Canton gets more 'intense' the more I remove?

Figured the gurus here can quickly explain this one for me? I added a few buildings onto Canton, and the 'tile objects' are only around 660 or so. But when I come into Logan, Jefferson, and Canton now - the frame rate gets REALLY sluggish? If I look out the window sideways, the rates okay? I've removed some buildings, clutter, and/or vegetation down to a 640 or so, but to no avail? I'm on a 'older' laptop granted (Toshiba Satelitte P3, 955Mhz, 512MB RAM, 64MB VC - I think?)But what get's me is that NEC or Marias Pass can have around 1577 'tile objects' and big huge buildings, and I've never experienced this sluggishness? KHP, a bit - because the trains are so big and detailed that pass. When I first installed Canton, it was as smooth as glass. But soon as I 'tweeked' it, it's like a snail coming in at certain angles?Is there anything I can do to ascertain and/or remedy the problem - without having to invest in a Cray computer? Rich told me about the CRTL+ALT+Z trick to get FPS, and sometimes it says 7-9 but can jump to 18-20 if I swing around, but it goes back down again? I'm not sure what all that means even? Thanks in advance.

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RE: Canton gets more 'intense' the more I remove?, Hack, May-18-04, 12:25 PM, (1) RE: Canton gets more 'intense' the more I remove?, Mark_Blum, May-18-04, 05:42 PM, (2) RE: Canton gets more 'intense' the more I remove?, rgarber, May-18-04, 10:34 PM, (3) RE: Canton gets more 'intense' the more I remove?, John Westwood, May-18-04, 11:02 PM, (4) RE: Canton gets more 'intense' the more I remove?, Swissie, May-19-04, 05:20 AM, (5) RE: Canton gets more 'intense' the more I remove?, John Westwood, May-20-04, 11:33 AM, (6) RE: Canton gets more 'intense' the more I remove?, Swissie, May-21-04, 05:27 AM, (7)

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Check the poly counts of the buildings you added with Shape File Viewer...You may find that the ones added are heavy. If they appear to be average to other objects already on the route, then I'm not sure where to look - perhaps too many individual trees or forest objects.Cheers!
Marc - 3DTrains
http://www.3dtrains.comPro Series SuperPacks

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Hi John:No solution - but very interested in what you find out, assuming it isn't polycounts. I crippled my route with a poly-heavy object (TIP Van in the file library - great model visually, but cost me 1-2 FPS for every truck I added!! Solved the problem by replacing it).I've always thought the problem was track related if frame rates improve dramatically when you "look out the window". On my route (under construction) I've got a problem area. I get fantastic frame rates on a view "2" when I point the camera at the side of the train, rather than looking ahead. This amounts to looking "into" rather than "out of" the window, so to speak. Since I'm not looking at track, I was thinking the problem was track-related.If you're sure the problem came after you added the buildings, and you removed them, I wonder if you're using the same rolling stock to do the comparison. Also, I wonder if the sliders are all the same as they were originally. I'm thinking maybe you increased object density or something similar and might not have noticed what it was the first time you tried the route.I hope Rich Garber has a suggestion. If he's got a trick up his sleeve to reduce frame rates (wouldn't suprise me), and you've unintentionally undone his good work, perhaps he can shed some light.If you've got the drive space, perhaps you can save your enhanced, but slower version, and re-install Canton, to see if the good frame rates return.Mark
A Southern Railway Fan

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I don't get over here much any more so if you want my input the best place to get it is over at the All Aboard forum at 3dtrains.com. I haven't seen this post so sorry about my slowed response.Okay.. let's see what you got here. Uh huh.. slow computer.. oh that laptop machine you was telling me about. Okay.. Now look John. The thing is an older machine like we talked about through email isn't going to handle a sophisticated route like Canton as easily as something like a longer route. The whole concept behind Canton is it is a heavy duty route in a small package. You are right when you say the object count is lower. But the reality is, Canton is chocked full of photo textures and highly detailed buildings. The trees have nothing to do with this. The trees themselves are just two polys unlike the six or eight alot of other people use.But here's the trick. Because of the photo textures and highly detailed buildings, Canton towns look heavily populated even though there is actually fewer objects per tile. So even on a good day, Canton is tough on a machine. But with a faster machine, and one that isn't that much faster than what you are running, I had acceptable frame rates through-out most of the route. With my present computer where I upped the processor even more, the frame rate is excellent. But no, I'm not running anything even remotely close to state of the art.As for adding what you did and affecting something, that probably has something to do with uncompressing the world file. When you first install Canton, all the Canton world tiles are compressed. After you place even one object,you've uncompressed the world file. To optimize that world tile again, you will have to compress it again. You can use Route Riter by Mike Simpson to do that.Hope this helps! But please, if you got technical questions with the route or need help, holler over at 3dtrains where I got my All Aboard forum. It's real easy for me to miss a thread here. Thanks! Rich Garber

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Thanks folks, and Rich! I wasn't sure if it was a Canton issue per say, or just something I did wrong in RE? I love all of Rich's buildings for sure, but also love the 'gas stations' that a great developer added to the library (Sinclair, Texaco, Phillips - sorry I forgot your name here.) and/or John Tacket's great restaurants. I just like 'tweeking' for my own personal signature. But I see what you're saying Rich, and it makes sense. I'm still not 'savvy' with all this computer stuff - so I was pretty lost. Sniper helped greatly with a trick to do in .SD folders to get buildings to not give error messages when running activities, so I was hoping it was something simple as that? But I see I 'tweeked' where I shouldn't have 'twucked' and didn't understand the 'compressed' business. I'll get in touch Rich and see how to remedy the situation with this software you mention. Thanks again folks. Always enlightening!

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Hi John,another "frame rate eater" can be 512x512 textures on buildings where 256x256 would be more than enough for a good look in most cases. A notorious frame-rate-gobbler that comes to my mind here is the "IndustrialEstate.s" which uses three 512x512 textures on a complex of nine or so buildings. They come as one scenery object which normally would be a good thing fps-wise: The poly count of the structure is light, the buildings are simple boxes, yet I had my fps drop to 3 on the low end laptop, or to 11 on the high end desktop respectively when using that complex in an urban area with some more houses, tracks etc around. Took me a while to identify and confirm that complex as the main cause for the sudden drop, and as I knew the relatively good poly count, I was stumped at first. Then it danwed to me that I could have a look at the .ace files, and sure enough, thse were 512x512 while most detailed buildings just use 25% of that, namely 256x256 textures, and many default buildings even have 128x128 textures only - needles to say that a skin which is 1/4th or even 1/16th of the size of another is much less demanding on the graphics card when it has to be applied to all sides of nine buildings in the same complex... Just by editing the 512x512 textures and resampling them to 256x256, I got the fps up to 8 (laptop) or 16 (desktop) - without any other changes or deletions. The visual impact is marginal, you have to look very closely to see any difference as there is no fine print or signs on those textures anyways, just brick walls, large metall doors etc all of which still look detailed even after resampling.The same applies if you have a large number of Enocell's excellent industrial buildings on the same tile. Many of them also use 512x512 textures, and while one or two of them are no problem, using a dozen or two in the same neighbourhood drives your fps deep into the basement.Lukas a.k.a Swissie

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Well I tried Mr. Simpsons fantastic Route-Riter per Rich's instructions. And it seems by converting the .ACE files smooths out Canton again? I also compressed the .W and .SD as well - so I could probably fit Canton on the head of a pin now? But good to know Swissie about the different rates and all, and have used the Industrial Park thing on Marias Pass (though I don't think I'll be using it on Canton. ) You lost me with all the 'graphic resampling' though, as I'm not that technical with all this RE stuff still. Just like pluncking down a few buildings is all. But good to know folks like you are 'on top' of the situations and know how to fix them.

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Hi John,my fault, sorry for not having stated clearly enough what I ment - it had nothing to do with the RE but simply with the size of the graphics used for the skins of scenery objects: I actually loaded the .ace files in question in TGAtool2, saved them to .tga. Then fired up PaintShopPro (or any graphics software of your preference), and resized the .tga file down from their original 512x512 pixels to 256x256 pixels (in the menu this is called "resampling"). Or in other words, made the skin half as wide and half as heigh as before, resulting in 1/4 its size. Sharpened it a bit to compensate for the smaller size, saved, used TGAtool again to return the smaller file in an .ace again. MSTS will still apply a resampled skin correctly, as long as its original form (a square) is maintained. The reason why I went from 512x512 to a fraction thereof is simple: MSTS .ace files must be square in size, and be potentials of 4. That leaves us with the following sizes: 4x4 pixels, 16x16 pixels, 32x32 pixels, 64x64 pixels, 128x128 pixels, 256x256 pixels, 512x512 pixels, or as the absolute maximum 1024x1024 pixels (width x height). Note that older graphics cards will already quit at skins that are 512x512 pixels large, and will cause send/don't sends when they have to handle 1024x1024 pixels. Most rolling stock comes at 512x512, some high-detail engines and cars even use 1024x1024 skins (3D Trains F7 demo and pro version, for example). The impact of a large 1024x1024 skin over a 512x512 skin on your equipment is tremendous: If I run a train with an engine and 4 coaches in high detail 1024x1024 skins on the laptop, then the fps drops down noticeably whenever I look at my entire train (e.g. in the #4 view, or looking out of the cab to the rear of the train). However, I can run 16 coaches of the same model with 512x512 skins before it gets as bad as with four coaches when using heigh detail 1024x1024 "coats".Same with scenery (buildings, trees etc.). With each increasing of the size of the .ace files for more detail, the author adds to the burden on users' graphics cards by the factor 4. Thus I'd recommend to use 512x512 pixels wide skins only on buildings that you see from very close when running a train, for example for stations the train stops in, car barns etc. Any other buildings still look good with "downsized" skins of 256x256, or sometimes even a 128x128 pixels large skin will do. If its only white walls and some windows then even smaller skins will be enough - see the default white house on the Europe2 route which as a very small texture and still looks "normal".Feel free to ask if you need more info or detail, I hope I managed to clear some of the misunderstandings I created initially.Lukas a.k.a Swissie

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