Atomic Systems

I'm writing a tool to remove extra LoD objects from shape files, some folks over on train-sim.com have been testing the technique manually and found that by doing this they can start to use the big routes that normally throw up with inability to load files all the time. The theory being that MSTS can handle poly's now with most graphics cards people have got, but since MSTS is bad at memory, removing the LoD's helps a lot - even with the patch which increases the memory limits, if you reduce all the shape files down then it has that much less to load in the first place. The tool also ensures that every shape file is compressed when it's finished, there are quite a lot which aren't.

I ran it on Dorset 3 last night as a first test, taking about 45 minutes to run it reduced the shapes folder from about 27mb to about 18mb and in the process wiped out nearly 3,000 LoD shapes. It also resets distance levels so they are all the same.

Also using the patch, I just ran with maximum detail settings from Dorset to a few miles past Woking, lowest frame rate was about 9fps, minimal stuttering, and this was an activity with plenty of other AI traffic all the time as well so my bet is that a chunk of the stuttering was AI traffic starting.

I've got some more work to do on the tool yet to tune how it reconfigures LoD's and also make it capable of processing stock as well. Experiences over at train-sim.com indicate that with this processing you can run routes on max detail even without the patch in many cases.

I take no credit for the idea, that's Gary Gagnew's credit, I just wrote a quick tool that makes use of Okrasa Ghia's "TK" msts tools .NET library to do automatically what his Archibald helps you do manually

Matt.

Sounds good Matt,

The default scenery shapes are the worst offenders here, some shapes (even simple one's) have many LOD's!!!
Could this affect RouteRiter ability to condence routes?

Another practice I've found, is to build as much scenery as possible into one shape, i.e. on my old route I managed to build a teminus station including fences, misc. buildings, trees, etc. as only one shape. It makes one hell of a diference. And if you can use the same .ace files over again, better still!!!

Andrew.

Thanks Matt,
A good idea that will help MSTS to run better..and that is always a bonus..

Will It Require a lot of Knowledge to Use It Matt?

No, once you have the .NET Framework installed (you need it for Route Riter also I think?) then it's just a matter of pointing it at a folder full of shape files and pressing the start button, it does all the rest itself.

Shouldn't affect any other tools since it's just making a shape file smaller, the basic shape is not touched, just the lods removed.

I think that between this and savetex the amount of space used in memory ought to be considerably reduced - or if not, then certainly the amount of data being shifted in to memory should be.

More testing to do yet though before releasing it, need to make sure it doesn't have undesirable side-effects. But i was quite happy to go from Waterloo through Clapham and out the other side of Woking without a problem!

GaryG has just got back to me with his manual approach for this so i'm going to get that automated, add the ability to process sub-folders (which will make stock processing rather less tedious) and then give it another go - with all the lods removed on stock I imagine that'll be a lot less memory too. I'm also going to see whether compressing eng/wag/sd/con etc files is a) possible and b) an improvement. I figure if it Okrasa's tool can do it, it can't hurt - it's all less parsing that the MSTS engine has to do up front, once it's in binary format it's in exactly the format that it will be used in-memory.

Will keep you all updated

Matt.

Matt.

Hi Matt
Net Frame Is that the Thing Route Riter or Con Builder requires ?? If Yes I got It

Yeah it's just a simple windows app, doddle to run, took about 30 minutes to process Dorset Coast route shape files.

Matt.

Hi Matt
Was there any outcome to these tests?
Cheers
Jon

This sounds very promising. I have know Gary Gagnon for several years and he enjoys tweaking MSTS to gets its fullest potential. A tool like this will be of great help. I look forward to using it.

I got hold of Matt's LOD killer utility this weekend at the Aldershot show, so I shall be experimenting on both Dorset Coast and Thames Mersey in the coming days.

Dave

Matt,

A couple of questions.

What's Savetex?

Will your tool allow the distance all objects appear to be varied, that is can you set it at what you like?

Looking forward to trying this on MidEastPlus.

Mick Clarke

ccsdc wrote:I got hold of Matt's LOD killer utility this weekend at the Aldershot show, so I shall be experimenting on both Dorset Coast and Thames Mersey in the coming days.

Dave

Hi Dave
Was there any improvement?
I got a new graphics card the other week, and using the bin patch still unfortunately get single frame rates at Crewe.
Cheers
Jon

Jon,

To be honest I have not had time to look at the fps rates yet. I have run both routes through the LOD killer though.

With Peter at UKTS now testing the TM4 DVD, I will probably have a need to revisit some TM activities, so I will test it out then.

Dave

Ok, when is the LOD killer going to be available to us?

Dave Is it easy enough to use