How many trains can RRT3 take without slowing down graphics?

[ishaybas]

Howdy to all RRT3 engineers out there!

Been playing RRT3 (love it) for a while and noticed that after 150-170 trains, the graphics starts slowing down.
The framerate goes down from 30-40 to 5-10 and the game becomes much less fun to play.
I have reduced the tree amount, and display level and distance, and that helps only a bit.
Looking at the cpu, I see its not consuming more than 60-70%.

Is there anything that can be done to allow using more trains especially for big scenarios?
Or is it part of the game's limitations?

If it comes down to a hardware limitation, should I get just a better display adapter or a whole new stronger PC?

Here are my details:

Version 1.06 Unofficial
OS = Windows XP Professional Edition (Service Pack 3)
Vendor = GenuineIntel
Model = Unknown
CPU Speed = 1866 MHZ
Total Memory = 2047 megs
Free Memory = 1457 megs
MMX = YES
SSE = YES
SSE2 = YES
3DNOW = NO
Display Adapter = NVIDIA GeForce 7100 GS
Sound Device = E-DSP Wave [EC00]
*** press any key to exit ***

Thank you all!

-Ishay

[Grandma Ruth]

Someone else will give you a proper technical answer, but I think it helps to lower all your usage by having less definition, smaller screen, etc - set everything in "Settings" to as low as you can bear. Never had this problem as I don't usually play with more trains than I can handle, which is a lot less than 150!
By the way, glad you've joined us!

[ishaybas]

Oh thank you Grandma! It's a pleasure being here.

Some scenarios, especially big maps, require lots of train.
Or sometimes you just want it so you could have fun ;)

I tried reducing the graphics to ultra low, and it helped a little, but didn't return to smoothness.
How about I send you my saved game and you can try it out and tell me if it work smooth on your computer?

I am working on a scenario which will require crossing 4000 YTD Loads Hauled ... You gotta have lots of trains to do that ;)

Thanks,

Ishay

[davey917]

I have this all the time, even on a few "smaller" maps, though i can usually tolerate it upto about 200 trains. I've had a couple of computers, and my current one is very comperable to yours.
My personal theory is that it is the train arrival notices being printed since, at least in my experience, when you pause the game and they clear out, the frame rate jumps back up noticably.
It's not you, it's just a programing thing.

[ishaybas]

Is there any way to disable those notifications?

[Greg1340]

I think there might be a place in the settings options to turn them off, but I don't remember right off hand.

[Hawk]

Is there any way to disable those notifications?

Go to 'Settings/Dialogs'.

[ishaybas]

Hi Hawk,

We are referring to disabling the notification of trains coming into stations.
You know, the ones will the annoying money ringing sounds ;)

Is there anyway to disable those?

Thanks,

-Ishay

[Hawk]

You mean this?

[ishaybas]

Yeah,

but that only disables the sound, the text is still showing.

I guess I'll stroll down to CompUSA and get a display card with 2GB of memory and we'll see if that helps :)

-Ishay

[Hawk]

Well, I tried.

[Sugus]

I'm sorry that I'm not really in the position to give concrete solutions - I think, that it depends on a lot of facts: memory (standard (management as it's own) and especially onto graphic card (presentation)), CPU, etc. My experiences tend to postulate a limit of 200 trains. (The first time I run into the problem mentioned was by playing the endless scenario 'Europe', but there are also some of arop's long time secenarios leading to this 'slow motion effect', e.g. when the number of trains gets closer and closer to 200.)

Meanwhile, we impatiently wait for Windows 11.5 and VMware 12.3 in 2015 (I'll get retired at this time ) - so our good old games would run without any problems concerning velocity or resources ...

[Grandma Ruth]

Having said earlier I don't like too many trains, I'm being forced by the demands of the current game I'm playing to have more than I'm happy with. Last night I lost control of the company and thought I'd just see what the AI did with it. It increased the number of trains from under 150 to over 200. I didn't notice any slowing down, but at about 203 trains the game crashed to desktop.
I don't know if this observation is altogether relevant or helpful but there might be a connection.

[arop]

I have made a map 1024 x 1024 pixels with 285 towns and cities, which I have never published while the zip file exeeded 10 Mb's. Testing this map I had more than 250 trains running (I have 2 gigabyte RAM on my computer). When checking the train list at the ledger, the game crashed to desktop several times, but if I disabled the yearly ledger it was stil possible to play the game, but the game slowed remarkably down exeeeding a train rooster of approx. 200.

[ishaybas]

I have purchased a new display card with 1Gb of memory and 3D acceleration, and the results are pretty much the same ..

[Sugus]

This simply confirms my apprehension - it's a problem or limitation of RT3 itself. From my point of view, "they" didn't expect to ever have scenarios with more than 50 to 80 trains ... or so.

[KK_]

Totally agree. A bite improvement in getting a display card.
Not much improvement even on upgrading of CPU, motherboard, memory and even using Dual Cross-fire X (using double display card). Hopeless!

[snowguy716]

I've noticed it really depends on the scenario, etc.

Playing coast to coast I've had over 300 trains and it really slowed down and got choppy. I played the "American rails 20th century" scenario and with just under 200 trains it runs smooth when I set graphics down to average.

I try to keep it under 200 trains... and I end up having to adjust graphics downward around 150 trains from ultra high to average. Over 200 trains and it quickly goes down hill.

[thietavu]

I have seen more than 250 trains on a very large and complex scenario without any slowdown. So, I suppose that RRT3 scales pretty well with the computing power in that aspect.

[thietavu]

Correction: over 400 trains on a huge scenario worked flawlessly. Next I'm going to test 500 limit...