Trainz 2019 Stutter

ttownsend

New member
Hi folks.

I need a little advice as to what (more) I can try (if anything) to alleviate the stuttering I'm seeing in pretty much every Trainz (2019) route I try. First, here's my system.

Asus Rampage V Extreme mobo.
I7 5960X 8-core (Liquid cooled. OC'd to a stable 4.3 Ghz on all 8 cores. Boosts up to 4.5Ghz.)
32Gb DDR4 RAM (2300)
MSI 2080 TI Gaming X Trio Graphics Card.
(4) 1TB Samsung 860 SSD drives.
(2) 4TB WD Black storage drives.
Dual Asus ROG 27" 1440P 144Hz G-Sync Monitors.
Windows 10 Pro. (Spring 2018 update)

Here's an example of what I've tried: I've created a test route consisting of a single (bare) baseboard with one straight length of track. No signals, no junctions, no scenery. On the track, I place a single loco. For settings, I've tried moving every slider to the left (lowest), and disabled shadows entirely. My MSI afterburner overlay indicates between 60fps and 140fps, depending upon my current V-Sync setting (I've tried them all). Before the train rolls, CPU temp is the low 40's. The moment the loco begins to roll forward I see stuttering (almost immediately) about every two or three seconds. During the test, the FPS never drops below the mid-50s and the CPU temp remains relatively low (considering the overclocking that's applied.)

Ironically, the test route above demonstrates the greatest amount of stuttering. Many of the routes that have very dense scenery and multiple AI consists seem to stutter much less than my bare-bones test route does. Even with the test route, I find that moving all settings to the right (High, Ultra, etc...), the stuttering neither increases or decreases ... it seems to be the same regardless of the settings that I apply. I've tried running MemTest, thinking that perhaps I have some failing memory sticks, but all tests pass perfectly. As I noted above, I've tried the various V-sync settings (including none). I've also tried enabling and disabling G-Sync on my monitors. Other than the differences in FPS (all of which stay reasonably high), nothing seems to change the rate or intensity of the stuttering. Although most of my tests have been running Trainz using the 2560 x 1440 : 60Hz, I've also tried the 120Hz setting, as well as running trains in various 1920 x resolutions. I've also tried turning off all overclocking on the mobo ... just as a test. Nothing changes.

Other than that, the only other things I can mention is that my mobo BIOS is the most up-to-date that's available, and my video drivers are also the most recent from NVidia. I should also mention that I'm not seeing this type of stuttering in any other game (or sim) that I routinely play.

Any thoughts on what I might try?

Thanks.

- Tom

P.S. I really do love Trainz 2019. It's the best one yet, IMO.
 
Since the "final" release of TRS2019, I have also noticed some stuttering that wasn't there before. I have a fairly powerful machine, too. It doesn't seem like "normal" stuttering like you might see in a high-poly route. Like you, it seems to jerk, not really stutter, every few seconds. It seems to be more noticeable when I look out the side of the loco, at the scenery going by. Looking forward the jerk is less noticeable. And I have found, that when I set my draw distance almost to the max, the jerk is less pronounced.

I am inclined to think that, since we have good powerful PCs, this might be something to do with the game engine itself.
 
... It doesn't seem like "normal" stuttering like you might see in a high-poly route. Like you, it seems to jerk, not really stutter, every few seconds....

Interesting. It sounds like our symptoms are very much alike ... and I would agree that "jerk" is perhaps a better description than stutter to describe what I'm seeing. The only difference is that I run mostly in external view as opposed to in-cab. However, when I am driving in-cab, I do see that the forward-looking view shows must less (sometimes no) stutter as opposed to looking out the side window.
 
ttownsend - Hmm, With a spec like that, you shouldn't need to run TRS19 with any settings much less than fully maxed out, so since you won't tolerate the lowest settings in normal running, I'd cease testing with all the sliders to the left.
The jerkiness might have something to do with your G-Sync monitors and not your rig, so may I suggest that you try running your next test on a single monitor during this troubleshooting phase to see if that is indeed the case. (I run two Asus monitors here too, but do not stretch the scene over both; rather run other tasks and monitoring software on the 2nd whilst I run Trainz on the other.)

Suggest try running your tests again with the following performance settings changed slightly.
Use a Draw Distance of 15000m. Max out everything in Trainz Performance settings except: Post Processing. Set this to 'Low'.
Turn 'Use texture streaming' and 'Use PhysX simulation' to 'Off'.
On the General tab of Launcher, set Full Screen to 'Off' and set the monitor to a single 1440p one at the default frequency for that display.
Switch Vertical Sync to 'None' so we can continue to monitor unfettered framerates and eliminate G-Sync issues with the 'Half' and 'Full' sync settings.
Use the built-in Profiler to monitor framerates. (Developer menu, Launcher, 'Show Profiler...'

Run your tests and see what happens when you disable G-Sync vs running with it on.
If it runs without jerkiness either way, then the culprit is likely to be the Post Processing setting or the Use texture steaming settings, so confirm by changing those settings to something else again.
Or running dual monitors in stretch mode. (Check cables, etc.)

It is also possible that you picked a faulty loco to conduct your tests. For example, the built-in SP SD40T-2 has severe LOD and display issues and can demand up to 75Gb (yes Gb!) of RAM to render in Performance mode when viewed in Asset Viewer.
 
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Thanks, PC_Ace. Great suggestions and I'll try them right away. Just to clarify though, although I have dual monitors, I always run Trainz on a single-monitor, typically in full-screen mode but I've also tested using the windowed mode (no difference). My second monitor remains idle, showing just my desktop wallpaper. Still, you offer a number of other adjustments that I haven't tried yet. So again, thanks. (I'll post back.)
 
The other thing you should do is check your antivirus exclusions. As assets are brought into the scene, your AV will be scanning them in real time causing stuttering. Exclude your Trainz folders from being scanned to reduce stuttering, especially the Trainz Data folder.
cheers
Graeme
 
Try with and without HUD (use F5 key to enable/disable it). In other 2 threads we discovered that exist some people that with HUD enables it stutters, without HUD its smooth (whatever options you have everywhere in Trainz and also with much capable pcs specs including AV disabled, trainz on ssd, etc etc etc).
 
Yeah it was already an issue for some during the beta, something is wrong with the HUD that for some induce stutter.
 
Long shot but it could be something as simple as not being up to date with Win10, I note the OP is on the Spring Update, may find the Drivers are optimised for the latest version and I seem to remember something in the October update blurb regarding 20XX cards.
 
I suggest to look at the recent threads of this forum that mention the same problems (like me ^^). I don't want to write again all I have written before but I made a lot of test without success (not AV, windows update, motherboard update, graphics updates, plays with settings etc... etc... with no success).

An other thread mention the hud that causes stutters and it's right I have less stutters if I desactivate it (F5), but I always have some. I think this problem depends the rig and how the engine run with it. For now I didn't find something completly smooth so, I continue testing but I think in my case that I have to make some changes on my rig may be my cpu (the game is very cpu intensive on my pc that could be a cause of these sutters) because it can goes up to 80-100 % with nothing in background (make a screen on an other thread). It's an I5 6500 4 core but without hyperthreading that can change some things in term of performances.

I saw that the pb is not really the FPS my graphic card make a good job is not at full capacity and I can have for example in an half vsync 30 fps without problem but when the train starts moving the cpu goes up very quickly and the game start having stutters but my fps don't drop more than that.

I try a lot of thing : defragmentation, updates drivers, windows, desactivate options in game or in the launcher etc...Without shadows, and detail scenery, physx etc... the game stutters too. So there is an other thing. May be on our rig but how I already said, may be there is something with the game too.
 
Thanks for all the replies. Well, over the past hour or so I've tried a combination of the various suggestions above. I found that turning off "Use Texture Streaming" helped a *very tiny* bit. I've also excluded the Trainz Data folder from my AV and Anti-Malware software. Additionally, I've changed the display setting (back) to 2560 x 1440: 60Hz, instead of 120Hz. However, what seems to have had the greatest impact was the simplest of all ... turning off the HUD. That test route I referred to now runs as smooth as butter. I've since tried a few other scenery-dense routes as well. On all of them, the stutter is either gone or mostly-negligible. So basically, the stuttering is not 100% cleared up in all cases, but now (even with most of the sliders maxed to the right), it's a relatively smooth simulation.

Thanks All!

- Tom
 
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Good to hear, Tom. By all accounts then, it seems that N3V really does need to revisit the code for the HUD and try out some alternative, less impacting methods for the overlays.
I'm hoping that CrystalNoir and/or stavka5 and others who have mentioned this HUD issue have already sent in their detailed bug reports to this link: https://n3vgames.typeform.com/to/xRdryu for action by the QA team.
 
I too just entered a bug report. At least there seems to be a workaround at the moment (disabling the HUD), but I agree that it probably should be looked at by N3V. I find it interesting that the bug report form doesn't really provide the means to list your system specs, which I'm suspecting may be pertinent to this particular issue whereas not everyone is experiencing the problem. (I included my specs in the "Expect" section.) Regardless, thanks again everyone!
 
Just a reminder that you can reduce the size of the hud, as well as limit what aspects it shows, does that make any difference to those affected?
 
Actually, before it was suggested that I turn of the HUD entirely, I had already experimented with reducing its size, thinking that might help. (I'm not sure why I didn't just turn it off completely at the time. Duhhh.) For me, it made no difference whatsoever. The stutter was equally prevalent with both a large and (very) small HUD. The stutter didn't go away until (at the suggestion of the folks here in the forum) I fully shut off the HUD. However, as I said previously, the stuttering is not 100% gone ... at least not on all routes. But even on those routes that I can still see some stuttering, it's greatly reduced from what it was. The trouble is, I use the HUD a lot, so it's not the most convenient solution to do without it. Still, it has helped greatly.
 
I propose that we do the tests with settings of the medium type game and in the same route and scenario.

For example:
Route: Niddertalbahn - TRS19
Scenario: SZ 91100 -Avmz INTERCITY 71

Settings:
Shadow quality: Low
Main shadow resolution: 2048
Shader quality: Standard
Texture detail: Normal
Post processing: High
Detail scenery: OFF
Antialiasing: 4x

Check boxes:
Use multiple threads: Checked
Process objects behind camera: Checked

In game settings:
Maximum Draw Distance: 6000 m
Process Objects Behind Camera (checked)
Scenery Detail: Normal
Tree Detail: Normal
Post Processing: High

Spec. of your system:
CPU, Graphics Card, RAM and OS,

The objective of this test is to know your CPU load and FPS rate.

What do you think of the proposal?

Thanks and regards
 
Just tried that scenario w/ the settings you posted. Although my system specs are at the top of this thread, here are the basics again.

I7 5960X, MSI 2080 TI Gaming X Trio, 32GB, Win 10 Pro

Results: Route: Niddertalbahn - TRS19 Scenario: SZ 91100 -Avmz INTERCITY 71
CPU Load: Range 41% to 62% throughout scenario. Average: 53%
FPS Rate: Average 80 FPS. (Briefly dropped to 48 FPS at one point.)
Side note: In-cab looking forward: Stutter w/ HUD. No stutter w/o HUD.
 
Just launch the first tutorial is enough to test, there is a lot of thing in this scenario to display (animals, buildings etc...), I already have stutters here with or without the hud (with peek of 85-95 % cpu usage) so...I can't think what I get if I try your scenario :D I think it's better to try with a short and "simple" scenario. In the other way, I think that kind of pb depends of what is displayed and if the route is complex or not (I guess that the more thing there are, the more demanding the game will be). Anyway it's a good idea.
 
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