Trainz2010 not running, help requested

H

handlaidtrack

New member
I now have Trainz2010 downloaded, installed, and . . . . . not running.

1) The first problem occurred when Trainz did a system check. “Open GL” failed, and there were about 10 consecutive tests near the end that came up with warnings – I think they may be related to not finding Open GL, but I don’t know how to get back to that screen again to check.

2) Then I received a very large error window that suggested trying DirectX, and checking that I have the latest hardware drivers, among other things.
I selected DirectX instead, and have at least got something now.

3) At main menu, the whole background is being displayed about ¾” too far to the left, off the side of the screen.

4) Scenarios
Bank’s Heath – Error, unable to load, script errors, contact author
Others – Missing assets, scenario will terminate

5) Routes
I’ve opened several routes, and all I can see is the terrain mesh.

My first thoughts were “What a load of ****”, but if everyone was having the same problems, the forum would have already been flooded with posts to that effect, so it probably has something to do with my system.

My research tells me that I should already have Open GL as part of windows VISTA. I wonder if I need to reinstall. If so, I don’t know how – can someone please help?
Ditto with checking for the latest drivers. There must be a utility to do this somewhere, but where is it?

Problem 3, could be a result of 1 and 2 – I’m not sure

4 and 5 suggest that there is missing content that I should have received. I downloaded 5 files – 4 large data files and a very small setup program.

Well, I’m going off to reread everything I have on Trainz just on the off chance that I find some answers. In the meantime, hopefully someone can offer some solutions.

:confused:
 
You must have Open GL working to run CM3.2 witch you must run at lest one time to get TS2010 to run with all content. TrainzDiag.exe is in the Bin folder. Find out what video card you have and get new driver.
 
Progress so far:
I’ve found and installed a more up to date drive for my video card, and that has fixed the screen misalignment (#3).
TrainzDiag.exe now finds Open GL, and passes all tests.
All the other issues still exist. Also, I should have mentioned that there is no “tutorial” option on the main menu, which should be there according to the manual.

Still in DirectX, I tried surveyor mode and was able to move about the grid and add mountains, but not track or buildings. All textures were plain pink squares. After about a minute of messing about, it crashed (black screen, then a “Trainz has stopped working” message window). It crashed several times, always after about a minute, regardless of what I did.

After switching to Open GL, I can’t even get as far. The program crashes as soon as I try to create a new route or run an existing one (black screen, then a “Trainz has stopped working” message window, just as before), sometime giving me just long enough to see that it still only has the naked terrain mesh. It also messes up my screen resolution when crashing, reducing the size of any other windows that were open at the time.

The latest, is that having been told that I have to run CM3.2 at least once, I ran the content manager. Without knowing exactly what to do here, I just logged in as requested and started looking at all the different tabs available. Then ‘it’ happened again... error message, CM has stopped working. Now, I can’t even get to the main menu in Trainz; it just displays “Build 41491” in the middle of the screen, and that’s as far as it goes!

This is starting to get frustrating!

Most game and other software manuals I’ve seen include a trouble-shooting section, but that appears to not be the case with Trainz. Does anyone have any suggestions?
I wonder if I should just contact Auran’s customer support. Let’s see, they are about 16 hours ahead of us here, so if I open a ticket tomorrow afternoon, they should just be getting back to work on Monday.
 
Hi,

What are your PC specifications? & operating system?

Normally (well on 2009, 2006 - I'm waiting for the 2010 disc) the first time you open the Content Manager it starts off by re-builiding its database (stictly, the first time it's creating one!).
This takes some time (tens of minutes) however, the Content Manager from 2009 onwards can multitask - but not reliably. I guess the thing's trying to do too much at one time.

Open the CM, then go and have drink (tea, coffeee, etc) and come back later.
Once the database is re-built you may find it's a lot more stable,.

HTH

Colin
 
Thanks for that suggestion.
I’m now back in CM3.2.
It is idle and says “there are no items to display”, Current speed 0, Downloaded today 0MB
The “All” list flashes every few seconds, but there’s no clear indication of whether or not I’m actually supposed to do something to it.
I don’t recall reading any mention of CM in the user manual, and if I open on-line help, all I get is an impressive index of empty pages!
What should I do?

Since you asked, my system specs are:
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700 processor 2.66GHz
EVGA nForce 680i SLI Motherboard
EVGA GeForce 7300 GT video card – 512MB DDR2
Windows VISTA (Virtually Impossible to Successfully Transact Anything) 32-bit
4GB Ram (2 @ 2GB)
iF281D 28” high-res flatscreen monitor
 
Not clear if you have run an Extended Database Repair (EDR). If you have not done so then you should try doing so. Its on the Content Manager "File" menu (at least it is in 2009). Set it running and leave CM3 and you PC alone until it's done.

Another thing is that with Vista you have to install and run Trainz as Administrator.......if you did not do so you may (will?) have problems.

If the problems persist after running the EDR I'd tend to blame graphics drivers problem. Let us know how you get on.
 
Thanks for that suggestion.
OK, I've run the extended DB repair as suggested, ran it as administrator. It took about 3-4 minutes. Does that seem right?
One thing that definitely seems wrong in the CM, is that every single asset that is available is listed as "faulty" or "faulty dependencies". When I download something from the DLS, the status changes from "not faulty" to "faulty".

I did do the install (setup) as administrator, but didn't think it would be necessary to run Trainz that way. Anyway, I just tried running as administrator and it didn't make any difference.
 
If every single piece of content is shown as faulty then it's no wonder you are getting problems when you try and run Trainz.

I'm thinking now it may be a bad install. Did you use a download manager when you downloaded the files from Auran? There is always a chance that something got corrupted.

Couple of things you could try:

In CM3 right click on a faulty item and select "Open for Edit" from the popup menu. Then right click on the same item and select "Revert" and see if that removes the faults on that item. (you can do this in bulk but try on one just to see).

You could try another EDR - sometimes one does not work.

Failing that I would think it's a fresh download and uninstall / reinstall unless anybody else has a better suggestion.

In Vista you should always run Trainz as Administrator (lots of posts about this if you do a forum search).
 
Last edited:
I did a second EDR; didn't make any difference.
I tried "open for edit" and "revert"; no change.

No I didn't use a download manager. I just clicked on the links in the confirmation email and did "save link as" for each file.
 
I'm all out of suggestions except a reinstall.

You could try reinstalling the already downloaded files or to be sure do a fresh download using a download manager (I think Auran suggest "FreeDownloadManager" - I have not used it so cannot express an opinion).

Do all of following as Administrator:

Uninstall 2010 (there should be an option to do this in the Auran folder or the Vista Control Panel).

Reboot just to be sure the uninstall is complete.

Disconnect from the internet and disable any Anti Virus programs.

Install TS2010.

Before doing anything else go into CM3 and run an extended database repair. Leave the CM and the PC alone while you are running this.

Check CM3 for content with errors !!

Hopefully run TS2010 with no problems.....

Don't forget to re-enable Anti Virus programs before you reconnect the internet.
 
I did a fresh download last night, uninstalled, deleted all trace of the old system, and ran a fresh install. No I didn’t think to reboot before the new install.

It passed the diagnostics test first time, and most of the miscellaneous problems and symptoms have now disappeared. The CM shows everything as “not faulty”, the “Tutorials” option is available at the main menu, and the scenarios do not display error messages any more.

That’s the good news.
The bad news is that the program still crashes as soon as I try to do anything. It takes a few moments (possibly as much as a minute) to load the assets it needs, but then crashes before reaching the next screen.
When attempting to get into surveyor mode to add a new route, it crashes as soon as I hit the ‘create route’ button. Attempting to edit an existing route loads the data, and then crashes. It would seem that the crash always happens just as it is ready to start displaying a map (or empty grid).

One thing I noticed this morning, is that the first time Trainz runs (opened from the install), it automatically does an EDR, which means that the install program calls the CM. This leads to another question...
When I use “run as administrator” to install, is the CM then “run as administrator” when called as a sub-process, or does it get run normally? This could be a potential cause of the problem, or maybe I’m just clutching at straws. There is a box that can be unchecked to not do this from the install.
Have other VISTA users been able to answer this question?
 
dont want to jump to a conclusion but the 7300 is a pretty bad card for games, in my experience. it often craps out.

im not saying this is your problem up front but those cards are known throughout gaming and gaming dev worlds for being junk.
 
A few thing to try:

Run in DirectX or OpenGL (whichever you are not using at the moment).

Turn off Shadows.

Check the Anti-aliasing settings are not conflicting with your video cards settings (use application settings).

Run Trainz full screen at the same resolution as your monitor. Note - given that you have a large hi-res monitor this may be a problem, your graphics card may not be up to running Trainz at very high resolutioons.....Might be worth playing with the screen resolution settings to see if this helps.

The above settings are in "Options" on the Launcher (first) screen - there may be other things you can try here in the 2010 version which I don't know about (I'm waiting for the DVD version). When you get into the game there are further options to adjust the Video settings which could be worth trying.

So long as you have installed and are running Trainz as administrator there should be no problem with "sub processes". I run it on Vista HP 32 without problems.

Also, does the crash leave you with an error report window?
 
Thanks for that last suggestion. I turned off shadows and played with the resolution.
Trainz was set to 1024x768. When I set my monitor to this same setting, it worked!
Then I tried setting both back to my preferred screen setting of 1920x1200, and ... it still works! It’s not quite as smooth as at the lower resolution, but I can live with it.
It’s now appears that Trainz MUST be set to the same resolution as the monitor. If this is the case, I don’t know why it can’t set itself that way. I’ve never had this problem with any other software.
 
handlaidtrack said:
It’s now appears that Trainz MUST be set to the same resolution as the monitor. If this is the case, I don’t know why it can’t set itself that way. I’ve never had this problem with any other software.
Click to expand...

Interesting. I'm using a not too disimliar card to you, a nVidia GeForce Go 7600 (256mb varaint) and I haven't seen the problems you described yet, but I have had other problems, like it will work in OGL mode, but not DX. Having said that, my drivers are atleast a year out of date, they're 167.70 IIRC, as they are the only stable ones with the chip, everything else causes soo many bizzare issues.

I've also used 2010 in windowed mode, so that may have something to do with it, not tried full screen yet.
 
handlaidtrack said:
.....It’s now appears that Trainz MUST be set to the same resolution as the monitor......
Click to expand...

I don't think this is the case - have you got the checkbox for "fullscreen" in options checked?

Re the smoothness, at 1024 X 768 you are driving 786,432 pixels at 1920 X 1200 it's 2,304,000 - about 3 times as many so a slight performance drop is to be expected.

Anyway glad to know that you are up and running.

Enjoy !!
 
It appears that it must be set to the correct resolution in full-screen mode.
I’ve now gone back to using a lower resolution in window mode. This allows me to keep the user manual open at the side while I learn how to use it.
I spent most of last night working in surveyor mode. I’m sure I’ll have a whole load of questions later, but they belong in another thread. There seems to be a lot that is not covered in the manual, so I’m off to search the forum for answers.
:)
 
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