Graphics

[SEVENDUSTALEIN]

Hello everyone, i like to play free-roam with about 50 engines on my own map (custom). I normally play on all high settings and the only thing i turn down scenery quality to the 1st lowest setting, other wise the loading screen will crash. I used to have 2gb graphics card, then i had switched to a (4 gb card)Gigabyte Radeon RX 580 Gaming 4GB Graphic Cards GV-RX580GAMING-4GD. So my topic really is, i still get hit with 14-15fps at some spots on my route, i was thinking maybe getting a 8gb. Just wondering if some you guys got a 8gb graphics card, i don't like to play scenarios with 1 engine, like to be able to switch to different engines when i can so that's why play in free-roam.

[1225fan5358]

Could you give some more information about your computer specs? Might be more than just a card issue.

[BoostedFridge]

The best thing to do to see if you are maxing out your VRAM on your video card is to run an in game performance overlay, or the software that came with you video card (in the background).

4GB *should* be enough to run TS well, even with the amount of rolling stock you have in game. If all of those locomotives/trains in your free roam are condensed in the same area (same tile especially) then your VRAM would see the most use when you initially load that tile.

Below is an example of a test I did a few years ago on Tomcat's Mojave-Cajon route, in the West Colton Yard. This route is very detailed, and uses a fair amount of system resources even before any stock is placed on the track. All 39 locomotives in the scene are idling and 'playable' in this free roam. There are over 900 freight cars in the same tile also.

64bit Test.jpg

Notice that the in-game FPS counter is at 17fps. Then look to my system performance overlay in the top left corner. Only 10% of my video card's 8GB is being used at that moment to display this scene. That is only 800MB of VRAM in use. Now if I were several tiles over, and flew or drove a train towards this tile, that VRAM usage would spike upon the tile loading (usually when you are 1-2 tiles away). If I recall correctly, the highest VRAM usage I saw in this scenario was just over 3GB upon this tile load. Also, the GPU is not even being called upon to run up to full speed.

What does this mean? It means that the extra 4GB that my video card has over yours wasn't used/required by the game in this instance.

So why is the FPS so low? The limiting factor here is how much data can be passed through the computer's CPU at one time. My i7-7700 runs at 3.6GHz, and is no slouch by any means either. Having this amount of running locomotives, in combination with all of the other items being drawn, puts a massive bottleneck on the amount of computations the game is asking the CPU to do.

So in summary, I don't think that upgrading from your 4GB card to an 8GB card is going to give you much, if any boost in FPS. For your own edification, I would still use a performance overlay or data tracking program, that way you can see which part(s) of your system are holding back your performance the most.

[SEVENDUSTALEIN]

That's how play a lot of engines and a lot more cars, every engine is operational. I like the realism of playing that way, sometimes its seems like a lot of work running a class 1 railroad on your own lol. I did the performance overlay on my game, but couldn't get it to show when i took the snapshots. I was using about 0.80-1.00 GB of GPU VRAM and i was in my rail yard. I don't remember the cpu brand exactly but i know its 3.9GHz. I always think im just overloading the game with to much for game to handle. I normaly get 30FPS on the mainline, but when i appraoch a yard i will 14-15fps and some times when im still in the yard ill get 17-20PFS.

Here one photo i took.

Screenshot_Wat_43.01659--88.21061_09-48-53.jpg

[buzz456]

You are not over loading the game. You are overloading your computer.

[SEVENDUSTALEIN]

Could you give some more information about your computer specs? Might be more than just a card issue.

CPU: AMD FX(tm)-6350 six-core processor 3.90 GHz
Ram: 16 GB
GPU: Radeon RX 580 4GB
Windows 10 and i run the game x64

When playing:
CPU is at 4.15 GHz
Ram is at 8GB
GPU is at 1GB

I can run the game at highest setting for a scenario, but i don't play this game for the scenarios. I like doing free-roams with 50-60 operational engines, so that's can be a lot of stress on the game. The game is not really meant that kind of activity, i can use medium settings with improved quality tweaks and can run the game at 40 PFS and have 15 FPS spikes when going down the rail line. If i max the settings to highest, the game will crash. I'm just trying to figure out how to improve my game play to making a good smooth operation. I like to hear from other gamers who play this still and have different experience with changing out different hardware and components to make there Train Sim run better.

[DigitalRails]

TS is based on dx9 version also to note that it doesnot support multicore so do not expect much from this old horse.

[peterhayes]

DR

TS is based on dx9 version also to note that it doesnot support multicore so do not expect much from this old horse.

Not so - it has been multicore capable since TS2013. It is not TRUE multicore but windows will ensure it uses all cores and you can set it to do manually by using SET AFFINITY MASK or automatically using ProcessLasso.

The OP's issue is not a multicore problem.
pH

[DigitalRails]

It is not TRUE multicore but windows will ensure it uses all cores and you can set it to do manually by using SET AFFINITY MASK or automatically using Process Lasso.

Interesting, may I know how this works?
I never saw someone on forums talking about these tools.
Thanks

[Chacal]

This is default Windows behavior.
Processor affinity setting is built-in, it doesn't need a tool.
You just open Windows task manager by hitting Shift-Ctrl-Esc, select the Processes tab, right-click the process you want to manage (firefox.exe in my example below), then you can manage processor affinity for this process. The default value is All Processors, meaning Windows will assign the process' threads to available processors dynamically. Windows does a pretty good job on its own and you shouldn't fumble with this setting except in very few cases.

Clipboard01.jpg

[peterhayes]

Chacal

This is default Windows behavior.
Processor affinity setting is built-in, it doesn't need a tool.

But you have to set it every time you start/restart your PC - Process Lasso does that automatically, every time TS starts.
You can create a "target" in Railworks64.exe to set it automatically every time TS starts see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ht4bV8IuWcM
pH

[Chacal]

Thanks, I wasn't clear. What I mean is default behavior is "All processors", which means "Let Windows handle it".
If you do change it manually, it will indeed be temporary.
Process lasso or a Powershell script can automate it.