Fed up with Trainz?

Thanks for that Tony. I am saving towards buying a quad core i5 computer, but plainly a decent graphics card is absolutely essential equipment.

Check the graphics card will fit the case and secondly the power supply must be adequate. Typically 500 watts min many refurbished computers come with 230 watt power supplies that are difficult to upgrade. You have a fair bit of homework to do.

Cheerio John
 
To those who wonder whether TANE is worth it I'd say just get it and download rumour3's Route 'Porchester and Bull's Well' (see also the screenshots of it by evilcrow on the UK Screenshots page). For me this was literally a game changer and just about everything before it looks primitive by comparison. You start to realise just how realistic Trainz and TANE can be.

On your recommendation I downloaded <kuid:79563:100144> Porchester and Bull's Well and its session <kuid:388413:100296> Porchester and Bull's Well - Automatic traffic session to have a look and it is very impressive. A short "tabletop" route that does show some of the capabilities of TANE very well.

Although it does come back to the topic of this thread in that one asset, <kuid:283805:37120> BR Class 37 Blue centre hc weathered, was reported by TANE as faulty with an error "Tag texture-kuid was invalid: null", 8 times. On opening the config.txt file of that asset I took a punt (after making a backup copy of the original) and deleted the 8 lines containing the "texture-kuid", all were in attachment point tags and all gave the "texture-kuid" as being "null". I saved and submitted the edit. The asset was then accepted by TANE with no errors.
 
KotangaGirl - Here in Aotearoa I've found that the most reliable PC bargains can usually be found at PB Technologies ( https://www.pbtech.co.nz/ ) or Ascent Technologies (https://www.ascent.co.nz/ ) or perhaps even Computer Lounge ( http://www.computerlounge.co.nz/ ) rather than the big department store chains with computer sales departments.
These businesses sell to Government and major corporates, schools, universities, etc. and will often have refurbished pre-loved (ex-lease) computers and laptops available at exceptional discounts over their original purchase price.
Recommend spending some time trolling their websites for months ahead of any actual purchase, so that you can get a handle on how to maximise your purchasing power when you're ready to go.
Apologies to the OP for continuing to take this thread off-topic... pc.
 
Last edited:
Check the graphics card will fit the case and secondly the power supply must be adequate. Typically 500 watts min many refurbished computers come with 230 watt power supplies that are difficult to upgrade. You have a fair bit of homework to do.

Cheerio John
Definitely one of the most important and overlooked things. My personal recommendation for handling this is using the website https://pcpartpicker.com/ to compile a list of parts. It has compatibility filters for everything, including part size. Best part is the site is free to use!

I think the problem here is largely to do with the title of the initial post - Fed up with Trainz. With all due respect to Stationmistress, the title should have been Fed up with converting old assets - something that many of us have experienced over the years through different versions of Trainz.
snip

Hm, I think I'm actually in a bit of both of those truth be told. I'm absolutely fed up with dealing with Trainz Mac 2 (TS12SP1HF4 ported to Mac OSX with a CM similar to TANE, and some minor little bugfixes, for those who don't know) in general. It's arguably the most stable copy of Trainz, having the fewest crashes of any copy I've ever played personally, and has the right balance of TS12 and TANE features that work for me but still... Each and every time I launch the game I genuinely feel exhausted - and that's without doing any work. Framerates have gone right down the past few years as this computer ages and gets clogged up, and the few bugs the game has are beyond irritating. I mean, for example, holding down the bracket keys and M1 to place and mix textures is broken - it doesn't rotate/mix the textures if I hold down M1. It feels like a slog to get anything done in this game.

So in saying that, one might think I'd want to finally move into TANE and get some of those bugfixes, better framerates, etc... but the notion of transferring and redownloading thousands of assets does not appeal to me in the slightest bit. I don't even have a massive amount in my current CM - only 46.6k, a measly amount compared to some folks around here - but after all the fixing I've had to do in TSMac 2 here to get a lot of that working (and mind you, I have never had access to the various tools such as PEV's tools to fix content as they are PC only!), the thought of doing it all again in TANE is perhaps the most off-putting thing I can imagine at this moment. My pretty much untouched copy of TANE is on a different (better) computer, too, which makes transferring content an even bigger hassle than it's really worth I think. I don't particularly like the idea of some update shattering everything, either, as others here have mentioned, and I have heard enough about major bugs still in the game that are ignored... it seems that regardless of which version of Trainz I would work with, I'd never be able to enjoy myself. The combined messes of the game itself and an at-times questionable community have utterly drained me of any want to make more content for any version of the game, which is a real shame as I once really enjoyed that. Now... not so much.

I suppose at the end of the day I am both fed up with Trainz and fed up with converting/fixing assets.
 
"Word to the wise" (I posted this in another thread awhile back).

If you are considering getting one of the latest NVideo cards, say either a 1060, 1070, or 1080 or Ti's, then first measure how much room you have in your existing case.
(length wise). I've come across two cases awhile back where mates had rushed out an purchased either a 1070 or 1080, only to find that they where to long to fit into their existing PC cases... (one mate ended up getting a bigger case & the other went back to the retailer and was able to swap it for a shorter length video card).

Both mates could have avoided this hassle if only they had measures how much room they had in there existing cases to fit a new video card.

The maximum amount of room they had for a new cards was 285mm. (the cards they had brought where in the 290mm to 300mm length range). Luckily some manufactures still make video card lengths of 1060 to 1080 below 285mm. EVGA is a good example.

I haven't had anything to do with 1050's, so I don't know there lengths...

Cheers, Mac...
 
Last edited:
After an auto database repair after computer switch on, I found all FT turntables and roundhouses had to reset again in TS12 after disconnection. Two locos were missing from the session, one with an error in CM. After repair, all is working again.

Both route and session in CM have no dependencies, yet all works.

TANE had (or might still have) the same problem with FT's and height issues with some objects that use digholes. This was after a route was transferred from 2009. Once I've checked out TS12 I'll transfer a 3.7 version into TANE.

Having made the transition into 90945, Set Camera doesn't work and some AI doesn't also.

84204 works.
 
Last edited:
I still cannot understand why Trainz/TANE is so GPU intensive. I realize that my GPU is lacking, but if I have just the Splash Screen showing and go into Task Manager, it shows 90% GPU usage. Nothing moving, no huge map loaded, just looking at the Splash Screen. It makes no sense.
 
I still cannot understand why Trainz/TANE is so GPU intensive. I realize that my GPU is lacking, but if I have just the Splash Screen showing and go into Task Manager, it shows 90% GPU usage. Nothing moving, no huge map loaded, just looking at the Splash Screen. It makes no sense.

There are a lot more processors on the GPU and they are cheap compared to the CPU so it makes sense to off load the work to the GPU rather than use the CPU. GPUs are powerful that's why the bitcoin miners use them.

Cheerio John
 
Thank you Mac for pointing that out about video card length. It's something that could be easily overlooked in the excitement of buying a new card.

I have had very good luck with refinished ex-lease workstations John. They tend to be much better quality than standard retail computers and so far (touch wood) I've yet to buy a dud. I'll certainly be looking at power supply ratings and case dimensions when it comes to opening my wallet and preparing to make a sacrifice to the goddess Visa though.
 
kotangagirl,

Here's another Kiwi Computer parts supply company with a good reputation. This page will give you some idea of the current (approx) prices for the different video cards in Kiwi dollars. https://www.pp.co.nz/VideoCards-PCI-Express-nVidia.php - https://pp.co.nz/
Note; it certainly pays to shop around, so I'd also suggest you checkout the other Kiwi sites that have been recommended by PC_Ace in #43.

Back to the original OP;

I to have been a bit of a dinosaur. For some strange reason at the time, I have had/got a lot of splutter/poor frame rate issues when TS2012 SP1 HF4 came out. I tried for weeks to try and sort it out, but in the end, I got so frustrated with 61348 that I just ended up staying with TS2010 for the next two to three years. Looking back, I think the biggest problem I had in 61348 was trying to run a lot of the earlier (04 to 10) content that showed up with either warnings, errors or faulty in TS2012 SP1 HF4 61348.

TS2010 was great because it could run 95% of the 3ft NG loco's & rolling stock that I wanted to run.
About 3-4 years ago, i started using TS2012 49922. Get good frame rates and are still able to run a lot of the earlier content. (especially the 3ft stuff). I still spend approximately 75%-80% of my time in TS2012 49922.

I have nothing against Tane. It's certainly the way forward. It seems to run well on my PC & there's are some great routes, (& model railways) that have been built or upgraded for it. It's also great to see that N3V are still spending so much time, effort & money into getting as many of the remain bugs in TANE SP2 sorted out. IMHO they have made some major strides in sorting out these bugs, (but unfortunately, there's still a little way to go yet).

Personally, I'm just waiting for more of the 3ft NG content to be updated or repaired, so it works error free in Tane SP2. Once that's done, it will be full Tane ahead...

Cheers, Mac.
 
Last edited:
ecco:
I still cannot understand why Trainz/TANE is so GPU intensive. I realize that my GPU is lacking, but if I have just the Splash Screen showing and go into Task Manager, it shows 90% GPU usage. Nothing moving, no huge map loaded, just looking at the Splash Screen. It makes no sense.

There are a lot more processors on the GPU and they are cheap compared to the CPU so it makes sense to off load the work to the GPU rather than use the CPU. GPUs are powerful that's why the bitcoin miners use them.

Cheerio John
What "work" is being done when one is at the splash screen?
 
ecco:
I still cannot understand why Trainz/TANE is so GPU intensive. I realize that my GPU is lacking, but if I have just the Splash Screen showing and go into Task Manager, it shows 90% GPU usage. Nothing moving, no huge map loaded, just looking at the Splash Screen. It makes no sense.


What "work" is being done when one is at the splash screen?

Are you certain it is the TANE splash screen that is the cause? When I load my TANE splash screen the GPU usage briefly jumps to 2-3% but quickly drops back to 0% after it has loaded. This is on a computer with a "bog standard" Intel HD Graphics system.

EDIT: A remote possibility but do you have malware (or even a bit coin mining operation) running on your system without your knowledge?

EDIT 2: I have just checked it on my main desktop computer, with a 750TI graphics card, and it is exactly the same. A brief minuscule spike while loading the launcher/splash screen and then a constant 0%
 
Last edited:
kotangagirl,

Here's another Kiwi Computer parts supply company with a good reputation. This page will give you some idea of the current (approx) prices for the different video cards in Kiwi dollars. https://www.pp.co.nz/VideoCards-PCI-Express-nVidia.php - https://pp.co.nz/
Note; it certainly pays to shop around, so I'd also suggest you checkout the other Kiwi sites that have been recommended by PC_Ace in #43.

Thanks very much for that meatloaf747. All these useful links will be a big help when I go shopping for new hardware.
 
Are you certain it is the TANE splash screen that is the cause? When I load my TANE splash screen the GPU usage briefly jumps to 2-3% but quickly drops back to 0% after it has loaded. This is on a computer with a "bog standard" Intel HD Graphics system.
Sorry, it's not the splash screen. It's the Route Selection screen. I've had it up for over ten minutes now. Nothing visually changes. There is only the occasional sound of a loco. GPU usage is averaging over 90%.

If I Select Route; Edit Session and wait for the scene to resolve, GPU usage is averaging over 95%. The GPU usage is not static, it will jump around constantly mostly between 90% - 99%. On screen, nothing is moving, just looking at the same section of landscaping.

By contrast, I can watch a youtube video and the GPU never goes above 5% windowed - full screen 10%. If I pause the video - GPU usage is negligible.

My concern is that if there is this much "usage overhead" with a static screen, how is that affecting frame rates while watching a moving train in Driver.
 
I hate to shut down the Shopping Channel :) but please can you stay on subject, Fed up with Trainz?.

Sorry.
kensjyP.png
 
My big heavy built on route with 80 plus trains running uses about
60% CPU, Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700 CPU @ 3.4GHz
10.6GB Memory (21.5GB available)
30% GPU, NVIDEA GeForce GTX 1080, (30% 3D, 10% Video encode, 2.5/8.0 GB GPU Memory)
Ive never seen the GPU that high. Select task manager and performance and click on the GPU graph to see if something else is running.
 
Back
Top