A Question On Blurry Textures - Why Some Specific Routes Are Less Prone To This Than Others?

Re-reading the latest roadmap on the section of blurry textures, it mentions that "memory usage of textures and how they're optimised on an asset" and later talks about "4k resolution textures" and the strategy of trying to reduce other maps to either 2k or 1k resolution etc.

When it comes to different routes, it states some are more impacted than others i.e. exceeding the texture memory budget.

Anyway, my question as simple and potentially silly as it may be (I'm no tech expert), but why are some routes actually so much better when it comes to blurry textures though? Three big, very busy routes spring to mind which, in my experience, I've never ever encountered blurry textures on Gen 9 console which is a rarity: Southeastern High Speed, NY-Trenton and Morristown Line.

What makes these three unique as example? The fact that SEHS has so much different rolling stock while Morristown is among one of the newest routes. Is it literally these routes when in development were so much better optimised, or not so heavily reliant on the amount of 4k textures...?

Forgive me if my post might not make too much technical sense, but I'm just intrigued to how certain routes fair so much better than others when it comes to the blurry texture issue.

With progress ongoing and a possible potential light at the end of the very tunnel for blurry textures and optimisation in the most frustrating and turbulent period for TSW on console, I really want to see this finally sorted once and for all.

 

More trains=more RAMs

 

Every route has different levels of complexity and details. Some trains use more memory than others. Assets use different amount of memory

 

The route it self is not the problem. Its more the amount of different trains. What described above more trains=more ram use is correct. The route it selfs how it looks like is not the problem.

 

Exaclty this. This DTG texture vs. ram solution blow away all my hopes they know how to solve it. Thier diagnosis just don't match the symptoms. Imho they just lost the man knowledge how to optimise thier games. En#$itification everywhere... Could be worst Boeing for instance lost the man knowledge how to build good planes (original 777 vs. 777X)

 

That’s not entirely accurate.

If you take a route & bloat it with heavy assets/textures, you’re creating an unviable environment for even the most optimised train. Sometimes it’s neither, simply pairing a perfectly fine candidate such as SEHS up with TSW5 or 6, will net you memory dumping, even though route assets or rolling stock remain unchanged.

WCMLOS for example I would agree that it’s the rolling stock tipping it over the edge. However Mildmay line has the opposite issue where even removing every layer & using a single locomotive, still results in memory dumping due to the route itself being unoptimised.

SEHS is just fine within TSW 4, but take it to 5 & 6 and you get the memory issues, so in this case it’s something that gets introduced from the core, route assets & rolling stock don’t change.

Every single route & rolling stock asset needs to be assessed at an individual level.

 

That’s not correct, because when you disable the layers, they aren’t actually removed from the game. In the background they still consume memory, and that’s more than you might think. So you can’t just say “oh, I’ll turn off the layers and my game will run better.” It’s only partly true, because it does reduce some load, but routes with a lot of trains don’t really benefit from it.
That was also the issue with Frankfurt S‑Bahn, where DTG decided not to make the full timetable available on Gen9. The debate was that you could filter the layers yourself if you ran into problems but that will not fix the issue. And of course, DTG would never have needed to reduce layers on Gen8 if that were truly the solution. As has been said many times, it’s not a “one‑click fix” for memory issues on consoles

 

I mean they say that in one breath but then tell you to fix the issue by disabling layers.

It also outright does actually work, take any of AAS’ content for example. Disabling their 350 will have a remarkable effect on the issue.

In any case it’s certainly a multi layered problem & not necessarily one that can be pinned on rolling stock alone.

 

I'm on PC, so don't have a stake in the issue, but I was also equally surprised by the "hope" in the roadmap thread. I'm specifically referring to this:

The blurry textures issue is multifaceted, but this avenue is based on "avoidance" rather than "prevention" or "mitigation", and 200 MB seems like a drop in the bucket compared to the overall amount of RAM! Disabling layers is equally an avoidance topic - again, it helps, but its not addressing the core issue.

I'm sure I'm going to embarrass myself on some fundamental game/graphics engine topic below, but hey -- that's what were here for, making a fool of ourselves. So feel free to correct anything I'm saying. I think joint understanding of the issue can help to rationalize it for those suffering from it (and those indirectly suffering from it - would be great if we never needed to discuss it again on the forums in every thread!)

In software, we like to do something called "5 Whys" root-cause analysis when analyzing outages or other crises. You start with a statement and start asking "Why" until you can't any more.

- The textures in the game are blurry. Why?
- The engine substituted lower resolution textures for higher res textures. Why?
- The engine believes it is running out of memory pool for streaming textures. Why?
- There are too many or too large textures in the pool. Why?

Now we're at the interesting part. Note the "Or" in there.

Path a - too many textures
- Textures are remaining in memory that shouldn't be. Why?
- Something is causing textures to not be deallocated when no longer needed. Why?
- ... and here is where I had hoped DTG would find some solutions

Path b - too large textures
- High resolution textures are taking up too much space. Why?
- ... and here is where I had hoped DTG would find some solutions. Granted, lowering the resolution of certain textures as mentioned in the roadmap is going to improve this, but it isn't the universal solution to the actual problem -- it just pushes the threshold for the problem starting a bit higher.

On Path A - We're talking about memory leaks or inefficiencies in the texture pool streaming. I, with no knowledge of Unreal, sort of suspect the problem is about texture generation through PIS or MFDs or something that doesn't get cleaned up. There have been hints in the past about the issue about off-screen trains still reserving pool space -- I find this hard to believe, as again that's just not how a scene should be rendered _UNLESS_ there's some tweak that causes things to not be deallocated correctly -- something that was originally meant as stutter reduction or something..

On Path B - Obviously the correct texture size should be chosen given the user's resolution, size of the object, and distance to the object. Mipmaps have existed for forever to "right size" textures for their rendering application. It shouldn't matter if you have super high-res textures; they get cut down to smaller sizes, and *hopefully* only the desired sizes remain in the pool. This seems like what's either a core Unreal issue - or an issue that DTG have caused through modifications to Unreal. Distant objects should load textures at lower resolution -- perhaps something is broken with the "coordinate rebasing" which has been discussed as a workaround to the map tile system.

Finally, a note on mitigation. Say you can't fix the issue. What can you do to make it the "least bad" when it happens? Wouldn't it make sense to prioritize the resolution of textures closest to the camera? Its wild to me that this issue doesn't seem to "fix itself". No one is complaining about blurry trees or something. It's blurry cab labels, blurry liveries (on your own trains!) -- those should be priority one to keep at max resolution! A blurry AI train goes by - sucks, but its not as game breaking as your own train. Again, its hard to believe that this isn't something that is usually automatically handled by the game/graphics engine - which makes me think that an engine customization (optimizing for some other experience) leads to this issue.

It continues to surprise me that these issues don't appear on PC. This sort of points towards a console-specific engine tweak. Something related to prioritizing smoothness and less stuttering (more stuff in the streaming texture pool) instead of image quality (less stuff in the texture pool).

 

That's right, it definitely has an effect. It also depends on how many layers there are to begin with. Birmingham to Crewe doesn’t have that many, of course. It’s not comparable to the Frankfurt S‑Bahn. But you can’t reason like: "I’ll switch off all layers and the game will look the same as if the route had no layers at all."

 

That wasn’t really the point, rather that routes are indeed a factor when it comes to memory overruns.

Some routes are alleviated of memory issues by reducing rolling stock & some aren’t.

 

I don’t know if it’s because the textures don’t take up much memory so are never selected for downscaling by the game engine or if it’s something else but I’ve never seen a building or other large route asset becoming blurry in the same way the trains do. I’ve seen station signs and some finer details having lower resolution but never a large station or scenery asset, while the train I’m driving is having its textures selected for downscaling, even inside the cab. The kind of blurring I see on trains is never replicated on the larger route assets. Are these assets protected? I don’t own any of the newer problematic routes, the only one I have being MAC, so don’t know if it is happening in those routes, just that I haven’t seen it, but the game seems to choose trains over large scenic assets for texture reduction when the texture pool gets close to being exceeded. Why would that be?

 

Likely down to LODs. The draw distance on console is extremely low, so most of the time you’re seeing very low detail assets from trees out to buildings.

Generally blurring on route assets takes the form of platform infrastructure. Anything from signage to textures on the platform itself.

It’s hitting trains more because this is where most of the LODs come into play. You’re sat in a cab full of details from surface textures to labelling to screens. You’re passing them right next to you & in exterior you’re loading the entire high texture res asset.

Meanwhile you likely never go near a building 2 miles from the track & even then detailed textures on vegetation etc only start up at like 30 meters away, usually the asset is gone & out of view again before they even load.

Same thing for passengers & lately train doors. The game engine isn’t fully loading these until your camera is extremely close, whereas a train livery is prioritised much more, resulting in that being the first thing to go when the memory pool is full.

 

That all makes sense.

I have noticed that they recently completely nerfed the draw distance for passengers on some trains. They aren’t even loaded when the external train camera is at its furthest reach. Very noticeable if you zoom in. Brutal optimisation.

 

Yeah it seemed to start in TSW 4 & since got worse.

Train doors has been getting worse lately too, I used to only notice that on longer HST’s but it’s pretty rife on the 220 now too.

Signage seems to be getting it too. I thought I was just getting old & blind but after comparing Birmingham City from TSW 4 & then in TSW 6, the signage is definitely rendering later.

 

When Matt and co can figure out how to remove AI train data/memory then frames will improve e.g. if a train has just past you, heading into a portal and never to be seen again than why should the megabits exists still. More MB, more stutters.

 

Southeastern High Speed does not have that many different trains running around, 465, 375, 395, 66 and if you got the DLC, also the 700. Then there is the AI only HST on one station and there are some rail tours with the 33, 47, Jubilee and a test TGV. The rail tours and tests only have a few services a day.

Then look for example at the list of Kinzigtalbahn, by default the 114, 146, 193, 411 and 423, layered in are the 425, 403, 363, 101, 401, 103 and 642 and AI only the 442, 628 and 218. Then we haven't even count the numerous substitutions for the freight loco's.

WCML London Euston - Milton Keynes also has quite some stuff driving around, but less then Kinzigtalbahn. By default the 350, 377, 1972 stock, 66 and as DLC the 390, layers are the 710, the Flying Scotsman and 87 as railtour and AI only the HST, 700 and 801.

So in conclusion, the amount of different trains on a route is increasing, the level of detail is increasing, stuff like the live map is added. The more different trains are running around, the more different textures have to be loaded. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the blurry textures became a thing with TSW5, TSW3 and TSW4 routes where not that busy or has as many layers as nowadays. Also more recent released trains do have a higher polycount then the older stuf, so this doesn't help too.

 

The first time I noticed it was on Rosenheim back in TSW 4, never got it in any other routes until TSW 5, where it then ravaged almost everything, even ECML which was fine in 4. Funnily enough I’ve never seen it on WCMLS (though I don’t have the 805 TT for that), nor MAC which I’ve seen can be quite poor for it.

I’d buy it being a TSW 5 or even 6 route that uses more and more memory, which in several cases it likely is just down to more detail - but there is obviously something else at play which is causing issues, otherwise it wouldn’t be effecting routes that were perfectly fine beforehand.

Look at the fix for this issue being tested on SEHS. Nothing has been added to that route, outside of some new 66’s that may or may not sub in, nothing major factors into the issue being on that route, apart from it being put into TSW 6.

 

They're using SEHS, because the Firefly Simulations is making an overlapping route to SEHS and is also helping DTG with optimizing:



While SEHS does not have blurry texture issues, you can see what optimization does for the total of used memory. This was explained in the latest roadmap stream. Based on the screenshots and vid of Medway Valley, it looks like Firefly Simulations is a talented team, so hopefully they really can do something for optimizing the game.

The live map also consumes memory, when was this introduced, TSW5? The cause of blurry textures is most likely a count of multiple factors and the game (and probably also the programming code) has become bloated. Without proper testing and optimization, this is the result.

 

Well it has one main area shared, the routes aren’t connecting. it still doesn’t make sense that they’d fully roll it out onto a route where the issue doesn’t overwhelm it, especially when that route uses much older assets.

Surely the test will be in Firefly’s route having the issue or not, we don’t really need to see if memory usage comes down on a route where it isn’t a huge problem.

Even if memory usage falls, that doesn’t necessarily mean it fixes the problem. We’re not going to know that until they go after a route where the problem exists.

I’m more thinking out loud here than saying DTG are wrong, but given DTG has a history of coming up with the most complex way to fix things, that eventually come back to be a bigger issue, I’m not massively convinced going after SEHS is going to do much. For me MVL not having the problem will be much more evidential than SEHS not having the issue that it doesn’t have in the first place.

 

I have 2 own scenarios: Dresden to Leipzig and Leipzig to Dresden. No trains on the route.
No matter which train I drive, it gets blurry after starting the trip and gets normal before the last arrival, Everytime!
Xbox X

 

I understand what you're saying. I suppose, they took SEHS because they had to rework parts of SEHS for MVL anyway.
Looking at the showed differences between SEHS and MVL, MVL is much more detailed, I think graphically the best route I've seen and the lighting looks really sublime. I also noticed the second vid with gameplay, doesn't have stutters.

I agree totally with your statement about MVL being more of a test then SEHS, especially with the level of detail. However I'm pretty sure we will not see the amount of trains on this route like on the busiest routes in TSW, the ones with the most blurry textures. We will only know for sure, when they optimize the routes well known for their blurry textures. But from what I get, those guys from Firefly Simulations are pretty good and talented, so let's hope they can really do something to stop the blurriness.

 

Thats correct! Turn or f layers will not remove them from the game. They will still remain in the background and consuming RAM.

 

I’m curious, what exactly gets blurry, random textures, the loco, the station, what?

 

Starts to look like this basically...

 

Imho the xbox/x blur specifically increased when few months ago they increased LOD on XBX/X reacting to complaints (xbx series x LOD was literally degradated to series s capabilities).

 

Did DTG made a statement about the decrease and increase?

 

The textures of the train outside and other KI trains if there. The cockpit textures, some trains are not or not very affected by this.
The BR103 for example looks terrible with blurry textures inside the cab.
And I think sometimes some scenery textures, too.

 

About 2,6 km before Dresden Neustadt after leaving Dresden HBF.
And back from Leipzig short after leaving Leipzig HBF.

 

Have to admit that is even worse than I thought!

 

Like others have pointed out, the more trains and layers, the more memory issues and blurry textures. Some of the routes in Germany and the UK use layers from like 5-10 other routes and have dozens of different types of trains.

The American routes barely layer (other than a few that have freight) and usually only have a few different types of trains. That used to be a bit of a bummer since they had the least variety (even though it was usually true to life) but now it is a blessing in disguise because those routes work best.

 

The weird thing about it is it almost makes it worse to zoom in.

I don't know the technical details but its like if you are looking at something from moderate distance it has a "medium" level texture which looks OK but sharp. As you zoom in, a sharp texture loads that looks great, at least that seems to be how its supposed to work. But when the blurry texture issue is going on, the medium quality texture still looks fine but when you zoom in and it would usually go high quality it turns into that disaster. It would almost be better if it could just keep that medium texture there.