Generating Large Maps?

[supamon]

Since I've been playing simutrans vigorously for past week, I've become very interested in complicated transport systems, and in the end, I have cranked up the settings to an unbearable high.

But when I seem to generate worlds that are larger than 512x512, the generation works fine and everything is loaded, the map is working fine without lag, but then simutrans tends to stop responding/freeze after a couple minutes of gameplay, and then Windows decides to crash the party by killing it.

Any solutions? Is there any settings I might have that may have caused this?

[Ters]

Which version of Simutrans do you use? And which pak set(s)?

[supamon]

Version 112.2,

pak 64/pak 128, neither work with the large maps

[Ters]

These days, I wouldn't call a map large until it reaches 4096x4096. How big exactly are your maps?

[kierongreen]

As I wrote in another thread - 2048x2048 is a large (but manageable) map. 512x512 should run perfectly as long as your computer is less than 10 years old.

[prissi]

I would suspect rather a CPU cooling problem or faulty memory. Both would only show up when using certain memory chunks or higher processor load, which is connected with larger maps.

You could exclude this by running a memory or CPU checker program.

[supamon]

For what I consider a large map, I was aiming at at least 2048x2048, but when that wasn't successful with the same error, I tried 1024x1024, and lastly 512x512. None lasted for more than a few minutes.

As for the CPU and other processing issues, this laptop is just about 6 years old and counting, but runs like melting butter down a slant when running games (yes, yes, it can handle much more powerful things than Simutrans, I assure you). I will have to try with the CPU and memory checking programs, but this computer hasn't encountered issues that would cause such a thing.

[kierongreen]

Simutrans is actually a very complex game in terms of CPU power required (especially for very large maps). 6 year old machine should run 1024x1024 easily without any problems though.

[Ters]

it can handle much more powerful things than Simutrans, I assure you

Simutrans does things differently from most other games. Modern games offload much of the rendering process to the graphics card and can do other things in the meantime, but Simutrans does no such thing. Simutrans renders in RAM using the CPU, causing constant traffic on the system bus. The bottlenecks in Simutrans are therefore likely to be in other places than for other games. Some systems also handle Simutrans' legacy graphics formats poorly (notably Macs, though the situation might have improved somewhat lately).

this computer hasn't encountered issues that would cause such a thing.

Things can stop working just from normal use.

[prissi]

Simutrans requires much more memory than other games. Hence a faulty memory in the 1GB will most likely kill simutrans than other games. However, with windows it would also lead to some other failuses.

If I remember correctly CPUz could get you the CPU temperature. Start simutrans and look at the output.

[Ters]

My previous laptop actually had the problem that the RAM overheated if I filled all the slots, or that was what I concluded was the problem. The memory checker didn't find any errors, nor did it fail when I had any particular memory module installed. I didn't bother complaining, because the laptop with extra memory was on sale for less than the price of the one with the normal amount of memory, and just 8 GB was enough (and still is).

I used to get bluescreens, though, not crashes that only affected a single program. I think Simutrans was one of the things that was good at triggering it, but not the only game. Regular use did not trigger it.

[supamon]

Simutrans does things differently from most other games. Modern games offload much of the rendering process to the graphics card and can do other things in the meantime, but Simutrans does no such thing. Simutrans renders in RAM using the CPU, causing constant traffic on the system bus. The bottlenecks in Simutrans are therefore likely to be in other places than for other games. Some systems also handle Simutrans' legacy graphics formats poorly (notably Macs, though the situation might have improved somewhat lately).

Things can stop working just from normal use.

I completely understand both your points, but this first remark was just in case someone would provide an obligatory "Your computer is 6 years old, it must suck horribly and run Windows 98, go home newbie." reply to this thread.

[Ters]

No chance of getting that reply here, since some prominent members have old computers. I think someone wrote that they had recently upgraded to Windows XP. We had some problems last year with the nightlies unintentionally requiring a Pentium III or newer, causing problems for some. So one might rather expect the opposite reply. Simutrans dates from the Windows 98 era after all.

[sdog]

I completely understand both your points, but this first remark was just in case someone would provide an obligatory "Your computer is 6 years old, it must suck horribly and run Windows 98, go home newbie." reply to this thread.

That is not the attitude here. Simutrans devs always try to ensure that the game runs well on machines much older than yours. With smaller maps, and perhaps not the biggest pak-sets, but without other restrictions.

The replies telling you to check your ram and cpu might seem a little tedious. To find the reason for the behaviour you experience you ought to exclude the most likely causes different from the game first. If this doesn't find anything, other reasons, also a possible bug in the game, could be tested for.

You could also open your system  monitor in your windows and have a look at the memory usage, before and after starting such a map. Is your ram exceeded, does windows start to swap (use your harddrive for ram)?

[prissi]

As for older Computers: Mine is an Athlon X2 6000+ from late 2006. Still ok for mostly single threaded Simutrans, but compiling is quite slow ...

[supamon]

Well, all of your wonderful replies and many of which I had hoped to reply to with decent answers after my short vacation, I sadly can no longer provide so, considering the laptop which ran Simutrans and other belongings of mine were unfortuneatly stolen during my trip. So for this thread, the whole generation issue  here should be put to an end, because my only form of playing simutrans I can play now is the mobile version on my phone, where I am typing this now.

R.I.P.  My Laptop, and this thread. Thank you to all who tried to help, I am sorry to disappoint the intellectuals of the Simutrans community with my misfortunes.

[kierongreen]

Sorry to hear that :( I hope you manage to get things sorted.