Lagging in Driver when rendering new terrain.

marky7890

Active member
I have recently started using TRS2019 from TANE, and I have noticed that there is a bit of stuttering in driver when it renders new terrain in the distance. In Task manager CPU usage is nearly always at least 90% percent for the TRS2019 process, which I'm guessing is the cause. It's fine when the camera isn't moving, I'm guessing because it's not having to load anything in.

I have tried various render distances and graphics settings and nothing seems to make much difference. It's not too much of a pain but is noticeable.

I guess it could be due to using an older CPU which could be bottlenecking it?

Here are my specs:

Windows 7 - 64 bit
CPU: Intel i5-4670K - 3.40GHz
RAM: 16GB DDR3
GPU: GTX 1080 - 8GB
Windows is on a SSD, with trainz on the main HDD, (SSD only 120GB so too small for Trainz as well).

Thanks,
Mark
 
Mark,

It could be the CPU, but let's look at cheap and relatively easy stuff first.

First I highly recommend turning off the G-Force Experience software. That is a system hog and will really cause a performance hits.

When was the last time you defragmented your hard disk? Trainz really beats up the hard disk, and database repairs, and those updates really do a number on the drive as well.

How much space do you have on your hard drives as in both SSD and platter drive? If you're tight on space, Windows will slow stuff down, especially on the system drive where the swap files exist.

How about hard drive health? Check out the free version of HD-Sentinel https://www.hdsentinel.com/ This will give you an idea of what's going on with your drives. I recently upgraded to the full version because there are other features not available in the free one. (Nothing you would need at this point)

Video card drivers?

Ensure they're up-to-date, or perhaps go back a version. NVidia has had its share of icky drivers recently with some versions being better than others. At this point I don't know what the current driver is because I'm using a test version of Windows 10 with its own separate version, also from NVidia, that's different than the production one. With that said, I recommend checking the forum on nvidia.com, even if you don't log in. I've done that to glean information on whether to touch something or not. Like all forums, you sometimes need to glean through the chaff to find that golden kernel of wheat.

Fans clean?

Heat build up will slow down the system an TRS19 as well. This can be seen over time as the components get warm. System performance is quite spiffy in the beginning, but degrades to a slog as time goes on. I know that warm weather hasn't been too much of an issue for you, or for me for that matter, but this is over and above summer weather.

Antivirus changes?

Ensure that the data folders have been excluded from the real-time scanner. Antivirus programs go bonkers and have a field day with the Trainz data folders as files are decompressed from the .tzarc files on the fly. For antivirus programs, this is like heaven as they discover new stuff to scan all the time.

This all I can think of at the moment, but I'm sure others will toddle along here and give you more pointers. If this doesn't help, we can start looking at the more expensive hardware. It could be something is getting a bit tired, or it is in fact the CPU is a bit thin.
 
Thanks John and Malc, I have done everything suggested, but there doesn't seem to be any improvements. As for Harddrive space my SSD has 16GB free my HDD has 390GB Free, the health of both is good too.
 
Thanks John and Malc, I have done everything suggested, but there doesn't seem to be any improvements. As for Harddrive space my SSD has 16GB free my HDD has 390GB Free, the health of both is good too.


Try substituting non-PBR track for PBR. See if it gets better.
 
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I noticed that some scripted assets had gone missing or stopped working when I encountered stuttering. Did a lot of searching to get them back working again. Enhanced tower was absent from session and showed as missing but CM showed it as not. Drive to trackmarklist also failed to load in session. Once these were sorted the stutter had almost gone. Still found some commands had got deleted and the train stuck because it was still looking or waiting for that command. Now I have almost no stutter until I work on route and save and sometimes an asset stops when loaded.
 
Only 16GB free on the C drive could be an issue? Especially if in win10 you have hyberfile.sys, pagefile.sys (normal swapfile) and swapfile.sys (for metro apps only) cluttering things up, the last two you are stuck with. Plus a new "feature" or annoyance depending on how you look at it in Win10 1903 which creates a hidden 7GB reserved area for use with Windows update on clean installs or new PC's shipping with 1903.
 
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Only 16GB free on the C drive could be an issue? Especially if in win10 you have hyberfile.sys, pagefile.sys (normal swapfile) and swapfile.sys (for metro apps only) cluttering things up, the last two you are stuck with. Plus a new "feature" or annoyance depending on how you look at it in Win10 1903 which creates a hidden 7GB virtual drive for use with Windows update on some installs.

I'm on Windows 7 still.

@stagecoach - I will look into that tomorrow.

@pitkin - Changed the main procedural track I use from TANE to one of the built in TRS2019 ones, which I believe are PBR but no difference.
 
I'm on Windows 7 still.

@stagecoach - I will look into that tomorrow.

@pitkin - Changed the main procedural track I use from TANE to one of the built in TRS2019 ones, which I believe are PBR but no difference.

Try some non-procedural track, just because and see if that works. You can always change it back if it doesn't make a difference. Some of the pro-tracks are better performers than others.
 
Picked up from 10 forums, currently an issue with Win7 and latest Nvidia Drivers, may be relevant?
 
I never could understand why people dont upgrade from old version's of anything, I mean isn't that the hole idea of upgrading is to get something that works better. Just my opinion I know.
 
I'm on Windows 7 still.

@stagecoach - I will look into that tomorrow.

@pitkin - Changed the main procedural track I use from TANE to one of the built in TRS2019 ones, which I believe are PBR but no difference.

Upgrade to win 10 I strongly suspect the free way still works and it doesn't harm to try. Win 10 has better SSD and hard drive drivers and the video stuff is a little better as well.

Cheerio John
 
I have now upgraded to Windows 10, I had a copy on my USB stick from when I reinstalled my laptop. CPU usage is still at 100%. And GPU activity hardly goes past 60%. I have also tested 2 build in route and get the same result - Cornish mainline and the Dundee one.
 
I have now upgraded to Windows 10, I had a copy on my USB stick from when I reinstalled my laptop. CPU usage is still at 100%. And GPU activity hardly goes past 60%. I have also tested 2 build in route and get the same result - Cornish mainline and the Dundee one.

Is the problem still as bad? What sort of distance have you set the slider to? Normally Microsoft software self tunes so performance should get a bit better after about a week.

Cheerio John
 
I have now upgraded to Windows 10, I had a copy on my USB stick from when I reinstalled my laptop. CPU usage is still at 100%. And GPU activity hardly goes past 60%. I have also tested 2 build in route and get the same result - Cornish mainline and the Dundee one.



It sounds to me like some other programs are using up your cpu. Check in Resource Manager.

Also check to see if more than one copy of Trainz is running. TANE was notorious for that.
 
I have now upgraded to Windows 10, I had a copy on my USB stick from when I reinstalled my laptop. CPU usage is still at 100%. And GPU activity hardly goes past 60%. I have also tested 2 build in route and get the same result - Cornish mainline and the Dundee one.




When I had my I5 before upgrading to an I7, I could max out all 4 cores with TRS19. You may just have to upgrade.
 
win 10 has a game mode when it shuts down everything other than the game try it.

If it helps my machine is older but doesn't bottleneck on the CPU but there again I'm running TANE.

Cheerio John
 
My route just started to stutter again so did a search in surveyor and yet again the Enhanced tower and the drive to trackmarklist command are missing. Went to CM to delete them and redownload. Enhanced tower had faulty library but did not show any faults. so redownloaded that as well. All was well again except some of the drivers no longer had the tracklist command so had to be put back in. Launched driver and stutter was minimal again.
 
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