Package manager

[dean1986]

Just been trying to install a few things via package manager, is anyone else finding it really slow to install? Taking roughly five minutes to install a package now. Anyone else had this? Any advice on how to speed it up?

Dean

[whiterider]

Before you install a package click 'Refresh' if you don't then it will refresh after you've installed whatever you were installing! Thus you having the wait.
In future before you install/package something up make sure to hit the refresh button!

[USRailFan]

The speed of the package manager seems to be connected to how much stuff you've got installed.

[Darpor]

A piece of advice on how to speed it up would not be to use it at all. A program such as 7-Zip can actually open the .rwp file, from which you can just manually move the included folders into your Railworks install.

[FoggyMorning]

Moving the contents of the folder Steam/steamapps/common/railworks/PackageInfo to a different location (best not to delete it) can substantially speed it up if you have a lot of extra content installed. Might also be best to leave the files relating to any Steam-acquired packages in there though, unless you inadvertently nudge Steam into re-downloading them

[Kariban]

Even removing the pi files, it's obnoxiously slow to refresh - mine takes around 45 mins now! the RW2 one I still have only takes a couple without package files - so frankly just don't use it at all. RWP files seem to be a form of zip file which any archiver can open, and if you want to package something yourself work out which files are involved, build a new asset/content tree with just those and use a compression program like winrar or even just the built-in zip thing in explorer. Or I guess RWTools, but I've never used that for packaging.

[rgreenrail]

A piece of advice on how to speed it up would not be to use it at all. A program such as 7-Zip can actually open the .rwp file, from which you can just manually move the included folders into your Railworks install.

I actually have a problem with this, I try to extract the contents of the RWP to my Railworks folder, and it copies, but there's nothing there when I look, is it copying somewhere else?

[transadelaide]

A piece of advice on how to speed it up would not be to use it at all. A program such as 7-Zip can actually open the .rwp file, from which you can just manually move the included folders into your Railworks install.

I actually have a problem with this, I try to extract the contents of the RWP to my Railworks folder, and it copies, but there's nothing there when I look, is it copying somewhere else?

What exactly are you doing when you extract the RWP? Are you right-clicking and selecting Extract Files..., Extract Here, Extract to "\" or something else?

What might be easiest is to use Extract Here, and then copy into the Railworks folder.

[FoggyMorning]

A piece of advice on how to speed it up would not be to use it at all. A program such as 7-Zip can actually open the .rwp file, from which you can just manually move the included folders into your Railworks install.

I actually have a problem with this, I try to extract the contents of the RWP to my Railworks folder, and it copies, but there's nothing there when I look, is it copying somewhere else?

You might be running into Windows UAC if your Railworks is installed in the default location. Transadelaide's tip above should help in this situation

[Ajay1]

Hi All,
I have been reading this topic with much interest as I to find myself having to wait ages for the Package Manager to load after the initial refresh when I start Railworks for the first time. Have just tried a wee experiment using WinRar to see if that would work also,by changing the .rwp ext to .rar (which it did) then opening the file into a temp location before copying over the files and folders directly into the relevant folders within Railworks. This may be of some use for others who also have WinRar.

Antony.

[gptech]

No need to rename the file, WinRAR opens .rwp files just fine, as does 7zip.

[Carinthia]

Surely the benefits of using the Installer system is that it manages the files better than just manually installing. It is hard to be certain but having watched it for many minutes, I believe it monitors dependent files and doesn't allow you to remove files that would affect other installed items.

I certainly find it takes longer to refresh with more add-ons installed but 45 minutes sounds a little worrying!

John

[Kariban]

I have a 70GB install, that's without the 7GB source folder I moved to another drive...

It's faster for me to check routes manually ( usually the less obvious places which assets get used in multiple times ) before I uninstall anything than wait for the package manager to refresh. I'm going to start generating & saving asset lists for routes in RWTools & just crosscheck there.

I should point out this is on a SSD, too.

[nobkins]

Not that it helps much but the slowness of the package manager and the poor compression of the RWP file were one of the key reasons why the Freeware Packs use a completely separate system.

The larger packs install over 1Gb of data (when uncompressed) and yet the download is less than 100Mb (so 10% of original size) and the installation (with a manual and update tool included) takes only a minute or two and uses industry standard file tracking (Microsoft System Installer). Every one of the files installed is tracked by the windows installer software.

Not only that but the most recent versions (not all packs updated yet) can be extracted just like a ZIP for those users who want full control over what they want to install rather than using the simplicity of the installer.

I'll shut up now

[jevon]

Wondering if anyone else has seen this odd Package Manager behavior since the last RW update?

Three times out of four when I click "Install" I'm presented with a blank window and the entire RW Opener program freezes. Force quitting and repeating this a few times usually eventually allows me to navigate to the window where I can select the .rwp. Sometimes, however, I actually have to reboot the OS before I can get the PM to work properly.

Hitting the Refresh button, which I do each time I install something, doesn't prevent this from happening.