Where do you store all your locomotives and consists ?

Where do you store all your thousands of locomotives, and hundreds of 1 mile long consists ?



Whilst this may work well on an HO model railroad, or in Trainz where you have a $3600 high spec laptop ... it is not prototypical, as most roundhouses had just a few locos inside for repairs, and the rest of the thousands of locos were in movement around the system, making money hauling trains. This goes for huge freight classification yards, most of the tracks were empty, as they wanted to sort trains and get them going, out of the yard tracks.

If you make Global One, Baily NE yard, or Norfolk VA Lamberts Pier, and load it up with 100, one mile long Trainz consists, and hundreds of your favorite locos ... framerates will be in the single digits.

I have devised a plan to make an off to the side, route, group of baseboards, on which a double track extends for 10 miles. one track is used to store your consists, and the other adjacent track is always empty. At the very end of the 2 tracks is a Portal, and on your actual route is another portal (hidden inside a repair shed, enginehouse ... etc ...).

The double track has crossovers at the end of every 1 mile long consist (including the desired locomotives). Rotating trackside cameras are placed near the head ends of every consist.

When you want a train, you go to the desired train, using "Find Consist" tool button. All your named "New Consists will be there for you to choose from.

Drive the train across the crossover, and onto the empty double track line, and drive it to the Portal, to send it to the route roundhouse (you could also not use Portals at all, and instead use hidden underground trackage 6.00m below the surface).

This way all your route stays nice and uncluttered, and the framerates are great, as all your trains are in storage on an off route 10 mile long set of baseboards (you could even make it 100 miles long if you wanted, or make it 4 tracked, instead of 2 tracked).

You could also have the tracks very widely spaced apart from other 2 tracked storage yards (so as to keep framerates to their highest).

It is how many hundreds of things Trainz see's in it's FOV, that destroys your framerates.

I bet a yard like that in trainz would be 1 FPS to 0.14 FPS, LOL

Azervich said:

I bet a yard like that in trainz would be 1 FPS to 0.14 FPS, LOL

Click to expand...

I was thinking the same, or on the lines of a white screen of death in the program with not responding on the top!

Here's a good example,

http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q97/Azervich/azervich_20150829_0003_zps0bdzrid5.jpg

I used the latest wagons I've released for this test as the LOD's are with bogies

1.00 26k Poly
0.45 11k Poly
0.08 2k Poly
0.02 100 Poly

Yet trainz was all bogged down and barely let me move.

Cheers.

I don't think all of this bogging is relate to the graphics.

Each of the train cars (wagons) is tracked by the underlying simulator for position and status. If there are many of them, the system will get caught up with tracking the wagons and not able to run the rest of the simulator well.

JR came out with a script that helps as it turns off the hunting for the consists until they are connected to a locomotive. I have seen some improvement in performance when using their wagons, but adding that script to each and every one of my non-JR wagons proved to be quite painful and I gave up soon enough.

This type of code should be built right into the game/simulator rather than bolted on top.

John

In my local folder.

USB's are the best place to store your content. The bigger the file spaces it has the better (I recommend getting the 1TB or 2TB) because they have the most space.

No ... I mean where do you physically store them all on your route ... you can't run them if they are not placed, and are hidden in your Local folder, or on an external HD ... they are unusable if they are not actually placed on your route in surveyor.

I have @ 30 SD45's ... I want them on a ready track, ready to couple onto a consist ... if I place them all in my roundhouse, and in my engine terminal ... my framerates will be 0.05 FPS, and my route will be cluttered with thousands of my favorite high poly locos.

Make each one (SD45's - whatever they are ) up as a consist and place it when and where required using Quick Drive ? Not tried this myself but worth a go ?

itareus said:

Make each one (SD45's - whatever they are ) up as a consist and place it when and where required using Quick Drive ? Not tried this myself but worth a go ?

Click to expand...

It works great. I do this all the time.

I have some rail cars in the yards to look like there's something going on and to switch stuff for locals, but if I want more trains I'll use the Quick Drive, plop down a new consist, assign a driver and that's it. I have various consists I've made up like Mixed Freight 1 ----- long, 2x CCW SD45-2, 4x CSX ES44, and so on. These names are pretty obvious for me to know what I'm looking at in the list. The 2x and 4x consists are just locomotives so I can add those as needed.

John

I like your idea of a separate grid with all your consist awaiting orders but on a large route where you place that grid could be a problem. If placed at one end it would take a consist a long time just to get to it's first stop. You could always have some grids along the way I suppose.
I place my consist in yards, sidings and wherever I can find a place that will allow me to issue an order and get to the fist stop in a reasonable time.

I have come to one conclusion, locos, and consists, all placed in the same area will reduce framerates to a crawl, or lock up your PC, requiring Ctrl+Alt+Del to exit Trainz.

So consists either have to be far away from each other (or several hundred feet distant, so they do not slay framerates).

Exactly how I am going to do this, is undetermined at present ... I guess a staging yard, or many staging yards, on a route would be the solution ?

I feel that Portals, or iPortals, would be the best means to send a train to a location, rather than underground tracks (unless they are close by the staging yard).

These screenshots were originally posted by someone else

cascaderailroad said:

I have come to one conclusion, locos, and consists, all placed in the same area will reduce framerates to a crawl, or lock up your PC, requiring Ctrl+Alt+Del to exit Trainz.

So consists either have to be far away from each other (or several hundred feet distant, so they do not slay framerates).

Exactly how I am going to do this, is undetermined at present ... I guess a staging yard, or many staging yards, on a route would be the solution ?

I feel that Portals, or iPortals, would be the best means to send a train to a location, rather than underground tracks (unless they are close by the staging yard).

These screenshots were originally posted by someone else

<Pictures removed>

Click to expand...

I do something similar whenever I modify built-in routes or other routes that I work on. I make a nine-track reverse-loop staging yard long enough to handle three AC4400CW's and a 100-car long coal train on each track. I also have two portals along with the staging yards. One is an 'In' portal, the other is an 'Out' portal. 'In' portals produce trains, while an 'Out' portal consumes trains. I use directional trackmarkers to prevent trains from using the wrong portal or entering the staging yard from the wrong end.

I mainly concentrate on the Philadelphia to Pittsburgh line.

What famous PRR passenger trains were used on this route ?

What exact equipment did they use on each train ?

As the consists stayed coupled together, all the time, I find it interesting where they stored them.

During WWII there were upwards of 350 passenger trains (mostly troop trains) through Altoona daily, now there are 3

What ever became of your idea of sending consist into portals to other routes, or linked routs ? ( As I recall ) You could make a storage route to keep them ? Mine if not running are kept at there assigned depots, till needed . But I like a lot of traffic. 350 a good number to shoot for with PRR.



Matt

I think ... (I know) .. I am obsessive compulsive ... and need therapy.

I have way to many thousands of locomotives, and tens of thousands of railcars.

What I need is a staging yard of RGCX railcars (all 3392 of them), a staging yard of several PRR passenger trains, a staging yard of empty coal, and loaded coal consists, and a staging yard of 100 some PRR steam locos.

But putting them all on my route/session would cause lag.

Storing them on a separate iPortal route is probably what I need ... but then I have to exit my route, to access the consists, which is a pain.

Probably what I need is 2 PC's running at once, connected via the internet, where one PC runs the staging yard, and sends consists to my route iPortal

I'll bite ? what's your count of trains running on any of your routes. And what do you like to run as power ? Steam or Diesel or Etc. Payware or DL ? Me I like to run them all, and where there's a need to be changed over to other power continue the run. With 2012 I had 50 to 60 consist at one time, with sum lag. It's my yards that kill me. TANE so far hasn't been tested to what my max is! But I do have fiddle yards for keeping trains where I can control easier then with my portals, and I have never notice any issues on performance

A session with all that I have in content ( Or did ) isn't what I would enjoy. And would kill my PC:hehe:


Matt

Portals, or iPortals, are the way to go when sending trains.

And too, sending them from another PC in the house, on another route, using iPortals would work best

And when storing 100's of locos, and thousands of railcars on a route, any more than two, or three, 1 mile long trains, all sitting side by side, reduces framerates to a crawl. So big packed yards, and packed jammed turntables and yards, are a no no. So filling up Enola or Conway with everything, is out of the question.

A route with @ 20 tracks spaced far apart, ench being 5 miles long track, with an always empty passing siding is the way to go ... that would store 100 trains on a route

That would happen if you placed 1000, one mile long trains, on a huge 100 mile long route, with each one being very distant (out of sight from one another) ?

It seems like when Trainz sees a million things, all in the same FOV, that is when the framerates plummet.

It's not just the visual aspects that cause the frame rates to drop. Trainz, all versions, keeps track of the consists by polling them constantly while the simulator is in operation. This background task can get very busy and even busier when there are lots of consists on a route.

The video lag we see is surely a lot of meshes in an area, but when there are lots of consists running on a route, or even sitting in sidings, this too can add up and make things worse. A good example of this occurring is when portals start emitting trains. If you have lots of portals, you can actually "feel" the lugging as the trains are being spit out as the simulator sags and drags as the performance drops.

dont we just have saved consists in trainz?

i personally use the emit train now, can set up any train configuration i want, or can load an already saved consist from the list and have it appear at any portal i choose.