Ohio Steel -- Very low frame rates

[Griphos]

I bought the Ohio Steel-Dover route last week, but have been on a business trip, so just got to try it tonight. I ran the first scenario, and except for the middle of the route where there wasn't much of anything, I got the worst frame rates of any route I own. The HSC can be slow on my pretty good system and pretty high settings. It will drop down into the teens sometimes when in the urban areas, but mostly it and every other route I've run stays at my 30 FPS lock. Ohio Steel was in the teens at the start, and dropped down below 14 a LOT of the route. At the Dover yards, it was a slide show.

Has anyone else experienced this slow performance on this route? Is this a TS2012 update issue? I haven't noticed any threads about it. I'm anxiously awaiting the Massillon expansion, but won't be able to get it if it has this same performance. I'm talking 6-8 FPS. Not really playable. I'm quite disappointed.

I'd be anxious to know if others have the same experience, and if there's something to be done about it.

[styckx]

I average 30-50fps depending on the scenery.

SSAA 1x2 w/ FXAA injector
Highest Preset w/ Bloom off.
Self optimized the skies and weather to 2012 standards

[DonR]

I have seen the low frame rates too...

But recently, I was in Dover yard looking North and the frame rates jumped up to 30-ish. I was in camera 2...swung around to look south and the frame rates went south too... 8.

There must be something up with either the number of objects or the makeup of the objects. In other parts of the route I get rates in the 20s, which is fine for me... anything over standard animation rates (15 fps) is tolerable for my tastes.

System Specs:

AMD Phenom II X4 955 (3.21 GHz)
3.25 GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX+ (512 MB RAM)
Win XP Pro (V2002 SP3)

So I think it's more than a hardware issue...

Don.

[DonR]

styckx,

A question comes to mind... ok 2...

1. What is FXAA injection? (So you don't need spark plugs now? ;-) )
2. How did you optimize the weather. I've noticed on Rich's routes the weather sometimes misbehaves (not mapped to the sky dome correctly).

Thanks
Don

[Griphos]

I can confirm that the lowest rates were in the north part of the yard looking south. They were down in the lower single digits (I'm guessing of course, because the frame counter doesn't go below 14, but they were waaaay slower than when it first says 14-15). I almost never hit the 30 FPS lock...mostly low 20s at the best. I'm running an i7 920 at 3.7 and a GTX 275, so it's not hardware (I get great FPS on pretty much every other route...but don't have NEC, which is supposed to be slow). My settings in game are high, but I don't use DOF or bloom, and I use only x4 AA in the main settings.

I was very surprised. The fact that others get better performance on less powerful hardware is troubling, and may mean something else was going on in this instance. I'll run another scenario tonight, or just a free roam, and see what happens.

[glenn68]

I have the same problem untill I get out of Dover yard and my frame rates are around 30. In the yard maybe 8 to 14. The frame rate lock at 30 is really nice once I am out of Dover yard. Maybe the Ohio Steel expansion pack will be better.

[Griphos]

Yeah, but this doesn't seem to be the problem here, as it's the same very slow FPS whether there are engines or cars in view or not, such as when I'm using one of the out of the window views that doesn't draw my own engine and there aren't other cars on the yard tracks.

[hminky]

I had an I7-920/260GTX/1920x1080/all settings high and would be in the low teens and barely run.

I upgraded to a Radeon 6950 and went to the mid-twenties.

Upgraded to an I7-2600K and went to the mid-thirties

Takes a lot of horsepower

Harold

[jamesphh]

Created a new freeroan at Dover to test the new lighting (headlights). No static consists. Still unplayable!

[Griphos]

Thanks Harold, but it's not my hardware. I can run all the other routes I have, payware and freeware, in the 50s, and even the HSC locked at 30 most of the time, with occasional slowdowns. This isn't a general low performance issue. It's an Ohio Steel issue, at least on my machine, and at least for that one instance last night. Like I said, I'll explore further, but it's not encouraging to hear James say it wasn't better in free roam. Maybe it's a TS'12 update thing and the Massillon will be optimized for TS'12. Perhaps Ohio Steel can be optimized as well at some point. If it stays like this for me, this very interesting route won't get any use by me. Just too tempting to run anywhere else where I can count on smooth performance.

Is Fort Kent-Eagle Lake similarly problematic under TS'12?

[hminky]

Colton and Northern, Bay of Quinte ran the same way as Ohio Steel before the upgrades.

All the other routes ran fine just like you said.

Harold

[robbit]

I have all his routes and have no troubles with any of them, Ohio steel is a little slow but bearable

[glenn68]

Ohio Steel is still a great route. I usually pull some of my video sliders back 1 notch and performance come up to a good level.
AMD X64 4 core
ATI RAEDEON 5450 512 mhz


Glenn

[arizonachris]

Created a new freeroan at Dover to test the new lighting (headlights). No static consists. Still unplayable!

Here's a fix for the headlight issue: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=3788&start=30

I get between 20 to 30 frames on this route. Not running custom settings. Detail on High, TSX on 1920x1080. No bloom.

Phenom II 940, 4Gb G Skill 1066, EVGA GTX470SC, 2x 500Gb WD Black drives in RAID 0, onboard Realtek sound, Win 7 Ult. 64 bit.

This route has always had lower frames than Rich's first three routes. Maybe it's a lot of high poly models?

[dcushing]

I seem to recall a email conversation with Rich in which he stated he had made some (unnamed) changes to to original Ohio Steel due to minor problems caused by the upgrade. I think he also said that to install the future massalon steel addition, that the original would have to be removed. He also has said on his site that several if not all of the original activities had been reworked.

Duncan