Problems while running LSE and other long routes

[mikesimpson]

Hi David and Tony,

I have placed an update on my site http://members.optusnet.com.au/virtualtrains as RR6246up.zip

1. Make sure that the Global\tsection.dat is a full version (e.g. a standardised tsection.dat which has not been compacted).

2. Select the Route on the front RR screen by double clicking on the route name, then clicking 'Confirm Route'

3. Click the 'Make tsection.dat for use with TrainStore' button

4. A file with the name 'routename_tsection.dat' e.g. USA1_tsection.dat will be built in the Global folder.

5. You can then point to this file within Train-Store as the file to use with USA1 - Note that if you use this option, then ALL other routes must be stored or you will get a Send/Don't send message when you run MSTS.

Please advise of any problems with this.

[buffy500]

This is interesting, it might explain a few issues which I've not been able to resolve with people for LSE.

[asalmon]

Mike, that sounds ideal. Well done.

[Iluka]

Hi Tony

You have a PM from me.

Kindest Regards

Mike

[mikesimpson]

This is interesting, it might explain a few issues which I've not been able to resolve with people for LSE.

Hi Buffy,

I first found that LSE would work better on my PC when I used RR's 'Make tsection.dat' option to reduce the size of the tsection.dat so that it only included entries for the track/road sections which you actually have installed.

My feeling is that the standardised tsection.dat is now just getting too big and as MSTS reads it on startup, it does swallow a lot of unnecessary resources.

[buffy500]

It makes sense.

I don't know what the 'cost' is of loading a track or road reference, but it would not take much for the current tesection to start to get a real resource hogger like consists.

[dforrest]

Mike, can I suggest some BIG RED FLASHING warning for RR actions which can potentially delete files with no backup. This would help idiots like me who, in wanting to see how this new route tsection.dat feature works, accidentally press the "Mini-Route Compact Track and tsection" button (well it is new and very prominently placed!) and delete about 7,000 files from the global/shapes folder .............................

David

[timbooth]

The tsection.dat is not really a burden to MSTS, the problem is that MSTS loads the tdb/rdb, and other files, for the routes installed. The LSE has a large tdb, its filesize is bigger than the global tsection.dat - and probably takes longer to process as there's more data to be extracted.

Basically, the more routes you have installed, the more files MSTS loads when starting up - so the slower it gets, and used more memory .
Even if all routes used default shapes, so the tsection.dat was small, the TDB's could still get just as big - so routes would take just as long to load. There's not really much data in the tsection.dat, as its heavily padded.

For best performance, you should just have one route installed (or swapped in) at a time - then the tsection.dat can be optimised for that route, and it doesn't matter if it uses not-standard shapes/sections.

Whilst tsection.dat is not perfect, its not entirely to blame for poor MSTS load times.

[mikesimpson]

Mike, can I suggest some BIG RED FLASHING warning for RR actions which can potentially delete files with no backup. This would help idiots like me who, in wanting to see how this new route tsection.dat feature works, accidentally press the "Mini-Route Compact Track and tsection" button (well it is new and very prominently placed!) and delete about 7,000 files from the global/shapes folder .............................

David

HI David,

It is intended for use with the Mini-Routes only, i.e. it reduces the size of the Global\Shapes folder in a Mini-Route - If you click it while a main MSTS route folder is selected, then it will delete all files from Global\Shapes which are not required for the route selected.

I hope you had backups?

Meanwhile I will do as you suggest, at least I will post a warning on that button.

[salopiangrowler]

well i got 905 consist's on 22 routes and im still happy.

[mikesimpson]

Basically, the more routes you have installed, the more files MSTS loads when starting up - so the slower it gets, and used more memory .
Even if all routes used default shapes, so the tsection.dat was small, the TDB's could still get just as big - so routes would take just as long to load. There's not really much data in the tsection.dat, as its heavily padded.

For best performance, you should just have one route installed (or swapped in) at a time - then the tsection.dat can be optimised for that route, and it doesn't matter if it uses not-standard shapes/sections.

Whilst tsection.dat is not perfect, its not entirely to blame for poor MSTS load times.

Hi Tim,

With LSE installed on my PC (with something like 850 consists and 2500 rolling stock items). It locked up on any activity I tried in LSE, although it would run in explore mode.

However when I ran the RR option to remove all items from the tsection.dat file which were not installed, the Activities all worked fine. I therefore am convinced that the tsection.dat does make a difference to the resources available to MSTS.

I agree with you that the less routes you have installed (preferably only one - hence the mini-route option), and then having an optimised tsection.dat you get much better performance.

I have now improved the options in RR and you can now either produce an optimised tsection.dat for a single route for use with TrainStore. Build a mini-route with the same optimised tsection.dat or you can cut down your tsection.dat so that it works with all installed routes, but does not include any track sections/road sections which are not on your PC.

This latest version now removes all _Info as well as _Skip lines from the tsection.dat files.

[dforrest]

Mike, can I suggest some BIG RED FLASHING warning for RR actions which can potentially delete files with no backup. This would help idiots like me who, in wanting to see how this new route tsection.dat feature works, accidentally press the "Mini-Route Compact Track and tsection" button (well it is new and very prominently placed!) and delete about 7,000 files from the global/shapes folder .............................

David

HI David,

It is intended for use with the Mini-Routes only, i.e. it reduces the size of the Global\Shapes folder in a Mini-Route - If you click it while a main MSTS route folder is selected, then it will delete all files from Global\Shapes which are not required for the route selected.

I hope you had backups?

Meanwhile I will do as you suggest, at least I will post a warning on that button.

I realised that soon after I had done it! Yes, I had a backup which was almost up-to-date.

.

[timbooth]

...

With LSE installed on my PC (with something like 850 consists and 2500 rolling stock items). It locked up on any activity I tried in LSE, although it would run in explore mode.

However when I ran the RR option to remove all items from the tsection.dat file which were not installed, the Activities all worked fine. I therefore am convinced that the tsection.dat does make a difference to the resources available to MSTS.
...

I have the LSE installed with other routes and don't have a problem with a full tsection.dat - so its an aggregation effect, rather than just the size of tsection.dat. Don't forget, all paths, services, and activities are loaded as well as tdb/rdb/tsection.dat/sigcfg/sigscr/etc. M$ must of been involved - terrible memory management

I think the future is single-route MSTS installations, whichever way thats achieved - where its optimised as much as possible. Also makes the route easier to use. The easier, and safer, this is for end users the better.

[eddief]

I think the future is single-route MSTS installations.

I did try that, having seperate installs of MSTS 1 for each route (except the 6 default routes) and it too slowed down MSTS but that was because I had them all on 1 drive so the number of copied components reduced the hard drive free space, as soon as I went over to Train Store things seem to worek ok now .

[timbooth]

I think the future is single-route MSTS installations.

I did try that, having seperate installs of MSTS 1 for each route (except the 6 default routes) and it too slowed down MSTS but that was because I had them all on 1 drive so the number of copied components reduced the hard drive free space, as soon as I went over to Train Store things seem to worek ok now .

Thats what I meant, by using Train Store/RR/etc. so you only have one route active. That should be the advice to anyone having problems when having several routes installed.

The advantage in creating additonal MSTS installations is that you don't need to swap back and forth - but yes, you need enough disk space. You can though delete the following folders to free up disk space:

samples (77MB)
templates (13MB)
route geography extractor (38MB)
utils (3MB)

A raw MSTS installation (without routes, trains, or global folder) is only 100MB.

I'm not sure if its already done/considered in RR, but if the mini-route concept could clone a cut-down MSTS installation for the mini-route then
that would make it easy to set up a standalone route. The mini-MSTS installation would then only be 100MB + Global + Trains (+ anything new in the other folders). Saves having to reinstall MSTS or copy files across manually.