Frame rate keeps dropping to 14 fps.

[smartie38]

Hi,

I remember an issue when the ingame fps would dip for a few seconds down to 14 fps before returning to normal with earlier TS releases, I haven't come across many with ts2014 mentioning it though but it's certainly an issue for me and with it happening frequently one some routes it certainly ruins the driving experiencing! I've only recently got back into ts2014 after finally getting to the bottom of why ts2014 kept crashing when using the latest version of OpenAL soft (1.15.1), I had to get ts working with that version as the one that installs with the game only gave me mono sound! Anyway the two routes in particular I've noticed this 14 fps dip issue with is the LA San Diego route & London to Faversham, I notice both these routes are using the new .ap compressed file format but don't know if that's anything to do with the 14 fps dips

These frame rate dips are happening no matter what graphics settings I use, be it everything as low as possible or maxed out , my pc hardware can easily handle ts2014, I've also got ts2014 installed on an ssd, just for fun I even ran ts2014 off a ramdisk using symbolic links just to test if that helped with the fps dips, it didn't so it's certainly not being caused by load times although I already knew that anyway as a quick glance at the sata activity led on my case during the fps dips shows no activity & an ssd is more than fast enough anyway.

Is anyone else getting frequent fps drops to 14 on the two routes mentioned, or any others as those are the only two of my installed routes that I've tested at the moment.

[deltic009]

It sounds like the dip you get when loading up scenery tiles as scenery is not loaded at a set distance from the train and when you hit a certain point all of a sudden the game loads a 1km by 1km (I think) tile and that splurge of asset loading causes it - and then at the next kilometre. Rinse and repeat.

[thethirdrail]

I also get sudden frame drops. I got them on my old PC (Core2Duo, GeForce 8800) and I get them on my new PC (i5, GTX 770). Generally the increase in frame rates between old and new PCs is about 20-30 FPS which is fantastic, but I still get that periodic dip every so often

If anybody knows of a remedy I'd be please to hear it!

[rfletcher72]

Are you running on highest settings?

I posted elsewhere I was getting stutter, lowering the one setting I had on highest to high has greatly reduced the problem.

Hope this helps,

[justgeoff]

Hi,

I am having a slightly similar problem which has only come about in the last two or three days, and that is the sound gets very scratchy and visual stuttering is so bad it almost becomes a complete screen freeze. This lasts for just 3-4 seconds usually but in a worst case scenario it lasted for nearly 30 seconds by which time I was expecting the whole system to crash!

If anybody has any ideas as to a cure I would be very pleased to hear. Settings are generally speaking one down from max and I've never experienced this problem before.

Geoff

[thethirdrail]

Are you running on highest settings?

I am, because I can be. Everything maxed out and I get at least 40 FPS most of the time so I'm reluctant to lower the graphics settings; seems such a waste of all that processing power! But sometimes I suppose we just have to compromise

[rfletcher72]

I am, because I can be. Everything maxed out and I get at least 40 FPS most of the time so I'm reluctant to lower the graphics settings; seems such a waste of all that processing power! But sometimes I suppose we just have to compromise

Oh don't get me wrong, I can run on the highest settings too and get obscene FPS. But having read various threads on here, about the extra load the highest settings place on the hardware and the little extra benefit you gain in doing so, I have chosen to run on high settings. I still have a more than satisfying TS experience, and to be honest, I have noticed little if any visual impact whilst in game.

I used to fall into the trap of thinking that extra CPU/GPU power automatically guaranteed extra oomph in TS, but it would seem this is currently not always the case. It certainly helps, but it may not deliver all you would expect. This I just accept and get on with it.

Regards,

Richard

[smarty2]

This all pervading problem may disappear or be greatly reduced with the new U4 engine? I agree it is a pain, especially when you see more spangly games being coped with with ease, I'd say it's the outdated engine currently used, after all it was around in 2006 when in development.

[smartie38]

It sounds like the dip you get when loading up scenery tiles as scenery is not loaded at a set distance from the train and when you hit a certain point all of a sudden the game loads a 1km by 1km (I think) tile and that splurge of asset loading causes it - and then at the next kilometre. Rinse and repeat.

Many thanks for the reply, and for all the others who've replied, I guess it's something I'll just have to live with until the game engine gets updated to sort these issues out. These huge fps drops to around 14 fps don't happen on all the routes I've tested so far, for instance the GWML & Bristol to Exeter play fine, all I get on those routes is the momentary pause while it's loading off the ssd, it's a case of blink & I would miss those pauses but on other routes I get these huge fps drops where the fps stay around 14fps for like 2 to 3 seconds, that's very juddery, especially if I happen to be looking around at the time or trying to use in the in cab controls etc.

Are you running on highest settings?

I am, because I can be. Everything maxed out and I get at least 40 FPS most of the time so I'm reluctant to lower the graphics settings; seems such a waste of all that processing power! But sometimes I suppose we just have to compromise

I still get the huge fps dips for a few seconds even when I had all the graphics settings set to their lowest values so in my case it appears it's not the video settings causing it.

[RichyV]

Remember, it can also be caused by the type of locomotive/train-set you are running, as some have much more scripting than others, making these 'stutters' rather more prolonged...

[Irishrailguy]

I've always had this issue and it's persisted across all the systems I've run this game on. I have what would generally be considered a higher-end system which is ideal for next-gen games and applications, but this game engine (although polished up a bit every now and then) still isn't equipped to deal with core issues. All these years later, TS2014 still uses the algorithms from Kuju's Rail simulator. When that was designed, it seemed as though it was a game that needed to simply 'look' better than the aging competition of MSTS in order for RS to sell, which was an easier task to accomplish than creating an efficient game engine.

Procedural data rendering is something that this game has always lacked, you place an asset in the world and your system is told to get all the data at once and render it on the screen. Even with the simple LOD system used on assets, collecting large amounts of them on a scenery tile still results in the same callback, take all the data that tile contains (assets/ track/ terrain) and render it all at once. This is why I can hardly wait to get my hands on a Train Simulator that uses a proper next-gen engine, with proper procedural data rendering algorithms. So my large textures finally won't cause the system to grind to a halt every time I get near them, the textures would simply look blurry for a few seconds with little to no lag

Kev

[31466]

I have had this problem too. I applied the FPS limit of 30 and have seen an improvement. Obviously the problem with that is that I am losing out on FPS for 90% of the time as I am normally in the 40+ area. This is mainly a problem when travelling at higher speed as you notice it more. I will try the 60 FPS limit to see if that does anything.

[gptech]

Limiting the FPS to 60 if you only get in the 40s won't do anything------the limited will never kick in. Regardless of what speed you're travelling at the human eye can't spot much over 30 FPS (generalities there of course) so if you get a noticeable frame rate drop at speed there are other factors involved.