Serious framerate drop changing views in driver mode

[Richarde57]

See my specs below.

I'm running all games like both Alan Wakes, Farming Simulator 2013, Trainz2010ee etc. from an SSD.
The nVidia GTX 660 can handle them all, with everything on full, without any problem.
I never install games on systemdrive C: although it is a SSD to. My C: is only for XP-system.
When using Fraps, never let Fraps record videos on C:, it causes many hick-ups.
I can make videos in full screen (1680 x 1050) with 30 fps.
Trainz is running very smoothly with 60 to 65 fps when not recording with Fraps.
It's a superb card, good choice.

☼☼

 

[teletekman]

Thanks Richard! Glad to hear someone else is using this card as well. No offense but being that your PC specs are quite a bit lower than mine despite your graphics card and pushing 60 to 65 fps, thats a significant amount higher than I am getting and that is with my sliders set to normal and distance only set to 2000. Trainz and Trainz only is installed on it's own SSD updated to 49222. My OS however is Win7 and is installed on its own SSD w/ SP1 installed. Fraps is installed on my 500GB spinner as is the folder that stores my videos. I also make my videos in full screen 1680 x 1050 and have it set to lock in at 30fps. So far that part has been working out pretty well for me.

Do you run the Mohave/Bakersfield routes much? I ask cause that is where I base a lot of my performance numbers on since it's the main route I use. If so, are you getting 60 to 65fps overall on that route? I still am a bit confused why I got 18fps running through the commuter passenger route hoping from station to station. It was pretty scenic heavy but again with my sliders being where they were and have that newer card should my numbers have been a bit higher?

Pardon this newbie's experience level on this but am pretty raw in this area. I am learning quite a bit from everyone though.

Sean

 

[shaneturner12]

It may be worth checking if you have any faulty assets - search for Faulty:True.

Shane

 

[ExpertNewbie]

From what I've noticed, Trainz 12 has a very aggressive asset cache cleaning strategy. If you set the view distance to 5000m on very large routes with lots of assets, it will lag as you spin around the external camera. This is because it's loading resources as you change your external camera direction. However, if the number of assets you're trying to view is very large, it will go over the cache limit and start uncaching the assets that you are not looking at anymore. This is why routes like Intensity TS12 run great (because it's small), but larger routes like Mojave will cause lag as you pan the camera around, because it needs to reload those assets into the cache.

You can test this by moving the external camera only a little bit. It should pan smoothly because it only has to load a few assets to reflect your changed viewport. However, if you whip it around 180 degrees, it will then appear to freeze for a sec as it's loading a ton of assets that were not cached.

By reducing the view distance and/or the fog distance, you lower the number of assets that needs to be cached. At a certain point, all the assets that can be displayed can be kept in the cache, and you do not get the freezing hitches anymore.

 

[clam1952]

An EDR usually sorts out low Frame rates for me, that looks like it could be OpenGL frame rates?

 

[teletekman]

From what I've noticed, Trainz 12 has a very aggressive asset cache cleaning strategy. If you set the view distance to 5000m on very large routes with lots of assets, it will lag as you spin around the external camera. This is because it's loading resources as you change your external camera direction. However, if the number of assets you're trying to view is very large, it will go over the cache limit and start uncaching the assets that you are not looking at anymore. This is why routes like Intensity TS12 run great (because it's small), but larger routes like Mojave will cause lag as you pan the camera around, because it needs to reload those assets into the cache.

You can test this by moving the external camera only a little bit. It should pan smoothly because it only has to load a few assets to reflect your changed viewport. However, if you whip it around 180 degrees, it will then appear to freeze for a sec as it's loading a ton of assets that were not cached.

By reducing the view distance and/or the fog distance, you lower the number of assets that needs to be cached. At a certain point, all the assets that can be displayed can be kept in the cache, and you do not get the freezing hitches anymore.

That would make sense. So basically upgrading to the latest and greatest video card (i.e. GTX 690) would really not have any more affect on this over what I have now, correct? I assume at this point it is basically relying on CPU power determining how fast it displays assets that are cached? If that's the case, would updating to say an i5 or i7 Ivy Bridge processor over my current i7 Sandy Bridge be something to consider in the near future?

Sean

 

[JCitron]

That would make sense. So basically upgrading to the latest and greatest video card (i.e. GTX 690) would really not have any more affect on this over what I have now, correct? I assume at this point it is basically relying on CPU power determining how fast it displays assets that are cached? If that's the case, would updating to say an i5 or i7 Ivy Bridge processor over my current i7 Sandy Bridge be something to consider in the near future?

Sean

Adding more RAM would help though because this will give the program more room to work. I found a big speed difference going from 8 go 16GB.

I happen to have the GTX680 2GB card. With the fast GPU and the large amount of graphics memory, there is plenty of room to manipulate the data. Combine this with the large amount of system RAM, and the hard drive is hardly accessed except to load the data initially.

John

 

[ExpertNewbie]

That would make sense. So basically upgrading to the latest and greatest video card (i.e. GTX 690) would really not have any more affect on this over what I have now, correct? I assume at this point it is basically relying on CPU power determining how fast it displays assets that are cached? If that's the case, would updating to say an i5 or i7 Ivy Bridge processor over my current i7 Sandy Bridge be something to consider in the near future?

Sean

Upgrading your graphics card would give you better framerates, but would not necessarily help the asset loading issue, since I believe it's most likely reading from your hard drive. I would think the weak link here is the hard drive access speed and the relatively small cache size. Upgrading your CPU would help your framerates too, but once again, I don't think it'd help the loading issue.

Adding more RAM would help though because this will give the program more room to work. I found a big speed difference going from 8 go 16GB.

I happen to have the GTX680 2GB card. With the fast GPU and the large amount of graphics memory, there is plenty of room to manipulate the data. Combine this with the large amount of system RAM, and the hard drive is hardly accessed except to load the data initially.

Although adding more RAM would help in general, I think the cache size set by Trainz 12 caps out at a certain point. For example, I have 32 GB of RAM, a SSD, and 2x GTX 670 (2GB RAM each), and I still get the hitching/freezing on larger routes with lots of assets.

 

[Richarde57]

I forgot to mention that it only runs smoothly with DirectX. (9c for XP)
OpenGL causes hitching/freezing a lot.
And I have Trainz2010ee, not 12.

☼☼