Here is a video of TS22

JonMyrlennBailey

Active member
Looking at the trains passing the crossings in the video, graphics shudder is also evident. Look at the lettering on the sides of the boxcars oscillate like the teeth of an electric jigsaw as they pass. It's still a rapid slide show. I'm thinking the shudder is more a byproduct of the game software engineering and not so much in the computer hardware. Trainz has had jerky animation since day one.

 
Other than one of your auto racks is missing its bogeys. If you have seen some of JointedRails videos they dont have any studdering or jerking.
 
Other than one of your auto racks is missing its bogeys. If you have seen some of JointedRails videos they dont have any studdering or jerking.

Of course they won't vibrate when in Chase view even in TS12. It's another story when a train is passing a free-roaming camra or a lineside camera. Here is a video of JointedRails pay engines. Still some shaking. I don't even think a $50,000 computer can eliminate all the jitter from moving objects in the latest edition of Trainz. Trainz game engines suck in the graphics motion quality department. Period.


It's not the size of the ship, but the motion of the ocean that causes all the commotion.


Unless animation will become glass-smooth and the lettering on the sides of the trains won't be fuzzy or fidgety while in motion and this is proven to me in demos, I don't really care to invest in more pricey computer hardware or a newer edition of Trainz. Lifelike motion and action behavior is what makes my cut.
 
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Can you see any moving vehicle or moving object jitter in this video?


What I'd give to have Trainz built around the game engine of American Truck Simulator! It's like putting a hemi in a golf cart!
 
I've never had an issue with this in either TRS19 or 22, so I'd suggest it may be a hardware issue on your end.

The E2 engine I have found to be excellent and I for one cannot wait for new features to be implemented as announced in the latest newsletter and to see where development takes us. We have a simulator that now rivals, and in several areas exceeds, TSW and the like so well done N3V.

Cheers,

PLP
 
Can you see any moving vehicle or moving object jitter in this video?


What I'd give to have Trainz built around the game engine of American Truck Simulator! It's like putting a hemi in a golf cart!

This sounds like it's entirely on your end. Have you tried messing around with your settings?

ATS is a vastly different game with far more shared meshes and assets made by majority one studio and has a very small render distance. Outside of the trucks, the graphics are also a bit meh. And this is coming from someone who also plays ATS from time to time.

I don't think you know entirely what you're wishing for.
 
I might suggest that amateur YouTube videos probably made on not the best hardware are not the way to prove anything other than it's a not very good video.
 
I'm wishing for lifelike motion quality. I do want high quality loco paint detail and shadow detail to boot as well as decent tree detail. Think of a Hollywood motion picture camera shooting a real-world train passing a crossing while filming in Technicolor or Panavision. I just don't know what I have to buy or how much money I have to spend to make that wish come true if that wish is even possible. I have no way of testing my personal routes on various editions of Trainz with various hardware components before gambling away money which may or may not provide me satisfaction. I wish there was a way for PC gaming consumers to try different stuff out before buying like testing out a new automobile at a dealership. I wish hardware and software purchasers could get an unconditional money-back PERFORMANCE GUARANTEE.

I wish some serious "videophile" and "3D content crazy" Trainzers here would post video samples of their Trainz in action. Specify their settings, Trainz edition and hardware build. I would like to know what combination of hardware, software, content and settings can do what and how well it can do it. This way we can all see how well this game can perform given a laundry list of specs. This forum needs a true video show-and-tell section for software and hardware. We need an exhibition of what Trainz can really do in regards to total graphics performance given the right hardware and software parts thrown at it. Otherwise, some of us are just guessing in the dark and throwing money into the wind.

My current card is a Zotac Gaming card costing between $350 and $350. IT presents a "slide show" in T:ANE even on meager game settings. Trains vibrate as they roll along in many scenes and at various speeds.

The only advantage of playing my Tainzroutes over TANE vs TS12 in terms of graphics motion performance (how well the game renders moving objects and scenery that appears to be moving by trackside camera panning)that I can see is that TANE doesn't seem to freeze altogether for several seconds in a heavy 3D content scene. The trains continuously move along the track but exhibit a rapid jitter however. The jitter is still evident in scenes with 60 FPS.
 
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To get the kind of rendering you want in real-time, you would need more than the fastest Intel i9-12600KS or the fastest AMD processor available. The video card needs to be something like an NVidia Quadro or RTX graphics card. Graphics Cards for Professional Desktop Workstations | NVIDIA. These are not cheap either and start about $4k

To break this down in hardware:

CPU = multiple XEON or AMD equivalent processors. Cost, many $1,000 each.
GPU = NVidia Quadro or RTX professional card, Cost, many, many $1,000.
RAM = 128GB or more DDR 5 costing many, many $1,000 or more.
Hard drives superfast, not consumer SSDs, costing many, many, $1,000 each. And you'll need to set these up with a fast PCIe controller.

The motherboard to support these systems is in the upper echelon as well and will cost many, many $1,000.

When done, you think your $350 video card, which really isn't worth that much, is expensive, you're talking here about a system that'll cost probably about $10,000 just to start.

Getting back to Trainz.

Your bottleneck is really your video card in the version you are using. The modern Trainz versions, such as TANE utilize the GPU substantially as the program renders everything and does the calculations. The CPU is used for other tasks such as accessing the content and feeding the GPU, although with a fast buss and lots of memory, Direct Memory Access (DMA) puts the CPU off to the side more and more as the functions are now done between the GPU and RAM rather than involving the CPU as much. TS12 and below was mostly CPU. Your processor did the bulk of the work fetching data and pushing that through the system to the video card, so yeah, you'll see stutters now due to what is called bottlenecking but the slowest critter in the bunch outside your storage, is the CPU with TS12.

The other issue you are facing is the assets. Some assets are made better than others with some that go way beyond what is necessary to render the asset. Why do some users build assets with 100K polygons and use textures that are well beyond what's needed, is beyond our comprehension. TANE will actually complain and reject the asset, but this wasn't always the case. TS12 would load the asset anyway and come to a complete halt then pick up rendering and carry on as if nothing was amiss. In the meantime, we felt the hard stop, stutters, got dizzy from the headache it caused, then we continue rendering.

There's a lot more to this, but in general for what you want, to do it's well beyond everyone's budget unless you're a billionaire.
 
I first got TANE way back in 2015 and shelved it in short order for the longest time because the PC I had then was a home office/YouTube watcher/email reader. Late last summer I upgraded my PC and now have a machine retailing between $1,3000 and $1,400 in parts. TS12 performed much better but would still stumble in heavy 3D forestry. I just finished my grand 1/10 model layout last week after about a year of hard labor on it. It was built in TS12. Now, I'm in the process of adapting it to TANE SP4 which I now have.

Here is a short video demonstrating the pulsating slow movement of the train in the yard. Pay close attention to the words and numbers painted on the locos. Note also that I have a FPS of 59-60 in this scene. Notice also how the animated German shepherd dog seems to move as smooth as butter next to the train.



Here are my PC build specs:

John’s Home-Built desktop PC

Computer Name and Model: PROVISION Gamer, Model JBP-3537 Personal Computer, custom-built in America by John P. Bailey in Lawton, Oklahoma, United States of America in August, 2021

ItemSourceDescriptionPriceNotes
HARDWARE
Badge for front of caseLone Star Badge and Signplastic printed name plate$14.02
Atrwork Vectorization for Case BadgeCopyartwork.comPDF file from my modified png artwork, paid preparation for printing case badge$8.00
Blu-ray Optical Drive, internalAmazon.comPioneer Electronics USA, BDR-209 DBK (this drive writes Blu-ray disks, CDs and DVDs)$68 .00
Building Supplies/
Tools
(various)Philips screwdrivers, ruler, plastic locking cable ties
Cooling Fans/heat sinks as neededn/a1 on heat sink supplied w/ processor, 1 supplied w/ case, 1 supplied w/ power supply
CPUAmazon.comAMD Ryzen 5 3600 6-Core, 12-Thread Unlocked Desktop Processor with Wraith Stealth Cooler$313.91Supplied w/ AMD fan and heat sink
Fastening hardware as need(various)supplied w/ case
Graphics card if no video onboard moboAmazon.comZOTAC GAMING GeForce GTX 1650 OC 4GB GDDR6 128-bit Gaming Graphics Card, Super Compact, ZT-T16520F-10L$326.99SKU: ZT-T16520F-10L

SN: 211900054686

PN: 9288-1N595-300Z8
Hard Drive, internalAmazon.comCrucial MX500 1TB 3D NAND SATA 2.5 Inch Internal SSD, up to 560MB/s - CT1000MX500SSD1(Z)$130.79
Hard Drive Adapter Bracket (to install 2.50” SSD drive in 3.50” drive bay)Amazon.comFenlink 2.5" to 3.5" Internal SSD Hard Drive SATA Drive Converter$13.07
Keyboard and mouseAmazon.com (keyboard), Fry's (mouse)Adesso 3-color illuminated compact desktop keyboard, wired: ONN wired mouse, optical
Memory card reader/writer, internal, 3.5”n/a(none)
Memory, RAMAmazon.comTEAMGROUP T-Force Dark Z 16GB Kit (2x8GB) DDR4 Dram 3200MHz (PC4-25600) CL16 288-Pin Desktop Memory Module Ram (Gray) - TDZGD416G3200HC16CDC01 = 16 GB total$83.92
MonitorFry's Electronics, Sacramento, CASamsung 20" LED$200.00Includes 2-year protection plan, purchased May 2013
MotherboardAmazon.comMSI Arsenal Gaming AMD Ryzen 2ND and 3rd Gen AM4 M.2 USB 3 DDR4 DVI HDMI Crossfire ATX Motherboard (B450 TOMAHAWK MAX II)$119.89BIOS Version:

Serial Number: 601-7C02-080B2101025063

CHK: C27

Model: B450 TOMAHAWK MAX II
PC caseFry’s ElectronicsATX form factor: Antec™ New Solutions NSK 4480B II$66.00Dimensions
(H x W x D) = 16.50" x 7.80" x 16.60"


Weight = 18.0 lbs.
Case Cooling FanAmazon.combe quiet! Pure Wings 2 120mm PWM high-Speed, BL081, Cooling Fan$14.16
Power SupplyAmazon.comEVGA 210-GQ-0650-V1 650 GQ, 80+ GOLD 650W, Semi Modular, EVGA ECO Mode, 5 Year Warranty, Power Supply, Black$81.18
Sound Card if no sound onboard mobon/asupplied w/ mobo
SpeakersWal-Mart Onn external amplified desktop speakers, pair
Wireless Adapter card , internal w/ drivern/a(none)
Wires, cables, connectors, adapters as needed(various)several USB cables for remote USB hubs, printers, etc.-monitor cable, wireless Ethernet bridge Cat-5 cable, power cable supplied w/ case
SYSTEM SOFTWARE
Copy of operating system installed on buildOnline, MS Office Store, https://softwarepal.co.uk/terms-conditions/Microsoft® Windows 10 Home Retail Version/64 Bit
OEM COPY
PRODUCT KEY: XXXX
$55.43OEM Builder, ME
Any drivers for internal components as needed(various)various supplied with extra devices on discs, Windows O/S and downloaded
Thermal pasteAmazon.com Deb LopeARCTIC ORACO-MX40001-BL MX-4 Thermal Compound Paste, Carbon Based High Performance, Heatsink Paste, Thermal Compound CPU for All Coolers, Thermal Interface Material - 4 Grams$6.95to install CPU heat
Switches/LEDs front panelAmazon.comWarmstor 2-Pack Computer Case LED Light Red Green ATX Power Supply Reset HDD Switch Cable 27-inch Long ATX Case Front Bezel Wire Kit

Replaces burnt out status leds on ATX cases PC ATX Power Reset Switch Cable
PC ATX Power Reset Switch Cable;Design : H.D.D LED, Power LED+, Power LED-, Reset SW, Power SW
Sometimes it's the small parts that can make a big difference. Replace your burnt out LEDs and worn out switches with this handy ATX front bezel wire kit. The five-piece kit comes with two switches (Power, Reset) and three LEDs (Power, Hard Drive Activity, Sleep). Each switch and LED is clearly labeled to make installation easy. Make sure your computer still looks and works as great as the day you bought it with this replacement kit
LED Number : 2;LED Light Color : Red, Green; Cable Length : 68cm / 27";Material (External) : Plastic
LED Number : 2;LED Light Color : Red, Green; Cable Length : 68cm / 27";Material (External) : Plastic
$7.99Had to modify front panel LED holes from original 3mm holes to larger holes to press-fit larger LED's: original LED's were both blue: had to file down power switch operating pushrod that connects with on/off button in panel for reliable operation


PC Hardware and Windows License Value Total: = $1,310.30





Benchmark Test Score: 8/20/21

UserBenchmarks: Game 41%, Desk 87%, Work 39%

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 - 84.3%
GPU: Nvidia GTX 1650 - 42.7%
SSD: Crucial MX500 1TB - 119%
USB: Hitachi HDS721010CLA332 1TB - 18.8%
RAM: Unknown TEAMGROUP-UD4-3200 2x8GB - 72.3%
MBD: MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX II (MS-7C02)

https://www.userbenchmark.com/Software
 
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Now, here are the game settings used to put on this 59-60 FPS slide show demo in the yard. Using PhysX simulation makes no difference. Shadow resolution makes no difference. Lower shadow settings make no difference. Minimum draw distance makes no difference. My eyes can't tell graphics quality apart using 4x vs 8x anti-aliasing. Even with bare bones settings, trains still pulsate along the track like a wristwatch section hand or a RainBird sprinkler head.


2V5dBWv.jpg
 
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To get the kind of rendering you want in real-time, you would need more than the fastest Intel i9-12600KS or the fastest AMD processor available. The video card needs to be something like an NVidia Quadro or RTX graphics card. Graphics Cards for Professional Desktop Workstations | NVIDIA. These are not cheap either and start about $4k

To break this down in hardware:

CPU = multiple XEON or AMD equivalent processors. Cost, many $1,000 each.
GPU = NVidia Quadro or RTX professional card, Cost, many, many $1,000.
RAM = 128GB or more DDR 5 costing many, many $1,000 or more.
Hard drives superfast, not consumer SSDs, costing many, many, $1,000 each. And you'll need to set these up with a fast PCIe controller.

The motherboard to support these systems is in the upper echelon as well and will cost many, many $1,000.

When done, you think your $350 video card, which really isn't worth that much, is expensive, you're talking here about a system that'll cost probably about $10,000 just to start.

Getting back to Trainz.

Your bottleneck is really your video card in the version you are using. The modern Trainz versions, such as TANE utilize the GPU substantially as the program renders everything and does the calculations. The CPU is used for other tasks such as accessing the content and feeding the GPU, although with a fast buss and lots of memory, Direct Memory Access (DMA) puts the CPU off to the side more and more as the functions are now done between the GPU and RAM rather than involving the CPU as much. TS12 and below was mostly CPU. Your processor did the bulk of the work fetching data and pushing that through the system to the video card, so yeah, you'll see stutters now due to what is called bottlenecking but the slowest critter in the bunch outside your storage, is the CPU with TS12.

The other issue you are facing is the assets. Some assets are made better than others with some that go way beyond what is necessary to render the asset. Why do some users build assets with 100K polygons and use textures that are well beyond what's needed, is beyond our comprehension. TANE will actually complain and reject the asset, but this wasn't always the case. TS12 would load the asset anyway and come to a complete halt then pick up rendering and carry on as if nothing was amiss. In the meantime, we felt the hard stop, stutters, got dizzy from the headache it caused, then we continue rendering.

There's a lot more to this, but in general for what you want, to do it's well beyond everyone's budget unless you're a billionaire.


Well, John. It sounds like you are telling me that in short to get my wish it is economically not feasible. I'm not sure a 90+% benchmarked card would even get all those pulsations I'm reporting out of my TANE graphics picture. I figure that unless I will get anywhere near Hollywood motion picture-like real-time graphics quality, it would not be worth investing more money on higher-end hardware. I wish I could see a TANE/2019/2022 demo video with a card like the GeForce rtx 3060 ti. Does this card alone reduce stutter enough to make shelling out the extra dough for it worthwhile to you or anybody here?
 
Well, John. It sounds like you are telling me that in short to get my wish it is economically not feasible. I'm not sure a 90+% benchmarked card would even get all those pulsations I'm reporting out of my TANE graphics picture. I figure that unless I will get anywhere near Hollywood motion picture-like real-time graphics quality, it would not be worth investing more money on higher-end hardware. I wish I could see a TANE/2019/2022 demo video with a card like the GeForce rtx 3060 ti. Does this card alone reduce stutter enough to make shelling out the extra dough for it worthwhile to you or anybody here?

A new RTX card works quite well. I currently have a RTX3080 in my new system and I'm able to maintain 60 fps easily. I don't put on all the fancy bells and whistles because I find that the heat is a bit too much and it takes that much more work to do the same stuff. Sure, I probably lose some of the lighting effects and graphics detail but when you're in the cab, you don't spend hours staring at grass. Would I have purchased a 3080 myself? Probably not, but this is what my system came with, and I couldn't afford to build a new system myself, so I went with a prebuilt DELL. I had to add in an extra fan to keep the insides cool because they make a fancy-looking case with no function.

Generally, a 3070Ti is fine for Trainz and will do a fine job. Given that video cards have dropped exponentially it seems in price, you can probably pick up one pretty cheap. I don't mean used either.

But what you asked for overall is impossible for anyone using a desktop. Perhaps, in 20 years that level of hardware will come down to being the normal desktop hardware and what the pros use for development and real time animation will be a gazillion levels above that. Keep in mind though what we see on videos is usually canned, and a lot of stuff is done using post-processing effects, video enhancement and lots of tiny scenes all pasted together. I know this for a fact because I assembled some videos for a training company that did stuff for the plastics industry. I also worked on their interactive training products which used video clips and multiple-choice questions. That part wasn't as fun as the video work.

The big scenes you see in advertisements also have content that is a certain size, and the scenery is very limited with a very focused camera. The reason for this is to prevent too much clutter in the scene eating up a lot of juice that can be used elsewhere. This is the same with many other games including ATS, Rail Sim and many other. They keep the focus up close where it counts, and the rest of the world has limited content if any at all. This makes sense if you think about it. The purpose of this is not unlike a movie set where the focus is on the actors rather than the scenery. This setup can work quite well with Trainz and many of us will do that by limiting the details for those areas that count with in between boards having basics to fill in the space. Essentially, what this does is limit the resources needed and prevents the too much of a good thing syndrome where there's too much of everything to the detriment of performance. I've run into that with a few routes and ended up removing details even for my spiffy system to handle. On one route, there were so many grass splines and other splines that the trains would stutter awful until they passed through that part. Once through, everything picked up speed. By deleting the unnecessary clutter, the performance increased overall with no noticeable difference in the route.
 
Unfortunately on doing some Google Research the GTX1650 wasn't one of Nvidia's brightest releases, reviews vary from sort of OK but don't expect much to why did they bother to release this. A 1660 or 1660s would have been a far better choice. Looks like it was just a card released to match an AMD card at the same price point however the AMD, think it was a RX570 out performed it.

It doesn't help when certain companies are selling "Gaming PCs" with decent CPUs but low end GPUs that are really only suitable for things like fortnight, probably a result of the GPU shortage we've had over the Pandemic period.

4GB Vram is cutting it a bit fine now, I'm seeing usage creeping above 4GB on occasions, OK not a problem as I have an 8GB RTX 3070TI, special one day offer I couldn't resist! Having said that they are now about 20% cheaper, I got my Ryzen 7 3800X (8 cores 16 Threads) again on a special 1 day deal and it was cheaper than the Ryzen 7 3700 I was intending to get as an upgrade for a Ryzen 5 1600 6 core 12 threads which wasn't win11 compliant. Probably one of the cheapest upgrades I've had. Thank you AMD for using the same AM4 sockets!

This combination performs rather well without any stuttering when running Trainz, GPU stays at around 65°C at 100% or close to, CPU at around 55°. I suspect using a decent and rather large Air cooler instead of the Wraith Cooler it came with and the 5 very quiet Case fans might be helping! I don't run at maximum Draw distance only what's needed to see what should be visible.

UserBenchmarks: Game 155%, Desk 92%, Work 160%
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3800X - 90.3%
GPU: Nvidia RTX 3070-Ti - 174.8%
SSD: PNY CS900 240GB - 81.2%
SSD: Crucial MX500 1TB - 107.2%
SSD: Crucial MX500 1TB - 113.8%
SSD: Crucial MX300 525GB - 98.3%
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 2TB (2018) - 102.9%
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 2TB - 105.1%
HDD: Seagate Expansion Desk 4TB - 83.3%
RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 3000 C15 2x8GB - 81.3%
MBD: Asus PRIME B350-PLUS
 
I have an RTX3060Ti in my stock standard Dell G5 Gaming desktop. It performs extremely well even under heavy loads in areas of high detail in Trainz.

Compared to my previous system (a GTX 960Ti) I see very little stutter and, since the release of the latest beta version for Trainz Plus, there is even less stutter. This update uses higher storage compression for assets which has significantly reduced the time needed to load and render assets and scenes.
 
The bang for the buck card battle all boils down to 3060 vs 3070. I like the number 7 much better than the number 6.



The question is will that long 3 fan card fit inside my case?

PC caseFry’s ElectronicsATX form factor: Antec™ New Solutions NSK 4480B II$66.00Dimensions
(H x W x D) = 16.50" x 7.80" x 16.60"
 
Having Googled your case, I think you will might have a problem with the drive cage, even more so if it contained 3.5" drives as the would probably foul the back of the GPU. however the cage is removable and if using an SSD you could stick it anywhere, bottom of the case with sticky pads would work, in a spare optical bay, sticky pads again possibly on the bottom optical bay. Had a similar case here a while back where I had to remove the bottom half of the drive cage to get a GPU in.

Going to have to measure the available space, that's probably safest.
 
Then again maybe a double-fan 3060Ti instead? The Seventy has a slight FPS advantage but, then again, my naked human eye can't detect a hint of stutter from the "humble" Sixty:




The question also is what card brand for longevity and build quality? Zotac, ASUS, EVGA, Gigabyte, MS, other?

NVDIA GeForce 3060Ti is the onboard firmware, I believe, or is it the chipset.
 
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Then again maybe a double-fan 3060Ti instead? The Seventy has a slight FPS advantage but, then again, my naked human eye can't detect a hint of stutter from the "humble" Sixty:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gj-4QYzjrEY&t=62s


The question also is what card brand for longevity and build quality? Zotac, ASUS, EVGA, Gigabyte, MS, other?

NVDIA GeForce 3060Ti is the onboard firmware, I believe, or is it the chipset.

3060TI is the chipset the other bits like the Vram Firmware and other components are supplied by the cards manufacturer.

The RTX 3070 is mostly shorter than the 3070TI with only 2 fans which is an in between option?

Zotac are reliable and well made and often a bit cheaper and often do shorter high end cards when others do not.
Asus Gigabyte and EVGA likewise reliable and well built, MSI always look like they never finished it to me but they work OK.

My 3070TI is a ASUS - GeForce RTX 3070 Ti 8 GB TUF GAMING OC

Other than measuring Frame Rates I can't tell the difference between my 1080TI and 3070TI at 19250 x 1080
 
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