Procedural Track poly-count through the roof in Content Manager's Asset Preview

[Smileyman]

I always look at the poly-count (triangles if you will) of assets before placing them on my route.
My main PC can handle any game, as I only built it 6 months or so ago, and spent a lot of money on it, and no game has challenged it yet, but I'm still poly-conscious.
Old habits die hard.

Anyway, I was looking at various procedural tracks, contemplating replacing the TRS2019 Concrete Track that I used when I started my route, and I was amazed at the poly-count on these tracks.

65,000+ triangles?!?

Now, I know that this is Lod0, and that you can create lods that are longer pieces of track as you go up through the lods to mitigate this, as well as reducing the poly-count and resolution of images, but still.
That can't be right can it?

I've downloaded the basic 4.6 procedural track source from the Trainz Wiki, and I'll be having a look at it tomorrow in more detail, but I can't even begin to think which of the multiple parts that make up a procedural track (and there are many) could need a high poly-count.

So I guess my question is whether the asset preview in Content Manager is reliable.

 

[grazlash]

The question should be how does the track perform in game? If you care to supply a name or kuid we could independently check performance against the poly count. The track may work well on some routes or not at all, but we have no way of knowing if it should or should not be used.

 

[Smileyman]

The question should be how does the track perform in game? If you care to supply a name or kuid we could independently check performance against the poly count. The track may work well on some routes or not at all, but we have no way of knowing if it should or should not be used.

Well, no.
Whether the track performs well is very subjective.

On my main PC, I'm sure that it would work fine, and is, even in yards.
On my other PC, I know that it would not work well.

What I wanted to know was whether Content Manager asset preview was giving a reliable poly-count, and if so, is 65,000+ polys the normal for a piece of procedural track.
Seems massively excessive.

I'm going to do some tests with a few of them (and there aren't that many Procedural Tracks out there), and see what I come up with.

Oh, and I thought I'd mentioned the name of the track I initially used, but I didn't fully.
It's the built-in TRS19 Concrete procedural track, and there are 4 of them.
I'm not on my Trainz computer right now, so I can't check the exact name.

Anyway, concerning the Procedural Track, I'm going to go and do some maths.

 

[grazlash]

I'm in the middle of an extensive unplanned power outage, so I can't check any myself right now. NBN contractors hit an underground power cable with their trenching machine, all in the name of progress but it feels like the 1800's right now.

 

[Smileyman]

I'm in the middle of an extensive unplanned power outage, so I can't check any myself right now. NBN contractors hit an underground power cable with their trenching machine, all in the name of progress but it feels like the 1800's right now.

Ouch.
It's amazing how much we take power for granted.
On the rare occasions that I've had an outage, I've felt like I've lost a limb.
Good luck!

 

[Smileyman]

I might as well ask this here too, seeing as we're talking about procedural track.
I've noticed that when changing the default direction of a point in Surveyor (TRS19), the junction isn't animated, and doesn't change visually, although the arrows do indicate the change.

I can't remember if this has been the case since installing TRS19 or whether it used to work and I've maybe changed a setting by accident.
Or is this the default behaviour now.
If I travel far enough away from the junction so that Trainz isn't drawing the junction anymore, and then go back, the correct direction is shown.
It just isn't updating in real-time.
I'm sure they're supposed to.

 

[PortLineParker]

Surveyor is paused by default now, so you have to go into the icon at the top left (route options maybe?) and uncheck pause. They will then change position and other animations will play.

Cheers,

PLP