Important information about SteamPipe

[TransportSteve]

My Steam Download status is telling me that I require a TS update of 12.4GB which seems ridiculous as the game was fully updated as at 20 Jan. I haven't verified the cache for a while but surely that wouldn't need such a huge download? As it is I've had to pause the update at 1GB before it chews through the remainder of my bandwidth allowance, so if there really is another 11.4GB to go then it's going to be a while before I will be able to play the game again.

Hmmm, the game will convert whatever volume of content you have on your Steam account as of today, some folks only have 10-11GB's of DLC, others, like me, have between 30-50GB's of Railworks content, you just have to wait patiently for it to go through the motions. The update will automatically verify the cache for you as it goes along, so, you don't need to do it separately afterwards, I noticed that several new files appeared in my folders after the event, and the saga of our internet bandwidth concerns us all, well, those of us who actually have to pay it monthly anyway.

Cheerz. Transport Steve.

[Griphos]

Steve, I really am not sure there is any conversion of content involved. I know the message some people get says that. We don't all get that message though (I didn't), when we have already had the conversion for other Steam games. I'm also not sure this changes anything in RW, just in Steam and its structure. I finally got the .acf file, but that's all that appears to have happened on mine. I already had the new Steam folders. I have a LOT of RW DLC. I think this process may just involve a few minor changes for those of us with other Steam games that have already made the switch.

[Iluka]

Hi All

Well I have updated OK and "Verified Integrity of Game Cache" but I cannot "Clear Cache" in Tools - I get the Message :-

Failed to Start Game (App Already Running) - See the Steam Support Site for more Information.

I can however Start up the Game & the Associated Scenarios and run everything OK.

In the steamapps Folder I have the following :-

Folders
common
downloading
sourcemods
temp

Files
amd driver updater,xp,32bit
appmanifest_24010.acf - (The Smiley face one!!)
sourceinit.gcf
winui.gcf

Apart from the above there is nothing else in the steamapps Folder

Any comments will be appreciated

Regards

Mike

[alanch]

Well I have updated OK and "Verified Integrity of Game Cache" but I cannot "Clear Cache" in Tools - I get the Message :-

Failed to Start Game (App Already Running) - See the Steam Support Site for more Information.

If you run Task manager while this is happening, you will see that Railworks.exe is still running when the script calls for it to start up again - and you can't have two copies running. All you need to do is wait until Railworks.exe closes down, and then start TS2013 again the usual way - the blueprint cache will have been cleared.

Alternatively you can construct a batch file to do the same job - just copy the following lines:

del /s Blueprints.pak
pause

Then paste them into a text file, and save it in the Railworks/Assets folder as ClearCache.bat. Then create a shortcut to this on your desktop.

[pjt1974]

I put a base installation of Steam/Railworks on a different drive to my working copy of RW on my pc overnight. It seems the automatic restart of RW by the program is flawed. You get the same if you change EAX off or on and are told the program needs to restart, the same changing graphic settings.

I did find though, when I got the message that Railworks was still running, I just pressed 'ok' to clear the message and restarted RW manually and the change that had prompted a restart had been done.

No doubt we'll get an update by Wednesday evening fixing this.

I would say though, it's quite refreshing just having a run on RW without the 'extras'. Although, it makes you appreciate 3rd party developers like Richard Armstrong alot more.

[chriscooper]

It can't be touching DLC as if it was then surely third party modifications and none steam content would have problems. Any conversion only seems to effect the base game films, not DLC.

[TransportSteve]

Steve, I really am not sure there is any conversion of content involved. I know the message some people get says that. We don't all get that message though (I didn't), when we have already had the conversion for other Steam games. I'm also not sure this changes anything in RW, just in Steam and its structure. I finally got the .acf file, but that's all that appears to have happened on mine. I already had the new Steam folders. I have a LOT of RW DLC. I think this process may just involve a few minor changes for those of us with other Steam games that have already made the switch.

Well, that is possible young Sir, far be it for me to question whether this Steampipe update and subsequent pop up boxes is completely kosher and it does actually convert anything at all, the conspirators and cynics may think all this conversion malarkey is for another reason from Valve/Steam, we'll have to wait and see what transpires in future, and I only have 1 other game apart from Railworks on my Steam account and that's Call of Duty, which I did after my Railworks had finished, not beforehand, so, I appreciate that it might not be the same for everyone, it's just that I always follow procedures, I don't do shortcuts, and I certainly don't keep bashing my keyboard to corrupt any PC game to get it to download/install/update faster than it will do normally, that's just asking for trouble, if it takes a few hours, so be it, at least I know that Steam is happy if the update completes itself as normal.

Cheerz. Steve.

[longbow]

From bad to worse - having forced me to download an implausible 12GB of "Update", Steam now wants to (re)install TS2013! There seems to be no issue with the game itself which I can launch using railworks.exe, so is there a way to reset Steam's library settings?

[bendigo]

Feeling your pain Longbow, I emailed RS.Com support, who gave me no useful info in the first email (infact it appeared they sent a generic update issue email), and when told that that would not be usable due to the fact that according to steam the game is not installed took a week to write the following:

Thank you for contacting the Railsimulator.com customer support, your inquiry has been logged with a member of our dedicated customer support team.
You will need to log a call with Steam in order to resolve this, They deal with all issues regarding Installation, software distribution and passwords relating to the use of Steam, you can register then log a call with Steam support.

This really seems to be passing the buck and hardly support, I have looged a call with steam support but i am pretty damn sure they will return with - this is an RS.Com issue.

Rob

[JamesC]

I updated train sim last night, it took about an hour and now all my AP Sounds have gone and some reskins are broke, its going to take forever to get everything back to the way it was. I have got a backup of the Assets folder, could I just copy and paste this back over to the new version and save a lot of hassle reinstalling all sound packs again and save time on fixing all the broken reskins?

[ashgray]

Hi James

I do sympathise, but if you copy your backup over the new installation, all you'd succeed in doing would be to undo the update, meaning your installation may not react correctly to future upgrades.

Reskins can be replaced easily enough - I'd recommend using ones in the Freeware Packs as they tend to be more up-to-date and therefore compliant with RS2013. As for the AP sounds - yes, you'll need to re-install all of these. One way round having to do the latter every time you have an automatic update or when you verify game cache integrity, is to install all of your AP sounds (and anything else that would get over-written by such updates or verifications) to a "mirror image of your RS2013 installation, but in a separate folder somewhere else on your system, as I do. That way, you can simply drop this mirror installation on top of your RS2013 installation and over-write the default files with your custom ones.

Hope this is clear - come back if not.

Ash

[gptech]

Have to disagree with Ash slightly here; the asset files themselves haven't changed, just how the game has indexed them so in theory copying over the back up would work. Easy test is to choose a single loco that doesn't work, copy the 'newer' version as a back up and then replace the 'newer' version with the one from your older working backup.

[ashgray]

Gary - you may well be right, but having fallen foul of just this problem in the past, I usually exercise caution these days where over-writing files is concerned, particularly where the vendor has some control over the content of my PC!

Ash

[gptech]

I certainly agree with caution Ash, that's why I'm hanging on to my 'pre steampipe' backup for quite a while longer

The only changes that this particular update will reverse are those detected by the verify routine that was instigated, so mods such as AP's sound packs and any reskins that have replaced the default textures will be negated. Steam has no knowledge of any reskins applied to copies of assets, if they were being chopped and changed wholesale then the forum would be full of angry posts---James, which reskins are causing problems?

[JamesC]

I have now changed the new asset folder for my backup, everything now is back to what it was. The reskins were broke were the Mk3 sleeper coaches from the Class 67 pack, the virgin pendolino and some reskins I have for the Dash 9 Pack. I'm hoping that now i've gone back to my old asset folder I will not have any trouble downloading any new assets I will buy in the future from steam.