Surveyor 2.0 Hangs After Update

[skittlekicks]

I've already submitted this as a bug report. In my version of Trainz 22 P.E 131986 (Steam), I began noticing in Surveyor 2.0 that if I use the eye dropper tool to get an asset (doesn't matter which) the game will hang for a few seconds which didn't happen before the update. As I mentioned in the bug report this hang also causes a massive spike to my GPU (red lines it). The asset list also doesn't always want to load as quickly as before. As I have mentioned in a few other posts I run the DBR and prebuild tool all the time just before closing the launcher. This is a brand new one 5m baseboard which does load quite fast, but it's the assets that are not. It doesn't seem to cause issues if I hand select assets from my pick lists, but only with the eye dropper tool.

For the record. I do not have scans going, I don't have viruses/malware/spyware on my system, I don't run a ton of applications (or browser tabs). I don't have a This all started after the tree update. My system isn't some mega uber rocket of a machine, but it does meet the requirements to play and build. Also to mentioned I do not have a ton of free DLS (or free 3rd party) assets. Those that I do have are all current up to date versions.

I don't know if I am the only one experiencing this, but as I told them in my report this does affect my work flow. Again I go back to QC, and the lack of it these updates.

SK

 

[JCitron]

It's possible that content is still being validated and cached. This can cause freezing and apparent lockups as your content is being checked. It can take a bit of time for this to finish.

Click on the Launcher and then Developer. Under Developer, choose Show Client Logs. If Trainz is hiding the Launcher, click on the 3-bar menu that's hidden from view until you click on it in the upper left corner and choose Show Launcher Window.

What you'll see is stuff scrolling by with yellow warnings about precaching data and unable to pre-cache obsolete content. You can safely ignore these messages, but if these are scrolling by quickly and there's a lot of them, this explains the slow up.

Even with the gross state of my large route, I was still able to load up Surveyor 2.0. There were apparent freezes but that was data loading both in view and being cached. After the caching stopped, I was able to move around and then had to wait for content to load, but that's another story.

 

[skittlekicks]

Hey John

One thing I forgot to mention is I wait to load in fully once I see the birds flying between buildings. I have checked the logs, but nothing out of the ordinary caught my eye (the 17 errors are related to this platform thing I have found, but that's been there since I bought the game. My last option is run the eDBR and then a new precache/prebuild and see if that clears this out. Though I am dubious that it will to be honest.

I've been slowing clearing out obsoleted items, but that's never caused this issue before. I'm really convinced that something with this update wonked things up. SInce mine is the Steam version, I'll add the verify files task.
I'll report back one all of these tasks completed.

Much appreciated.

SK

 

[skittlekicks]

So somethings to note. The eRDB and prebuild did not solve this issue. The eRDB scanned 730,248 assets, and only 17 errors. Those errors are related to failing to precache data from platform, 31. Those errors have been a thing since I bought the game. The precache managed just about 35,000 assets, but no errors generated.

Next I verified the files through Steam and all 4000+ files were fine (no corruption).

I went into the game, waited until I saw the birds flying before I went into Surveyor/Driver. I opened my 1 baseboard route, and as I predicted it still locks up. Though it was a tiny bit faster with the eye dropper. Going into one of my picklists it lagged harder than ever. In fact my computer locked for about 2 seconds as it tried to load the assets. That again was not an issue before this tree update.

I also went ahead and deleted all 10 of my backup files (the ones located in C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\N3V Games\trs22\build mge5bium1/backups). Which was not a big deal because I have master copies saved on another drive.

When running the eDBR there were a ton of polygon errors. Low poly at 500 and high poly at 10000. While warnings are not errors, these assets create a ton of lag. Detail is one thing, but creating excessive poly assets is unnecessary. Other issues are MESH related, .im files, missing thumbnails, assets showing NaN (no idea what that even is), outdated meshes, unused meshes and so on. This to me is sloppy.

A reinstall is not the solution because this is game is over 13 GB and I have extremely slow Internet (10 down 1 up), and not waiting 5 hours to download.

So my conclusion is that the trees update has wonked up the game for me. I think I have mentioned I had a long IT tech history. I've seen the wonkiest things in that world (looking at you M$), but nothing like Trainz.

At this point, I think I am going to have to call it quits with Trainz, and move on to other train games (Simrail is very appealing) at this point. It will also mean giving up on the entire Trainz franchise going forward. No other game in my library has caused this much grief in the 47 years I have been playing video games. What a shame too, because I REALLY believed Trainz offered the best of both worlds (builder and driver). But again, two SP releases over the year have failed on so many levels for me.

I think N3V should prioritize bug fixes and QC more vigorously. I know the Plus Sub program is squashing bugs (thank you volunteers), but they can only go so far if the entire game core is nerfed. Maybe Trainz is heading for the great depot in the sky. You can't keep releasing broken SPs and expect a userbase to stick around for long. One guy maybe saved this game a long time ago, but how things seem to have fallen.

 

[JCitron]

The version has changed how assets are managed, which I have noticed as well. The problem is an eDBR will clear any cache and will force precaching all over again and only cause a longer loading cycle. An eDBR is generally a last resort case and not necessary for what you are seeing as you saw. With my 1.5 TB of content, it takes 17-hours at least to precache all my content, therefore I don't run an eDBR unless I really have to. This may have something to do with running on hard disks instead of SSDs, but given the cost of 8TB SSDs now, I can wait until the tariffs are removed. They are not worth $750 each!

If you want to try a precache without an eDBR, you can do that using Trainz Util. Make sure you have enabled advanced debugging options in the Dev tab.

With Trainzutil running, type this in the open space.

prebuild

The process will run with no signs of doing anything (lovely). You can get around that by using the Show Logs on the Developer menu. Remember to clear logs first before starting. The buffer will fill at some point unfortunately and there's no way to clear it. Another bug that was reported 10 years ago when T: ANE came out.

I agree, this one is pure crap. Hopefully with enough community complaints, this will be remedied. There's no response from them today because they don't work weekends. Believe me, I'm not giving them any excuses, we have to remember that they are 14-plus hours ahead for most of us and it's already the weekend and at the time of this post, Saturday morning.

I returned to the previous version and I will not upgrade until there's a fix. As far as beta-testing goes, I'm done with that. I gave up a few versions ago. It wasn't worth putting in my 2-cents to be told it's my system, my route, or something else that's causing a problem when it is an actual program version. This was what happened with the previous SP that required a hot-fix to repair the stupid track issue. I reported that ages ago. I'm done doing that. I'm too old, don't feel well most of the time, and too tired.

 

[skittlekicks]

Any time I run the DBR or eDBR I run the prebuild command. Which to be honest I really don't know if it is helping or partially. I wish there was a proper list of commands we can use (I have never seen that on the Wiki, but my bad eyes might have missed it.)

I found a workaround (shockingly) if I turn off the thumbnail display and rely on the text for all of my assets, things seem to behave. I do have the animated asset window open so at least I can see what I am picking. As this new route grows (one baseboard at a time) hopefully whatever this was caused by doesn't rear it's ugly face.

Oh I'm aware that N3V is closed on weekends and there's a massive time zone difference. To be honest I'm kind of thinking reporting my issue wasn't worth the time it took me to write. While I've had good results (mainly from Zec), I think have better results from you the expert Trainzers.
As I have gotten older, I am becoming the "old man shaking his fist at the clouds."

 

[JCitron]

Any time I run the DBR or eDBR I run the prebuild command. Which to be honest I really don't know if it is helping or partially. I wish there was a proper list of commands we can use (I have never seen that on the Wiki, but my bad eyes might have missed it.)

I found a workaround (shockingly) if I turn off the thumbnail display and rely on the text for all of my assets, things seem to behave. I do have the animated asset window open so at least I can see what I am picking. As this new route grows (one baseboard at a time) hopefully whatever this was caused by doesn't rear it's ugly face.

Oh I'm aware that N3V is closed on weekends and there's a massive time zone difference. To be honest I'm kind of thinking reporting my issue wasn't worth the time it took me to write. While I've had good results (mainly from Zec), I think have better results from you the expert Trainzers.
As I have gotten older, I am becoming the "old man shaking his fist at the clouds."

I'm glad you found a solution. It makes sense that the thumbnails are part of the issue because that's one more thing that has to be drawn on the screen while the program is fighting to draw everything else.

Pre-caching assets does help especially at load time.

I couldn't find a list of commands either then I opened a command prompt in N3V's program directory.
With the Launcher active, I typed Trainzutil (PowerShell requires "./" to execute the .exe file). Doing this produced a list of all the Trainzutil commands.

I repeated this again and piped the list to a text file which I've put in my Trainz tech info directory.

 

[skittlekicks]

I'm glad you found a solution. It makes sense that the thumbnails are part of the issue because that's one more thing that has to be drawn on the screen while the program is fighting to draw everything else.

Pre-caching assets does help especially at load time.

I couldn't find a list of commands either then I opened a command prompt in N3V's program directory.
With the Launcher active, I typed Trainzutil (PowerShell requires "./" to execute the .exe file). Doing this produced a list of all the Trainzutil commands.

I repeated this again and piped the list to a text file which I've put in my Trainz tech info directory.

Until this update that lag/game freeze never happened before using the dropper, but finding the fix has certainly corrected it. Oddly enough those thumbnails probably are not very large files, and they are not animated. It could be the image generator that it uses, but I am no coder so I have no idea. At least I have the preview window active so I can see the asset without the thumbnails.

It would be great to have the entire Trainzutil command list added to the Trainz Wiki.

Again thanks for your thoughts John. They are very helpful.

SkittleKicks

 

[JCitron]

Until this update that lag/game freeze never happened before using the dropper, but finding the fix has certainly corrected it. Oddly enough those thumbnails probably are not very large files, and they are not animated. It could be the image generator that it uses, but I am no coder so I have no idea. At least I have the preview window active so I can see the asset without the thumbnails.

It would be great to have the entire Trainzutil command list added to the Trainz Wiki.

Again thanks for your thoughts John. They are very helpful.

SkittleKicks

I believe the thumbnails are generated from the meshes if they're not included with the asset. The animated preview is actually generated on the fly.

Given that there are issues with the rendering system, having the thumbnails will cause everything to slow down. I have turned it off and only turn it on if I absolutely need it with textures coming to mind as needing this more than anything else.

 

[skittlekicks]

I just got notification that an official bug has been submitted for the team to try and replicate what I am seeing. Of course if they can't replicate it, I was told I may be requested for further information. Totally fine with that. So we'll see in a couple of weeks (I assume) if something happens.

To me these images should be simple .png files (a screen capture). If they are pulling from meshes as you mentioned, there has to be more code that is needed to do that. Code that could become compromised with a patch or SP update.

 

[JCitron]

To me these images should be simple .png files (a screen capture). If they are pulling from meshes as you mentioned, there has to be more code that is needed to do that. Code that could become compromised with a patch or SP update.

I just checked. It looks like I had some information confused. They are png, jpg, or in the past .tga files. In game they are .texture files since they are compiled.

 

[skittlekicks]

It's all good John. I now wondering if this is the compiler causing the issue I was dealing with? It all is interconnected at some point, and one change by a major update (which I consider SP6 to be) may have broken it? Grasping at straws, but right now things are still smooth since going to list mode with the preview window. Though this would not give license for this issue to be ignored by those at N3V.

 

[JCitron]

It's all good John. I now wondering if this is the compiler causing the issue I was dealing with? It all is interconnected at some point, and one change by a major update (which I consider SP6 to be) may have broken it? Grasping at straws, but right now things are still smooth since going to list mode with the preview window. Though this would not give license for this issue to be ignored by those at N3V.

It's most likely their messed-up rendering system that's causing the asset images to lag. The compilation has been there all along. This is how Trainz interprets asset textures by combining the image plus the image definition to form the .texture.

With the thumbnails, we create those when we create the asset. There's a container in the config.txt file specific for thumbnails.

A container is a grouping surrounded by curly brackets. { } These can be nested depending upon the parameters and requirements specific to that container. Each group needs a beginning and an end. The individual lines of information are called tags.

Some people create special icons with branding on them while others use a screen shot. There's also a way to use Content Manager to create thumbnails. I can't remember where the option is or how to do that. I did it once to test the feature about 3 years ago.

I won't give them a pass either for this. It needs to be addressed.

 

[skittlekicks]

I never expect a game to be perfect, because humans are imperfect. What I do expect for my money is that before something new gets released have a look at the laundry list of issues. Cart before the horse is nothing when no barn or land is owned. I can accept quirks in a game too, because it ties into my first statement. After reading the most recent newsletter it really shows what the priority for the game is. WE have plenty of things to enjoy the game as it sits now. We have an abundance on the DLS that we can add for enhancements. What we don't have is cohesion for bug fixes, and sometimes it looks like things that no one asked for gets put in.

Even if we don't give N3V passes, they do choose to ignore the loudest voices. I mean look on the forums. No one at N3V monitors it and discusses with us things (or it's rare). I hate Discord with the intensity of a billion hot burning suns. But why even have a forum if the company takes no interest? Maybe I'm using too much logic LOL.

 

[JCitron]

I never expect a game to be perfect, because humans are imperfect. What I do expect for my money is that before something new gets released have a look at the laundry list of issues. Cart before the horse is nothing when no barn or land is owned. I can accept quirks in a game too, because it ties into my first statement. After reading the most recent newsletter it really shows what the priority for the game is. WE have plenty of things to enjoy the game as it sits now. We have an abundance on the DLS that we can add for enhancements. What we don't have is cohesion for bug fixes, and sometimes it looks like things that no one asked for gets put in.

Even if we don't give N3V passes, they do choose to ignore the loudest voices. I mean look on the forums. No one at N3V monitors it and discusses with us things (or it's rare). I hate Discord with the intensity of a billion hot burning suns. But why even have a forum if the company takes no interest? Maybe I'm using too much logic LOL.

The attitude has definitely changed with management here starting at the top.

I don't like Discord either due to the disorganized threads and constant chatter.

The problem, which has been discussed numerous times over the decades, is they never completely finish anything. I've equated this to an old house needing renovating yet the owner puts in a swimming pool instead while the rest of the house and yard are in shambles.

We understand that they have to keep updating to stay competitive but when they don't fix the underlying bugs or completely finish anything they've started their house of cards is going to fall pretty hard. In my opinion, the cards have already started dropping. It's pretty apparent by the attitude from the top and the crap they've released to the large userbase. Their cavalier, take it or leave it, attitude is starting to chink the armor and it's definitely reflecting in this release.

Something has changed within that we're not seeing but feeling the brunt of it.

 

[skittlekicks]

I have very limited experience with the Trainz franchise as 22 PE was my first ever. To me this looks a like like how Microsoft runs Windows. Work on a thing for 10 years, fix a few bugs, break things with said patch (Windows 11 hear that??) then just give up and move on.

This is why I don't buy the excuse of 'but we're a small team..." I can name a few train type games with a tiny staff (Railroader, Derail Valley and Railroads Online) and they are always on their game. Honestly who asked for an iOS/mobile version of Trainz? There is no way that Trainz has that much of a demand for such a thing considering what this product is. "Oh but we have to follow the trends." No you SET the trends, YOU become the leaders and your program becomes king of the rail that everyone wants. I feel that complacency has dominated N3V for a very long time (making this judgement on the hundreds of posts on the forum).

Surveyor piqued my interest and was the driving force as to why I chose it (I came from the Sim City 2000, 3000, 4 and Cities: Skylines world builders) and I get to drive my routes after I build it? SOLD! But that's what happens when you don't deeply look into the games history.

Before I posted this, I read https://forums.auran.com/threads/ongoing-investigation-sp6-route-performance-redraw-issues.181938/ and the backlash is real. It read like "well we're gonna kick the can down the road, and not really admit something definitely broke our game." "Tell us more about your problem and we'll let you know that we can't reproduce your issue." Again this is what Microsoft does with every Win 11 update (though it's much worse given they are who they are). I did like that someone asked for the specs of the N3V computers for those who are testing. See lab computers are NOT real world daily drivers.

I'm still building my latest route, but I don't have a passion for Trainz anymore. It's just there if I get bored. Truly sad.

 

[Forester1]

like how Microsoft runs Windows

And other products! I have used OneNote for Windows 10 for years and store a lot of information of all kinds. Now it says I have to update it before October, or it will become read only. I checked on the Windows Store, and the ratings for the new OneNote are abysmal! At least N3V isn't forcing this move like Micro$oft is. I did try to do the upgrade, and first it wanted to back up my current OneNote. It ran all night without ever finishing. I killed it and tried to install, but it just sat and spun as well. Great, so I killed that and fortunately my original OneNote still works, but somewhere down the line they will force the upgrade. Sheesh.

 

[skittlekicks]

No N3V just locks useful things behind paywalls (like Bulk Asset for S20, and yes I know it is still in S10. I rarely use that janky thing), locking out proper multiplayer behind a paywall among other things. So they pull stupid crap on users while nickle and diming us. I had wanted to teach a friend how to use Surveyor 2.0 in a multiplayer setting. NOPE!! Locked out of the Platinum Edition because that was a brilliant choice. Could have made multiplayer like SCS did for ATS and ETS2. Or multiplayer like Railroader and Railroads online. Nah. Can't have that. N3V does M$ things, just in a different way.

Once M$ pushed the world on to software as a service (SaaS) we've all had to suffer. Don't get me started on TPM 2.0 (it does NOTHING to protect computers from infections) M$ should never be called a "green company" that cares about the environment due to the millions of computer that will be thrown into landfills because the majority of the world cant afford to just buy a new system (like my poor a**).

I've been a huge fan of open source software (Libre Office over garbage M$ Office), Firefox over MS Exploder/Edge, and so on. The a** hats geeks out there that love to scare new users away from Linux and the RTFM crowds just sucks to deal with.

 

[JCitron]

No N3V just locks useful things behind paywalls (like Bulk Asset for S20, and yes I know it is still in S10.

It's there.

Search for the asset you want to use in the asset selection and select it.
Click on the asset you want to replace - it has to be the same type as the filtered asset.
Click on replace selected asset and it should work fine.

I just tried it in Trainz PE and it works fine.

What is not there is the ability to bulk delete assets. I still have to revert to the old standby Surveyor 1.0 for that.

 

[skittlekicks]

To be honest I am not a fan of the filter system that's in S20. The way that S10 bulk replaced things was so simple and not convoluted one bit. I believe Approach Medium said in a live stream that the replacement tool in S20 only will cover a 300m radius (double clicking on assets and using the asset menu). It really should been kept the way it was originally for S20. As you pointed out bulk asset replace is there in S20, but it isn't done in the same way as in S10 (which was literally from the Tools menu).

I think part of the issue is that very few videos exist that deep dive into S20. Highlight reels suck. The Wiki fairs no better since most of what was done in the past no longer applies to S20. Take for example the plateau tool. Why was that renamed? When was first learning, all I kept seeing were videos from nearly a decade ago. What good is that when the name was changed to grade?

One thing I found is that you can't resize the radius diameter of a switch in S20 like you can with track markers. In S10 it is there, but that radius tool is mainly for markers and nothing specific for the switch radius. While it impats it, it's a global function for all radius assets. Should have been "Adjust Switch Radius" and "Adjust Track Marker Radius")

I can see why so many people really hated the update to S20. Too much changed and got renamed/removed. I just got used to the new system since I was going in blind.