Activities Freezing at the Same Time

PWHolmes · Post by **PWHolmes** » Tue Nov 16, 2004 5:31 am

I am trying to create a regular passenger traffic pattern for the superb Thames - Mersey Route. To achieve this I have created a regular "template" hourly "clock face" traffic pattern over a six hour period, with the intention of then being able to create Player Services, copy the "template" traffic pattern, delete unnecessary traffic and add a few frieghts. The time I have created for the template is from 0900 - 1500. To check it, I have put a loco at Crewe, off any of the traffic paths in the traffic file and called the player activity "Spotting at Crewe".

If I run it at x32 speed in AE, I can see all stations recieving a regular "clock face" service, just as I intended..... until 14:23:59 when

boing

it freezes with no message at all. I have no trains in the pattern at 14:24, by the way, so nothing is starting then.

I have looked at the traffic file and can see no errors.

I f I set up a simple activity in MSTS, it freezes at the same time, wherever I am.

Any ideas guys??

Paul

45002 · Post by **45002** » Tue Nov 16, 2004 7:12 am

Hi paul
could it be your pc Thames-mersey is a great route but its a huge file,i am running it on 2.8 processors,1 gb of ram,256 graphics card/3d on windows xp and it was freezing with some of the activitys i down loaded from ukts,i may be wrong.you could try running device manager on windows to see if every think is working ok.
MARTIN. birmingham

ccsdc · Post by **ccsdc** » Tue Nov 16, 2004 7:19 pm

Paul,

Process of elimination:

1. Simple activity with no traffic just your player service, which I assume you have tried, and still fails at 14:23:59

2. Ditto but remove any loose consists.

3. If still fails try starting player service 10 mins earlier, and see if it fails at 14:13:59 if it does then you know its your player service causing the problem.

4. If 3 fails try swapping the consist in the player service.

Could be a bounding box problem - we found several of these in downloaded stock when testing activities for the TM CD.

Dave

phillic · Post by **phillic** » Tue Nov 16, 2004 9:26 pm

I have had this problem when creating activities for the supurb Thames Mersey route however I believe the problem is the number of services running at anyone time. I believe Dave has mentioned this in a previous post where he suggested using fragments for services rather than my preference of running AI services complete from Euston to Liverpool, Euston to Chester, etc. so you would only run the service from say Stafford to Nuneaton.

I am currently trying to calculate the maximum amount of services running at one time. Has anyone already worked this out?

Carl Phillips

Lad491 · Post by **Lad491** » Tue Nov 16, 2004 10:24 pm

I am currently trying to calculate the maximum amount of services running at one time. Has anyone already worked this out

No... but ive had 14 running at the same time, starting them at 2 or 3 minutes intervals, without problems

jimmyladd · Post by **jimmyladd** » Tue Nov 16, 2004 11:08 pm

Lad491 wrote:
I am currently trying to calculate the maximum amount of services running at one time. Has anyone already worked this out
No... but ive had 14 running at the same time, starting them at 2 or 3 minutes intervals, without problems

Christ, I've had nearly 50 going at once, with 7 on the screen, and msts diddn't like that......

jbilton · Post by **jbilton** » Tue Nov 16, 2004 11:39 pm

Hi
Are both these two last posts talking about the Thames Mersey route?
....or some other.... less intensive route

Lad491 · Post by **Lad491** » Wed Nov 17, 2004 7:54 am

I dont have Thames/Mersey yet - waiting for CD. I was referring to other routes. Ive managed it on NWE2, mind you there were areas you had to keep AI traffic away from if you were there as the player service as well

jimmyladd · Post by **jimmyladd** » Wed Nov 17, 2004 11:02 am

Mine was on CC4, near Wolverhampton, and although msts didn't crash, it nearly did. It kept freezing for 1 or 2 seconds, playing for about 5 seconds and then freezing again. On my CoBo duty acts for nwe2, there is often about 20 sevices running at once with no detrimental effects, and on the 11:00am 5BEL to Victoria act on L2B theres about 30 running at once, without any effect. I think that the size of the route has alot to do with the maximum number of services able to run at once, the draw back with that is the bigger the route the more sevices you need to be running at once, but the less msts likes it. Also I think that if you have the same service running twice, but at different times, its less of a strain on msts than 2 completely different sevices are.
Jim

jbilton · Post by **jbilton** » Wed Nov 17, 2004 11:34 am

jimmyladd wrote:Also I think that if you have the same service running twice, but at different times, its less of a strain on msts than 2 completely different sevices are.
Jim

Hi Jim
I think your dead right there, for passing AI traffic on TM...I only used about 7 consists in total....dont think anyone will really notice as they pass you at speed....(so no number grabbing

)
Also found that proper AI eng files help...ie no cabview...and soundless locos for statics...all helped to reduce the strain on the PC.
The worst location I found was Watford..2 LUL bays occupied...a steam local... a through electric express...and the player class 40.
Used to crash my machine when it had 512Mb ram...so had to turn the sound settings down.When the LUL stock moved off the class 40 went silent

.....after upgrading to 1024Mb...put the sound settings back up..alls well...and the 40 continues to whistle away.

Cheers
Jon