[engmod]

My machine used to show the render process at 100% and the updater process a lot lower.
Somewhere in the later versions, I now get the updater process at 100% and the render process a lot lower.

Has anyone else noticed this behavior?

[James Ross]

Can't say I've noticed anything but it's a bit hard to correlate anything without version numbers and routes, at least. :crazy: Could you pick an activity that is high on updater in the current versions and try running it in an older version? Both log files and a screenshot from each would be good.

[disc]

On some routes the updater process have higher usage, but it's rare, usually the render process is the cpu hog :crazy:

[Genma Saotome]

Just for clarity folks: when you read Updater you should think Trains and for Render, think Visuals. It's more complex than that but for a general understanding it serves.

[James Ross]

Genma Saotome, on 14 October 2013 - 08:03 AM, said:

Just for clarity folks: when you read Updater you should think Trains and for Render, think Visuals. It's more complex than that but for a general understanding it serves.

Yeah, kinda. A slightly more detailed view would be: updater = simulation + render prep, render = actual rendering.

[Genma Saotome]

James Ross, on 14 October 2013 - 10:21 AM, said:

Yeah, kinda. A slightly more detailed view would be: updater = simulation + render prep, render = actual rendering.

IMO the terminology as is makes sense for the techies and is pretty alien to the end users. I would imagine numerous end users, when confronted with the word render, might first think of something that was often done to animal fats.

Might we change the labels to
Simulation
Video Prep (or perhaps Pass to GPU / Pass to Video if that's what this is)
Video (or Display... or Pass to GPU / Pass to Video if we're not measuring the GPU)?

Programmers know what's going on under the covers anyway... we should do a bit more to help end users better understand what their PC is actually doing for them. Same issue for Loader Process... probably should be called Read Files or File Processing.

[James Ross]

Genma Saotome, on 14 October 2013 - 12:58 PM, said:

IMO the terminology as is makes sense for the techies and is pretty alien to the end users. I would imagine numerous end users, when confronted with the word render, might first think of something that was often done to animal fats.

Might we change the labels to
Simulation
Video Prep (or perhaps Pass to GPU / Pass to Video if that's what this is)
Video (or Display... or Pass to GPU / Pass to Video if we're not measuring the GPU)?

Programmers know what's going on under the covers anyway... we should do a bit more to help end users better understand what their PC is actually doing for them. Same issue for Loader Process... probably should be called Read Files or File Processing.

I think Loader is fine, TBH; I could see Render being renamed Graphics or Visuals or something. It's tricky for Updater because it does really do two separate jobs (but those jobs have to be on the same thread). FWIW, although the Render Process does not measure the GPU itself, it does include the graphics driver time (which is a significant portion).

[Genma Saotome]

James Ross, on 14 October 2013 - 01:11 PM, said:

I think Loader is fine, TBH; I could see Render being renamed Graphics or Visuals or something. It's tricky for Updater because it does really do two separate jobs (but those jobs have to be on the same thread). FWIW, although the Render Process does not measure the GPU itself, it does include the graphics driver time (which is a significant portion).

Perhaps "CPU Video Preparation Process", or "CPU to GPU Process". Either tells people where the work is being done and for what purpose.

[R H Steele]

Okay here's my understanding of these two items in disucssion: "makes the sim go" and "makes the sim go better" Sometimes it's real quiet living in the rural areas of the digital world.
All I know for sure - is that whoever came up with the idea of OR and the current team members are one heck of a talented group of people! Cheers rhs (aka gerry) :sign_welcome: {I'd ask for more balloons but helium is scarce)

[Genma Saotome]

R H Steele, on 14 October 2013 - 11:40 PM, said:

Okay here's my understanding of these two items in disucssion: "makes the sim go" and "makes the sim go better"

Simply described, a portion of Open Rails handles getting the files from disk and forwarding them over to the rest of the program. That's the Loader. A different portion handles the railroad simulation -- how stuff moves, where things are presently located, what is the current time of day, the position of each switch, etc. That's presently called the Updater. A third portion is getting everything ready for telling the GPU (graphics card) what subset of the whole route it should display and giving it the data it needs to do that, frame by frame -- that's Render, and then, outside of the OR program, is what the GPU/Graphics card has to do to convert all that 3d data in to a 2d picture for display, stuff like not showing pixels for things in the background when something else is in the foreground blocking your view. A fair bit of work actually. We cannot monitor it's performance and so it's not listed on the f5 text displays.

The concern is the words Loader, Updater, Render are not obviously understood by the layman, whereas possible alternatives of File Process, Simulation Process, Video Prep Process might be.

By and large that 3rd portion -- Render... or Video Prep... or whatever we wind up calling it, it is the one that seems to be doing most of the work and as such is often the bottleneck that determines actual fps performance.