Using Frame Limiter

boleyd

Well-known member
Using the Trainz frame limiter set to 30, I was able to achieve smoother performance while riding an AI engine through a route where stutters were normal. Before using the limiter I removed all splines in a section of the route since they are periodically said to be causes of stuttering. I could see no material improvement when the engine passed through the non-spline area in terms of FPS or stuttering.

I then set the the frame limiter (trainzoptions.txt) to 30 instead of the default 200fps. Ran the route again using the same out of cab front window view I had used before. Stutters were definitely reduced but not totally eliminated. Had one pause of over a second when starting the run. I eliminated that by sitting still in the cab while Trainz "slowly" built surrounding scenery.

Watching the CPU usage with the limiter in place it was around 40% average for both cores in heavily vegetated but few buildings areas. In a village with around 30 buildings, plus the usual heavy vegetation, it would jump to 70% CPU. In thin vegetation the CPU was 15%. This is the average for both cores. Looking that the Task Manager performance graph both cores had close to equal amounts of load.

The video card General Processing Unit (GPU) had loads mostly in the 40% to 50% range. It rose to 75% in the village. Previously the GPU would run at, or near, 99%.

Memory usage usually ran around 600mb except in the village it rose to 1,100mb.

Obviously people have used the limiter and probably saw no material difference. Therefore, as is usual, what you see is entirely dependent upon your hardware and running software. This is an almost infinite number of combinations thus none of the things I found may work on any other PC on the Planet, or what is left of it.:eek:

Windows7 32 bit
CPU e8600 3ghz 4gb memory
Video nVidia 240GT 512mb of memory fully overclocked (to the failure point)
 
There are far too many variables in hardware and software to predict what will work to optimize the Trainz experience. It's a personal journey for everyone, but this is a good variable to consider. Thanks for posting.:)
 
Using the Trainz frame limiter set to 30, I was able to achieve smoother performance while riding an AI engine through a route where stutters were normal.

I have used (-framerate=30) in the trainzoptions file for more than two years now and have found it the most effective way of reducing stutters. This does not completely eliminate them but does give an improved performance. Also the CPU and GPU run cooler. I have used this frame limiter in TS2010, 2009 and 2006. I use DirectX where I find that framerates are better than OpenGL.

Before I upgraded my CPU and GPU when framerates were poorer, I used a figure of 25 with similar benefit.

Providing the graphics run smoothly (i.e. no stuttering), I find that even 20fps is adequate for the human eye. My video camera runs at 30fps.

To me, the biggest problem with all Trainz versions which detracts from the enjoyment is stuttering and I have always felt that this would be something that the experts at N3V could address and give advice on.

Like you, I have found that the load on the CPU and GPU suggests that there is a reserve capacity in them which does not explain the stuttering. Yes there are other factors like memory or disc caching which could add to stuttering but I have not investigated these.

Scottish
 
thanks for the info
i never heard about this before

will try it later tonight hopefully and post my results

thanks
ron
 
Interesting: I have a high end laptop. TR09 was running with stutters. One day I replaced the HDD with an SSD: magic! stutters are mostly gone! There is some lost frames from time to time, but it must be the graphics card, specially at heavy asset areas. The HDD is a 7200RPM unit, and I use it now for back up storage, having the SSD as the main booting, it loads W-7 (64) in less than 15 seconds..! Years ago I did the frame rate=30, but today I have not done it yet. Yes, I remember it did gain performance, so I will experiment with it.
 
Hi llebrez,

I acomplish a 30fps limit in options by going to the "Refresh Rate" section and setting the Vertical Sync to Half Rate and the Frequency to 60.
 
Hi llebrez,

I acomplish a 30fps limit in options by going to the "Refresh Rate" section and setting the Vertical Sync to Half Rate and the Frequency to 60.

NO! Leave v/sync and freq alone unless you have serious issues! The default 'Auto' setting should work on almost anything!

What you should do is open trainzoptions.txt and insert the line

-framerate=30

Andy ;)
 
I agree with Dermmy.

Changing the Frequency and Vertical Sync settings can have adverse effects in Trainz, including very low frame rates, and even Trainz not starting at all.

Shane
 
I tried the -framerates=30 in TrainzOptions, and I noticed smoother performance while driving (which means better quality Trainz videos!) and the game did not freeze for 3 seconds as regularly as it did before while coupling two carriages with coupling scripts together.

Thanks for letting us know about this TrainzOptions tag!
 
hi mates
done the -30 framerates last night
went into surveyor
and hey presto
i was able to move aro8nd with only minimal stutter

thanks heaps for all this info
its greatly appreciated

cheers]
ron
 
hi mates
done the -30 framerates last night
went into surveyor
and hey presto
i was able to move aro8nd with only minimal stutter

thanks heaps for all this info
its greatly appreciated

cheers]
ron

The frame limiter has most effect when running in Driver. You will probably get less stuttering when running with AI.

The best way of preventing hesitation in Surveyor is to reduce the draw distance to say 2000m when working on a map, then increase it for running Driver.

Scottish
 
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