How does RAM really affect TRS19? - or, how high can I go before I'm wasting money?

epa

Angry Trainz Nerd
So I'm halfway between the build of my current computer and the anticipated time of my next build, that means it's time for the mid-life upgrades!

On the agenda is replacing my 275GB SATA SSD with a 1TB NVMe SSD, which means I would finally be able to get my 400GB of TRS19 content off my 1TB secondary HDD and get it all on an SSD alongside the actual game installation (errr... maybe I should go 2TB...), which will obviously result in much faster load times and more space on my secondary drive for less important stuff, as well as a possible upgrade to the secondary drive, probably 2 or 4TB.

But that's not the subject of this thread.

Right now my rig has 16GB of Corsair Vengeance LPX 3000MHz DDR4 RAM. While researching SSD upgrades, I just briefly thought about doubling up on RAM, up to 32GB of the same kind I have now.

Now, of note, I don't do anything much more intensive than Trainz, aside from some video editing and leaving one too many ignored Chrome tabs up. TRS19 is by far probably the most demanding of the games I play.

I know upgrading the RAM would result in better PC and program performance across the board, but how much does TRS19 really depend on RAM? How much RAM does the game ever use at one time? Would upgrading my RAM up to 32GB affect game performance at all, or would it be better used elsewhere?

Big things like the GPU will probably wait until the next build unless I feel the need to upgrade sooner than that.

As always, the rest of my PC's specs are in my signature.

Matt
 
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Like you both my machines have 16MB of RAM but even including running Windows I've never noticed either exceed using half of it. While I believe in buying good quality RAM, in respect of running Trainz I'm no longer convinced that it is necessary to use the highest speed RAM a motherboard will support or in fact high end CPU's, I think the money saved is far better spent on the best graphic card you can afford. What I have yet to figure out is the optimum number of CPU cores Trainz prefers. Peter
 
I agree with Peter. Upgrading the graphics card will give you a bigger performance benefit. Most modern video editing programs will benefit from a GPU upgrade too.

William
 
I run a program to monitor everything while running Trainz. My specs: Ryzen 7 2700, 16 gig dual channel RAM, nVidia RTX 2070. My current layout is 150 bases with no AI, 14 trains moving at once, roads with moving cars, and a few industries.

I see less than 6 gig RAM usage, about 4 gig video ram usage, all 16 cores running between 20 and 95% usage. Average usage of all 16 cores is around 55%.
 
I run a program to monitor everything while running Trainz. My specs: Ryzen 7 2700, 16 gig dual channel RAM, nVidia RTX 2070. My current layout is 150 bases with no AI, 14 trains moving at once, roads with moving cars, and a few industries.

I see less than 6 gig RAM usage, about 4 gig video ram usage, all 16 cores running between 20 and 95% usage. Average usage of all 16 cores is around 55%.

That's because much of the graphics processing is now handled by your video card and less by the system, however, your CPU is still doing a lot of work with the background tasks that Trainz requires such as monitoring signals, industries, and consists, as well as handling other system overhead tasks such as window management, network, antivirus, and other things.

Video RAM is used for textures and for porting out to your monitor. Unlike in the past, your video card does share part of your system RAM as well for DMA transfers and for texture buffering. You'll see your video RAM usage go up if you use a lot of high-textured objects, Speed Trees, and PBR.

This route to me sounds like it's within the sweet spot for your system.
 
Sounds like Trainz cares more about the CPU and GPU than RAM. Like I said before, upgrades like that will probably wait for my next build here in a year or two.

Thanks for the input, guys!

Matt
 
Sounds like Trainz cares more about the CPU and GPU than RAM. Like I said before, upgrades like that will probably wait for my next build here in a year or two.

Thanks for the input, guys!

Matt

Not necessarily. The route that autodctr is using may very well fit within the 6 GB range he's talking about. RAM really comes into play when using Content Manager and for other heavy database actions. The CPU is still used a lot but as I said for all the transactions taking place with all the threads talking back and forth with the core data and the code. With multiple trains running, this can get pretty busy whether they are user-controlled or AI driven. When I do a bit import of CDPs into Content Manager, my 64 GB of RAM gets pretty stuffed with data, and my older CPU gets pretty busy, even topping out at nearly 100% as it's chewing through the compressed files.

The GPU mentioned above contains its own RAM and that's a different breed than the DRAM found on the motherboard except for that found on really cheap systems and video cards where they use the regular DRAM instead. VRAM is dual ported and also very fast. Dual ported RAM means that it handles multiple read-write operations at the same time while regular RAM does not. It's also very fast too compared to regular DRAM. Unlike system DRAM, we usually can't upgrade a video card with more RAM and we're pretty much stuck with what we purchase. I say usually because in the olden days, there were video cards that could be updated by inserting another RAM chip into a socket. This was some years ago, in the late 80's or early 90's.
 
Sounds like Trainz cares more about the CPU and GPU than RAM. Like I said before, upgrades like that will probably wait for my next build here in a year or two.

Thanks for the input, guys!

Matt

Can confirm, with the cavet of "generally speaking".
-There are exceptions to everything.

I'm running TANE on a Ryzen 5 2600, with 32GB of ram (also Corsair Vengance, 2933? overclocked to 3200+) and an Nvidia 4GB 1050Ti video card, Windows 10 on a 500GB NvME drive, and TANE on a dedicated 2TB Western Digital Caviar Black 7200rpm Hard Disc ... I run on high/ultra settings mixed .. I find it acceptable, with minor studders on routes like the Clovis to Lubbock route, or Flusis727's Jenny River Basin (where the density of just 3 "bush" assets brings even this system to a halt for 5 minutes at a time in surveyor) ...I rarely see TANE using more than 12 GB of ram, but I often see my disc usage and CPU at over 80% when initially loading up those routes in Surveyor.

Where, and why I have 32GB, ram comes in very much needed is in Content Creation, particularly, creating and editing multiple 2048x2048 Textures at once .. I regularly have 8 to 12 Textures open in Paint Shop Pro at once, and I have only been hit with "not enough memory to process image" errors about 3 times this year.

I would guess my Physical disc and CPU are the bottlenecks in my system, so I would say if you want to do Mid-Term upgrades, stick to just the NvME drive for now, save the other money for your next build, and at that time, decide if you want to become an AMD convert, and swap over to a Ryzen7/9 or ThreadRipper :hehe:
 
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KingConrail76 - Your system specs are pretty good for TRS19 and T:ANE - with the GPU (the GTX-1050Ti with 4Gb of VRAM) - being the lowest performing component, even though it is the one both programs demand most.
Upgrade that one component to a more modern GPU like the RTX 2070 Super and you'll really see T:ANE and TRS19 fly.
The system RAM is definitely helpful, but 8Gb or more of GDDR6 VRAM on a more powerful GPU/ video card would bring about a huge improvement in your Trainz performance.
 
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