OR MG Graphics Glitch

[NorthernWarrior]

After using Alt-F9 to try and determine where the opposing train holding me on the crossing loop had got to, I returned to my train and the terrain/track progressively vanished until this was the appearance. Had to use Task manager to kill the programme as when I hit Esc., the dialogue in the box was blanked out.

[cn bala]

I have the same problem you have but I have to play with my keyboard keys from #1 to #4 in back and forth manner to get the camera work properly. Then all good to run so I think that I have to avoid to another camera and stay with #1 camera. Mine are with two payware routes from Trainsimulations.

John

[R. Steele]

After using Alt-F9 to try and determine where the opposing train holding me on the crossing loop had got to, I returned to my train and the terrain/track progressively vanished until this was the appearance. Had to use Task manager to kill the programme as when I hit Esc., the dialogue in the box was blanked out.

When using the Train List window -- if the jump to another train is too distant it may take some time for the new scene to be processed -- depends upon your machine specs...just give it some time....it is not instantaneous.

[rdayt]

Sounds like your system may be struggling with the route.
What are your computer specs?

Randy

[cn bala]

Sorry that I misunderstood about OR MG Graphic Glitch. Vern and mine are different also I should have read more carefully before post my message. Because Vern had a problem with Alt+F9 and mine is working so mine is different from Vern.

Thank you,

John

[NorthernWarrior]

Sounds like your system may be struggling with the route.
What are your computer specs?

Randy

I7 4770 at 3.5Ghz (stock). 8Gb RAM. Nvidia GTX 1050 with 2Gb RAM.

[bertwise]

NorthernWarrior

Take a look at the solution offered in post #3 of this thread. Maybe it will help you.

https://www.trainsim.com/vbts/showthread.php?333406-No-distance-viewing-looks-like-fog

Bert

[NorthernWarrior]

I'll give that a shot though it's maybe pertinent to note I have spent previously about 4 hours driving the route with 60 FPS and no graphical artefacts. It was only after the circumstances described that the problem arose. Guess it's one of those things, I'll keep it to myself in future.

[bertwise]

Vern

I've had the same thing after 3 - 4 hours of driving. My fps started to drop from 60 down to 25 and it was quite slow rendering scenery. Using the f5 hud I could see that I was using less than 4 gb of ram. Then I fired up Taskmanager and found I was using 23.3 of my 24 gb of ram, with OR using over 18 gb.

The next time I went on a long drive I watched the memory usage on the f5 hub and Taskmanager simultaneously. What I saw was memory usage in f5 approaching 4.1 gb then reverting back to zero. Taskmanager showed no corresponding drop in memory usage.

To get around this I have been saving the game after about an hour, exiting OR completely then resuming the game.

It appears to me that monogame allows you to use more than 4 gb of memory but maybe is not efficient at releasing memory.

Bert

[Vince]

Data Logger?

Be sure you are not using the Options > Data Logger Tab
This will fill memory and eventually have exactly the effect you have seen as per the Warning on the Tab.

For useful logs to be produced only the Logging box on the OR main screen need be checked and will place the log on your desktop.

Regards,

[R. Steele]

To Bert and Vince...I've seen the same effect with memory, once I traced it to my mistakenly hitting the F12 key while in the sim...this will engage the data logger.

I'm still curious as to how OR MG manages memory...I think Bert might have a point about memory management.

[bertwise]

And I can confirm that I am not using any of the items on the Options > Data Logger Tab when I observe this memory behaviour.

Bert

[csantucci]

Vern,
it's like Gerry says in his first post. This occurs also to me.
When you move the camera view aroud trains which may be distant, every time the game has to reload the standard terrain, the scenery and the trainset around the new train you are pointing at. This requires time, also many seconds. Your picture shows also two other things:
the distant mountains are present, because you have probably selected to view them at least up to 60 km, so they are already loaded when you change train. And the other thing is that the player locomotive is there; in fact it remains always loaded, even if you move very far away.

And you'll get the same behaviour with the non-Monogame OR versions!

[NorthernWarrior]

Distant Mountains are set to 25km with "normal" view distance at 5km. I'm guessing this is a very graphics intensive route, more so even than Mid East Plus which did actually crash on me when I checked out other trains via Alt-F9 (my infamous "blocker" issue), so I'm thinking if you use Alt-F9 a save and restart probably the best option to clear the graphics and memory cache.

As regards the data logger, start with simulation box wasn't ticked though the bottom 4 were. As I hadn't touched F12 I assume it wouldn't be actively running.

Anyhow still enjoying the route and the trains, which is the main thing!

[EldoradoRailroad]

If you can please do this test.....

1) Non MG versions of OR, prior (that I tested exhaustively!) to 1.3x had memory management that worked. This was running under XNA.
2) I am NOT sure that the Monogame version has the same code for memory management. In my tests it seems like not.

If you search Elvas Tower you will find that I have written a few posts about this many years ago. Initially, the XNA did NOT have any memory management. So, when the camera was moved around, to different tiles, or the camera was stationary and you had a lot of DIFFERENT shapes passing in front of it, you would eventually get to an out of memory problem. At some point this was silently/magically fixed in the XNA version. At some later date I discovered that this problem/bug was corrected without a clear post someplace indicating that it had been fixed.

So I ask that you test this by creating a super memory hog activity, with lots of consists that have DISTINCT shape files. Run your train from one end of the route to the other (important that you have MANY tiles to run through). Make sure that these consists are placed on DIFFERENT tiles, they can be static or active consists. Now, PAY VERY CLOSE attention to the F5 Hud that has all those fancy graphs. If there is memory management, you will see the top most graph go up and down, if NOT, it will steadily increase until a memory problem occurs.

I acknowledge that this kind of test requires patience and persistence.

Unfortunately, it is the thinking of some software developers (no finger pointing!!! please!!! and no not just in OR!) that 64 bit systems imply a memory pool that will never run out. So memory is not managed. When you are running OR in 64 Bit, 8GB is not a huge memory pool to deal with. On the surface it appears that OR MG uses less memory than XNA. I have yet to verify that what is being displayed in the HUD in OR MG is what is ACTUALLY happening in the system, memory wise.

I hope this helps.