Praise and Problems

[GP30Fan]

First of all let me heap praise on those who
design the routes. I can't imagine the time
involved. All routes are representative of
hours and hours of work. That said, I am
particularly enamored with Cajon Pass by
roymac, and am absolutely captivated by
UMR 2009 by neilsmith749, just can’t stay
away from that route at the present.
Now the problems. I am plagued by a problem
that is especially annoying with UMR 2009.
As you drive, ground textures near the track on both
sides, I’m guessing about 50 feet or so from the track,
pop into view. They seem triggered as the train
proceeds down the track. The problem is not
all route inclusive. Only certain sections exhibit
the behavior
This cannot be a hardware problem. I have installed
Trainz2006 on two completely different systems and
have seen the same problem on both. Both DirectX
and OpenGL have been tested. The current system
is more than capable of Trainz. Intel I7-920,
ATI 5850/1Gig, and transfer rates of 3Gb/sec.
I do believe data transfer rates have far more effect
on how Trainz operates than video card speed.
This is beyond my grasp at this point, but I can tell
you its distracting to say the least!
Any ideas would certainly be entertained.
Thanks again to those who spend the hours, days,
and months of work designing these works of art.

 

[kozowh]

I think I have a similar problem with the MidCentral (?) layout by crb100. I really enjoy the layout with its many possibilities but the scenery seems pretty slow to load. Even with the draw distance set at 5,000 m often the loco will be driving on thin air before the scenery and tracks display. Even when trains are not moving, I have to zoom in all the way from above to get tracks and textures to appear. My PC has a 3.0 GHz processor, 2 Gigs of RAM, a video card with 256 Megs memory and a recently defragged HD. Changing the draw distance doesn't seem to affect anything much.

Is this just a factor of the complexity of the scenery (it doesn't seem to happen as extensively on some other routes) or is there something I could/should do to improve the rate of display?

 

[fran1]

GP 30 fan, have you tried altering the draw distance. I have mine set 2 notches back from full.
Kozowh, from what you say your system is struggling when zoomed out. It's probably because your graphics card is struggling to cope. If it's only the 1 route stay closer in if not it might be time to uprate your system.

 

[GP30Fan]

Found It... Now what

I have found the offending texture(s)... there are several. All were designed for TRS2004 and the route I'm running is in TRS2006. That alone spells problems. The route I'm working with is large... in fact its very large. These textures seem to be racing the train but the train never catches them. It's not an all route inclusive problem but it sure is distracting. The textures involved are all... 10 of them, from FMA in Hungary. They're all "Speed Grass" textures. And speedy they are... you never catch them. The problem is they are dynamic. You go faster they go faster. Back up... they back up. Stationary grass it is not. I've tried deleting the kuid's to no avail. Sort of thought I could just delete the kuid's and start the months long project of replacing the weeds on the whole railroad. It didn't work. Even with the missing kuid's from the config file... the "Speed Grass" continued the race. Has anyone else had experience with these critters and can give me some advice on dealing with them. Sure would like some weed killer for these. Thanks

 

[kozowh]

GP30Fan--
Thanks for the explanation. Sounds like the speed grass has a virus that has become an invasive species. A nuisance at best; an ambiance quasher for sure. Hope we can find a solution. Maybe there are other factors that speed grass has altered or that are other, undercover speed grass agents.

 

[Mick_Berg]

....... often the loco will be driving on thin air before the scenery and tracks display. Even when trains are not moving, I have to zoom in all the way from above to get tracks and textures to appear........

Interesting, I have the opposite problem in Driver in TC3. When I change the view from one train to another, it can take 30 seconds for the loco and rolling stock to show up. The smoke is there immediately, and it looks very wierd to see puffs of smoke travelling along the line.
Mick Berg.