Ts Start Up Time

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by nwp1, Apr 20, 2021.

  1. nwp1

    nwp1 Well-Known Member

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    This may have been mentioned before, so apologies, but I am interested to know how long it takes to start up Train Simulator.

    I have a HP laptop with 16GB of ram with an SSD drive. From the time I press Play, it takes two and a half minutes until the career drive screen appears.

    Is this abnormally long? If so, is there some way, I can improve this in the graphic settings?
     
  2. inversnecky

    inversnecky Well-Known Member

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    That doesn't sound too long for a laptop. Have you got the fastload parameter added though?
     
  3. JJTimothy

    JJTimothy Well-Known Member

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    It would depend what else that laptop has under the bonnet. For an i3 based system using integrated graphics that would be pretty good but for something with more clout and a GPU it is slow (although complexity of both the route and scenario will make a difference). More system information is needed for a useful answer.

    Changing graphics settings may improve your frame rate but I doubt it will affect the time it takes to set things up. Have you put "-Fastload" in the game properties? That can make for a huge improvement.
    https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/train-simulator-2021-core-update-2nd-march-2021.36321/
     
  4. Pookeyhead

    Pookeyhead Well-Known Member

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    I think that only speeds up loading actual scenarios, not the game loading time.
    Mine take 54 seconds. Core i7-3960X, 16GB, SATA SSD. No idea why yours should take 2.5 times longer. Is your SSD getting full?

    Changing graphics settings will have no effect.

    Mine also takes a further 15 seconds after clicking "Drive" to get to the menu. I notice this time after clicking Drive is increasing as I add more and more DLC. Clicking Build is instant.
     
    Last edited: Apr 20, 2021
  5. ntypeman

    ntypeman Well-Known Member

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    What are we looking at here... From when to when???? I can do some timings later...

    Eric
     
  6. Pookeyhead

    Pookeyhead Well-Known Member

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    The GPU shouldn't be making any difference to the load times.
    He's talking about loading the game, not actually loading scenarios.


    I'm pretty sure that will have no effect on game load times, only scenario loading times.
     
  7. Pookeyhead

    Pookeyhead Well-Known Member

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    He said from clicking "play" on the Steam launcher, to the first menu appearing... I think. He did say when the career drive menu appears though, but that then requires an extra click of the "drive button".. maybe he can clarify. If he DOES mean getting to the actual career menu then that is dictated by how much DLC you have, as the time from clicking "Drive" to getting to the scenario menus definitely gets longer as you add more DLC.
     
  8. Pookeyhead

    Pookeyhead Well-Known Member

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    My times:
    From clicking "Play" on the Steam launcher, to getting to the initial "Drive, Profile, Build" menu = 51 seconds. (It was 54 the first time I tried it... maybe some things get cached?)

    From clicking "Play" on the Steam launcher, then clicking "drive" and getting to the scenario menus = 1 minute 17 seconds.
     
    Last edited: Apr 20, 2021
  9. inversnecky

    inversnecky Well-Known Member

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    It does affect that too. I timed loading time (from clicking play to menu screen load) before and after enabling fastload, and it went from about 1 minute to 25 seconds.
     
  10. theorganist

    theorganist Well-Known Member

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    I haven't tried fast boot yet, I hope to upgrade my memory and hard drive in the next few weeks so might wait. My hard drive is getting very slow, even loading an internet browser seems to take an age with the hard drive light constantly showing.

    I decided to play a scenario I made for the combined workshop Welsh Marches/South Wales Coast route yesterday, it has a fair amount of traffic but not excessive. From clicking the TS 64 bit icon to the scenario loading took 21 minutes!
     
  11. inversnecky

    inversnecky Well-Known Member

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    You should try it, the age of your HDD won't be an issue - you just have to add that one command. You'll never go back and scarecely be able to believe the minutes you whiled away waiting for it to load!
     
  12. theorganist

    theorganist Well-Known Member

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    Many of the routes I use aren't DTG routes so aren't in AP files and there are some which I have modified so sit in other folders. I might give it a try though and see what difference it does make.

    I still think my HDD needs replacing as it is slow for other applications and I am sure isn't helping frame rates.
     
  13. andy.malcolm

    andy.malcolm Active Member

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    40 seconds for me to get into the drive menu (170GB Railworks folder)
     
  14. Craigie-C

    Craigie-C Well-Known Member

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    That sounds about right,
    Mine from Steam (Load 64bit) GO! - Drive menu 1:28:15 (298GB Railworks folder)
    From clicking on "Drive" to seeing the Standard, Career, Workshop etc Tabs has increased dramatically the more I have installed.
    I seriously need to stop buying stuff. LOL :)
     
  15. Pookeyhead

    Pookeyhead Well-Known Member

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    Little difference here. I read it only speeds up unpacking .ap files, so not sure how many of those it's unpacking when just loading the game to the menu. WHen loading 3rd party routes, or stuff I've previously unpacked there's not really much improvement, but when loading scenarios in .ap files, the difference is massive.
     
  16. deedee3382

    deedee3382 Member

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    It only takes me 21 seconds from clicking the desktop icon to seeing career scenarios in the drive menu and I don't have a super computer.
    Specs are:
    Intel core i3-8350k @4.00GHz
    16.0 Gb RAM
    Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 6GB
    WD Blue 1TB ssd

    My Railworks folder is only 71.6 GB, which seems small compared to what I have heard others mention.
    I also don't use and haven't tried -fastload yet. Mainly because I spend most of my time building and none of those files are in the .ap format.
     
    Last edited: Apr 20, 2021
  17. JJTimothy

    JJTimothy Well-Known Member

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    Ah yes- Play in Steam to start TS- Drive to start a scenario... Read the question...

    I take it back- two and a half minutes is slow. Actually it's glacial. Play to Drive menu on the roughly five years old i3 laptop I got started with is about a minute- that's slow.
     
  18. inversnecky

    inversnecky Well-Known Member

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    Depends how you define super :)

    Many here would salivate over that spec!
     
  19. Pookeyhead

    Pookeyhead Well-Known Member

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    I read it....


    He's not loading a scenario... just loading to the career scenario menu after you press "drive".
     
  20. JJTimothy

    JJTimothy Well-Known Member

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    Well... yes... so did I finally. That's why I corrected myself.
     
  21. nwp1

    nwp1 Well-Known Member

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    Thank you to everyone who responded, my laptop has an Intel i7 processor, 16GB RAM, a 13.3” Full HD touch screen and a 1TB Solid State Drive. I have mainly train simulator on it with about 250gb remaining. TSW2 is loaded into a portable SSD drive. Unfortunately my Nvidia graphics card is only a MX250 and this may cause the start up to be low.

    Once in the game everything opens and works pretty quickly and I already have -fastload inserted correctly as per Jamie’s instructions.

    From pressing play it takes 1 minutes 42 seconds to the first menu and then clicking on Drive takes another 45 seconds until the scenario menu opens I do have a lot of content so that may be the reason the last section is slowing down. But the first section has always been about the same since I first installed the game on my laptop. Opening other menus like Build it is instant. Closing down takes exactly 30 seconds.

    -fastload has made a world of different as routes open within 10 to 20 seconds.
     
    Last edited: Apr 20, 2021
  22. Pookeyhead

    Pookeyhead Well-Known Member

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    I'm willing to be corrected on this, but I can't see why the GPU should affect load times. Can anyone explain why it can?
     
  23. andy.malcolm

    andy.malcolm Active Member

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    If you have a (this is guesswork) 600GB+ install of Train Sim, then that's your culprit :) Several examples further up the thread showing time to get to the drive menu increasing with larger installs, e.g.

    76GB - 21 seconds
    170GB - 40 seconds
    298GB - 98 seconds
    [yours - x00GB?] - 147 seconds

    This is hardly scientific as we all have different boxes and it's a tiny sample size, but it at least appears to be a trend.
     
    Last edited: Apr 20, 2021
  24. andy.malcolm

    andy.malcolm Active Member

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    upload_2021-4-20_22-57-59.png
    did i do this right? i haven't mucked about with Excel in years :) based on our terrible sample size your install size might be around 450GB :)

    ps anyone inclined to take any of this too seriously, please don't ;)
     
    Last edited: Apr 20, 2021
  25. Reef

    Reef Well-Known Member

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    My Specs.. (Highlighted drive is my standalone TS drive)
    Image5.jpg

    My Times...
    Logged in to DTL.
    21.8 to main screen, 28.5 to drive screen

    Logged out of DTL with Don't ask ticked.
    21.4 to main screen, 27.3 to drive screen
     
  26. Peter Hayes

    Peter Hayes Well-Known Member

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    Reef
    My times are roughly about the same times as yours. Via steam: To drive screen 30 secs to main screen 19 secs. TS20XX 400+GB install on 1 TB NVME .M2 card (cheapest I could find).
    pH
     
  27. Pookeyhead

    Pookeyhead Well-Known Member

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    Crusty 10 year old rig (with 5 year old GPU).
    Screenshot 2021-04-21 05.52.26.png
    No idea why it doesn't report the motherboard... It's an Asus ROG Rampage IV Extreme. The CPU clock speed is reporting wrong as well. It's OC'ed to 4.2 GHz.
    Screenshot 2021-04-21 06.01.48.png


    Average over 10 loads.
    From Steam to initial menu = 52 seconds
    From Steam to (click Drive) main scenario menus = 1 minute 14 seconds.

    TS is on the SSD and Railworks is 241GB (no steam or non-British stuff, except what came with the three TS versions I've bought).
    Screenshot 2021-04-21 06.10.04.png
    SSD is a 10 year old Samsung 830
    Screenshot 2021-04-21 06.12.37.png
     
    Last edited: Apr 21, 2021
  28. andy.malcolm

    andy.malcolm Active Member

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    This is a monster outlier - 30 seconds for a 400GB install. Is this the only M.2 in the thread so far?

    Pookey's 74 seconds for 241GB pretty much fits bang on the line in my graph above.
     
    Last edited: Apr 21, 2021
  29. Reef

    Reef Well-Known Member

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    No mines on a M.2 too
     
  30. andy.malcolm

    andy.malcolm Active Member

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    How big is your Railworks folder out of interest? (oo-er, bit personal)
     
  31. Reef

    Reef Well-Known Member

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    153gb on a 500gb M.2 NVMe SSD
     
  32. ntypeman

    ntypeman Well-Known Member

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    Right...

    I've done 4 "start-up's" over the last 2 days... These are my results:

    Steam > TS / TS > Menu Screen

    2m 01s / 21s
    1m 00s / 21s
    1m 43s / 23s
    0m 53s / 19s

    RW folder size: 177Gb

    Computer specs:
    20210421_114722.jpg

    (Phone photo as I couldn't do a screenshot on laptop!)

    As you can see from my timings, there's some variation... Admittedly, start-up's 1 & 3 were the "first" of the day...

    Eric
     
    Last edited: Apr 21, 2021
  33. nwp1

    nwp1 Well-Known Member

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    Thank you Andy for your explanation and to everyone who contributed, I now understand the reasons and am grateful for all your helpful posts.
     
  34. tsonboard

    tsonboard Member

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    16 seconds for me with 237GB
    I9 9900k
    1tb ssd
     
    Last edited: Apr 22, 2021
  35. andy.malcolm

    andy.malcolm Active Member

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    No worries and it's not a totally scientific method as a couple of monster PCs here are booting TS up very quickly indeed. Do you know the size of your Railworks folder btw? I'm so nosey :)
     
  36. Peter Hayes

    Peter Hayes Well-Known Member

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    andy.malcolm
    I have zero WS scenarios it would be interesting to see if the more WS scenarios downloaded - the longer it may take for TS to get to the dRIVE", etc menu?
    As TS starts it opens the SDBCache.bin file and that checks every route, DTG, JT, AP, WS, etc and then it checks every scenario that you have installed as I have only around 1500 scenarios (many in .ap file structure) - no WS - it takes less time to load - especially as I rebuild the scenario database very week. I also TRIM the System SSD (non .M2) and the TS SSD every week. Further, my Windows OS used to open TS has been severely trimmed using Black Viper's recommendations.
    This initial SDBCache.bin check involves up to 14,000,000 lines of code. From DRIVE to the main menu involves around 2,000,000 lines of code depending on your route install - so it is faster. Funnily enough it sometimes takes me longer to open a scenario than the initial loading times. Lots of variables in loading times in TS!:)
     
  37. Peter Hayes

    Peter Hayes Well-Known Member

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    Just to show the complexity of the SDBCahe.bin check as TS loads:
    Route check for EVERY Route:

    For every scenario that you have on your PC.
    pH
     
  38. nwp1

    nwp1 Well-Known Member

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    460GB
     
  39. andy.malcolm

    andy.malcolm Active Member

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    then my prediction up thread was pretty good! "based on our terrible sample size your install size might be around 450GB".
     

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