Atomic Systems

An overdose of abbreviations I know!

I have a problem with the SDJR. This problem manifests itself on two PCs,with different OSs (one XP, one Vista 32bit) and running two different versions of MSTSBin (1.7 stable version and latest 1.8 test version). So if anyone's got any ideas I'd be grateful!

In any activity (even a test one I created myself with no static and no AI traffic) when I leave Bournemouth Park West heading for Bath, when I pass the signal at MP112 I get a CTD - black screen then a standard "train.exe has stopped working" dialogue box.

Any help gratefully received!

Hi Chaz,
I've not seen this problem reported before. I have just run an Explore and an activity, using different locos, from Bournemouth West to Bath with no problem - not even a stutter!

Does this happen on other parts of the route? Does it happen with any loco, or one in particular? Does it occur when using any camera view? Are you using some self-built stock?

Apologies for all the questions, but we want to help you get to the bottom of it

Cheers,
Ged

Hi,

I've only loaded the activity pack and its required rolling stock so far. I have had it happen elsewhere on the route, and I'm going to try and document where. There was one activity where it happened as soon as I closed the briefing window (I think it was Milk Train)! So far the only activity that hasn't caused a CTD is the one spotting one I tried. What I've seen of the route looks great, but unfortunately that's not that much of it.

The Bournemouth CTD has happened with both Pines Express activities, a stopping train activity and using a Warship on the test activity I created. It's occurred in head-out view on the steam locos and drivers cab on the Warship. I'll go and try it in external shortly.

Thanks for investigating!

Hi Chaz,
I've just tried to replicate your problem, but everything checks out fine.
mp. 112 is just West of Parkstone station and I've passed it several times with different consists and no problems.
Have you tried downloading the route again and running the batch file?

Chris.

Hi Chaz & Chris,
I've had odd crashes on other routes, which have been corrected by replacing the original soundcfg.dat with either the one that comes with the Bin patch, or the one from Otto's site.

Chaz : Have you tried moving the 'Quantity of Sounds' slider down to Medium? - or even Low!

Cheers,
Ged

I'll certainly try those in a minute. I do get the crash in external view as well at the same point, however this time I also did a save just before entering Parkstone platform, and it did get past the signal at MP112, for about 5 miles, then the same thing happened again

Er, Chris, what batch file? Only the installation instructions say "There is no batch file". And the route was downlaoded separately to each PC....

Right, back to testing!

Thanks for the rapid responses.

Well it's not the sounds slider.....

chazcozens wrote:
Er, Chris, what batch file? Only the installation instructions say "There is no batch file". And the route was downlaoded separately to each PC....

Sorry, my bad, I sometimes have a job remembering what I did 5 minutes ago.

Hi Chaz,
Separate downloads to different PCs, each with a different Bin patch installed and running a different OS. You sure know how to have a problem!

I think we've covered the usual things, so what's next?
Have you installed UKFinescale 3.1.6 (UKTS file 11889) and New Roads v4 (UKTS file 6254)? If so, it may be worth it to re-install them - I seem to remember I had a problem once where I had installed them before installing the route, which then overwrote some of the files.

Even if both PCs were short on resources, it's very unlikely they would have the same problem in the same place!

As you can tell, I'm out of suggestions

Cheers,
Ged

Chris, I know that feeling only too well....

ANd it's not soundcfg.dat, either.

Ged, you posted while I was writing mine - I'll try that in the morning, sounds like a poss. ANd as for the PCs - I know , especially as one is a "just about powerful enough to run MSTS" laptop and the other is a high-spec gaming machine which returns high frame rates in just about everything...

Thanks for the help so far I'll try again tomorrow - I can hear my bed calling...

Are you running MSTS with the mem switch? Just a thought!

latimers wrote:Are you running MSTS with the mem switch? Just a thought!

Having re-installed both roads and finescale with no success I was just about to leave for work when your post arrived. I realised that when I moved MSTS on the main PC a few months ago I hadn't used the mem switch when creating the new shortcuts (and as the laptop was never a serious installation, only for something to play over Xmas when my main PC PSU died two days before Xmas eve..., it never had it). Interestingly when I put -mem 1024 I had the same crash....
..a mile earlier! So it looks like it is memory-related, and when I get home tonight I'm going to try it with - mem 2048 and see what happens.

Thanks for the suggestion!

Hi,
I ran the SDJR to investigate the MP112 problem, and I don't get the CTD, in fact, SDJR seems to be stable on my installation, giving average frame rates in comparison to other routes.
If re-installing SDJR itself does not work, I would suspect the capabilities of the computer graphics, and perhaps try turning down settings a notch or two before going off into the relative obscurity of fixed memory settings. Hope you get it cracked soon.

Regards

Tbh I'd be surprised if it was graphics, I'm running an nVidia GTX460 with 1Gb memory....

Hi Chaz,
You seem to be gradually ruling out all the usual culprits
My setup is running quite happily with mem:1024, so I don't think that will solve your problem - I think I read somewhere that MSTS doesn't use more than about 768KB of the memory.

I suggest looking at what other software is running on your PCs - particularly defragmentation and anti-virus - then stop everything except for MSTS. I don't suggest you try and stop the various services which are running - that would be asking for trouble There is a useful little freeware routine called GameBooster (http://www.iobit.com/gamebooster.html) which is used to safely turn of unrequired services, among other tweaks. I would only go with this software after you've exhausted all other possibilities.

Cheers,
Ged