AP Route Enhancement Pack and TS2018 - a review

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ttjph
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Re: AP Route Enhancement Pack and TS2018 - a review

Post by ttjph »

jp4712 wrote:So, what is the rate-limiting factor? The reason I ask is that I have a PC with 32Gb RAM; and a GTX980 Ti graphics card; and still I get vertex buffer error dumps from time to time. But my PC is a bit like an old hammer with a new handle and new head, the actual chassis and motherboard are 5+ years old and the chip is only an i7-2700K @3.50GHz. So is this the weak link? I've heard it said that TS is CPU-bound, so being a non-techie I'm wondering if I should go for a replacement chip.

I have the AP pack but to be honest I don't know if it has improved performance or not.

Paul
Simple check: is your GPU at 100% most of the time (assuming no frame rate limit)? If not, then the CPU is the weak link. Affected by settings, of course, but it's easier to reduce the load on the video card than the CPU ultimately.

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TransportSteve
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Re: AP Route Enhancement Pack and TS2018 - a review

Post by TransportSteve »

gptech wrote:
TransportSteve wrote: I have manually gone into every one of my .AP route Asset packs, British, American and German, including some locomotive and wagon packs, to delete a wide variety of assorted content, including ambient audio folders,
That doesn't stop the route looking for those assets though Steve, so you may eventually cause a conflict because of missing assets--Nor does it prevent those archives being restored to their original condition if they're updated or you run a verify.
Yes, but, I then run the route through RW Tools and delete the missing items accordingly, so, the game doesn't look for them, all sound files are classed as scenery items, rather than lofts, which you can't delete in RWTools, so, that finishes off that little project, and afterwards when I have upgraded my .AP file, it gets stored on a storage disk, still intact, so, if DTG do upgrade the route on Steam in future, which they have been doing recently adding superfluous Chinese and Russian language folders, for example, which I don't want and delete anyway, so, I put the old .AP file back in.
It's all about good housekeeping on our computers, which you obviously are also on top of, but, lots of other people just don't bother, then, wonder why their games are crashing, and routes are lagging.
Talking about Ambient Audio folders, I bet you 75% of the community don't even know what is inside their folders on these routes if they bothered to look, and this is where personal preference comes in, the Ambient Audio files contain various dav sound files for level crossings, waves on the seashore, birdsongs, church bells, etc, etc, etc, which I personally want to keep, depending on that particular route, but, I can delete all the other noises that to me are intrusive and unneccessary. If you look at all the folders through 7zip, you can have Ambient folders that are up to 500mb in volume just in the one Audio folder on any given route, if you deleted half that ''fluff'' just think what saving you can make, but, YOU decide which files you want to keep. AFAICR Richard's pack deletes all the files in these folders, I don't want that, I need to cherry pick the good ones to keep and get rid of the ''dross'', we can all do that ourselves, but, more importantly, we all want to hear different sounds on our layouts, however, just think of the Gigabytes we can all save, on let's say, 150 routes, by doing basic housekeeping, I have nearly 250 routes downloaded from around the world, the savings are huge, but, you have to put the time in and do the work to get the results.

I'm surprised folks still haven't done this after we've had the game since Kuju days, 11 years ago, we've had these .AP files now for what, 5 years, isn't it?

Cheerz. Steve.
Last edited by TransportSteve on Wed Jun 13, 2018 11:53 am, edited 3 times in total.
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gptech
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Re: AP Route Enhancement Pack and TS2018 - a review

Post by gptech »

Steve,
TransportSteve wrote:we've had these .AP files now for what, 5 years,


...and even after all that time, and all that's been written about them, you've still got the stick held at the wrong end regarding how .ap archives work
TransportSteve wrote:AFAICR Richard's pack deletes all the files in these folders
The AP pack doesn't touch those archives, doesn't change a single file inside them. A number of sound files for each route's asset 'pack' are contained in the AP offering; these live outside of the pack but in the exact same folder structure and have the same name as the ones inside the archive. The game then reads the smaller, external files rather than the default, inside the archive files. The addition of those folders to your hard drive does not mean that ONLY those new folders are used--archived files that don't have an external copy are still read.
You're also harping on about file size, and for some obscure reason the volume of sounds---the amount of disc space a file takes up is not necessarily how much memory is used when that file is read or processed--it could be less, could be more, could be a large amount for a short time or a small amount spread over a long time.
TransportSteve wrote:just think of the Gigabytes we can all save, on let's say, 150 routes.
I'm all for 'good housekeeping' along those lines, but you're unfairly criticising AP's pack because of your misconceptions about the workings of .ap archives and how duplicates of files mirrored outside of the archive work. If your strategy works for you nobody can tell you you're wrong by doing things that way, but they can when you report on things with totally the wrong idea of how the AP pack works. If the hyperthetical 150 routes and associated assets are squeezed onto a disc that doesn't have the capacity that's not AP's fault, nor their responsibility.
AP may have *imaginatively* described/marketed the pack, but your reasons for criticising it are even more imaginary.
TransportSteve
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Re: AP Route Enhancement Pack and TS2018 - a review

Post by TransportSteve »

gptech wrote: A number of sound files for each route's asset 'pack' are contained in the AP offering; these live outside of the pack but in the exact same folder structure and have the same name as the ones inside the archive.
But, what are these files, that's the question, they might be the exact same sound files I don't want and I've already deleted them out of my original .AP file, I don't want Richard's pack putting them all back in again.

Cheerz. Steve.
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gptech
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Re: AP Route Enhancement Pack and TS2018 - a review

Post by gptech »

TransportSteve wrote:But, what are these files, that's the question, they might be the exact same sound files
They'll be named the same, they have to be to take precedence over the default, archived files, but they're much, much smaller (as in 1KB) and from what I've gathered are silent. I believe there about 400 files in the enhancement pack, so adding that 400KB of files to your hard drive is roughly the same as adding 1/8 of a default Kuju Class 47's .GeoPcDx file---if you're that short of disc space you definitely need to do more than just delete a few files to create space. Think about it Steve, adding the exact same files wouldn't be much of a change would it?
As you haven't deleted the files totally you'll find it very easy to see (hear) just what the files are and the difference between the default and AP files. Just pick a pair, run them through the .dav to .wav converter (UKTS File 18204) and you can play those .wav conversions outside of the game.
Alternatively, restore the .ap archive and create a new route containing just a single one of the sound files and listen to it in-game.
hstfan44
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Re: AP Route Enhancement Pack and TS2018 - a review

Post by hstfan44 »

TransportSteve wrote:It might be an impartial view from Peter, but, it still doesn't address the fundamental issues of how much memory one has available on one's hard drive when accessing the game to play it, without it crashing, which this pack certainly cannot address. And I still fail to see how any folder, or, texture file, can be reduced by this Payware pack, when all the Ambient Audio files, etc, etc, are inside .AP files that cannot be penetrated by anything. All, but, two of the DTG British routes Richard has listed on his website is in an .AP file, which we keep being told not to touch. I have manually gone into every one of my .AP route Asset packs, British, American and German, including some locomotive and wagon packs, to delete a wide variety of assorted content, including ambient audio folders, which you can do quite successfully using 7zip, and still leave the .AP file intact, Richard's payware offering can only access the Brighton Mainline and Settle to Carlisle routes as they were both released in 2012, before the .AP file structure was ever invented by DTG, all the others are enclosed in one.

I think Richard has cashed in one those who just can't be bothered to do the job themselves, which you can't fault him for in a way.

Cheerz. Steve.
After reading this it's clear you don't quite understand how .ap files work in the game, if the same files are duplicated outside of the .ap file in the exact same folder structure then the game will use those instead of looking inside the .ap file, think about it, all the soundpacks released by ap for dlc that are inside .ap files wouldn't work if the game just ignored any files that are outside the .ap file.

I did purchase this enhancement pack, for £2.99 there's nothing to moan about price wise, I also decided to cherry pick what sounds I'd like overwritten by removing all the 1kb files for the bird & nature sounds as I wanted to keep them so whether someone purchases this pack or not, they can still cherry pick which files they'd like this enhancement pack to replace with blank 1kb audio files. In fact it wasn't until the release of this pack that I discovered that ambient audio was related to the sim crashing due to running out of memory so I went through some routes I have which this pack doesn't touch, western mainlines being one of them & replaced some of the audio files with the 1kb blank audio files from this pack after renaming the file names to match of course.

I don't think Richard cashed in on anything personally and as mentioned above, I didn't even know about ambient audio being linked to the sim crashing but after seeing the size of some audio files I can see why too many of them could cause issues so I for one am glad it got released, it opened my eyes and as I said above, I've already gone through other routes and replaced some ambient audio that I don't want with the tiny blank audio file.
Springer6
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Re: AP Route Enhancement Pack and TS2018 - a review

Post by Springer6 »

hstfan44 wrote: I did purchase this enhancement pack, for £2.99 there's nothing to moan about price wise, I also decided to cherry pick what sounds I'd like overwritten by removing all the 1kb files for the bird & nature sounds as I wanted to keep them so whether someone purchases this pack or not, they can still cherry pick which files they'd like this enhancement pack to replace with blank 1kb audio files. In fact it wasn't until the release of this pack that I discovered that ambient audio was related to the sim crashing due to running out of memory so I went through some routes I have which this pack doesn't touch, western mainlines being one of them & replaced some of the audio files with the 1kb blank audio files from this pack after renaming the file names to match of course.

I don't think Richard cashed in on anything personally and as mentioned above, I didn't even know about ambient audio being linked to the sim crashing but after seeing the size of some audio files I can see why too many of them could cause issues so I for one am glad it got released, it opened my eyes and as I said above, I've already gone through other routes and replaced some ambient audio that I don't want with the tiny blank audio file.
Thanks for your experience. I was always interested in this pack, but, like you, I want to retain some of the ambient sounds. How did you cherry pick i.e. remove "all the 1kb files for the bird and nature sounds" ? I have long wanted to look inside AP installers ( e.g I wanted to see which of the Kuju Class 47s the sound pack affected), but I have been unable to find a method of looking inside these installers, before applying them. I would like to select which parts I overwrite. How do you do it please ?
AndyUK
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Re: AP Route Enhancement Pack and TS2018 - a review

Post by AndyUK »

Springer6 wrote: .... I have long wanted to look inside AP installers ( e.g I wanted to see which of the Kuju Class 47s the sound pack affected), but I have been unable to find a method of looking inside these installers .....
7-zip opens the installers I've tried looking at.

Andy L
Springer6
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Re: AP Route Enhancement Pack and TS2018 - a review

Post by Springer6 »

AndyUK wrote:
Springer6 wrote: .... I have long wanted to look inside AP installers ( e.g I wanted to see which of the Kuju Class 47s the sound pack affected), but I have been unable to find a method of looking inside these installers .....
7-zip opens the installers I've tried looking at.

Andy L
Andy,
Have you tried it on one of the AP installers ? I have tried it on every one of mine and it will not unzip them at all.

I have opened other installers etc with 7-zip, but not the AP ones.

If you can use 7-zip can you give me a step by step of what you do please? :)

springer
AndyUK
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Re: AP Route Enhancement Pack and TS2018 - a review

Post by AndyUK »

Check your pm inbox.

Andy L
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Re: AP Route Enhancement Pack and TS2018 - a review

Post by Stone75 »

TransportSteve wrote:Yes, sorry, it's disk space I was trying to remember, if you have very little of it available on your hard drive, the game crashes automatically. especially, on a big route, this pack from Richard doesn't address that issue. Neither does it substitute the 3rd party audio files, Autobahn traffic flows and Station platform announcements, for example, from the Germans, French, Italians, Spanish, etc, etc, that are very big in volume and all in different languages.

Cheerz. Steve.
Steam has the ability to uninstall individual DLC packs. You may already know this of course. You go into steam library, right click TS2018, properties then the DLC tab. Untick the tick boxes to uninstall anything you don't want currently. At the moment I have all my American and European routes/stock uninstalled. Also I removed all my steam locos while my interest is more current in time. I have fibre so takes seconds if I want them back on. Saves some HD space and also TS fires up quicker.

steve
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Re: AP Route Enhancement Pack and TS2018 - a review

Post by Springer6 »

AndyUK wrote:Check your pm inbox.

Andy L
Thanks Andy, we both sorted it at the same time. As you say, "great minds". :D
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