Railworks America

After months of working just fine, TS2016 has become very unreliable on my Windows 10 desktop. It sometimes starts correctly but usually launches with sound but no video. The initial blank black screen which appears momentarily with a successful launch either does not appear at all on briefly flashes on my monitor. I have done an uninstall followed by an install via Steam and a verify cache to no avail. Has anyone else experienced this?

I suggest you close Steam delete the app cache folder then start Steam again. It should re-acquire this and might just fix your problem. It has been known to repair this condition.

Buzz,

I was able to find and delete the Steam appcache file and it was recreated when I again ran Steam. That didn't seem to change the behavior of TS2016 however.

Larry

Are all your drivers up to date? What about your GPU?? IF the second question you answer yes; did you notice the change once you installed the new drivers for your GPU??

Looks like it may be an issue with Nvidia Shadowplay. I turned that off and TS2016 seems to be behaving so far.

So much for that theory. After several successful launches it has stopped working again. Very strange behavior.

I had the same problem. In my case it happened after I had cloned a new version of my Donner Redo to work with.
I started having the problems when I deleted the Donner Redo clone. It was exactly what you are describing.
I had to reinstall my entire Railworks folder from a backup to fix it.

Very interesting. I was running on a fresh install from Steam after having unsubscribed from all Workshop scenarios as suggested by TS support to solve the "save to dump file" problem and had only run and saved a few scenarios when this happened to me. I guess I need to start all over again.

I was running on a fresh install from Steam after having unsubscribed from all Workshop scenarios as suggested by TS support to solve the "save to dump file"

Did you actually delete those files from your PC - as just unsubscribing very often means that they may be still left behind on your PC. RW-Tools does the job effectively as it color codes WS scenarios. These WS scenarios are the usual cause for your problem.
pH

Peter has a point.
Unsubscribing won't get rid of the scenarios. After unsubscribing to a scenario or scenarios, a person must also delete it with the scenario editor, or as Peter said RW_Tools.

I just did a quick scan of my scenarios using RW Tools and did not see any "light blue" scenario names. Just after unsubscribing from all workshop scenarios using a second computer that still runs TS2016 although poorly, I deleted the entire Railworks folder on the machine I am having trouble with then installed TS2016 again via Steam and have not not subscribed to any workshop scenarios
since. I have since cleared local content and reinstalled TS2016 from Steam several times after experiencing a failure to launch.

Can we see your computer specs?
CPU, Motherboard, RAM, Video card, VRAM, Monitor size/resolution, HDD?
OS 32 or 64 bit?
Where is TS 2016 installed
How much free space does the HDD with TS2016 on it have?
Have you changed anything to do with the monitor - resolution, etc?
Thanks
pH

Here is what I have: Railworks is the only thing on the J: drive. I can include the entire DXDiag file if there is no danger in making it public.

------------------
System Information
------------------

Operating System: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (10.0, Build 10586) (10586.th2_release_sec.160223-1728)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: ASUS
System Model: All Series
BIOS: 1305
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4770K CPU @ 3.50GHz (8 CPUs), ~3.5GHz
Memory: 16384MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 16322MB RAM
Page File: 3250MB used, 29454MB available
Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS
DirectX Version: 12
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
User DPI Setting: Using System DPI
System DPI Setting: 144 DPI (150 percent)


---------------
Display Devices
---------------
Card name: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780
Manufacturer: NVIDIA
Chip type: GeForce GTX 780
DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC
Device Type: Full Device

Display Memory: 11174 MB
Dedicated Memory: 3013 MB
Shared Memory: 8160 MB
Current Mode: 1920 x 1080 (32 bit) (30Hz)
Monitor Name: Generic PnP Monitor
Monitor Model: HDMI BOX
Monitor Id: HDC0002
Native Mode: 1280 x 720(p) (60.000Hz)
Output Type: HDMI
Monitor Name: Generic PnP Monitor
Monitor Model: SMS27A350H
Monitor Id: SAM07CE
Native Mode: 1920 x 1080(p) (60.000Hz)
Output Type: HDMI
Driver Name: nvd3dumx.dll,nvwgf2umx.dll,nvwgf2umx.dll,nvwgf2umx.dll,nvd3dum,nvwgf2um,nvwgf2um,nvwgf2um
Driver File Version: 10.18.0013.6451 (English)
Driver Version: 10.18.13.6451
DDI Version: 12
Feature Levels: 11.0,10.1,10.0,9.3,9.2,9.1
Driver Model: WDDM 2.0
Graphics Preemption: DMA
Compute Preemption: DMA


FriendlyName: AVerMedia BDA Analog Capture Secondary
Location: n/a
Manufacturer: AVerMedia TECHNOLOGIES, Inc.
HardwareID: PCI\VEN_1A0A&DEV_6202&SUBSYS_620F1461&REV_01,PCI\VEN_1A0A&DEV_6202&SUBSYS_620F1461,PCI\VEN_1A0A&DEV_6202&CC_040000,PCI\VEN_1A0A&DEV_6202&CC_0400
DriverDesc: AVerMedia C027 PCIe HD Capture Device
DriverProvider: AVerMedia TECHNOLOGIES, Inc.
------------------------
Disk & DVD/CD-ROM Drives
------------------------
Drive: C:
Free Space: 106.8 GB
Total Space: 243.5 GB
File System: NTFS
Model: ATA Samsung SSD 840 SCSI Disk Device

Drive: D:
Free Space: 331.5 GB
Total Space: 953.7 GB
File System: NTFS
Model: ATA WDC WD1002FAEX-0 SCSI Disk Device

Drive: J:
Free Space: 378.6 GB
Total Space: 476.9 GB
File System: NTFS
Model: ATA Samsung SSD 850 SCSI Disk Device

Drive: E:
Model: ASUS DRW-24F1ST a SCSI CdRom Device
Driver: c:\windows\system32\drivers\cdrom.sys, 10.00.10586.0000 (English), 10/30/2015 00:17:22, 173568 bytes

That's a very good setup there should be no issues starting TS2016.
I guess that you have eliminated "PONTRACK.bin" issue as in other posts?
Are you running 2 monitors?
If yes, Have you tried starting with a single monitor?
Might be worth trying:
Set up a single monitor with native Windows resolution,
In TS2016 = clear the cache or delete blueprints.pak file(s) from the "ASSETS" folder,
Close Steam and TS2016,
delete/rename the playerprofiles.bin in \Railworks\content folder,
Reboot PC,
Open Steam/TS2016 (rebuilds with default settings) - does it work?
If no, it may be worth deleting/renaming, as above, the SDBCache.bin and SDBCache.bin.md5 (Scenario database files) files and let TS 2016 rebuild new ones.
After that if nothing works - maybe a format of the J: drive and a complete fresh reinstall of STEAM and TS 2016 - last resort, unless someone has other solutions (PONTS track??).
pH

Thanks very much for the help. In hindsight I should have waited, but I did another fresh install and am up and running for now. The next time it fails I will give your suggestions a try.