I NEED HELP MY GAME KEEPS CRASHING

[Calvin loves trains]

it sucks i have my grphings on low any ideas?

[Biggie Cheese]

Well, for starters, what make, model, manufacturer and year is your computer?
Is it a laptop?

[Spider]

I'm having same problem. I played for about 79 hours in many multiple sessions, before it happened yesterday. I'd left the game for 3 hours and when I went back my more recent saves got "fatal" error dialog box. Now it happened again today.

Here are the specs for my LG Laptop: 13th gen Intel Core i7-1360P 2.20 GHz, 26 GB Ram, 64 bit op system, x64-based processor, no touch screen. Win 11 v24H2
I bought it about 2 months ago from Walmart.

I play only single player, Easy mode, no refuel and am on level two with "Betsy" and a variety of 14 cars. I was working in the Coal Mine area in Mesa Plains both times.

I lost 4 hours worth of work yesterday but not sure how much today because I don't know what save will allow me back in the game, But so far I've checked back into my autosaves (60 min) and my own saves several times an hour, alternating between overwriting 3 saves.

I spent all day yesterday working with my AI Copilot on possible solutions which included RRO Studio. That looks very technical and time consuming looking for something which "looks wrong" I'm careful to avoid splines. I do most of my track laying in valley floors using the 1 meter ballast track and sometimes using the wooden bring to make some connections. I've not used ground work features yet.

For the 1st crash yesterday, I just assumed it was a game bug. But after 6-7 hours worth of work I decided to see if I could load the game with my earlier saves. That worked yesterday and again today. But I don't yet know how much work I'll have to do again this time.

I have so much fun playing the game. It is perfect for what I've been looking for. Its been a wonderful diversion for me. I hate having these issues.

How many of the rest of you RRO players are having game crashes? Do you all have super computers?

[Spider]

I get 2 minutes of light fuzzy static noise and then the fatal note. But sometimes I get the following error message: LowLevelFatalError [File:L:\UE5\Engine\Source\Runtime\RenderCore\Private\RenderingThread.cpp] [Line: 1272] GameThread timed out waiting for RenderThread after 120.00 secs

[Dexert Raat]

I wouldn't touch AI with a 10 foot barge pole. I do everything I can to purge it from my systems. My personal view is that it perpetuates a lot of lies and disinformation. It's okay as a signpost to somewhere else but not as the primary source it being pushed as. It has a place but on my computer and the top of searches is not it.

Anyway, I suspect you have your weather set for random. Some of the weather modes cause the game to crash, specifically anything with snow. I think I had seen somewhere the advice is to set your weather to custom and pick clear skies.

Further, if you want random weather you might want to go into your game properties and select the 'Public beta branch'. It's not as fully featured as the "released" version but I think it's more stable.

EDIT: Railroad studio is a map editor. It can change aspects of your map like naming of rolling stock, radii and gradient of track, location and orientation of buildings. I don't think it can really do anything to cause the game to crash or to prevent it from crashing.

[Spider]

You are wise about AI, to a point. You need to be the person on top of any discussion with CoPilot, in my case and learn to know your subject. I use it to sort through all the Q&A type articles that are so many that it takes a lot of time to find what you are looking for. It reads a whole lot of stuff in a second and comes back with an out line of SUGGESTIONS and I've gotten to know what feels right and what feels like a step I don't want to try. I'M IN CONTROL. Its just a glorified calculator like tool where if you key in the wrong numbers so you get a bad answer, right? Its an excellent RESEARCH ASSISTANT that gives me suggestions and insights to how to try solving problems. I've used it quite effectively to fix issues from my computer to how to do new things in Minecraft - and now to RRO crashing. With that said, read my next reply about what I think might be helping with that issue.

[Spider]

REGARDING THE CRASH/ERRORS UPON LOADING - THINGS I THINK ARE WORKING - HOPEFULLY.
1. I can successfully load older saves.
2. The startup crashes I've been experiencing have been while loading saves in the same area of the Mesa Plains map - the coal mine. I've made a nice (for me) rail yard system for handling the trains and changing directions. I'm thinking its a lot of RENDERING to do on loading my saves THEIR
3. The saves that DO WORK are those before getting to that coal mine area.
4. The error message I posted above points to a two minute (120 secs) for rendering - timed out. I hear static during that two minutes. AND I heard static last night when I successfully loaded my latest coal mine area save... I was on pins and needles for ALMOST TWO MINUTES. But then my world loaded complete with all my construction that took hours last night - the same stuff I'd lost twice before.
5. PROPOSAL FOR DEVELOPERS - How about changing that terrain rendering element to 3 minutes. My success in 4. above felt like it was almost to the point of crashing. It gave me the impression it loaded JUST IN TIME without getting to 2 minutes. A feeling I'd had with loading other, older saves where I heard static for just a short time.
6. RE AUTO BACKUP AND MY NEW BU PLAN - I turned off auto backup. I got thinking I might be in a not quite done process during construction when the auto back up happens. I might have mistakenly left a rail section on top of another which I was going to destroy but didn't before the auto BU.
7. I do FREQUENT BU's on my time. When I'm at a good point. I went into the Appdata saves folder and copied a save I new worked ten times - noting that the new copies were so numbered 1 to 9 and one without a number (the original). I cycle through all ten saves and then test the last one occasionally to see that it works. If the tenth one works I save it to overwrite another set of copies identified with letters of the alphabet. This makes sure I keep one good one out of the ten I'm going to cycle through and thereby overwrite.
8. GOING TO THE GAME NOW - 1ST TIME TODAY - I'll let you know if it works.
9. Good tracking to everyone.

[Spider]

IT WORKED! i'm right where I left off! ONE MORE NOTE ABOUT BACKUP PLAN.
- Do your last back up for your session after travelling away from the congested area where you built a complex layout. I'M VERY HAPPY RIGHT NOW - off I go to my next industry! :)
Happy Rails to you... I just saved that good one to my A B C list so I'll have it after cycling through my 0-9 list.

[Spider]

Just experienced my first crash while using the new backup plan I mentioned above. But with that plan I only had to go back to 1 save prior to the one that crashed on reloading. I only lost 30 minutes of work. A lot better than my previous two losses of about 4 hrs each. But it is still aggravating.
The save that crashed was after connecting back around to track that leads back up to the coal mine. It is in a rather isolated place so that might challenge one of my theories. However, I do have a small rail yard out there in the middle of no where, but much like one that is back where I was on the previous save that did work. So, it might be something in this area that is amiss. But one of my good saves from yesterday including this spot. So I don't know what to think.
I hope that my discussing this will ring a bell with someone that knows more than I do. I still think a 3rd minute of terrain rendering would help. It would be worth testing out I think.
My confidence is shaken. I am reluctant to do a lot of work, laying track, and doing business with industries. The game needs to be more stable. I wish a DEVELOPER WOULD READ MY OBSERVATIONS AND TAKE ACTION.
I guess I'll run blindly ahead and see what happens, avoid doing another backup in the same location as the last one. Grrrrrrr

[Spider]

DISCOVERED SOMETHING THAT IS WORKING (for now) - After doing a save, I've been testing whether it will reload okay by 'LEAVE SESSION' and then selecting that save (under single player for me) and having it crash. When that happens, I can't even close the frozen window with opening Task Manager on my PC and using 'End Process' on the game. After doing that and clicking PLAY in Steam my saves have loaded okay - even the one that just crashed the other way. So I've resorted to Leaving Session and Quit Game. So far its working. But this is a nuisance work around. Nursing the program along. But its better than getting sidelined and losing my work in the process.

I JUST REALIZE THAT I NEED TO APOLOGIZE to Calvin loves trains for HIGH-JACKING his thread. Sorry bud. But maybe some of my trial and error discoveries will help you and other that might be having the same issue. I'll try to message you with further apology and ask that you put up with a bit more. Again, I'm hoping that a DEVELOPER will review and consider my findings.

[Spider]

Loaded my last save from yesterday and it crashed. On a gut feeling I tried the same one again and it opened. I really feel its the two minute thing.
Played 4 or 5 hours last night and my last save reloaded okay. Lets hope it does again now.

[mkabisch]

Originally posted by Spider:

How many of the rest of you RRO players are having game crashes? Do you all have super computers?

No problems with 10-year-old machines!!

I just discovered this thread and I'm a little surprised. I haven't seen & listen, the problems you described in all these four years.

It seems to have calmed down now, or what about last night?

I have to admit, with my 10-year-old machine, I can't access any MP servers anymore, but it's sufficient for the prelaid maps in SP mode. However, I've noticed that as the number of vehicles increases, the RAM eventually runs out.

And from what I've read, you're also using prelaid maps, because if you build your own, such errors also indicate map building errors.

But I'm certainly no expert in that area; I'm a driver, not a track layer.

[Dexert Raat]

My advice about weather still stands. I feel like you ignored it. Load a save, go into the escape menu, select the gameplay tab, change weather to custom and change weather type to clear skies. Remember to save the game.

Are your graphics drivers up to date? Pre-built machines don't always come with the latest drivers and Windows only periodically updates them.

Originally posted by Spider:

How many of the rest of you RRO players are having game crashes? Do you all have super computers?

I'm running a 10 year old machine as well (i7-5930K, 32GB ram, GTX 1080Ti). I do have newer and more powerful but this is my preferred machine. My framerate peaks at about 27-28fps. I am maxing out my ram when loading a map or a new weather system.
Caveats:-
I'm still running Early Access build 51269 as I deem it to be more stable than what was released, even after the build 52150 hotfix.
I've been playing Aurora Falls for the last year and have the full complement of locomotives (with multiples of the larger locos) and 500+ freight cars across the map.
I had no crashes with random weather, it would freeze my game for 5-10 second while it loaded the new weather system before carrying on.

Recently I've been building out my towns, so lots of props have been getting placed. Now weather crashes my game. It's not even the 2 minute timeout, it's immediately. So I suspect one or more of the props (probably buildings) to be responsible.
I can see some testing in my future to determine if it's particular props or the volume of props that causes the weather crashes.

[mkabisch]

Originally posted by Dexert Raat:

I'm running a 10 year old machine as well (i7-5930K, 32GB ram, GTX 1080Ti). I do have newer and more powerful but this is my preferred machine.

Thanks!!

That's exactly what I mean; all these nice improvements (weather) haven't helped make the game more playable.

And even Bill can't afford to buy a new NASA PC, given the threat that Windows 10 (the last true Windows system) will be discontinued on October 25, 2025.

Anyone who lived through January 1, 2000, knows that the toaster still toasts.

[Spider]

I've been derelict in following up on this thread. I do have good news and bad news.
Bad first: I tried for an hour to get any of the most recent saves to load. I kept experience the same issues as noted above.
Good news: I uninstalled the game and reinstalled it. But I had the same problems. Still bad, I know. But I caved in and just started a whole new game - still in Mesa Plains - and had to start all over! Sounds pretty bad huh? Well, that is how I felt.
But with all I had learned in the first one, I was able to really do a bang up job (at least for me - no comparison to some of the screenshots I've seen from others). I also went into settings and dialed back the weather a lot. Also the field of view and the render distance and the frame rate down to 60.
I have no complaints with the new settings - except I do miss those great thunder and lightning storms.
I am not trying to make an amazing model train world with all the details I've been blown away buy. Although I do use some decorations - lanterns the most - telephone poles to hang them on - and one cave-in to my reluctance to add a lot of fine detail (thinking that might bring back the crash issue) is the write on signs. I use them to name my locations. But also to leave myself notes, reminders, or to add info to my screenshot stories. I like them a lot.
Oh, I got into them when trying to figure out the spacing between the tracks and the loading docks. It turns out that the width of a sign post is just right for the bottom of a platform leg and the edge of the dirt on the 1 meter track.
I'm have a boat - ooopps - a box car load of fun making good workable rail yards for sorting and assembling trains.
AND... no crashes!!! Keeping my fingers crossed - and come to think of it, finding it tempting to figure out a good way to use cross tracks - and just how the heck to do it. Although, I think I know how to approach it.
Can you tell I'm a bit more up beat than I was when I first started writing in this thread.
I'm sorry I'm not more succinct (I just looked up the correct spelling and got the definition to!) SORRY. I do like telling a good story.
I hope all this might be helpful to others. I'm new at this. But maybe that might be helpful to other newbies.
Thank you for putting up with me AND ESPECIALLY for jumping in Dexert Raat and mkabisch! I'm sorry to have given the impression that I ignore your input. The number of hours I spent trying to figure it all out is TRULY mind-blowing.
Oh, BTW I looked at min specs and find out that my graphics card is quite sub par.