NAM Traffic Simulator and Data View Help

[z]

Hi friend z   
perhaps you remember me...i just wanted to say that i have started to use into my Metropolis the new NAM with your simulator z , park and ride enabled and low version . From a first glance i must say that you seem to have done a terrific work ..
just wanted you to know that , as i will follow your thread , as soon as i have news..
Friendly 

I certainly do remember you.  Thanks for the appreciation!

oh! i almost forgotten that....is there any parking lots that you suggest for park and ride?
i have already  used my first parking garage , and i saw for first time 89% usage!...but i imagine that i cannot only use parking garages, so what parking lots do you suggest ? 

This is a common question, so I added a section addressing it in the Park and Ride part of the first post.  It's the part about RaphaelNinja's 5-way stations, which include large underground parking garages.  I've included links to the originals, along with versions specially modified for Simulator Z.  (They work with other simulators as well, though.)  Unfortunately, most plain parking lots have a fairly low capacity, which is realistic.

oh! someth more (as this is my second edit)....i can see big difference in usage of pedestrian mall tiles ...really do you know how far can sims walk ( as i knew that they are willing to walk just only about 6-8 tiles)...

Sims can walk as far as they want in Simulator Z.  This is actually realistic, as a large tile is only 4 km on a side, and a healthy person can walk that distance in well under an hour.  But they'll still use other transit when it's available, since it's faster.

Your difference in usage of pedestrian mall tiles makes sense in this context; Sims are not hesitant to walk a few blocks when it's to their advantage to do so.

[VeTram]

Thanks so much , z for all informations.....now another ( i hope) last question ...for today .......i am trying to install RMTV3,50 ..and i dont know what to answer in the question concerning NAM/CAM Capacity configuration....( personally i use simulator z park and ride low ,and NOT CAM for the present ), so which one should i choose from the menu?
thanx

[z]

It doesn't matter what you choose there; the important thing is that once you've installed RTMT, you should follow the instructions under Patch for RTMT Users at the end of the first post in this thread.

[VeTram]

Thanx z once again ,  and here comes another question...i am reading in the Readme of NAM for the mail tiles....."Note: Ped Mall Tiles can NOT be used as a replacement for Street/Road/OneWayRoad/Avenue access for direct access to Residential Zones. Sims can however access Ped Mall Tiles directly from their homes (from their backyard for example), just not in front of their Residential Zoning Arrow. Residential zones must still have Street/Road/OneWayRoad/Avenue (with 'Car' access) at the front of their zoning arrow in order to develop - This particular characteristic is effectively controlled by the games' EXE & can not be changed"
...although i just realised that Residential zones develop the same as Commercial zones with their Residential Zoning Arrow facing the tiles!....what is the truth anyway? ...thanx

[z]

I believe that residential zones may actually develop here, but Sims won't get jobs, unless there's a road running down the side of the zone (i.e., it's on a corner).  This is actually not a traffic simulator question, so if you have more questions about this issue, you should ask them in the NAM Issues Thread.

[VeTram]

thank you z once again,  ...

[the7train]

Z,
How does your simulator work with overpasses?  So for example when using your medium simulator, if we have a one way road (4000) crossing over a RHW-4 (20,000), would the two networks be treated separately?  Or would the game see them as an intersection and create a max capacity for the intersection?  Could you explain your answer with an example using some numbers?  Also, is this how all simulators treat overpasses?  Or is yours different?  Finally, how would it show on the congestion map if one is congested and the other is not (assuming its not treated as an intersection)?  Please let me know if my question is not clear.

Thanks for a great addition to SC4!

[z]

This is an interesting question.  First of all, what are commonly called simulators are just traffic plug-ins - essentially a set of parameters that are used to control the behavior of the Maxis traffic simulator.  Some things can be changed, some things can't.  One of the things that can't be changed is that the game is not really completely 3-D in many aspects.  For example, if you have a simple train line running diagonally under a viaduct rail which is straight, trains may switch from one to another as if the two rail lines were on the same level.  In the situation you mention, although unexpected switching doesn't happen, the game does see the two road tiles as occupying the same space, and calculates congestion accordingly.  This is visible in the congestion display.  I have seen an example of this with a road crossing an RHW, where the RHW would get congested as it approached the overpass from either side, even though there were no entrances or exits.  Assuming this is being treated as a standard intersection, the RHW squares directly under the overpass and the two squares of the overpass itself would have a combined capacity of 20,000 per RHW direction.  But one square away from the overpass, the RHW's capacity would be 4000; two squares away, it would be 8000.  And although this effect occurs with all traffic simulators, it is somewhat stronger in Simulator Z because Simulator Z has a larger intersection effect.  On the other hand, Simulator Z has larger capacities for the RHW-4 than the equivalent capacity versions of Simulators A and B - about 40% higher in the example you mentioned.  This tends to ameliorate the intersection effect for the RHW somewhat.  There's a table in the first post of the RHW thread on this page showing the capacities of the different versions of the various simulators, so it's easy to compare all of them.  Also, the speed limit for RHW roads is 20% higher in Simulator Z than in Simulators A and B, so what Sims lose in congested traffic, they tend to make up on the open road.

Also, I just checked the latest releases of Simulators A and B, and the bug that causes congestion to be severely under-reported is still present in both simulators.  This makes their congestion display essentially useless - everything is almost always shown as green.  I'll have to mention this in the proper place...

[b22rian]

I think we had discussed this aspect some before through e-mails, Z..
But just to remind me our conclusion on all overpasses in the game .. in the manner in which they are
treated by the traffic simulators..is that they are at least partially eye candy right ?
I mean insofar they are looked at in the game where it concerns traffic congestion as essentially as
intersections  rather than true overpasses ..

Thanks for your input on this..

Brian

[z]

But just to remind me our conclusion on all overpasses in the game .. in the manner in which they are
treated by the traffic simulators..is that they are at least partially eye candy right ?
I mean insofar they are looked at in the game where it concerns traffic congestion as essentially as
intersections  rather than true overpasses ..

Well, sort of.  But they aren't like regular intersections, because Sims can't turn off an overpass onto a highway, or vice versa.  But we did establish that this doesn't happen just with RHW; it happens with the Maxis highways as well.  So it's a game bug, but one deeply rooted in the game design.

[b22rian]

yes, good point thanks...

obviously I didnt want to make it sound like it totally hindered the "functionality"
aspects of the overpasses in the game.. For instance as you pointed out .. you can't
have cars drive off the top of overpasses for instance onto the lower levels roads..

but for those few squares right at or near the interchanges and overpasses the congestion
reported is somewhat inaccurate because of the game..

[z]

To be precise, it's not the congestion reported that's wrong - it's the actual congestion that is wrong.  What is displayed is correct (at least in Simulator Z).

The saving grace here is that no matter how bad the congestion gets, on any network, the speed on that network never drops below 30% of nominal.  This is in opposition to the real world, where in stop-and-go traffic on highways, you can get average speeds dropping to 5% of nominal.  The SC4 behavior here is actually yet another bug, but it reduces the impact of the intersection bug described above.

[b22rian]

To be precise, it's not the congestion reported that's wrong - it's the actual congestion that is wrong.  What is displayed is correct (at least in Simulator Z).



and well you should be precise my friend ..
because as you said the reporting of the congestion , and being Actually congested..
are indeed 2 different game functions .Distinct and different in the ill live reader..
and I apologize for me error in my above posting..

[the7train]

Thanks for your quick responses Z and Brian.  This does kind of simulate the "slow down" effect of highway entrances and exits, where traffic does usually slow down during rush hours around exits and entrances so you could put a positive spin on that I suppose   
I have another question that may or may not be related.  This is a performance related question.  You mention that the Z simulator runs faster than others.  So my question is does game performance rely strictly on CPU?  Does RAM and Graphics card memory have something to do with it?  I understand this question has to do more with the overall game, but it sounds like you're knowledgeable about this type of thing and I'd like to hear your opinion about how game performance works, if u have one or if you choose to answer this non-related-topic question    If you know  of a post that does explain how the game works, I'd appreciate if you could share so I can view.
My guess is that loading pictures of the city (i.e. when zooming in/out or moving around the city) has more to do with graphics cards.  And time passing (so the actual simulation) by has to do with mostly CPU and some RAM. 
Thanks for your help!

[z]

RAM and graphics definitely have a lot to do with performance, and it's not only your graphics card's memory, but also the speed of its GPU.  The presence or absence of certain features in your graphics card can also affect performance, but I'm not knowledgable enough in this area to tell you exactly what these are.

RAM is actually the most important component when it comes to performance; ideally, you should have enough so that your active programs don't have to be paging, as paging slows down everything tremendously.  Once you have enough RAM to avoid this, though, adding more RAM will make no difference at all.

After RAM, you want to make sure you have a decent graphics card.  Anything around now that says it works well with most games will do fine.  There's no need to pay hundreds of dollars for a high-end graphics card.  But some of the low-end ones can have a negative impact on performance.  That's why you should check for reviews that mention game performance.  In general, graphics integrated on the motherboard do not provide optimum performance for this game.

Assuming you have enough memory, as mentioned above, the traffic simulator itself is entirely CPU-bound.  If you're running your game on high speed and notice that every few months the game slows way down, that's the traffic simulator running.  A faster CPU will certainly make a difference here.  But as you can tell, it's only part of the equation.  Replacing your CPU with one that's twice as fast will not make the game run twice as fast.  There are also factors such as memory speeds, bus speeds, etc. that come into play, but you have little control over those, unless you're replacing your computer.

Hope that helps...

[the7train]

Thanks for your insight!

[gabrielbyrnei]

I just changed from Medium Plugin to High Plugin, Changed both, plugins, inclucind data_view.

Though in-game i still see on my volume data view 100% as being 3000 on roads, which i think should be 6000 on High Plugin.

What am i doing wrong?

Thanks

[z]

You're doing nothing wrong.  Road capacity for the High plugin is 6000, but that's for an entire day.  The Traffic Volume View reports the traffic volume for the commute period you select; each commute period is half a day.  For this reason, the 100% numbers on the Traffic Volume View are half the total capacity of the specified networks.

[lorenz4]

What is the GLR speed? it is the same as El-Rail? I suppose it should be lower as the elevated one doesn't have to worry about crossings. BTW does railway crossings have any effect on train speed or putting overpasses is just eye candy?

Also, why it is One-way roads speed and capacity the same as normal roads? In real world one way roads have some advantages as for example all the traffic lights can turn green in sucession (while in a 2-way road that would mess up the opposite direction). But in SC4 if they have the same capacity/speed as normal roads there is no advantage of putting two one-way road over having two normal road, is it? Also this artificially makes a avenue better than two one-way roads with median tiles.

Thanks!

[z]

Yes, the GLR speed is identical to that of the el rail; they are fundamentally the same network.  It really should be much lower, and this is theoretically possible, although it can't be done in the traffic simulator alone.  I'm going to talk to the NAM team about this and see if it can actually be changed.

In general, railway crossings do not have an effect on train speed.  To see what's happening at a particular crossing, look at it in the Traffic Congestion View.  If the congestion does not change at the crossing, then the speed does not change either.  A lot of this comes down to the intersection effect.  If trains are not affected by the intersection effect, as I don't think they are, then crossings never directly affect train speed.

As for one-way roads, it is actually correct for them to have the same speed and capacity of two-way roads.  Certainly in RL, I have not seen real differences in speed limits or capacities.  And if traffic on a road is significantly different in the two directions, changing the road to one-way effectively increases its capacity up to a factor of two.  This is especially true when the traffic distribution on the road remains the same over the two commute periods.  For as before, where you had traffic in both directions adding up to total volume (and therefore congestion), now you only have the traffic in one direction to count, which may be as little as half the total.  So one-way roads can save you a lot in the right circumstances.

Similarly, with avenues, traffic volume and congestion is calculated per square, so the two sides of an avenue are calculated separately.  This gives an avenue the same benefits as one-way streets.