Stuttering-GPU Cycles Drop, Dick Access Increases

[boleyd]

I would not say Trainz 2012 id unplayable but close to it. Periodically when a set of assets appears the disk is accessed to get the data. You see this on the Resource Monitor. Also, at that time the load on the Graphics Processing Unit (aka GPU) goes way down. So I conclude that the GPU queue dries up waiting for data from the disk and the screen activity stops for up to >1 second. FPS drop from 40 to 50 down to 12 to 16 fps. I have seen many posts on the evils of splines so I erased (in a copy) all splines except roads. No material change. Video card memory (1gb) maxs at 787mb

So long as the trackside "stuff" is mostly the same, disk accesses are minimal. .

I suppose that if I bought a Solid State Drive(SSD) I "might" help. Given the current higher price per gb Trainz would be the only program to benefit and that is not worth it unless there was a guarantee it would eliminate stutters. I use Prepar3D as my flight sim and no issues there buzzing along at 200mph at a low altitude where the scenery LOD becomes an issue. Now Lockheed Martin has done a lot to the old Microsoft FSX code to offer noticeable improvements. Unless N3V offers something other than more assets and routes (aka RailWorks) I am not inclined to do much with Trainz 2012.

I have tried options in Trainz and nVidia Inspector. I feel that a route in the desert would run well but in the eastern USA where towns are close therefore 20 miles of only vegetation is about as far as you can go.

Windows7 64bit, 8gb memory, i2500K 3.3ghz, GTX550 1gb

 

[rumour3]

Sorry, but the typo in the thread title made me laugh...:hehe:

R3

 

[illinoiscentral]

Sorry, but the typo in the thread title made me laugh...:hehe:

R3

I too LMAO'ed.

 

[rumour3]

Apologies for my previous frivolous post. Out of interest, what are your Windows Experience Index scores? For my Sony Vaio laptop (Win7 64, Core i5, 4GB ram, Geforce GT330M 1GB) the figures are:
Processor 6.7
Memory 5.9
Graphics 6.4
Gaming Graphics 6.4
Hard Disk 5.7

This suggests that my hard disk is the weakest link.

I've found that the following trainzoptions additions, suggested by Dermmy elsewhere on the forums, help overall smoothness:
-framestoaverage=16
-framerate=22
My understanding is that the high framestoaverage value attempts to rigidly enforce a framerate of 22 fps, which IMO is smooth enough for my eyes, and on most routes I get acceptable TS12 gameplay on the 1920 x 1080 screen. Might be worth checking the difference between DirectX and OpenGL- on my system DirectX gives higher framerates but is much more jerky than OpenGL, which also looks better. I therefore prefer OpenGL at the moment, although I've found that the relative performance can vary between drivers. I've actually reverted to driver version 187.83(!), which is the latest version supplied by Sony for my system, because I started to have concerns that my system was overheating using later Nvidia driver versions.

Other options that may help are reducing the distance sliders to 4K or less, and reducing the speedtree detail to normal.

Regards

R3

 

[fran1]

Sorry, but the typo in the thread title made me laugh...:hehe:

R3

You've just got to have a look with a title like that, well I have.
rumour3, how do you reduce speed tree detail ?

 

[rumour3]

You've just got to have a look with a title like that, well I have.
rumour3, how do you reduce speed tree detail ?

Video Settings - Tree Detail slider in TS12. I understand that this controls the distance at which the SpeedTrees turn to billboards, rather than the detail in the trees themselves.

Regards

R3

 

[Dermmy]

Dick an SSD will help. I have two installs of TS10 on my system. I have my 'working ' copy which is a huge install, it contains every piece of content I think I might ever want to use. the second install is my 'Clean' install, it contains nothing but built in content plus whatever content is used on my current WIP route. It's as lean and mean as I can get it. The big fat install is on a dedicated SSD. The lean mean install is on a conventional hard drive. Performance wise the big fat install on the SSD absolutely kills the lean mean install on the conventional drive.

I am pretty sure though that there is more going on with your problem than just disk access. I suspect there are issues with Route content. Firstly I suspect there is too much variety, secondly I suspect there is maybe a bit of inefficient content also. When building a route the routebuilder needs to be constantly thinking "Do I really need to use that new xxxx, or will one of the the ones I have already used on the route be OK in this location?". You also need to be on the lookout for performance hogging assets. Utterly huge graphics are 'in fashion' at the moment, as are horrendous poly counts. It's all to do with the new quick, easy methods of content creation discussed at length elsewhere in the forum. When downloading new assets I always have a sharp eye on the 'Size' column in CM, that's one give-away for short-cut asset creation. Not that all 'big' assets are bad, but it's worth having a look. I recently found a solid grey 1024 x 1024 that would have given identical results 8 x 8. Not that one big graphic matters much, but it all adds up and the sum of the add-ups is the stutters!

Also try as R3 suggests the low fps and high framestoaverage thing, that totally changed how Trainz looks and runs on my system. High fps is not the target - smooth fps is way better...

Andy

 

[Bill69]

You could also get rid of the speedtrees altogether. Replace them with the "perfect" series of trees by mcquirel, msgsapper and dmdrake. The replace assets function works with trees.

My Windows experience index,
processor 7.5
memory 7.5
graphics 7.4
gaming graphics 7.4
disk transfer rate 5.9

Which also means the disk is the main cause of any slowness.

Cheers,
Bill69

 

[fran1]

The disc transfer rate applies to the drive the o/s is on, so if you have trainz on a faster drive, for eg a 10,000 rpm raptor or SSD the index count is a little meaningless.

 

[Bill69]

Hi fran1,

I do have Trainz on a different drive, but it is no faster than the os drive, in fact it is identical, same brand, same size, same speed.

Cheers,
Bill69

 

[Euphod]

Oh, I see..."Disk Access"... took me awhile to figure that out!

 

[boleyd]

Yes it was a typo!

I do love high res objects and textures. I was hoping splines were a culprit but.... The Mojave Sub route in the desert runs in its initial state very well. So, I accept that my addicition to high res stuff may be the killer. Just kept adding things and rarely taking a train on the route as I admired how it looks. Will try some strategic editing... I also eliminated the N3V/Auran SpeedTrees long ago. Off to the Editor and FREQUENT saves.

On the SSD I have to agree from the above that it could allow more high-res stuff and allow me to avoid rehab. I just upgraded my case, cpu and video card so maybe there are a few bucks/quid left.

 

[JCitron]

If you are using a conventionnal hard drive, do a good disk clean-up anda defrag. I have found that this works wonders for the stutters.

Older flip-board trees, however can cause a big performance hit. I have found on some older routes I have updated from older flip-board trees to the newer STs and relations that the performance is actually much better on these routes than it ever was. The reason for this, I think, is due to less CPU requirements for the rendering. Instead the GPU is doing the majority of the work

John

 

[Paulsw2]

The disc transfer rate applies to the drive the o/s is on, so if you have trainz on a faster drive, for eg a 10,000 rpm raptor or SSD the index count is a little meaningless.

My Windows experience index,
processor 7.5
memory 7.5
graphics 7.8
gaming graphics 7.8
disk transfer rate 5.9

My O/S and Trainz are on a raptor 10,000 rpm!


I've never checked this since I got this PC, but is there a way to check your hard drive is working at full efficiency (ie. how do I know it's actually working at 10k rpm?)

I paid extra for this drive, precisely because I know Trainz needs a good data disc transfer rate. I'm a bit upset now!

Paul

EDIT: looking around on the Interweb, looks like HDD scores are capped at 5.9 in Windows Experience Index for Windows 7 with scores of 6 - 7.9 reserved for SSDs. Oh hum!