Trainz Update Announcement (SP6)

[paulper]

As a test I just merged my two largest routes into a 400+MB monster ("monster" by my standards) and I am seeing a noticeable drop in the FPS, particularly in asset rich (i.e. built up urban) areas. The two separate routes (210MB and 195MB) work perfectly without any issues in SP6.

I always take a minimalist approach to asset selection (e.g. no tree splines or billboard trees, lots of LoRes assets at distances from the track, using assets with LOD data where they were suitable and available, etc) so there is little further pruning that I could do.

I will join you in waiting to see what develops with the next update or TRS26 (whichever is first).

Presumably that's 2 bugs that you've reported now regarding SP6?

 

[ivomasek]

The fix is simple. "Update" to SP5 (everything worked there). And they can call it SP7 (and everyone will be happy). The Trainz game is not free. And it is not exactly cheap. There is no room for experimentation with a paid product. A paid product has to work.

Ivo

 

[HPL]

Midwestern Rails ran smooth in SP5 but in SP6, its a slide show no matter where I go.

That's exactly what I experienced (reported here) and N3V's answer is here. It was in the RC build but same issue once SP6 was pushed on. No further news since... Note that several other routes (including DLCs) have the exact same problem.

 

[Sanek17]

And the developers don’t want to communicate with us anymore?

 

[HPL]

They did communicate via the Newsletter touting SP6's performance optimization. But they never play their own game, otherwise they would know that SP6 looks like an amateur game in an early development phase.

 

[paulper]

They did communicate via the Newsletter touting SP6's performance optimization. But they never play their own game, otherwise they would know that SP6 looks like an amateur game in an early development phase.

I might be wrong, but I'm not sure that anyone that hasn't had issues with SP6 has been able to state it has improved performance.

 

[HPL]

At last N3V reacts! Here.

 

[pware]

Presumably that's 2 bugs that you've reported now regarding SP6?

Not yet. I am currently testing to narrow down the problem.

The last time I merged the same two routes in SP5 there was an identical issue. I discovered that some small grasses and small bushes I had been painting throughout large parts of the route using the Scrapbook Brush had asset file sizes in excess of 1MB each. Replacing those with far less memory intensive grasses and bushes resolved the problem. Since then I have been adding other assets and now I have noticed that some of the road spline assets have file sizes of around 4.5MB (I am presuming that is per spline segment???) and I have hundreds of kms of these road assets throughout the route. Currently removing them in stages and retesting - a slow process.

EDIT: Preliminary Results:

Phase 1 of the testing, to remove all the road splines and run a session, now complete. I can report that, apart from a very minor drop in FPS in the most asset dense area of the route, all the "stuttering" has gone.

 

[HPL]

From N3V's latest post: "...recently introduced memory management system..." and further: "...the limiter...". So there is a memory limit in SP6 if someone still was in doubt...

 

[pware]

Not in doubt at all.

Our internal testing has confirmed that a recently introduced memory management system is being triggered more often than we expected in certain routes. This system was introduced to reduce crashes caused by excessive memory consumption. We expect that this is likely the cause of much or all of the reloading/redrawing of scenery, especially splines.

You seem to be confusing "memory management" (Windows has that as well) with "memory limit". As easy mistake to make.