Help:Video Settings
TANE
Overview
Trainz is an open toolset that allows users to create large seamless worlds and populate that world with many thousands of scenery objects, trees, track splines, lakes and much more. The new "E2" game engine that powers Trainz: A New Era is designed to take advantage of modern hardware, utilizing multiple core architecture, and DirectX 11 GPUs. However, if you are operating in a dense environment, DO NOT attempt to run with all sliders at maximum unless you are prepared to see performance drop.
The performance options are provided to help end-users quickly tune the routes they are driving to match their hardware. As a general rule, we have set the sliders so that people with a high-end graphics card can turn one or more of the options to the highest setting. We DO NOT expect anyone to be able to run with all settings maxed out, and we do expect many people to reduce the sliders below the "default" settings.
Please remember that within any open-ended world building environment, the ability to add "more and more" always exists and at some point, even the highest spec machine CAN be brought to it's knees (just keep adding more content till the route slows down). In addition, many of the commonly used assets are not optimized and can include thousands of extra polygons, multiple textures and lack of/poor level of detail implementation. This all adds unnecessarily to the scene overhead. In the future we will be providing additional in-game tools to help content creators identify these types of issues in order to assist in optimizing routes built in T:ANE.
Introducing Shift + and Shift -
T:ANE introduces two new hotkeys to quickly change your draw distance at any time in Driver or Surveyor (we've nicknamed them the "Quickdraw keys").
Shift and "-" will reduce your terrain draw distance, thereby increasing performance Shift and "+" will increase terrain draw distance thereby providing increased scenery, tree and track draw distance as well.
Hold Shift and tap "-" to reduce the draw distance by 500m. Default draw distance is 3500m so four taps reduces you to the minimum 1500m range.
Please note that while the distance changes immediately, the scenery takes time to load in or out of the scene, so performance may take up to 30 seconds to change noticeably.
Quick Start Guide to Performance Tuning
There are two areas where users can change their settings. We suggest to follow this approach:
- If your frame rate is too low (moving around the world feels sluggish) click on Start Trainz > Main Menu > Settings > Video Settings
- Reduce all the sliders to the left hand side then close the window for the changes to take effect.
- Note: If you have changed a slider that requires a game restart, a message will appear. This means you need to close all T:ANE windows and restart the game.
- Remember to allow the system time to apply the changes before determining if further adjustments are required
- If you are happy with the performance, begin increasing the various sliders one at a time to see which ones affect your hardware the most (and close the window each time to make the change)
- You can also change some settings using Launcher > Trainz Settings > Performance
- Begin by turning the Water Quality to Low, then by turning Shadows to OFF
- You need to close the Setting Window, the game window and the Launcher, then restart T:ANE for these out of game settings to take effect.
Note some of these options require a "shader recompile" and so the "Starting T:ANE" dialog may appear for a minute or so during this operation.
In-Game Settings
Access the in-game Video Settings by clicking on Start Trainz > Main Menu > Settings > Video Settings
Maximum Draw Distance
This slider provides tuning to adjust the terrain draw distance from 1,500m to 15,000m. This slider works in conjunction with the Scenery Detail Slider with each asset type drawn out to a specific percentage of the total draw distance. As the draw distance extends, so does the range of the scenery objects, trees, track splines, other splines and particle effects.
This setting will have the greatest impact on your frame rate and can be controlled by the "Quickdraw" hotkeys (Shift "-" and Shift "+").
Override Draw Distance Cap
In TANE SP2 we introduced an option to limit the draw distance on certain routes. This is designed to ensure that users do not experience performance issues on routes that are more demanding than average. (e.g. they may use poorly optimised content). This avoids the user having to manually adjust their settings for that route then readjusting them for less demanding routes. Of course the user can also overrride the cap, but this is not recommended.
Scenery Detail
This slider works in conjunction with the Draw Distance slider. This slider determines how far each asset type will draw, so for example, Low setting will reduce the maximum scenery draw distance to 40% of the maximum terrain draw distance. By adjusting both Draw Distance and Scenery Detail you can find a balance between frame rates and scene detail.
Tree Detail
This slider adjusts the Level of Detail distance setting for the speedtrees and also turns on the shadow effect for billboards at Ultra setting (this setting is not yet implemented). To increase the far limit that trees appear, adjust either the terrain draw distance and/or scenery detail slider.
Post-Processing
The impact of Post-processing upon performance depends your screen resolution and your graphics card. Performance does not relate directly to scene size or density therefore with lower spec hardware you may see a large drop in performance even on a lightly populated route.
Process objects behind camera
Leaving this option unticked, ensures objects behind your current camera facing are removed from the scene (and therefore affecting the sound and shadows from these objects as well). Unticked, this option can improve your frame rate depending on what is in the scene in front and behind you, and also what limits your CPU and GPU are currently hitting. If you rotate your camera quickly to look behind you, objects may pop into view. Ticking the box will draw all objects in the scene. Close the Setting window to apply the change.
NOTE: A message appears if a game restart is required after changing any of these options.
Launcher Settings
Access the performance and graphics settings by clicking Launcher > Trainz Settings > Performance. Note that you will need to close the Settings dialog for most options to take effect, and close the Launcher to restart tane.exe for other options. If in doubt, restart the game.
In addition to some of the options described above, the Launcher Settings also provide the following additional options:
Shadow Quality
There are four options available. Off, Low, High and Ultra. A game restart is required before a shadow settings change will take effect. Most users will see a significant difference in performance at each level of shadows. Some people will prefer a higher shadow setting and shorter draw distances, while others will choose the opposite approach. Higher quality shadows increase the visual resolution and draw distance of the shadow effects, introduce shadows from additional object types, and reduce precision errors in the shadow rendering.
Main Shadow Resolution
A higher resolution shadow map will increase the resolution of the shadows. This does not affect performance greatly, but every little bit can help.
Texture Detail
This setting adjusts the size of the textures that are loaded. Lower values use less VRAM and may reduce loading times. Changing the setting requires a game restart to take effect.
Post-Processing
The impact of Post-processing upon performance depends your screen resolution and your graphics card. Performance does not relate directly to scene size or density therefore with lower spec hardware you may see a large drop in performance even on a lightly populated route.
Water Quality
Low means basic shader only (no reflections) and is not performance intensive. High provides a reflection of the entire scene, skipping a few items which aren't likely to be visible in the water reflection. This is expensive. Ultra is similar to High setting, but not skipping many items. This is a little more expensive.
Antialiasing
This setting improves the accuracy of "jagged edges" (by supersampling to smooth out the pixelation) and can also reduce the stipple/dither effect that is sometimes visible on transparencies. Depending on your graphics card, this setting generally has minimal impact with reasonably good results at 4x.
Detail Update Rate
This determines the number of stitched buffers in the scene that the game will update simultaneously. Larger numbers cause updates (refreshing the scene) to occur more rapidly, but may result in jerkiness on some hardware.
Use multiple render threads
Always leave enabled unless you are having hardware-specific problems which disabling this fixes. This option allows certain (but not all) multi-threading to be disabled, which in theory reduces performance and increases jerkiness but in practice may work around some driver issues.
Use Texture Streaming
This option helps improve performance by reducing initial loading times and reducing VRAM usage. It can result in a slight delay while higher resolution textures are streamed in when moving about the scene or changing camera views.
Use PhysX simulation
PhysX is required for certain functions such as particle effect collisions (and at a later date, other physics related features). If your video adapter does not support PhysX then it can be simulated by selecting this option. The impact of simulation on performance is dependant on the extent to which PhysX is used: it generally has a small impact on performance, but can have a massive effect on performance if there are lots of particle effects in a scene.
Process objects behind camera
Only objects in front of your camera are rendered. On lower spec hardware, this will improve performance when facing forwards (and is recommended if you generally drive in-cab). The downside is that if you are rotating the camera regularly, it takes more time to render items as they come in to the scene.
What settings should I use for my video card?
Here are some suggested settings based upon our experience:
Lower end card (e.g. GT 560): Either:
- all sliders at minimum and shadows on low then use Ctrl "+" to increase draw distance when you have good frame rates
- or, scenery and tree detail at normal and shadows off then use Ctrl "+" as required.
Medium Card (e.g. GTX 760)
Either:
- default settings (Draw 3,500m, Scenery normal and tree detail at normal and shadows on), or
- or, turn shadows off and increase your draw distance, and turn post-processing to high.
Higher end card (e.g. GTX 980)
Either:
- set draw distance to max, other sliders at normal and shadows on high or ultra then use Ctrl "-" to decrease draw distance if performance slows down
- or, bump all sliders to max EXCEPT draw distance and use Ctrl "+" to increase draw distance when you have good frame rates
The default settings are set for our recommended hardware specification (Quad core processor, 2GB DX11 graphics and 8GB RAM). If you have a low end graphics card and/or 4GB RAM we suggest you adjust the performance settings down.
We do not expect anyone to set all sliders to the highest level and see smooth framerates - there options are made available so that you can set things to your preferred style (perhaps a longer draw distance with shadows off vs a shorter draw distance with shadows on Ultra).
How do I find my system specifications?
For PC: In the Start Menu > Search Programs and Files > type in "dxdiag". The report provides your CPU and GPU (on the Display tab). We suggest that you type this information into a search engine and add the word "benchmark" in your search. One of the many links will show you how your card compares to other hardware.
For Mac, click on the blue Apple icon on the top left of your menu bar, then click on 'About this Mac'.
See Also
TRS2019
Adjusting the Draw Distance on the fly with Shift + and Shift -
In TRS2019, you can quickly change your draw distance at any time in Driver or Surveyor (we've nicknamed them the "Quickdraw keys").
Shift and "-" will reduce your terrain draw distance, thereby increasing performance Shift and "+" will increase terrain draw distance thereby providing increased scenery, tree and track draw distance as well.
Hold Shift and tap "-" to reduce the draw distance by 500m. Default draw distance is 3500m so four taps reduces you to the minimum 1500m range.
Please note that while the distance changes immediately, the scenery takes time to load in or out of the scene, so performance may take up to 30 seconds to change noticeably.
Quick Start Guide to Performance Tuning
There are two areas where users can change their settings. We suggest to follow this approach:
- If your frame rate is too low (moving around the world feels sluggish) click on Start Trainz > Main Menu > Settings > Video Settings
- Reduce all the sliders to the left hand side then close the window for the changes to take effect.
- Note: If you have changed a slider that requires a game restart, a message will appear. This means you need to close all T:ANE windows and restart the game.
- Remember to allow the system time to apply the changes before determining if further adjustments are required
- If you are happy with the performance, begin increasing the various sliders one at a time to see which ones affect your hardware the most (and close the window each time to make the change)
- You can also change some settings using Launcher > Trainz Settings > Performance
- Begin by turning the Water Quality to Low, then by turning Shadows to OFF
- You need to close the Setting Window, the game window and the Launcher, then restart T:ANE for these out of game settings to take effect.
Note some of these options require a "shader recompile" and so the "Starting T:ANE" dialog may appear for a minute or so during this operation.
In-Game Settings
Access the in-game Video Settings by clicking on Start Trainz > Main Menu > Settings > Video Settings
Maximum Draw Distance
This slider provides tuning to adjust the terrain draw distance from 1,500m to 15,000m. This slider works in conjunction with the Scenery Detail Slider with each asset type drawn out to a specific percentage of the total draw distance. As the draw distance extends, so does the range of the scenery objects, trees, track splines, other splines and particle effects.
This setting will have the greatest impact on your frame rate and can be controlled by the "Quickdraw" hotkeys (Shift "-" and Shift "+").
Override Draw Distance Cap
This option is designed to ensure that users do not experience performance issues on routes that are more demanding than average. (e.g. they may use poorly optimised content). This avoids the user having to manually adjust their settings for that route then readjusting them for less demanding routes. Of course the user can also overrride the cap, but this is not recommended.
Scenery Detail
This slider works in conjunction with the Draw Distance slider. This slider determines how far each asset type will draw, so for example, Low setting will reduce the maximum scenery draw distance to 40% of the maximum terrain draw distance. By adjusting both Draw Distance and Scenery Detail you can find a balance between frame rates and scene detail.
Tree Detail
This slider adjusts the Level of Detail distance setting for the speedtrees and also turns on the shadow effect for billboards at Ultra setting (this setting is not yet implemented). To increase the far limit that trees appear, adjust either the terrain draw distance and/or scenery detail slider.
Post-Processing
The impact of Post-processing upon performance depends your screen resolution and your graphics card. Performance does not relate directly to scene size or density therefore with lower spec hardware you may see a large drop in performance even on a lightly populated route.
NOTE: A message appears if a game restart is required after changing any of these options.
Launcher Settings
Access the performance and graphics settings by clicking Launcher > Trainz Settings > Performance. Note that you will need to close the Settings dialog for most options to take effect, and close the Launcher to restart tane.exe for other options. If in doubt, restart the game.
In addition to some of the options described above, the Launcher Settings also provide the following additional options:
Shadow Quality
There are four options available. Off, Low, Medium, High and Ultra. A game restart is required before a shadow settings change will take effect. Most users will see a significant difference in performance at each level of shadows. Some people will prefer a higher shadow setting and shorter draw distances, while others will choose the opposite approach. Higher quality shadows increase the visual resolution and draw distance of the shadow effects, introduce shadows from additional object types, and reduce precision errors in the shadow rendering.
Main Shadow Resolution
A higher resolution shadow map will increase the resolution of the shadows. This does not affect performance greatly, but every little bit can help.
Shader Quality
Adjusts the Shader Quality in TRS2019. This will turn on/off shader features such as Parallax Height Maps. For lower specification systems this may need to be set to Low or Standard. Shaders cannot be turned off completely.
Texture Detail
This setting adjusts the size of the textures that are loaded. Lower values use less VRAM and may reduce loading times. Changing the setting requires a game restart to take effect.
Post-Processing
The impact of Post-processing upon performance depends your screen resolution and your graphics card. Performance does not relate directly to scene size or density therefore with lower spec hardware you may see a large drop in performance even on a lightly populated route.
Water Quality
Low means basic shader only (no reflections) and is not performance intensive. High provides a reflection of the entire scene, skipping a few items which aren't likely to be visible in the water reflection. This option has a large impact on performance. Ultra is similar to High setting, but not skipping many items. This option has a slightly greater impact on performance again.
Grass Mode
This option allows you to turn TurfFX on or off in TRS2019. On lower specification graphics cards, you may need to choose between shadows and TurfFX to see best performance.
Antialiasing
This setting improves the accuracy of "jagged edges" (by supersampling to smooth out the pixelation) and can also reduce the stipple/dither effect that is sometimes visible on transparencies. Depending on your graphics card, this setting generally has minimal impact with reasonably good results at 4x.
Detail Update Rate
This determines the number of stitched buffers in the scene that the game will update simultaneously. Larger numbers cause updates (refreshing the scene) to occur more rapidly, but may result in jerkiness on some hardware.
Use multiple render threads
Always leave enabled unless you are having hardware-specific problems which disabling this fixes. This option allows certain (but not all) multi-threading to be disabled, which in theory reduces performance and increases jerkiness but in practice may work around some driver issues.
Use Texture Streaming
This option helps improve performance by reducing initial loading times and reducing VRAM usage. It can result in a slight delay while higher resolution textures are streamed in when moving about the scene or changing camera views.
Use PhysX simulation
This option is required for certain functions such as particle effect collisions (and at a later date, other physics related features). It generally has a small impact on performance, but can have a massive effect on performance in some scenarios (e.g. where there are lots of particle effects in a scene).
Process objects behind camera
Only objects in front of your camera are rendered. On lower spec hardware, this will improve performance when facing forwards (and is recommended if you generally drive in-cab). The downside is that if you are rotating the camera regularly, it takes more time to render items as they come in to the scene.
What settings should I use for my video card?
For TRS2019 we have been testing a variety of systems to find some good example settings, and from this we have added the Performance Configurator when you launch Trainz, which provides a selection of pre-set performance configurations for Trainz.
Alternatively, you can view a range of examples on the TrainzPortal Blog
How do I find my system specifications?
For PC: In the Start Menu > Search Programs and Files > type in "dxdiag". The report provides your CPU and GPU (on the Display tab). We suggest that you type this information into a search engine and add the word "benchmark" in your search. One of the many links will show you how your card compares to other hardware.
For Mac, click on the blue Apple icon on the top left of your menu bar, then click on 'About this Mac'.
See Also
Return to TRS19 Help Page
