Railworks Poor Performance

[secludedsfx]

Sdark, if you haven't already, turn off SXAA, it's a performance killer

[sdark2]

Sdark, if you haven't already, turn off SXAA, it's a performance killer

I'm running with no AA at all, configuration screens in my earlier posts shows the AA slider all the way to the left

Kr, Steve

[Makeone]

That's a strange problem you have there. Altho i agree, that the RW-engine could use another fps-limiter at menu screens, my poor gts450 goes to full throttle on those, but not while actuall simulation is paused.

I wonder, could it be somesort of cpu throttling that's 'killing' the rw performance? My i5 throttles down when in desktop but goes up when i play or do something else cpu heavy, ie. mainly play games...
Didn't AMD speak some sort of turboboost, or was that Intel's trademark, but similar thing. Most of those other games are gpu dependant while RW is...well, i'm not sure...
I was also thinking that cpu doesn't get enough data from hard drive while simulation is running, but since you have fast hd's and plenty of memory available, it can't be that.

Hopefully you can get it sorted

[sdark2]

Had a response from Support who are also blaming the CPU...

So how is it that I was able to achieve 30+ frames per second with the same system components, and less ram, and with older GPUs...? The combined performance capabilities of the newer cards is greater than twice the combined performance capabilities of the older cards... how does that equal worse performance???

Kr, Steve

[iceman2117]

hi ...

I'll be the day of the company NVidia Railworks as recommend Benchmarkgame.

Then they can S.t.a.l.k.e.r. , Metro2033 , Crisis, ..saved .....
RailWorks TSX alone attracts every herring from the plate.
All of these benchmark tests can be alone on this SIM are executed.

I would be interested if they find a satisfactory end dividend deputy working test system.

g'ice

[jevon]

I've read hundreds of bits of speculation here and elsewhere about why RW3 performs so poorly on many very capable rigs that I've become firmly convinced of just one thing: no one knows what they're talking about, including the guys at RSC, but they're not talking.

In the months since the RW3 release, and even after the most recent update brought some minimal improvements, I've seen no cogent explanation from the company about any of this. It's like they have this beast of a code mess on their hands and they have no clue how to really fix it. When I hear people suggest things like "RW3 requires a balanced system" I just shake my head in disbelief. How can anyone seriously assert that when a system will run any other modern game acceptably well it may still not be "balanced" for RW3?

I wish I could help solve your issue, and it's baffling that your experience is so different than mine as far as the gpu is concerned (system stats in my sig). RW3 pushes my gpu constantly at 99-100%, while the cpu runs at around 22% (i7-2600 / HT off / OC@4.7 and stable like Gibraltar). I've read that Task Manager isn't a good measure of what RW is doing or not doing, but, looking at the graphs, not even 1 core is maxed, yet the gpu gets continually pounded, with temps around 80c. Sure, this gets me 50fps in a small route like Rusford (btw, very nice), and maybe 35fps cruising up the WCML-N, but something just seems out of balance -- and I wonder if anyone really knows exactly what.

It would be welcomed at some point to hear directly from RSC on this (when they finally figure it out themselves), not simply more grasping at straws by folks who aren't privy to the intricacies of the code. I do know that this and, even more, the many, many unfixed bugs and the SBHH situation have drained close to all of my interest and enthusiasm for the sim. But, hey, what can I realistically expect for $39? I fully understand that RSC staff have mouths to feed, and that DLC is their bread and butter. But the core issues have become so widespread and contentious that it may eventually whittle-down their user base to an untenable level. I hope this doesn't happen because it really could be a stellar game.

[sdark2]

Thanks for your input here Jev. I genuinely believe there's a great deal of truth behind what you just posted - particularly about the code base. Clearly, there's fundamental flaws in the whole application as is evident by the poor implementation and effective utilisation of even the most basic hardware devices. I've seen issues such as what's apparent here before - typically the result of amateur "teach-yourself-in-24-hour" coders attempting to hack/hash together complex platforms without the slightest inclination of what is actually occurring at base level nor how to remedy the inherent flaws they introduce into the equation.

The advice I've received from support has been very basic and, while quick to blame components that aren't "current" technology, failed to consider their own published list of minimum system requirements - which, as no surprise, my system far exceeds. Furthermore, they failed to read the entirety of my email in which was stated the previous operating performance of 30+ fps with the exact same components they're blaming for the shortfall.

All I did was add more ram and replaced three ageing graphics cards with two cards that had a combined processing capacity greater than what I was using. I just cannot fathom how this can result in worse performance than what I had previously. If I had achieved the same level of performance, I wouldn't have been too bothered but to go backwards with more proverbial horsepower is just pure bonkers.

Kr, Steve

[exshunter]

Excellent post Jevon, i could not have put it better myself. My enthusiasm for this game has long since gone.

[sdark2]

Continued with the arduous task of testing various configurations today. Overclocking my CPU (to thermal overload) has, to no surprise, had no effect in getting additional performance out of the sim - in fact, performance dropped by around 2fps. So that disproves anyone's theory that the CPU is the limiting factor here.

However, I've since installed the latest drivers that appeared on nVidia's website this morning (296.1) as well as a clean install of the motherboard system drivers. I also downclocked my GPUs slightly (to the lowest the application allows me to), this has had a profound effect on performance. Managed to get up to 57fps at one point with a rolling average of around 40fps. However, every time the game wants to load in a new tile, the whole game hangs while it does it - to the point Windows thinks it's stopped responding and wants to close it.

Despite the above, actually appear to be making some progress here and the frame rates I'm seeing (with all the quality settings at max in MSAAx8 and Multicore option enabled) are quite promising. I'll keep pushing, tweaking and optimising and hopefully will strike a balance where I'll be appeased to a certain degree. I'll continue to document my progress and the settings I'm using here, hopefully it will help those out there that are also struggling to get even some form of reasonable performance from the game.

Kr, Steve

[nobkins]

SO if I read that correctly you have down clocked your GPU and max'd out the in-game settings and you are getting better performance.

Ahh of course that makes perfect sense (said Mr Topsy Turvy from Upside Down world).

Keep at it Steve

[MikeJH]

Hi
This is a very interesting thread and shows that there does not seem to be any single reason, either software or hardware related,to fully explain all the problems facing users.

For myself I was not experiencing any major problems on my machine using RW3 TS2012 in TSX mode until the core update in FEB then it became more or less unusable.

If interested see my full comments in this topic, http://forums.uktrainsim.com/viewtopic. ... &start=105.

Nothing had changed on my PC, hardware wise and the only change in software was the addition of the Woodhead line to RW3.

Jevon's comments definitely have a lot of merit, as for me something in that update either had one or more errors or maybe conflicted with other software or hardware on my PC.

I appreciate that it is impossible for software developers to be able to cover all eventualities with the millions of different PC user Hardware/Software combinations, but with software
like RW3 which by default updates automatically but has NO roll back facility there should be more info provided as well researched FAQ's for example.

As stated in the other topic I am now back to a usable RW3 after an O.S. upgrade and the addition of extra RAM, performance is now reasonable, including on WCML and Woodhead.
Except for the extra RAM all hardware is identical as is most of the software including my security system, does this then indicate that RAM size is a major factor?

I have turned of auto update at present, but I am wondering what the long term position is for me now with RW3 and also I am very loathe to purchase any further addons as they
could become totally unplayable and useless on my PC.

Is it possible to successfully clone RW3 at a specific issue level from a backup say and then use that cloneRW3, without online Steam client, indefinitely. Thus at least giving the possibility
of preserving a workable game for your own PC and also protecting your total cost outlay.

Mike

P.S. Reading sdark2 latest comments the only common factor with my situation was the install of new Nvidia drivers, both graphic and chipset for motherboard.

[Kariban]

Is it possible to successfully clone RW3 at a specific issue level from a backup say and then use that cloneRW3, without online Steam client, indefinitely. Thus at least giving the possibility of preserving a workable game for your own PC and also protecting your total cost outlay.

Yes it is, I have a usable copy of the last two versions of RW2 still. There are various threads around about changing the path to your RW install, which is all that cloning your install actually is.

[sdark2]

Thanks very much for your input here Mike, and the link to your other thread, I'll take a good nosey through it.

As Kariban has already posted, there are a few ways to clone your Railworks install to avoid the update paradoxes that many seem to suffer.

Kr, Steve

[Stone75]

I read further up you installed new ram. Did you check for a bum stick of ram by swapping them out one by one ? I only say it as it solved a problem i had a way back but not RW related. Feel free to completely ignore/laugh off my very low tech effort.

Also a way back i upgraded my system to improve on my FSX performance, ran all other games fantasticly but FSX was so bad i ended up no longer running it.

Hope you get this sorted.

steve

[sdark2]

Hi Steve, funny you should mention the RAM issue, it has transpired that 4GB of my ram had suddenly resorted to no longer maintaining its proper speed. Luckily, it's Kingston lifetime warranty stuff so I'm on organising getting it replaced.

Once I get the replacement, I'll run through the tests again to see if adding the additional 4GB helped at all.

Kr, Steve