Very quiet on the msts 2 frontline

makes you wonder...they did the same thing for ts1.. then a bunch of information and stuff came out....wonder if this is a sign.

Brian E. Bundridge
Seattle, Wa

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RE: very quiet on the msts 2 frontline..., DTA, Jul-07-03, 03:52 PM, (1) RE: very quiet on the msts 2 frontline..., lenglel, Jul-07-03, 04:34 PM, (2) RE: very quiet on the msts 2 frontline..., DTA, Jul-07-03, 04:43 PM, (3) RE: very quiet on the msts 2 frontline..., AlphaMaster, Jul-07-03, 06:57 PM, (4) RE: very quiet on the msts 2 frontline..., heffed, Jul-08-03, 03:31 AM, (5) RE: very quiet on the msts 2 frontline..., DTA, Jul-08-03, 07:04 PM, (7) RE: very quiet on the msts 2 frontline..., buzzbenz, Jul-10-03, 12:54 PM, (9) RE: very quiet on the msts 2 frontline..., Waterbool, Jul-11-03, 06:12 AM, (11) RE: very quiet on the msts 2 frontline..., heffed, Jul-08-03, 03:32 AM, (6) RE: very quiet on the msts 2 frontline..., buzzbenz, Jul-10-03, 12:19 PM, (8) RE: very quiet on the msts 2 frontline..., John 136 6000 GO, Jul-11-03, 04:18 AM, (10) RE: very quiet on the msts 2 frontline..., buzzbenz, Jul-11-03, 06:24 PM, (12) RE: very quiet on the msts 2 frontline..., seern, Jul-12-03, 03:30 PM, (13)

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Its still chugging! Apart from the UK route speculation being totally wrong, the rest is getting the non revealed routes up and going. I am not too worried, as I have more than enough routes and activities already.My only concern is that the latest free and payware is really hard on framerates, and MSTS2 is going to test them even further.David

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That's why I like rural routes. Sure, a 64 track yard
full of cars is fun to look at, but how many of those
tracks and cars can you actually use in a reasonable
operating session?Lloyd

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I did some testing on framerates, and just one static train reduces framerates by about 40 percent. I would put that down to bad programming, as static trains should be no more intrusive than buildings, which do not cause the same sort of problems.David

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>I did some testing on framerates, and just one static train
>reduces framerates by about 40 percent. I would put that
>down to bad programming, as static trains should be no more
>intrusive than buildings, which do not cause the same sort
>of problems.
>
>David But it is possible to couple & collide with static trains so therefore the sim has to be calculating bounding boxes and all that other good stuff eventhough it's just sitting there.

Danny - Pittsburgh
There's a light at the end of every tunnel, just pray it's not a train.
http://clanswl.mowshed.com/

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>I did some testing on framerates, and just one static train
>reduces framerates by about 40 percent. It really depends on what stock the static consists are composed of. A consist of high poly cars will give you more of a framerate hit than a string of low poly cars. >I would put that
>down to bad programming, as static trains should be no more
>intrusive than buildings, which do not cause the same sort
>of problems. How do you figure? KUJU did some incredibly shoddy programming on MSTS, but you really can't fault them for this issue. I think your mistake is looking at the consist as a single static scenery object such as a building. This is not the case. A building has one single polygon count. A consist on the other hand, (static or dynamic) is made up of many individual objects each sporting their own poly count. The entire poly count of a consist needs to be taken into consideration regarding framerate.A conservative consist of say, 20 cars each averaging 2,000 polys will give you around 40,000 polys. This can't even be considered in the same league performance wise as a 1,500 poly building.You need to think of a static consist as a small town instead of a building. You can't place one and expect it not to cause any performance drop. So basically, a static consist will be more instrusive than a building regardless of how efficient your 3D gaming engine is.-Jeff

Union Pacific is my drug.

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Apologies. I didn't realise the difference in poly counts for static trains. That explains the framerate drop in Protrain3, on the P4 activities.David

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Well, that is most definitely true. However, i also believe that the static consists are getting calculations done that don't need to be.During a massive test of some stuff in Washington Union Station, i loaded up the tracks with a ton of cars and locos. Enough to get the framerates on my new PC down to 10fps when viewing all the equipment. I was running at 1024x768x32. HOWEVER - when i upped the resolution to 1280x104x32 then went back in and returned to the exact view i was using before, the framerate remained at 10fps. Although i do confess the new machine has a Radeon 9700Pro, i seriously expected at least a small but measurable drop in framerates. There wasn't though. This tells me that the CPU is the bottleneck here. So i do suspect that there is some un-needed physics calculations or something still going on that doesn't need to be (after all, on a non-moving train, what is there to calculate?). Of course, this may be because you need to have everything calculated appropriately if you choose to couple up to it. Just a thought....------ BUZZ ------

-- Power For You --

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Here is the feature that we need in MSTS2:
Program stops calculating any unnecessary calculations when
rolling stock is at full stop, hand brakes are on and nobody is coupled with these objects.

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>That's why I like rural routes. Sure, a 64 track yard
>full of cars is fun to look at, but how many of those
>tracks and cars can you actually use in a reasonable
>operating session? Try PO&N 6. You can use all of them in a reasonable operating session. -Jeff

Union Pacific is my drug.

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There are techniques, however, for making a yard LOOK full from the cab of your train without there actually being too much there! Forgive me, i can't remember who actually originally had this idea, i am going to summare someone else's technique here. I use it quite often myself! Most of my driving remains in the cab (well, what little i actually do - seems all i am ever using MSTS for is testing stuff! ) In a "64 track yard" all you really need to do is place cars on the track(s) that are right next to the ones you are running on. Then you just put a few cars staggered on the rest of the tracks, so that there are no visible "holes". When you approach the yard it actually can look quite convincing that you are approching a yard chocked full of cars, when in reality what you have is mostly empty space! It's about the only way i can run through some areas of Ohio Rail 10 above 6fps (well, ok, on my old machine).------ BUZZ ------

-- Power For You --

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Forgive me, i can't remember who actually originally had this idea" I think that was Richard Garber. He presents that technique in his book "Step-by-Step Guide to Train Sim Activities".
CheersJohn

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Well, i didn't get it from a book, but it makes sense as to the original author of that statement! As intense as his routes are, you need every trick possible to make it look real and still run! (But the effort is SOOOO worth it!)------ BUZZ ------

-- Power For You --

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Rich had a very good idea here, as he has other great ideas. The problem is that it only works as long as the player stays in view 1. As soon as you switch to 2 or 3, the yard is back looking empty again. Also on the thought of MSTS2 being a CPU hog, think about the statements from E3 about moving people at stations. These are added calculations that the CPU will have to make to move the people around and onto and off the train.

Sharon Evans
Glen Allen, Virginia
Activities are what makes MSTS run.

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