOT do it in TS2009 SP3, ever. Refresh my memory, what is it that TS2009 SP3 doesn't have that all the others do have?