This is Trainz 2004, but maybe better discussed here?

[AnalogOldguy]

The general problem is that a route that I have had a long time (Yorkshire Plains) now crashes to the desktop a lot.

Certain facts: Just before I noticed this problem, I had my first ever crash to desktop while looking at locomotives in Railyard. I was looking at two similar UK locos one after another (and I switched kind of quickly).

These locos are remembered as troublesome when put into layouts. These are J94's very pretty to my eyes. I think they are nearly the exact same locos with minor changes. One has five dependencies found, the other has only three dependencies found. But they both show up and "seem"ok. (I never put these locos into this route).

Next fact is that I have recently moved into an area of the layout that I have never put any locos into, and it has electrified cataneries with the wires overhead.

I put a non-electric loco on the track under the wire, a Class 31. It crashes to desktop when leaving the route after a drive, and leaving Surveyor. I put another type of loco away form under the wires (Class 47) no crashes yet.

Errors I see are... function void AJSJunction Init Line-1, (but these I see regularly, usually don't cause big problems). I have previously downloaded the junction kits from Andi's website and installed them.

But have also seen Thread exception ER Null line 145. And one crash had a class hardware access violation Render DirectX9.dll.

Does any of this sound familiar to anyone, I wonder? Should I just uninstall the J90 locos as a safety measure? Do locos under wires cause any troubles like this? (I know it is hard to place locos under the wires often).

I have also saved this route in two cloned versions, one of which I have started converting to AJS stations. I have tried not to use exact names for the routes and sessions, but I wonder if the filenames have caused a mix up...

Also wondering if a database rebuild would help, (is it done by deleting the world-cache Dispatcher.chump file?)

Just wondering if anything here sounds familiar in your experiences. I am not looking for a fix from anyone. Thanks much! Bob P.

 

[cascaderailroad]

It sounds like this:

I was driving my car, and it started making a sound ...

What kind of car, make model, engine size ...

I don't know if you are running 04, or 12 ?

Crashs oftentimes are an overheating problem, thermal paste cooked dry, overheated chip, dust in the cooling vent pipe.

Make, model PC, or MAC ?
CPU GHz speed
Video card numeral

Sometimes when you backdate a higher build new asset, or install a faulty new asset it will cause Trainz to crash.

 

[Falcus]

Cascade has the right of it. We need more information.....

The route isn't whats crashing... Its the game. Probably because its not getting the resource it needs to do something (We can look into that once we know what you're running). For instance, dealing with errors costs the game more resources, if your system doesn't have enough, it'll crash to desktop....

CPU/RAM/Video Card and Trainz Build Number are all things that will help us figure out whats going on.

Falcus

 

[AnalogOldguy]

The name of this thread is "This is Trainz 2004".....So I am referring to Trainz 2004...

The build is the last one, 2370 if I am remembering it right. Windows XP Pro, no service packs, 1 Gig of memory, Radeon X800xt video card with 256mb.

I agree, it could possibly be heat related ... but my other routes have not been affected. Naturally, it will be mentioned that I don't have enough memory, speed, old drivers (my drivers are actually from 2008 or so), etc., but I've been running this setup happily, with very good framerates at 1024x768 (on my Trainz 2004). The monitor is actually set at 1280x1024.

Basically I have been running Trainz 2004 and Classics 1&2 (at 1280x1024) for years with no problems. If you don't believe this, then don't.

It could be heat, and I'll look into that, but I keep a clean computer, with one side always open, and running two extra fans blowing at the video card and CPU areas. It is not a real hot running video card. And my CPU (Sempron 64) is a very cool running chip.(and believe me, don't go by the name, it is fast enough). Abit motherboard, (forgot the number, I'll look it up)

I am thinking more that the crash could be from something faulty on the route, or AJS related, or maybe a corrupted database, or maybe an overload when it tries to close down. The location has a lot of tracks and some large sheds with many more tracks, and also a turntable and overhead wires and splines of houses, I believe (but am not sure).

CPU (overclocked to 2.2 Ghz) for many years, no problems whatsoever.

Thanks for your help.

 

[mezzoprezzo]

~snip~ I don't know if you are running 04, or 12 ? ~snip~

cascade ... There's a clue in the thread title!


@analogOldGuy

Asset overload in Surveyor plus excessive draw distance (usually more than 6 kilometres) is the usual culprit on my routes, when placing just one more asset can be the straw that breaks the camels back. It's usually the signal that I need to cull some overloaded areas.

Deleting the dispatcher chump file may well help. I do it often, particularly after downloading several new assets.

When you reload Trainz, after deleting the chump file, it may well take a while for all of the lights to switch on at the first screen if you have downloaded or created a lot of downloaded assets and/or routes. It may seem as if it has frozen on the last green light, but be patient. If necessary go and do something else. Mine has taken 5 minutes or more to load after a crash. It's well worth the wait though, and you'll find afterwards that it will load faster (until the next crash).

One other tip. Wait until the Surveyor cache bar is fully completed before doing anything else such as Quickdrive. This may take a while (several seconds) particularly if you have moved over large areas of baseboard. Even attempting to select another asset, or even change the flyout tab too quickly, can make things freeze up occasionally rather than crash. The freeze will generally clear and return things to normal after a while, but a Ctrl+Alt+Del > Start Task Manager > Close (click the top red X without doing anything) tends to speed this process up.

 

[generalman]

If I remember correctly from my days in TRS2004, the Overhead Wires on electrified lines were splines that were completely separate from the track (a.k.a. eye candy), so that should not be a factor either. That's also why it's harder to place stock on the tracks; it gets the wire spline confused with the track.

 

[Falcus]

The name of this thread is "This is Trainz 2004".....So I am referring to Trainz 2004...

The build is the last one, 2370 if I am remembering it right. Windows XP Pro, no service packs, 1 Gig of memory, Radeon X800xt video card with 256mb.

I agree, it could possibly be heat related ... but my other routes have not been affected. Naturally, it will be mentioned that I don't have enough memory, speed, old drivers (my drivers are actually from 2008 or so), etc., but I've been running this setup happily, with very good framerates at 1024x768 (on my Trainz 2004). The monitor is actually set at 1280x1024.

Basically I have been running Trainz 2004 and Classics 1&2 (at 1280x1024) for years with no problems. If you don't believe this, then don't.

It could be heat, and I'll look into that, but I keep a clean computer, with one side always open, and running two extra fans blowing at the video card and CPU areas. It is not a real hot running video card. And my CPU (Sempron 64) is a very cool running chip.(and believe me, don't go by the name, it is fast enough). Abit motherboard, (forgot the number, I'll look it up)

I am thinking more that the crash could be from something faulty on the route, or AJS related, or maybe a corrupted database, or maybe an overload when it tries to close down. The location has a lot of tracks and some large sheds with many more tracks, and also a turntable and overhead wires and splines of houses, I believe (but am not sure).

CPU (overclocked to 2.2 Ghz) for many years, no problems whatsoever.

Thanks for your help.

Its possible its a corrupted asset, but honestly doubtful IMHO. I think you have the right of it, certain assets are just too much for your system. I'm unfamiliar with the locomotives you mentioned in the first post, however, I would wager, particularly since you're saying the occurence is not only repeatable, but repeatable in a certain series of events that include a location on a specific map, and that map only, that between whatever rolling stock/Locomotives you're running, combined with the amount of Polys/Textures in that specific area, you're running your system out of resources and Trainz or your system is protecting the system by closing it for you (Which you should be as amazed about as I am, becuase I didn't think '04 was capable of that, but then I never really played it much, though I do have a copy of it).

I would say that your set up should nominally be fine for what you've been doing with it, and I can easily believe you're running what you are. I used to run '06 on a single core 2.0Ghz Cpu, 1GB Ram, no Vid card (Seems to be a pattern of mine), and though it was fragile, I could run it moderately well..... Course that machine could barely load '12, but it was fine for '06, and your setup is better then what I had at the time. And just to make sure its understood, I only asked so I could get an idea about what your system had available compared to what you were asking it to do.

That all said, I think you're reaching the end of the Resource Curve for that machine. Inside every release trainz, there is a curve in the complexity of available models as time went on and creators got better or more detailed or whatever.... This applies to all assets. The more higher end assets you have/use for a particular version, the more you're asking of your system. And though your system was well far and away above minimum specs for '04, creators have since made assets for '04 (*Cough* TPR amongst others *Cough*) that would stress even the best systems from back when '04 was released.

Mezzo also brings up a good point. You could try lowering your Video Settings (You can also lower Audio but this has almost no impact usually on the resource usage, since the graphics are such a huge part of this). Lower Draw Distance means fewer polys/textures the computer has to draw, through there is a curve and eventually you reach a point where the game is trying to draw polys so fast as you encounter them on the map moving at 30MPH say, you're negating any computing savings you would have otherwise been getting, but that point is pretty low.

Now, this is essentially conjecture on my part at this point, and without actually doing some research into your Logs and checking a few things on your system I can't confirm it, but from my experience with this game through the years, I would bet this is whats going on from what you're describing. Faulty or Corrupt Assets tend to cause problems at every instance of their use, and the CM's have mostly been pretty good at catching those and forcing a DB rebuild for quite awhile now. My suggestion going forward would be to either start considering limiting what assets (Or how many of them) you're using, *or* improving your system assets, which can take many forms. Just getting another GB of Ram would help it short term, as I believe '04 was a 32Bit program as well (Means it can make use of up to a maximum of 4GB RAM). After that, if you could get a Quad-core, and then transfer your game (We can advise you on how to do that), you'd be set for life if you keep running '04, though at that point Id be curious as to why you wouldn't upgrade to '12, lol.

Either way, if you have any other issues, questions, concerns, or ideas, feel free to post them,
Falcus

 

[cascaderailroad]

snip~ I used to run '06 on a single core 2.0Ghz Cpu, 1GB Ram, no Vid card (Seems to be a pattern of mine), and though it was fragile, I could run it moderately well..... Course that machine could barely load '12, but it was fine for '06, and your setup is better then what I had at the time.

snip~ And though your system was well far and away above minimum specs for '04

snip~ though at that point Id be curious as to why you wouldn't upgrade to '12, lol.

Falcus

What exactly does that mean: "your system was well "far and away" above minimum specs for '04"
Isn't that like: "Obects in mirror appear closer than they really are"

If TS12 requires a high end PC ... Maybe he can't run it ... and TS12 has more problems and complexities than 04, 06 ... and I suspect T:ANE will be even more of a resource hog, chock full of complexities, and will be chock full of even more headaches than 12 is.

Newer ... does not mean "Better"

 

[AnalogOldguy]

Cascade your reaction is sounding so angry, and very illogical. I am not running either 2009 or 2010 (which I own and have run and uninstalled from my Pentium 4 computer). And I am never going to run either 2012 or TANE. What on earth does that have to do with my current situation?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now for the post I was going to put here ...

Hello again, and thank you all for the input so far about my problem.

A little light has come on in my head, after I reported here that my CPU (Sempron 2800+) was overclocked to 2.2Ghz ...

I had to replace the motherboard battery about a month ago, and I now remember that the info on the black screen before Windows booted up stated "PC3200 DDR400",and didn't look right.

I'm very sure now that this number is incorrect, my old overclocked reading was DDR333. I remember when some guys on Guru3d hardware forum were talking me through the overclocking, I was amazed how the memory number "looked slower". Though the computer was acting a lot faster.

I believe that the CPU might be running at the old stock speed, which I believe is 1.6 Ghz. I'm going to have to reinstall the CPU-Z program which tells the speed, and then go change numbers in the BIOS.

I will report back here, but it might take a while. The heat of my GPU is around 43c before I start Trainz 2004 and it reads about 58-60 or so after a couple of hours and go back to desktop (but it has always been like that). I'm still believing that it is something to do with AJS or some dependency or overload in that area of the route. This is usually a very easy older route for me to run.

I'll be back.

 

[generalman]

I'll be back.

Thanks for the warning. :hehe: Just kidding.

 

[johnwhelan]

TRS2004 had problems with scripts, basically one could modify the variables of another, so essentially if you use more than one scripted object such as a loco in TRS2004 anything can happen including the game crashing. You should be able to move your route to TS2010 but I'd recommend moving to TS12, the scripting side is more stable. Again TRS2004 scripts may cause some problems.

Cheerio John

 

[AnalogOldguy]

Hello People, I am back.

I had a terrific theory yesterday. Yesterday I changed all the BIOS settings back to those I have been running for about six years, actually. This is with no voltage changes, all done with frontside bus increases and the timings of the memory and so on, I am not an expert on this! No kind of changes on the AGP side, never was. This made the distance drawing extremely good again, and all the rotation and movement stuff very quick again.

I also cleaned out the insides of the computer. Not a heck of a lot of dust in there, but some. The memory was a little dustier than I would have thought. Removed the video card, memory sticks, dusted them off, dusted out the memory slots and the AGP slot. Capacitors, hard drives, cleaned everything.

However, in Trainz 2004, as I tried different routes besides Yorkshire Plains, small and large, (when coming out of a quick drive and the then hitting the red light to close surveyor) ( do you want to save?, No), had many crashes to desktop sometimes referencing Render Directx9.dll. And some referencing Class Hardware access violation.

I tested the Direct X 9c. Nothing wrong with it (microsoft says)!<--Notice the no capital M there?

But my Trainz Classics 1&2 did absolutely no crashing (never has) last night (and I have some fairly heavy German routes there, and a lot of the buildings and Polish and German locos and rolling stock are higher poly than in 2004). No crash to desktop. None. So I am thinking "maybe my 2004 is finally falling apart!" !!!

I think I have seen some signs of this in the buttons for cab view, outside view and so on, they have not stayed lit as I see in Classics 1&2.
I swear they are supposed to stay lit. It has been this way for a couple of years.

However ...There is some evidence today that temperature might have something to do with the problem. Overnight I closed the door to my computer room (to save on heat), and the room was probably five or six degrees cooler when I came home today (the room was cold). Trainz 2004 did not crash after maybe six attempts. Naturally, neither did Classics 1&2.

Right now I am thinking, reinstall Trainz 2004. (I think you have to clean out all references in the registry)?...I don't know if I will have to move my 9Gb or so of World downloads. I would hate to lose those (really,really). This is a harder problem than my original concern about the Yorkshire Plains routes and clones. So perhaps I should move my reinstalling questions to Parts and Labor?

Thanks to all.

 

[AnalogOldguy]

Deleting the dispatcher chump file may well help. I do it often, particularly after downloading several new assets.

It may seem as if it has frozen on the last green light, but be patient. If necessary go and do something else. Mine has taken 5 minutes or more to load after a crash. It's well worth the wait though, and you'll find afterwards that it will load faster (until the next crash).

One other tip. Wait until the Surveyor cache bar is fully completed before doing anything else such as Quickdrive.

Answering some replies I forgot to do. Hi Mezzo, thanks for the tips! I did delete the "world_cache_dispatcher.chump file yesterday" I don't know if that was the right one because it only took maybe 20-30 seconds or so to get to the green light and start up. Seemed too fast for 9 Gigabytes...

I'll remember about waiting for the red caching bars to complete. In that area of Yorkshire Plains it does two complete passes through the caching bars!

I have seen some screenshots of some of your Creations, and I can tell that they will not run happily on my computer. Although on my computer many of the grasses and heavy duty vegetation and scenery will not be there, (because I have limited much of that stuff).. It cuts it down for me, allowing some very heavy routes to run much better! (Yet look halfway decent(to me))! Hang in there!

 

[mezzoprezzo]

~snip~ I have seen some screenshots of some of your Creations, and I can tell that they will not run happily on my computer. ~snip~

That has confused me a bit.

I haven't created very much in the way of individual assets, although I've made a few large routes. However, I've never released anything (so far).

What are the particular assets you're referring to? It would be helpful to me to have these identified so that I can check them out on my routes as suspected "performance reducers".

 

[Falcus]

What exactly does that mean: "your system was well "far and away" above minimum specs for '04"
Isn't that like: "Obects in mirror appear closer than they really are"

If TS12 requires a high end PC ... Maybe he can't run it ... and TS12 has more problems and complexities than 04, 06 ... and I suspect T:ANE will be even more of a resource hog, chock full of complexities, and will be chock full of even more headaches than 12 is.

Newer ... does not mean "Better"

Honestly Cascade, I really don't understand how you got what you did out of my post or why you chose to reply the way you did to mine..... I don't believe I ever once said that anything newer was ever better then anything older..... Nor did I tell him to go buy TS12....... I do agree T:ANE will require more resources then TS12, but I fail to understand what that has to do with anything I said, bar some obscure association with the fact that I was talking about system resources.....

As far as the, what I'm going to call, "Phrase association" you made, I have no Idea how you got "Far and away" related to "Objects in mirror appear closer then they really are"...... One deals purely with distance, and the other is a catch phrase off Automobile Sideview mirrors that has to do with the perception, and illusion of distance in said mirrors....... So I would have to say, no, they're not really anything alike at all......

Since we seem to be playing word Algebra, Ill explain it in a different sequence.... Promise there won't be an equals sign....
TRS'04 rolled out the door with Minimum Spec Requirements. His Systems requirements are much higher then what TRS'04 asked for. Hence, his system requirements are above what was asked, and not just a little higher, alot. Hence, to describe this imagined distance, I use the Colloquialism "Far and Away".

I really didn't think my statement was that complicated.....

Falcus

 

[Falcus]

@Analogguy
Well, I DID have a nice post all typed out to Analog guy, but then the site or my ISP or Gremlins or w/e else Glitched just as I tried to post it so it disappeared.

Quick recap:
Age of computer and how often is it turned off? Power Cycling and Age are the two biggest factors after Dust to cause Temp performance issues or failures.

What Directx Version did TC1/2 use? Do you use the same routes in TC1/2 that you use in '04? If not, maybe try importing them and see what happens. Usually when you get DirectX errors, theres an issue with the GPU's (Software generally, but can be hardware as well) ability to deal with Textures. Theres a big difference in resource requirements between 1024 and 2048 Textures, and this is an old example....

Falcus

 

[AnalogOldguy]

Mezzoprezzo, no, when I said your 'creations' I meant your routes I have seen in threads here.

To you all, and to Falcus whose last post I see below ...

Falcus asked
Age of computer and how often is it turned off? Power Cycling and Age are the two biggest factors after Dust to cause Temp performance issues or failures.

I'm not sure about the motherboard and power supply, I would say about six years.
The video card maybe five years. (These are very approximate) But I have done a lot of off/on maybe three times a day.

The 2004 and TC 1&2 are both using DirectX 9.0c, but the TC is running at the higher resolution, what is it 1024x1280...?

I believe all of the routes I downloaded into the TC are for 2006 .

I'll give an example. (Sunday 7 p.m.). I just had a crash to desktop while calmly scrolling around in the big map screen while driving in that Yorkshire Plains route with only one loco and nothing else on the route. It was a Class Hardware: Access Violation: Call Stack: and such wording. TRS20044\bin\RenderDirectX9.dll (I have a screenshot of the error wording, but don't know if I can put it here. It's only a 31k .gif.

I immediately went to TC and loaded a much larger map session with ten locos on it all with rolling stock attached. (only one consist actually in motion). I free roamed all over the place, up down, sideways, big jumps all over the big map. Then I went to the big driver map screen and scrolled and jumped all over it. Then went back to driver went back to surveyor, it took long, maybe 30-45 seconds to close the big map, and went smoothly and cleanly to the Surveyor menu screen and then cleanly out to the desktop.

2004 has done that always cleanly, until about week or so ago. Really with the same old routes. In fact I've been culling them down to the ones I like the best.

over and out for now! Bob P. (Room Temperature 72)

 

[johnwhelan]

Dumb question are you using UPS such as Cyberpower? The big problem is brownouts ie voltage drops, if you own a fridge for example then when it starts up typically the voltage drops and you also get a few spikes which a UPS can handle.

Cheerio John

 

[clam1952]

Looking at the age of the PC, I'd suggest a disk and memory check and a look at event viewer for any indications of hardware problems developing.

 

[cascaderailroad]

However ...There is some evidence today that temperature might have something to do with the problem. Overnight I closed the door to my computer room (to save on heat), and the room was probably five or six degrees cooler when I came home today (the room was cold). Trainz 2004 did not crash after maybe six attempts. Naturally, neither did Classics 1&2.

I keep the temp in my house set at 50F ... I have to wear winter clothes, gloves and a wool knit cap, inside, all day ... as it gets so cold that my brain actiually hurtz ... but my PC runs great at those temps