Thames Mersey Act 057 Down Manchester Pullman

[aj52mdy]

Hello everyone.
I have recently purchased Thames Mersey 4.3 and I am working my way through the multitude of activities starting with the early electric/BR Steam era.
Up to now all of the acts I have run have been short haul, Not right through from London to Liverpool or Manchester.
All of the acts (Useing Train store and with Bin patch version 1. have run perfectly.
I decided to try the down Manchester Pullman act with loco E3046 0750 departure from Euston calling Watford junction 0805 to 0807 then right away to Crewe,
arriving 0926, No problem driving to Crewe plenty of passing A1 traffic, No stuttering, However slowing down to 60MPH at Basford Hall I sudenly encounter
a multitude of "Failed to open SMS objects" messages, All of the track layout, buildings the bridge the country end are missing, the activity freezes but I am able to use view 2 outside the train view 3 the rear, view 4 various camera angles, I have not saved the activity anywhere therefore I have to manually
turn the computer off, I run the act again, but this time making saves, excatly the same thing happens approaching Crewe, but this time despite the track disapering I can run into the station, the platforms and a few station objects are present, I depart Crewe, and after Sydney Bridge junction everything
comes back, scenary, Masts, signals and track.
At Handford the same thing occurs multitude of "Failed to open sms objects and the act freezes, I have had to give up, I'm very disapointed not being able to complete the act, I have had no problems running other activities over this route, have been through crewe from all directions.
Can anyone give me some idea as to what has gone wrong, I have never encountered this problem before.
DO I need to reinstall Thames Mersey ?
I am running Windows XP home.
Best wishes
Andy

[expressboy1983]

Your system is out of virtual memory by the time you reach Crewe, therefore it can not load the many sound files and scenery objects present. You will then encounter an area, one MSTS tile wide, where there is very little scenery, then on the next tile everything is present and correct.

Nothing you can do about this really, doesn't depend on system specs or anything. Just how MSTS works.

The only thing you can do is save about 5 miles south of Crewe, exit MSTS completely, re-boot your system then start the activity from your save. This was how I used to complete the longer activities and worked faultlessly for me.
You'll then find you can get through Crewe and on to Manchester (Liverpool, or Warrington!) without any further hiccups.

Bit of a fuss I know, but as I said, just the way MSTS works. It's not a problem with the route or stock and there's nothing the route author can do about it.

[terrycunliffe]

As Simon says, it's an MSTS bug involving (I think) memory allocation... incidentally the BIN patch does seem to improve, but sadly not resolve, the situation.
However, I'm unsure whether a reboot of the system is absolutely necessary... I find that a 'save', and then 'reload saved activity' procedure to work for me. (I'm working on a four and a half hour activity for NWE, in which I've found I need to do just this on at least two occasions, and have even put a comment in the activity briefing so say as much!)

Again, confirming what Simon has mooted, there's nothing wrong with the route, and the only way the author could have possible avoided this is to have kept all tile objects, and as such scenery additions, to an absolute minimum. Of course such an action would have detracted from the overall ambience and enjoyment of the route.

Hope this helps.

[aj52mdy]

Hi Simon and Terry.
I was able to complete the activity after saving the approach to Crewe and another save whilst the train was waiting departure for Stockport and
Manchester. I got through to Picadilly without any further problems.
I do understand about the "Crewe tile" and how densly populated it is but I have never expierenced loss of virtual memory before.
Its defently an excellent route and I will at least know what to look for if the same thing happens on other activities.
Thanks anyway for your help.
Cheers
Andy

[michaelhendle]

Hi Andy,

The other route it's likely to happen on is Dorset Coast,I think Thames-Mersey and Dorset Coast are the largest routes,that aren't mini routes,the next largest route to these will be MEP+ which in a mini route,it will be interesting to see if this runs out of resources when running a activity that runs between Kings X - York

Mike

[brace2011]

Just a thought for discussion.

Has anyone tried running one of these monster routes after having modified the train.exe with the Large Address Aware application? I have modified my train.exe and (subjectively at least) everything seems to run smoother than before. Surprisingly the sound seems richer than before. I have also modified other (what I call) legacy software (ie. that originally developed for Windows WP and earlier; eg. MS FlightSim 2004, GTR2) and I feel that I have noticed similar improvements (significantly so in the case of GTR2). I have no scientific means of testing to make an objective judgement, since I do not have a monster MSTS route in my install, although I will treat myself to MEP when the DVD becomes available.

Have a look here for the application: http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showt ... p?t=112556

and here for MSTS-related comment: http://www.trainsim.com/vbts/showthread ... l-Comments

[slipperman12]

Hi Andy,
Martin (brace2011) asked a question about the program called Large Address Aware (LAA). I had looked at this software before, but as a result of his post, thought I'd use it in conjunction with a long activity, and this one filled the bill! Although I only had one run without, and one with, LAA I didn't notice any difference. It certainly didn't have any effect of the creation of those sms error messages, or the disappearance of track and scenery, between Basford Park Sidings and Crewe, and at Wilmslow, Cheadle Hulme & Stockport. The activity failed on approaching Manchester with an error regarding an AI train (sorry, but I didn't record the exact message!).

For the record, I ran MSTS with -mem:2048, used the soundcfg.dat file with dynamic allocation of memory (SoundSystem values of 400, 100, 0) and a Windows Page File of 8175 MB. I didn't take any saves as I didn't want to give MSTS anything else to do, except maintain the throttle and brakes! I didn't even take any screenshots

I don't think LAA will make me change my way of running activities, ie save about every 15/20 minutes !!

Cheers,
Ged

[brace2011]

Interesting. Thought it was worth a mention though, since I have never suffered a memory problem, but then I have never used a monster route.

The only difference in my set-up is that I now use -mem:4096, since adopting LAA. I'll keep the LAA modified Train.exe, although it appears that it may not make any appreciable difference.

Martin

[slipperman12]

Hi Martin,
I'll run the same activity with 4096 in the memory switch - when I've got my breath back

Cheers,
Ged

[aj52mdy]

Hmmm.
No I'm afraid I dont understand any of this.Have looked at this tech power up thread which takes me to a forum.
It looks far too complicated to me.
Think I had better stick to what I have at least I know what the problem is and can save and reload the act.
Cheers
Andy

[slipperman12]

Hi Andy,
There doesn't have to be anything complicated about using LAA, if you're using a 64 bit Operating System. In its Basic mode, it's just a case of ticking a box, and, even better, if you don't like it (or it doesn't work for you) you can remove the tick from the same box.

However, up to now, I haven't found any benefit from using the software, but I've still got another test to run

Cheers,
Ged

[brace2011]

if you don't like it (or it doesn't work for you) you can remove the tick from the same box.

Hi Ged, Andy

... or even better; back up the original Train.exe.

Maybe it has a beneficial effect, maybe it doesn't. I don't know, but subjectively it 'feels' better (maybe a placebo effect) and I haven't noticed any detrimental effect so far, so I'll leave it in place for the time being.

Certainly in GTR2 (car racing) I was unable to run one of the monster race circuits (Targa Florio) without it, but coped easily after applying LAA.

Martin

[aj52mdy]

Hi Andy,
There doesn't have to be anything complicated about using LAA, if you're using a 64 bit Operating System. In its Basic mode, it's just a case of ticking a box, and, even better, if you don't like it (or it doesn't work for you) you can remove the tick from the same box.

However, up to now, I haven't found any benefit from using the software, but I've still got another test to run

Cheers,
Ged

Hi Ged.
I have downloaded LAA 2_0_4.zip but what do I do now please, there does not appear to be any operating instructions with it.
It says step 1 Set an executable: What do I do, I have absolutly no idea what to type into this box.
Step 2 Check box to enable the application to use more then 2GB od memory, I have windows XP Home Will this work on my computer?
Im sorry but I will need quite a lot of help here, I am even unsure if my computer is set to 64 bit.
I am running MSTS on 1280 X 1024 X 16.
Edit: My system is:Inte(R) core (TM) 2 duo opu
E7500 @293GHZ
293 GHZ 300GB of RAM
My card is Nivida Ge Force 9400GT
Hope this helps
Cheers
Andy

[slipperman12]

Hi Andy,

I am even unsure if my computer is set to 64 bit.

Your processor (E7500 Core 2 Duo) is a 32/64 bit processor, so is OK, but XP Home only came in 32 bit versions (please correct me if I'm wrong!), so you need at least 3GB of memory and then there are other changes to make within the Operating System. You don't have to set anything to make a PC 64 bit - it either is, or it isn't

If I were you, Andy, I'd forget about LAA, at least with your current PC.

Cheers,
Ged

[slipperman12]

Hi Martin,
You'll probably be pleased to know that this will be my last report on LAA

I've run the same activity (using Train Store) as far as Crewe with LAA active and the mem switch set to 4096.

As far as I can tell, it made no perceivable difference to the running of MSTS, nor to the sms and scenery/track problems approaching Crewe. This, obviously, only applies to my current PC setup and others with different hardware MAY see some improvement.

Cheers,
Ged