Hello guys. I'm hoping some of you Train Sim Classic gurus can help me. I just bought Train Sim Classic and am utterly bamboozled by something. I locked the frame rate at 142 with a launch command and played the tutorials and everything worked beautifully. 142 fps and my hardware was barely breaking a sweat. As soon as I launched a scenario my jaw hit the floor as my FPS dropped to a 35FPS slide show. Utterly unusable. Worst thing is, my 9070XT graphics card is doing nothing, relatively speaking. It's barely using 70w and its hotspot is so cold (50 degrees) that the fans are not even starting up. Similar story with my 5800x3d. It's using very little VRAM and RAM. It's just not stressing my PC so why this unacceptable performance? And why such a disparity between tutorial and scenario? I mean it's MASSIVE! This sim is not testing my hardware at all but yet the frame rate is pitiful. What on earth am I missing here? This simply cannot be correct. I bought it because it's been so many years since I played the original Train Sim and TSW is a bit unfulfilling. The routes feel too small. I had planned to spend a lot of money on routes and add-ons on this sim today, but, boy, am I glad I tested the base before I did. I had thought that I would be willing to take a step back in graphics to have high frame rates and better routes but I'm getting way worse performance than in TSW. I can run a slick 80 on that without issue at all. I'm truly hoping I'm just overlooking something here, I must be, surely? but, if this is how it is, I'm refunding it and buying more TSW routes instead but I only have about 50 mins left of my 2hr refund window to try and solve the issue. Could anyone offer any input? I'd be most grateful.
I'm not sure where to start. Are you controlling your graphics card with Nvdia software? It's probably something in the setup there. There is no way you should be seeing this with your rig. I get a solid 60-70 almost all of the time running a GTX1050 6G GPU. If you need more info get back here.
A lot of more complex routes / scenarios will run at around 30 FPS. For example WCML south. Until you are well outside Euston you won't get much above 30fps even on a high end machine. You can improve things a lot with the Lossless Scaling utility available on Steam. TSC is a very old game that mostly runs on a single core, so it's very sensitive to AI traffic and route complexity. In tutorials in the academy there is very little scenery and limited rolling stock. So it runs really fast. Routes with a lot of AI will be a lot slower.
TSC and FPS is not the same world..... This game is worse and i will never go back from TSW. TSC is so old and not optimized for PCs now days.
In my experience, you will struggle to get TSC to work well on a "modern" PC with decent graphics cards and multi core processors. My less than a year old RTX 5080 wont run TSC properly, but TSW works great. My 5 year old RTX2060 runs all aspects ofTSC and 100+ DLC / AP Packs etc perfectly, but struggles with TSW. While the continuation of little practical updated support from DTG for TSC running on modern spec PC, in my experience your going to struggle to find a solution. Put the hours in if you wish to find a solution, and if you do then I will be interested too, so please report back here!
Why would I be controlling a 9070XT with Nvidia software? There was nothing set up in AMD software that was causing this that I could tell. Was the first thing I checked and changed, actually. Yes, drops to 30 fps are completely unacceptable as it just completely destroys the illusion and frame generation tech is only usable to my eye when the frame rate is at least 60 or above or it's dreadfully ugly and unresponsive. I do own lossless scaling but with AMD's Fluid Motion Frames at the level it now is, I rarely find a need to use it. I use Fluid Motion Frames with TSW and it provides a very nice experience when locked at 60 fps. The output is then 120 fps. Well, that's the illusion, anyhow. My card is capable of much more than that, but I keep it there because the experience is so fluid, and it means my card stays quiet and cool. Barely using more than 120w of it's 340w possible. Seemingly so. The issue I have with TSW are the routes. They are just way too short and unfulfilling. There is not a single route worthy of high-speed trains. I really wanted to run the HST from Paddington to Cardiff, for example. This is why I was looking to go back to TSC but that performance is pitiful. 5800X3d, 32Gb RAM, 2x Samsung 980 Pro M.2 Drives and a 9070XT And correct, when monitoring my hardware usage the sim was barely using any of those resources. The graphics card was under such little stress that it never bothered to even turn the fans on. Of course, I was fully aware of the single-thread limitation, something us flight simmers also battled for years, but it wasn't really as though it was hammering a thread on my 5800 X3d either. 1440p. Though I'm not sure what that has to do with it, considering the card was barely being utilised at all. Yes, this was the conclusion I came to after fiddling for an hour and asking around the web and Discord. In the end, I refunded from Steam and bought more TSW content instead but I would be lying if I said I wasn't very disappointed. I had a long list of content I had planned to buy for it that day, including some nice long routes for the HST, but I'm pleased I tested before I made that mistake. I may pick it up again if it appears in the sale for a cheap price and do some more fiddling, but I'm not prepared to spend the full price on it for performance like that. Honestly, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. It actually made me laugh out loud when I saw the frame rate at 43 at the start of a scenario. Thank you all for your input, and please, if you have any suggestions, I'm all ears. As I said, I will likely buy it again at a cheaper price point and try again just because I'm nerdy like that.
My "new" Windows 11 Machine, my old one with new Mobo, Processor & Ram - Intel Core i7 12700KF, 16.0GB DDR4, & 2047MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB all run TSC fine Somebody tried to tell me I would have problems but no sign of anything so far. I don't know if WCML-South had been updated but going past Wembley yard with no missing wires was good.
My system is an Intel i5 10600K CPU, Asus RTX 3060 TI, 16 GB of RAM Windows 11. I have TSC on a Samsung M2 drive, and I have no issues running it. You are saying your graphics card was under such little stress seems strange to me. The fans on mine are going pretty fast, and the card temp is getting up to about 70 °C running TSC, as in most other games that I play. I use the Steam Overlay Performance Monitor to see how my computer is running TSC or any other Steam game. To me, it sounds as if your graphics card isn't doing its job properly. Check your computer BIOS to make sure that you don't have your onboard graphics turned on if it has any. This has happened quite a few times with different users, and when they have turned it off, the game runs properly. When running TSC I can get anything between 30 up to about 100 FPS, depending on the route's scenery density. I also use a 27/28" Viewsonic gaming monitor running at 1920 x 1080p at 180 Hz refresh rate. I don't have my frame rates locked. Have you tried removing that command from Steam and see how it runs without it? I have all my game settings set to maximum
The FPS is route dependent. Some routes I get 140fps or more others i will struggle to get 20fps. Also built up areas struggle, Chatham mainline for example, I will see 140fps in most places but on approach to victoria it will drop down to 30fps. Another thing is the graphics settings. If they are set too low then the GPU will fall to sleep basically. Set it all high or maximum in my case and the GPU will get to work and produce higher frame rates.
And then let’s not forget one of the important factors. Your cpu will need to have good single core performance. 20cores at 2ghz will not run TSC, but one core at 4,5ghz will run it very well.
Well it's an engine that is well over a decade old, the performance is what it is and always has been. There is no magical setting that will make the game run at a smooth 60+ FPS all the time, we would've found that setting by now if there was one. 9800X3D with 9070XT here. I cap the FPS at 65 FPS. It's al personal but i feel it a "better" experience to have the FPS fluctuate between 30 and 65 than 30 and 120. Having it fluctuate within a smaller range makes it a less "jarring" experience imho. According to MangoHud my 9070XT sips between 70 and 100W with ~35% usage while playing. I can get the wattage and usage up by increasing the anti-aliasing level but that doesn't do anything for the FPS. We just have to live with the fact that we're not going to get a solid 60 FPS in TSC no matter the system and settings. Personally i prefer a 30-65 FPS TSC over 120 FPS TSW no question about it.
I'm no expert but it is becoming increasingly clear that it has something to do with the configuration of the computer not the game. Trev and I are running about the same thing and have little or no issues yet many with these souped up new rigs can't seem to get the game to run right. I remember back years ago I couldn't get my laptop to hardly run the game at all and came to find out it wasn't using the video card hardly at all. I don't remember the fix off hand but it was like night and day when I got it fixed. I know the game is a lot more GPU than CPU taxing so if you have low fps and the GPU is just loffing along it's probably something there. Sorry about the question about Nvidia settings. I didn't notice you were refferencing a AMD card. I know nothing about them alas.
rodney This has absolutely nothing to do with his system. TSC is simply not optimized for modern systems. And the fact that he has an AMD GPU doesn’t mean much either, since TSC is mainly CPU-hungry and that’s not an issue when you’re running one of the best CPUs on the market. It also comes down to what you’re willing to settle for. So it’s not as black and white as it may seem. What is true, however, is that TSC is downright ancient and has no future whatsoever.
TSC is ancient but still has a future with a number of Payware developers still releasing routes for the game. Like the Somerset and Dorset route released a few days ago. Lots of Freeware Route featuring places that won't ever appear in TSW If you wish to spread mis information that the game has no future you might find people objecting to that. Return to Train Sim Wandering with all the freeware routes and stock and look forward for the next Base Game you have to pay for.
Sorry, but more and more third‑party developers are moving over to TSW, so in fact TSC is dead. It’s no longer being fixed or supported by DTG. I think you can fairly call it dead. TSC only has a shadow life left. I understand that’s not pleasant, but life goes on and technology also advances to make games better to develop, so really what do you expect?!
Respectfully, I would fully expect a 3060Ti to be working far harder than a 9070XT. My card is working perfectly and performing extremely well in modern and very demanding titles such as flight sim, iRacing, Anno 117: Pax Romana and Arma Reforger. I build these machines quite regularly, and there is little point in looking for onboard graphics, as the 5800X3d doesn't have it. I was certainly getting better performance than you were, and at a higher resolution, it's just that it's unacceptable to me. The issue is clearly CPU single-core limitations with this now very old title. It's become obvious that what I was seeing is actually better than what most people see, and I was just not at all prepared for it. Yes, this was what I was seeing, and I have come to realise that what I was seeing was normal. Actually, it seems that my performance was better than most seem to get. The worst I saw was 36ish, I think, when starting at a busy terminal in London, but when I took the limit off and was in a less demanding area, I was in the 180 fps range. Unfortunately, drops that severe as you enter critical areas are just not acceptable. As for the settings. They were on as high as they could go. With the exception of choosing more sensible Anti-Aliasing settings. I don't want any frame fluctuations at all. Especially in simulations. The key is always a consistent frame rate with good frame timings in order to sell the illusion. I can't play anything that can't do that. It's critical in general, but when using TrackIR or VR, there can be no exceptions to this. If I could get a solid 60 and cut out the 120 above that my machine was having no issue doing when away from major terminals, I would happily lock it there as long as it never dropped below. But it does, and that is extraordinary for me with modern hardware. My 9070XT was also around the 70W mark. It really had nothing to do with this sim. It scoffed at it, and that is what I expected. Well, I didn't expect it to make quite that much easy work of it, but close enough. I also saw the same thing when messing with anti-aliasing settings. The issue with this title is clearly its own CPU thread limitations, and I see no chip coming soon that will fix its core issue. As I mentioned in some other replies, there is nothing wrong with what I saw or my configuration. In fact, it's better than most see after seeing what kind of performance so many others get with all kinds of rigs. It's just that I was not prepared to see it. It seems not optimised, full stop. Although that is harsh, really. It's just a very old engine. I now realise my performance is actually very good compared to what most see, but, as you touch on, it comes down to what one is willing to settle for, and I'm not willing to settle for that kind of performance drop in "demanding" areas. The fact is, they are not demanding at all for modern hardware. It's just the limitations of the engine causing the bottleneck. I have often enjoyed going back to old games or sims with new hardware and wonder at the silly performance we can now get. It's often amusing to see 100's of FPS in titles we would scrimp and save to buy hardware for to get above 30. I suppose I was expecting the same here. That the high clock speeds of modern chips would brute force it into something much cooler than I experienced many years ago with this sim, but alas, its limitations have been well and truly revealed to me. It's a real shame. This running at a consistent 100fps +, even with its very dated graphics, would have been a really fun experience.
Ok - When you can create your own trains, edit scenarios, have third party stock and routes in TSW let us know. We have so many more routes that are longer and where we can run what we like. Anything we have bought we can run in TSC and we can virtually run any loco on any route Unlike TSW where something that was bought in the early days won't run on current routes TSW is stuck in a loop just waiting for the following year to come round so DTG can release a new version without fixing the faults in the previous versions. You say TSC is not having things fixed but that is the same for TSW.
Sorry, that’s totally not what I mean! Many creators of TSC routes and other content are shifting their business model (production) to TSW because that’s where an active community exists, and therefore also a group that’s willing to spend money on the game. In TSC, the numbers just aren’t interesting enough to make it worthwhile. But well, it feels like talking to a wall, because yes, you’re a big TSC fan and that’s perfectly fine, but don’t forget to occasionally look at things from a different perspective. And yes, I also played TSC for years, but honestly it wasn’t a pleasant experience. In TSW I get a stable 60 FPS on many routes, and that’s simply much more enjoyable than barely managing 20/40 FPS. Nice but would you try show here? A static picture with a FPS count of 42 FPS... That is not how a FPS should work! It says nothing only that you have on 1 millisecond that you reached 42 FPS. If you have terrible AA with shimmering all over the place and you are happy with that i would say go for it And no i'm not try to make fun of it there are 2 experiences that you can love or hate so nothing to be rude about.
I really wish people could focus on what is working for them and help other instead of attacking people and the game which seems here at least to be perfectly fine.
Sorry, I don't mean to offend anyone, but reading this, you'd think everyone here is just badmouthing TSC. So why always blame TSC when something doesn't work? I personally downgraded my Nvidia drivers to an older version, and TSC is running great. I had the latest Nvidia driver version, but I couldn't run TSC DirectX 12 in windowed mode anymore. There were no problems with DirectX 9 except for FPS loss. So I reverted to an older Nvidia driver version, and everything is working perfectly. In our German forum, you hear about a lot of problems with Nvidia drivers from versions 577-581 onwards.
We are all told to keep our PC drivers and system components upto date. Now TSC is effectively been "moth-balled" for a fair while now by the developer (DTG), as they have chosen not to keep updating TSC, to keep up with modern PC specs and requirements, then it is the game that becomes the issue. I personally think it could be a delibrate ploy (and probably a good one) to let TSC / TSW slowly be consigned to the history books. Just imagine if somehow a new modern updated TrainSim came and out, and could look utlislising using the lessons learnt other Sims (say from Microsoft Flight Simulator 20 / 24!) Not to mention the functionality of being able to import live data and AI from say Reattime Trains website. That would get my wallet out again!
A bit exaggerated what’s being written. DTG indeed wants people to gradually switch over, and that’s logical that’s how they can make money from us. It’s also logical since TSC is already more than 15 years old. It’s simply a logical consequence of what I already mentioned: the advancement of technology on a PC. And fine if you still enjoy it, but you can hardly maintain that TSC is the center of train simulation on the PC. The user numbers are just very low. So don’t act like a victim, but take a realistic look instead of pretending I’m talking complete nonsense. That doesn’t apply to you, but to the comments above, because what you wrote is indeed the case.
You say it like talking to a wall and that's how I feel. You come on this forum to have a go at TSC - Why? Maybe in your opinion TSC is not got much of a Future. but they said that about MSTS and people are still playing it. What I like about TSC is the ability to run many different routes that TSW does not offer. How many Austrian and Swiss routes are in TSW? Those are available thru Steam for TSC. I have Austrian, Belgium, Czech, Dutch, German, Italian, Romania, Slovenian & Swiss routes And I can run a loco from any of those countries on any route I want. You said "In TSC, the numbers just aren’t interesting enough to make it worthwhile" If that was the case there would not be payware companies still making Routes and locos for this game. I tried TSW and bought routes and locos but the frustration of just being able to run what DTG give you is a pain. Some Czech developers gave people the ability to change locos - so DTG Stopped that. One of the routes was Northern Trans Pennine but Steam say it will only work on TSW2 or TSW3 Am I meant to have different TSW installations for different routes? ANY DLC for TSC will work on my setup jesper2805 - you are "preaching to the Choir" The people playing TSC know how good or bad it is and most of the time we are happy with what we have.
FWIW I've upgraded to TSW6 (free) having had all the previous ones and all the routes for previous versions that I have still work, Northern Trans Pennine included.
Oh well! You are very fierce and sharp, and that’s completely fine because it’s just hard to hear that your favorite simulator is dead and only kept alive by a single studio that still sees profit in it. Fine, go ahead! The truth is sometimes complicated, and I understand that it affects you. I wish you a pleasant evening and lots of fun playing.
Nonsense. What keeps any game alive is the third party creativity and the enthusiastic creativity of the users - you can't say that about TSW as user creativity is virtually non existent and likely to remain so.
Us who play German/Austrian/Swiss and Italian routes seem to be in a better spot. There are still quite a few developers in these areas.
Thats a fair point. But RSSLO seems to change also to TSW. This company is already working for a TSW route. Their release cycle is lower then years ago.
Which SINGLE Studio is that? The next Italian route for TSC is coming from a Third Party thru Just Trains https://www.justtrains.net/product/n-w-italian-railway-torino-navara Chris Trains makes Dutch Stock for TSC https://www.christrains.com/en/index.html Dutch Forums have released 18 different FREE routes for Dutch Railways covering most of the country https://dutchsims.nl/ts-maps-nl Sim Express have released a number of different classic SNCF locos and stock for TSC https://www.simexpress.fr/ Virtual Tracks have made a number of add-ons for TSC https://www.virtualtracks.eu/epages...jectPath=/Shops/63658908/Categories/Category1
This thread has gone way off topic, as it is meant to be about the OP having Confusing performance, nothing to do with what is the better game, etc.
I see my long post replying to all those who were kind enough to offer a contribution has been stuck in "waiting to be confirmed by a moderator" limbo for 24 hours. I see no good reason why it should still be there. Edit: Finally got the green light.
What part of TSC is NOT DEAD are you not getting? As of just today I downloaded a Class 122 "Bubble Car" (Digital Traction) Yesterday I downloaded the most glorious Somerset & Dorset route from Golden Age Developments. I recently also purchased the LMS 1000 / 1000 Loco {Digital Traction) I take it that all the above are actually available in Train Sim Walking. oh Apparently not. All of the above have been released in just the last couple of months, What has enticed me to buy any TSW addons........... absolutely nothing. And yes I do own both with my current stats being TSC 10,397 hours, TSW6 71 minutes
Well, if you'll excuse the pun, this one has gotten derailed, eh? In typical internet sim forum fashion. I do find it curious why people get so defensive about which sim they use. I'd love to see a psychological study into this phenomenon. It's the same in flight sim and sim racing. To each his own, gentlemen. To each his own.
Jazz, the problem isn't your computer, it's this poorly designed and poorly optimized simulator ("game"). This is the worst game of all time in DirectX 9, run any other game with DirectX 9 and you'll see that your computer will run it and even have enough power to open other games simultaneously. Unfortunately, in certain circumstances, we have to settle for running the simulator in slow motion mode. I also say that it's unacceptable to run at 30 frames per second nowadays, even if it's not a competitive game, it's just boring.
Again I repeat I'm no expert but if I can get the sim to run just fine with a i5-10600K 4.10GHz GTX1060 6G 410Hz 16megs of RAM MSI Z790 motherboard then something is amiss in the configuration if others can't get the sim to perform with decent fps and crashes and the like.
Most people don't run at 30FPS - it depends on the route and trains in the scenario You should know this.
As opposed to what others on this thread are saying, performance like this is an issue with your PC. TS running that slowly and not using much of your PC's resources isn't normal. I'm on a Ryzen 7800X3D with an RTX 5070 and the fans do spin up. For me the game runs at 110fps-ish, with the occasional dips that can't be avoided unfortunately. It would be helpful if you could tell me what route and scenario you were trying. Very busy scenarios and built up areas do lower the framerate, but it shouldn't be lowering it that much.
Thanks for taking an interest. It was the Chatham Main Line that came with this years "iteration". As I said previously, my frame rate was beyond 180 if I unrestricted it, but as soon as I started a scenario in London, it dropped down to 35-45ish. It would settle at around 43-46 in that London terminal. I have no idea what the scenario was. I can't remember, but I wouldn't call dropping from 180 or 140 or 100 down to 40 a "dip". I would call that a catastrophic collapse After talking to many people and watching many YouTube videos, this seems better than normal. You're the only one who has said otherwise, really. I'd be very curious to see what you get when starting scenarios at London on that route. I would expect yours to be slightly better than mine. Our GPUs are pretty equivalent, but you have a slightly better CPU. As for using too few resources with this sim, I disagree. I fully expected the graphics card not to be breaking a sweat. I didn't expect to see it making quite such easy work of it, but it isn't far away. Graphically, there is just not a lot of complicated stuff for modern gear to have to deal with it unless you start asking it to do silly anti-aliasing. What is going on with the CPU single-core limit is another matter, though. When unrestricting the frame cap and driving the card for as many frames as I could, then it would, of course, start heating up, and the fans would come on. However, when the frame dropped while starting in London, the card was doing nothing. This tells me that the issue is the same is trying to ram too much on a single CPU thread, and my CPU was not really heating up either because it was trying to do it all on a single core, and my cooling was dealing with it quite easily. When the single thread is jammed by all this nonsense, the card is just standing around twiddling its thumbs until it's given work to do. It's exactly the behaviour I would expect in this scenario, to be honest. Others here would know better than I, but I wonder if this sim suffers from some of the issues Flight Sim did years ago, where you could have all the GPU power you wanted, the problem was that the CPU was still doing things on a single thread, graphics-related related that modern titles now completely offload to the GPU. Couple that with doing all the other stuff on that single thread, and it just can't cope. This got worse and worse in FSX as we added more and more add-ons and advanced scenery over the years, and upgrading CPUs and overclocking to brute force it could only really do so much due to that single-thread issue. It feels much like the same thing. As in, this sim, due to its design and being a product of its time will always be dreadfully CPU bottlenecked. If you have that route, I would be most interested to see what you honestly get when you start up in it in London.
And what do you call "just fine"? I suspect we have very different ideas on what "fine" is. As for crashes, not sure what you mean. I didn't see any crashes. Even if you include my bad driving
