POLY?

Hi, I'm relatively new to tracking in Surveyor... Some posts in the Tips/Tricks thread mention High Poly and Low Poly track, and also HP and HR track on the DLS, so my question is what is High/Low Poly, What is poly in general, and what is HP and HR???

-Thanks, Ron

Polys in this context mean polygons which the models use. i.e. models are made from polygons. Assets with high poly counts take longer to "paint" onscreen and therefore make the game run slower. That's a simplistic way of looking at it. Polygons, for Trainz purposes, are triangles or tris. So if you are going to build a really busy freight yard with lots of track then lower poly versions of track may be better. It's a trade off between faster running time and detail.

The model makers are somewhat obsessed about poly counts so it gets discussed a lot. Trainz has a bundle of techniques to try and overcome the problem of high poly models.

Sorry, I don't know what HP and HR means in the track context.

I laid a 30 track yard with MP Wood v2 track, and tested its framerates and it was @ 27 FPS

I replaced the tracks with Greenery (no longer existent web site) and the framerates were drastically lower

I replaced the tracks with a super detailed track, an the framerates were slayed to a standstill

I noticed that my framerates were slayed in a complex switch interlocking ... I deleted the PRR Dwarf signals and the framerates came back to normal.

The most important thing with chosing a track is: Does it kink in switchs (displaying a series of straight segments, and is not really a curve at all).

Hundreds of railcars, some high poly locos, trees, buildings, grass ... etc ... will slay framerates ... as do all splines (which means track should be avoided at all costs, an a route should be a "Rails To Trails" route). :hehe:

Hi Ron,

Welcome to Trainz, if you haven't been welcomed yet!

Paul and Cascade have answered this very well.

The HP and HR are some European developers. HP is from HP-Trainz which is a group of German developers who made some awesome stuff including the Marias Pass route included as well as their own Marias Pass X which is pay ware. HR is from the Hungarian Trainz (HOTT - I think). Their stuff is great too, albeit a bit older. They made a set of very low detail, but effective track which works well in yards and places where you need lots of track.

Now, without registering your program online, we have no way of knowing what version you are running. TS12, the latest version, handles high polygon assets very well while the older versions balked. This isn't saying that high polygon numbers aren't going to bring your machine to its knees, you still have to use them diligently. The most logical practice is to use the high polygon, super detailed, really pretty stuff, in the foreground close to the tracks where you and everyone else will see the operations, and relegate the less detailed stuff for the background. This isn't much different than what's done in the movies.

Now on to splines. These critters are a necessary evil. Track is a spline object, so are telegraph poles, roads, fences, and other stuff we really need. What you need to do is choose carefully. There are some splines that will kill the frame rates, meaning you can bring a route driving session down to a slideshow. This is due to the way they are made. They too have polygons, but instead of loading the object once, the same object is loaded over and over again as a new instance as the object is loaded in the segments. This is why there are stutters as you move along. There are other causes of stutters, but splines can really cause them. What I have done is use a few fences here and there, avoid the grass splines if I can which can cause awful pauses.

I seriously recommend registering. I have to say this as it is important. If you have registered previously, or are having troubles registering your serial number, please contact the helpdesk. In the even you are using a second account to post here, the helpdesk can take care of this too and merge your accounts together. Without showing a registered version, you'll be repeatedly hounded, and will receive little support as this usually indicates software piracy and we take that seriously.

John

I am currently using the iPad version of Trainz, and don't know how to register... D: Now I know that High and Low Poly track don't apply to my version of Trainz since there are no external downloads. I was looking for tips and tricks for Surveyor but didn't know what any of the above things meant...

EverTrainz said:

I am currently using the iPad version of Trainz, and don't know how to register... D: Now I know that High and Low Poly track don't apply to my version of Trainz since there are no external downloads. I was looking for tips and tricks for Surveyor but didn't know what any of the above things meant...

Click to expand...

You are registered as I can see this on your station timeline next to your username.

Your content is a bit more locked down than what use PC and MAC desktop users have. Splines are things like track, roads, telephone poles among other things. When they are drawn, they plunk down a clump then repeat until you end the strip. The repeats cause the stutters as they load. Some track, being higher detailed, has more faces on its surface. This causes the repeats to cause performance problems as the computer loads these bits and pieces into memory.

When you have a large rail yard, you are putting down lots and lots of polygons. This isn't just the long distance stretches of track but also a large number of them in one area at once. Now add in other objects with many, many polygons such as tank cars, box cars, and especially locomotives, and you'll have a slideshow.

All I can suggest is to experiment with the content and find the stuff that works best with what you want.

John