NEC TS 2012 Optimized

[MugHug]

I'm trying out the NEC stuff. Has anyone lost keyboard input lately? Happened to me tonight after about 10-15 mins of driving. Btw, the only thing I can drive on this route is the AEM. My first experiences with the NEC are not like the good ones I had with the HSC route. Even with TSX off and graphic options set to High, the Acela is just too much for this laptop. I don't think I can stand to drive it on Low graphics options; that would just be sad. Am still experimenting but I can see that this route and the PC requirements to edit in TS'12 is going to make my 1 year old top-of-the-line gaming laptop obsolete. My attempts to edit anything using TS'12 leads to thermal shutdowns. Guess I'll have to switch to a desktop and sit at a desk all day.

Remember losing keyboard earlier today foe few mins. Exit route and back in and fine.

What is your laptop?

Apart from the desktop I have G73 and not tried yet, but wonder if up to the job.

[MugHug]

Anyone want to see if they can repeat these findings of mine?

http://forums.uktrainsim.com/viewtopic. ... 5#p1476397

Will have a go.

All the research I did showed predictable pattern. Up close to high detailed objects load increased on both cards. on HSC I would set camera between two tracks and let two fright trains running opposite directions run either side. The load would double. Did not see this kind of increase othwise or by flying. Did not notice issues or unexpected changes with loading different scenarios one after another.

Have NEC and Acela so will see what I find.

Still feel that SLI does not really boost FPS or general performance. I did believe it in early days of TS2012, but after more testing, I disabled SLI and just use one card.

[Toripony]

Remember losing keyboard earlier today foe few mins. Exit route and back in and fine.

What is your laptop?

Apart from the desktop I have G73 and not tried yet, but wonder if up to the job.

It's a G73J. Other than overheating while editing in RW (I added a "fan"), it's been really impressive. Just today I was riding down the Alleghany in RW2 at 50-60 fps; even in densely scened Ronceverte it cruised through at 24 fps. But in TS right now, it crawls through Ronceverte. It will still get a lot of use editing assets, running processes and as a Google Earth viewer while I'm routebuilding. And for now it will still run RW2 and I can still do some of my editing that way. Too bad it can't be upgraded but I think a faster processor might just melt it.


hmmm... wonder if I could take the guts out of the case, lay it on the desk, put in a faster CPU and cool it with a fan.... hmmm... maybe some Appalachian engineering is in order, lol.

[EliteMarksman]

CONFIGURATION
Hardware: Intel DH67BL, Core i5-2500K, 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) Kingston DDR3-1333, MSI HD 6850 Cyclone PE OC, WD Green 2TB
Software: Windows 7 64-bit, latest DH67BL motherboard BIOS & drivers, Catalyst 11.9

Just a theory here as to one possible reason BFBC2 performs so much better than TS2012.

In addition to TSX likely not being very well optimized, especially when it comes to lighting (delete the lighting folder and frames shoot up quite a bit), perhaps TS2012 is trying to/has to load more resources than BFBC2. Having never played BFBC2, but assuming it is similar to most FPS, the majority, if not all, of the map could be loaded when you begin the game. However, due to the size of the NEC (probably something on the order of 1-1.5x80 miles populated, 30x100 miles for the terrain) the entire map simply cannot be loaded, and one slowdown tends to be coming from loading the required resources.

I've noticed on my WD blue on HSC that every few minutes the frames will drop to 14, never less, never more, always exactly 14, from 20-25, and be far less smooth than even when it is at 16-18. Also at this time I hear my HDD thrashing around like crazy.

If it is an issue relating to loading resources, a WD Green sure isn't going to help any. Does anyone have TS2012 installed on an SSD to see if that eliminates some of the stuttering?

[Toripony]

I just finished running a new passenger scenario (built in RW2) on the Alleghany in TS'12; ran flawlessly and I even got a good score. Maybe it's the new version of TS but I was shocked to see that I could use the 30fps lock. The frame rate stayed mostly at 27-29 the whole drive except in Ronceverte and certain other spots. Even there, the avg rate was about 22fps. I have all basic settings on High and graphic options set to Highest w/Bloom On and DoF Off. Two or three times the fps dropped to 14, but only for 1 second. (@E. Marksman: 14 is the minimum fps it will display; you have to estimate your real rate below that).

So maybe only the 2012 Optimized routes are an overload on medium grade PC's; granted it's half of the 50-60 fps I was getting in RW2 with this scenario, but honestly it looks much better in TS12 anyway! I can even attribute the shiny engine to a new paint job and the whitish areas on the edges of the cars are from years of wind wear! Tonight I am happy.

[Shadders]

Hello,

Elite Marksman,
I run RW on a SSD, Railworks is the only thing on it. But yes it will reduce the time it takes to load assets it needs as you traverse the a route. It won't get rid of them entirely but it helps.
Part of the problem stems from the shear number of files Railworks has. Even the simplest asset has at least three files; a texture, the shape and a definition. So, if your playing a route where there's 100 different types of asset on it, your hard drive has to go off and find, then read 300 files in order to get them into RW to display, the files may be pretty small, but that's a load of individual reads the hard drive has to perform and the placement on the disk can make a big difference in how quickly it can perform those reads. Defragging helps, but it can't stop the fact that a mechanical device has to move over the disk platter to get to the location where the file is stored.

Toripony,
Sadly there seems to be a problem with high end systems too, at least for the moment, if your interested I posted some of my findings http://railworksamerica.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3654&start=105#p34133
I've emailed support about it and I urge anyone else with problems to do so, try and include DXDiag and System Information reports along with the email as the more data RSC have, the more likely they are to be able to come up with a solution.

Cheers,

Shad.

[Kali]

I've noticed on my WD blue on HSC that every few minutes the frames will drop to 14, never less, never more, always exactly 14, from 20-25, and be far less smooth than even when it is at 16-18. Also at this time I hear my HDD thrashing around like crazy.

If it is an issue relating to loading resources, a WD Green sure isn't going to help any. Does anyone have TS2012 installed on an SSD to see if that eliminates some of the stuttering?

You will never get below 14 fps using the ingame fps display, it doesn't go any lower.

I have run RW off two different generations of WD black and an OCZ Vertex2 SSD where my working install lives, and tbh there's no noticeable difference in TSX ( was definitely a small improvement in RW2, but not enough to justify buying a SSD for it ).

I lost my keyboard three times in one scenario yesterday; it's more annoying in that if you pop the F4 display up to try and use that instead, half of that won't work either and you run out of fire and water...

[OldProf]

That is an incredibly well thought out, researched, and informative post. I hope RSC notes it. There does seem to me to be more than just the usual grumbling at new implementations of software, but something wrong with the implementation. I am quite happy with most of the content of the sim, but am not that pleased with the performance of HSC relative to the rest of the routes, even though I love it. I'll be waiting to buy any of the new DLC for 2012 until things get sorted.

Wouldn't RSC be much more likely to notice it were it sent to them rather than to a users' forum? Although it's clear that RSC employees do monitor various RW-related forums, they have no obligation to do so and, given the mountains of comments appearing about RW3, probably cannot keep up with the forums as well as they can with their owh support site. You're quite right in citing Griphos' post as very thorough and potentially useful. I just hope that he sent it to RSC, too.

Tom Pallen

[Toripony]

My experiences yesterday with testing TS12 lead me to the conclusion that the most performance problems are with the new optimized routes and rolling stock. My RW2 built Alleghany route and RW2 rolling stock runs at about half the speed it did in RW2 (30fps vs. 60 fps) which is more than double the speed of running the, for example, Genesis on the same route (<14fps for me) which is more than double the speed of the Gen on the NEC (~4-6fps). Is this true on the high-end pc's?

If I find time, I'm going to make a quickie scenario on the NEC with RW2 rolling stock and see what happens.

[ATSF3814]

Alright this time I used Starcraft 2 since it is much more resource intensive and is designed for the PC. And I played a much longer session this time so I could get more data.

Starcraft 2

Mission Played:

In Utter Darkness

Settings Used:



Results:

Frames: 89894
Time (ms): 2709812
FPS Min: 0
FPS Max: 228
Average FPS: 33.174

With everything maxed the gameplay is butter smooth even during the most intense combat situations.

[DonR]

...but there is a guide on UKTrainSim I used.

Where is this guide? I poked around UKTrainSim and couldn't find it.

Thanks
Don.

[Griphos]

I believe he meant this one in the FAQ section:

http://forums.uktrainsim.com/viewtopic. ... 9&t=118677

It helped me dial in the best performance. I recommend it.

[MugHug]

I believe he meant this one in the FAQ section:

http://forums.uktrainsim.com/viewtopic. ... 9&t=118677

It helped me dial in the best performance. I recommend it.

Yep, this is the guide. Sorry but original post was on the iPad and did not have link.

[MugHug]

Toripony suggested anti-virus software slowing things down.

I excluded the railworks folder on my desktop from the real-time file scans in Avast and the faster loading speed, etc. of TS2012 was plain to see. So much, that I am doing the same on my laptop.

Seems to provide a small boost worth trying.

[simer4]

Just let people know, I have had the keyboard problem, and all I do is press Ctrl and Shift rapidly. It seems to fix it.