Agatha's Country I - New route

hi john, i know about the problems you mention, i was just a little confused by the original post seemed to be saying that all was well when uploaded, just pointing out that the dependancies would be on his PC, and if hes fixed the errors then they wouldnt show up either

cheers

Gav

I'm confused. Which errors are you talking about? The errors in the layout kuid or somewhere else?

Thanks

Cheerio John
 
Update

1. I found that my copy of TRS's Railyard contains the City of Truro and SR01 after having downloaded them as part of Agatha's Country Tour. The CMP says that the City of Truro has 3 faulty dependencies - front truck, middle truck, and the interior. ??? I put the engine into a layout - it runs fine. It's a 4-4-0, with all wheels, valve gear, etc. present. The cab interior looks fine to me.

SR01 looks and runs good. I did not check on what's supposed to be wrong with it. These are TRS 2004 assets, so maybe 2006 doesn't recognize something about each and thinks they are faulty.

SR 0-4-4T M7 class is listed in the Railyard, but there is no model shown, and it cannot be placed into a session. Guess there really is something wrong with it.

2. I searched out City of Truro directly on the DLS. Tried to download its Pack independently of the CMP. It would not download??? I was properly logged in with a FCT, but no download. Maybe I did something wrong.

3. While making another attempt to install Agatha's Country I, the map, CMP stalled - let it go over an hour and it never found what it was looking for while searching (as shown on the status bar). That was longer than was required on the first (and faulty) installation already discussed. So, I closed it out. Then I restarted my computer. I had discovered on earlier occasions that closing CMP while it is frozen has bad effects on subsequent use of the computer. As on such previous occasions, Windows had trouble closing - Jet was still running and would not respond, so I was given one of those dialog boxes you get for a non-responding program you are trying to close with ctrl-alt-delete.

4. I tried to open Agatha's map. Extremely long time. Opened up a bit, then a little bit more, etc. When I thought it was finally open, I could not move the compass - then I could move it a little - in big jumps. I finally closed it down. Then I closed TRS. This produced error boxes, and I restarted the computer again -- same as with closing a frozen CMP, Jet was till running and would not respond.

5. I've deleted the map and the tour.

Keith, I wonder if there is simply too much content. I got Murchison Logging from Sirgibby -- all three versions - huge route. He packaged it so that it could be run either as a standard version or a high-quality version, the latter being for high-power machines. The difference between the two is the amount of non-trackage content in each. My machine is 2.8 ghz with 1 gig of ram. Forget the specs on my video card, but they are fairly good - upgraded last year. His standard version runs well on my computer, but the high-power version stutters along. I can move around in it very well in Surveyor, too.

Also, Sirgibby packaged Murchison in a content file, as in Import Content. It imported fairly quickly, and then all I had to do was commit it.

The point is that for a very large and complex route, it may be that the DLS is not well suited as a means of transferring everything.

That's just a theory!

Dick
 
1. I found that my copy of TRS's Railyard contains the City of Truro and SR01 after having downloaded them as part of Agatha's Country Tour. The CMP says that the City of Truro has 3 faulty dependencies - front truck, middle truck, and the interior. ??? I put the engine into a layout - it runs fine. It's a 4-4-0, with all wheels, valve gear, etc. present. The cab interior looks fine to me.

SR01 looks and runs good. I did not check on what's supposed to be wrong with it. These are TRS 2004 assets, so maybe 2006 doesn't recognize something about each and thinks they are faulty.

SR 0-4-4T M7 class is listed in the Railyard, but there is no model shown, and it cannot be placed into a session. Guess there really is something wrong with it.

2. I searched out City of Truro directly on the DLS. Tried to download its Pack independently of the CMP. It would not download??? I was properly logged in with a FCT, but no download. Maybe I did something wrong.

3. While making another attempt to install Agatha's Country I, the map, CMP stalled - let it go over an hour and it never found what it was looking for while searching (as shown on the status bar). That was longer than was required on the first (and faulty) installation already discussed. So, I closed it out. Then I restarted my computer. I had discovered on earlier occasions that closing CMP while it is frozen has bad effects on subsequent use of the computer. As on such previous occasions, Windows had trouble closing - Jet was still running and would not respond, so I was given one of those dialog boxes you get for a non-responding program you are trying to close with ctrl-alt-delete.

4. I tried to open Agatha's map. Extremely long time. Opened up a bit, then a little bit more, etc. When I thought it was finally open, I could not move the compass - then I could move it a little - in big jumps. I finally closed it down. Then I closed TRS. This produced error boxes, and I restarted the computer again -- same as with closing a frozen CMP, Jet was till running and would not respond.

5. I've deleted the map and the tour.

Keith, I wonder if there is simply too much content. I got Murchison Logging from Sirgibby -- all three versions - huge route. He packaged it so that it could be run either as a standard version or a high-quality version, the latter being for high-power machines. The difference between the two is the amount of non-trackage content in each. My machine is 2.8 ghz with 1 gig of ram. Forget the specs on my video card, but they are fairly good - upgraded last year. His standard version runs well on my computer, but the high-power version stutters along. I can move around in it very well in Surveyor, too.

Also, Sirgibby packaged Murchison in a content file, as in Import Content. It imported fairly quickly, and then all I had to do was commit it.

The point is that for a very large and complex route, it may be that the DLS is not well suited as a means of transferring everything.

That's just a theory!

Dick

The City of Truro is an example of an item made by someone else that the layout creator has no control over. They merely assemble the parts. I say merely, I understand this particular layout has taken about two years to come this far.

When you purchase a commercial game the "programmers" are given a target machine quite often low end that the game is to run on. They are also often given the maximum number of polygons and texture sizes to be used on a particular shot. Trainz is different, I know I make what works on my machine, which happens to be a 2.4 P4 but I do run 2 gigs of memory and have an ATI 850 PE XT video card which is still quite respectable even today. On my machine the layout performance is acceptable. Note the cpu is slower than yours. I assume you have a reasonable amount of L2 cache on your CPU. You might like to bring your memory up to 2.5 gigs min it does help.

My personal attitude to people who have performance problems with my personal creations is I take reasonable care that it runs on my machine and the beta testers but at the end of the day if you want to run it it's up to you to have enough horse power.

On a layout with performance problems on lower end machines in Trainz there is something called Surveyor, go in there and make some changes. First have you got all the content, if not delete missing items, this will give you a performance boost. Next at the place where you are having problems go in Surveyor and inspect the landscape can you reduce the variety of trees? Can you modify the config.txt files of items with smoking chimneys to reduce the load? Look for high poly scenery items, find lower poly alternatives. Check the track is there a lower poly lower detailed track that would work better on your machine? What size screen display are you using? I use 1024 by 768 if you are using a wide screen display at native resolution say 1440 by 900 do the maths on how many pixels you have. The more pixels the more horse power you will need. Don't forget your Trainzoptions.txt file and your sliders move them down to the left and it will run faster. Also Trainz needs good Windows Drivers this means things like making sure your drivers are up to date and you are running on Intel or ASUS motherboards something with high quality Windows drivers, and since you are running the CPU at 100% you need both a good power supply and good cooling or the system will overheat giving odd results.

Using a UPS will reduce the number of hard disk bad writes due to voltage drops or brown outs. From time to time it might also be worthwhile reinstalling Windows and Trainz. Windows tends to get cluttered with "junk" Malware, spy ware etc and just turning the machine off usually doesn't allow all the writes to be made to the hard drive resulting in corruption over time.

By the way CMP is a database system. It is not recommended for any database system that you just turn it off whilst it is processing.

Trainz needs more content creators and personally I happen to like high detailed UK layouts of this time period. If they don't work for you at the moment fine, wait until you get a better understanding of the internals of Trainz and a faster machine. Items that were complained of for performance reasons three years ago work fine today on today’s hardware. Can you reasonably expect some one to work out what will be an "average" machine in two years time and build a layout to that spec? Remember they don't get paid for this so will probably use the machine they have to hand.

Trainz strangely enough does not care where the items came from. Items downloaded from the DLS run just as fast as the same items downloaded from other places. Together with my beta testers I've done some careful speed trials on my locos using ones before they were uploaded and ones after they were down loaded from the DLS. They took exactly the same time and reached exactly the same speeds on the track pulling exactly the same load.

Where the files come from makes no difference. I admit Sirgibby does a nice job of packaging but at the end of the day I think you have to take some responsibility and say if I want to run high detailed, high quality layouts then I have to have a suitable machine.

Yes Keith could have spent more time on it and optimised it for slower machines but to wring the last performance gains out of a layout takes a lot of effort and how far do you go? On balance I think he has done a very reasonable job and I also think content creators need encouraging not discouraging. Currently I'm working with someone who has about a dozen locos partially finished in GMAX. He became discouraged some time ago when rivet counter who hadn't created anything mentioned he had the wrong number and shape of rivets on the side. Getting him back on track is taking time but we now have the satisfaction of a couple of locos recently uploaded to the DLS.

I do look forward to seeing your creations on the DLS by the way. With the new tutorials GMAX isn't that hard and it might also give you more of an insight of what is involved.

Cheerio John
 
John and Keith:

Thanks to John for a well-reasoned and informed response to my post that preceded his. I still have much to learn about Trainz.

Keith, I certainly do not want to discourage you and appreciate all the time you have spent - and all the time John and others spend in providing us with useful and entertaining content for few returns except when things don't work.

Perhaps I overdid my reporting (it really was meant to be that - the imparting of information, not criticism). Many other Trainzers read these threads, and from what I have seen in postings, many also use mid- or sub-standard machines like mine.

The database point, John, is interesting. Apparently, when working with Surveyor, you are intimately involved with a database. So, when I shut down a slow-moving Agatha's Country I, Surveyor was still looking for and installing content, and what I did was to interrupt a dB operation. That explains the need for a reboot.

I wasn't touting Sirgibby (my apologies to him if I've embarrassed him) or the Murchison route, but the method that was used in its distribution. I'd really like to hear some discussion of the ins and outs of content distribution by "content files" vs the DLS. Importing a large and complex map and attached sessions went so easily and quickly. Aside from having to manually commit the assets, which is no big deal, the import process was painless.

And, while my computer may not be top of the line, it does run the high-end version of Murchison, both in Driver and in Surveyor. A bit of stuttering in Driver, no noticeable problems in Surveyor, although I've done only a little work in the latter. Agatha's... will run in Driver, but barely limps along in Surveyor. Moving around in Surveyor is painfully slow and I have not taken the time to wait it out for more than 10 minutes. So, it seems to me that there is something other than machine capacity involved here.

Again, Keith, this is not meant as criticism of your work - from what I have been able to see of it, the map is a beauty. I think the problems are along technical lines that you have nothing to do with. I'm an Agatha Christie fan, and I'd really like to get into it and play around - maybe reread some of her books and figure out where things "happened" in your map.

Dick
 
Packaging the assets makes it easy but as long as you have all the assets you're fine. When you download the first route you pull in all the dependancies, now if you download another UK route you'll probably find that it uses the same red bus, the same cottage as you have already downloaded. The way the dependancies work is the scenod time you only download the missing ones.

By the time you have pulled in 20 or 30 routes instead of downloading 200 MBs you are only pulling in 5 mbs of new stuff on each new route. This keeps the cost down for the DLS and for people using modems. I often think that there should be a DVD or two available of the DLS to save pulling it all down each time.

It's actually quite tricky to ensure that all items are on the DLS. The normal method is to build with what you have then delete all the assets and redownload them from the DLS and see what is missing. There is a thread about how to do this and another on routes where all the assets are on the DLS.

One problem is that there is some very nice content available for some of the eastern european sites whose command of english isn't quite so good. There are some very nice Pullman coaches for example which are not available on the DLS. Most people find the first time they try to upload something to the DLS they have problems, also the content checking these days on the DLS can be quite demanding as a result not as much content ends up there as I'd like.

Often a search of the forum for the first part of the missing kuid or the full number will reveal where the missing kuid can be obtained from.

Cheerio John
 
Hello tkeithmat, can I ask if you have used SP1 on this TRS2006 layout please, before I download the 13.5 mb size route sitting on the DLS.

Thank you. ex-railwayman.

Apologies for not replying sooner - been off running a school field trip.

I am running, version 2.6 build 3092.

Keith
 
1. I found that my copy of TRS's Railyard contains the City of Truro and SR01 after having downloaded them as part of Agatha's Country Tour. The CMP says that the City of Truro has 3 faulty dependencies - front truck, middle truck, and the interior. ??? I put the engine into a layout - it runs fine. It's a 4-4-0, with all wheels, valve gear, etc. present. The cab interior looks fine to me.

SR01 looks and runs good. I did not check on what's supposed to be wrong with it. These are TRS 2004 assets, so maybe 2006 doesn't recognize something about each and thinks they are faulty.

SR 0-4-4T M7 class is listed in the Railyard, but there is no model shown, and it cannot be placed into a session. Guess there really is something wrong with it.

reply 1(I am not a computer techy and have copied over saved/archived stuff from 2004 to when it came out, I haven't fixed anything faulty. As I said in an earlier reply I checked everything was not showing as faulty before I uploaded. Yet next day the SR goods van was showing as faulty - but was working fine when I ran the session)
2. I searched out City of Truro directly on the DLS. Tried to download its Pack independently of the CMP. It would not download??? I was properly logged in with a FCT, but no download. Maybe I did something wrong.

reply 2: When I download stuff I tend to use the old 2004 interface having first checked the 2006 box - firstly the CMP from 2006 seems to run at least 24 hours behind the '04 site - when I click the download helper the item appears in the download box on the 06 programme. I don't know if this creates the problem)

3. While making another attempt to install Agatha's Country I, the map, CMP stalled - let it go over an hour and it never found what it was looking for while searching (as shown on the status bar). That was longer than was required on the first (and faulty) installation already discussed. So, I closed it out. Then I restarted my computer. I had discovered on earlier occasions that closing CMP while it is frozen has bad effects on subsequent use of the computer. As on such previous occasions, Windows had trouble closing - Jet was still running and would not respond, so I was given one of those dialog boxes you get for a non-responding program you are trying to close with ctrl-alt-delete.

reply 3:(I am beginning to have some serious doubts about the 06 programme, I have had similar problems with the computer. Mine is an e-machines 2.8ghz, 80gb hard drive, 256mb ddr.
The only problem if I revert to 04, is that I will have to build a new version of the layout - which has taken over 2 years to-date....
I get the hic-cups and stuttering when running especially through the built up areas and stuttering going over points which seems to dump the sound effects.)

4. I tried to open Agatha's map. Extremely long time. Opened up a bit, then a little bit more, etc. When I thought it was finally open, I could not move the compass - then I could move it a little - in big jumps. I finally closed it down. Then I closed TRS. This produced error boxes, and I restarted the computer again -- same as with closing a frozen CMP, Jet was till running and would not respond.

5. I've deleted the map and the tour.

Keith, I wonder if there is simply too much content. I got Murchison Logging from Sirgibby -- all three versions - huge route. He packaged it so that it could be run either as a standard version or a high-quality version, the latter being for high-power machines. The difference between the two is the amount of non-trackage content in each. My machine is 2.8 ghz with 1 gig of ram. Forget the specs on my video card, but they are fairly good - upgraded last year. His standard version runs well on my computer, but the high-power version stutters along. I can move around in it very well in Surveyor, too.

Also, Sirgibby packaged Murchison in a content file, as in Import Content. It imported fairly quickly, and then all I had to do was commit it.

The point is that for a very large and complex route, it may be that the DLS is not well suited as a means of transferring everything.

That's just a theory!

Dick

General summary.
In designing the layout I was very concious of the likely memory issues with large urban areas.
This is why I used 19th (and sometimes 18th century) town/street plans for the built up areas.

I am going to revisit the entire layout and see if I can't reduce it further perhaps there are some 'boards' I can delete without affecting the overall image. The trackplans of stations are reasonably accurate - perhaps I can reduce the number of interactive industries ( I haven't as yet run sessions to work the various coal, logs and general goods facilities.)
I'm not sure I fully inderstand the poly's thing and LOD whatever that is.
When I run the layout I have maximum good weather fog and vehicles turned off on the roads.

The topography of the layout is very accurate in the most part I use the UK's ordnance survey maps to reproduce the landscape so if the countours of the map are showing 140metres that is the level at which I model the layout.

I can only apologise again for the problems and confusion caused.
My work diary is quite busy through the summer so it may be a while before a sanitised version of the layout can be uploaded.
All comments and suggestions are much appreciated and add to the learning curve.
Keith:o
 
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Thanks for your reply Keith, will give it a go, sounds like it has created a lot of interest, so am curious to see what it looks like, and it's another UK layout to view :) Good luck with your future projects.

Cheers. ex-railwayman
 
General summary.
In designing the layout I was very concious of the likely memory issues with large urban areas.
This is why I used 19th (and sometimes 18th century) town/street plans for the built up areas.

I am going to revisit the entire layout and see if I can't reduce it further perhaps there are some 'boards' I can delete without affecting the overall image. The trackplans of stations are reasonably accurate - perhaps I can reduce the number of interactive industries ( I haven't as yet run sessions to work the various coal, logs and general goods facilities.)
I'm not sure I fully inderstand the poly's thing and LOD whatever that is.
When I run the layout I have maximum good weather fog and vehicles turned off on the roads.

The topography of the layout is very accurate in the most part I use the UK's ordnance survey maps to reproduce the landscape so if the countours of the map are showing 140metres that is the level at which I model the layout.

I can only apologise again for the problems and confusion caused.
My work diary is quite busy through the summer so it may be a while before a sanitised version of the layout can be uploaded.
All comments and suggestions are much appreciated and add to the learning curve.
Keith:o

For your size of layout I think having 2 gigs of memory helps a lot. Also some experience with Trainz helps as well. For example defragmenting the hard disk so the content loads in a bit quicker in surveyor would probably help. Making sure there is no missing content or if there is deleting it helps. For cmp sometimes it doesn't catch all the dependencies of dependencies the first time round so putting the layout back in the download bit will often extract a few more items from the DLS.

Lod level of detail means having different meshes for different distances. It means close up you get lots of detail, further away you use a less detailed mesh with smaller textures that has less machine impact at the distance where you can't see the detail anyway. It's not something that you as a layout designer has much control over the items either have it or not. By the way Church lane uses lod to control texture sizes.

TRS2006 is actually faster than TRS2004 so going back to TRS2004 will make it run slower. The min requirements were increased on the box but that was to reflect the more realistic values than the rather optimistic values Auran put on their box.

The current layout will run as it is on a machine that has an optimised trainzoptions.txt file on a reasonable machine. On one of the newer machines running duo and an 8800 GTS card it should have no problems at all. People with lower machines can always go into Surveyor and remove items to increase performance. If you remove them and throw up a new version it is much more difficult for people with more powerful machines to enrich the layout. Layouts do not go out of date and in 2 years time the average machine will have caught up.

Personally I think its a classic as it is, thank you.

It could probably do with a bit more background as to what it is and why it is done the way it has been done also I suspect I missed the reason for the large red pins.

Cheerio John
 
I have d/l the route and it looks fantastic. However I am having problems with d/l the Session.
Each time I try I get the dreaded "moo" from CMP which signifies, I believe, that I already have it installed. This is not so as it shows up with the DS icon.
I have tried using the DLH without success.
CMP strikes again:mad:
The moo mearly means that the files are done downloading. Sometimes it takes a while for the CMP to read the file and make it ok to download. Did you check the icon next to it that says DS or the pucture of a laptop? BTW: I havn't had time to DL the route yet, but i loved the book Murder on the Links. Is there a chance that some of the topograpgy came from that book?
 
Following all the comments and constructive criticism (and I it IS accepted as that).
My next steps will be to :
a) .. revise the layout in its present condition, and reduce where I can some of the content, delete some boards that are merely 'stuffing' where the route runs close to an edge or a board corner.

b) subsequent sections of the route will be issued as stand alone units and therefore can be merged if required by individual users.

c) get some more memory for my own machine!
 
Following all the comments and constructive criticism (and I it IS accepted as that).
My next steps will be to :
a) .. revise the layout in its present condition, and reduce where I can some of the content, delete some boards that are merely 'stuffing' where the route runs close to an edge or a board corner.

b) subsequent sections of the route will be issued as stand alone units and therefore can be merged if required by individual users.

c) get some more memory for my own machine!

You mean you weren't sponsored by Intel?

Cheerio John
 
Faulty content

Because there were over 150 assets that show as faulty (not missing) in Agatha's Country I, I did some looking around - discovered that I had among a lot of other Auran downloads, A Guide to Fixing Assets for 2006. That cleared up a lot of questions, and it is well worth reading if you are trying to use 2004 content in 2006. Don't know whether the large number of faulty assets have anything to do with slow Surveyor operation, but it seems that certain 2006 config files require more settings than 2004, and if they are missing, many variables are put in with their default values - must take some time. But, there are some that require the user to enter a value - maybe the program is struggling with them and taking more time.

The problem is that fixing 150+ assets takes a LOT of time. I think it was John on another thread that pointed out that authors of content actually have a disincentive to fixing assets. Auran ought to eliminate that disincentive and maybe offer some kind of incentive.

I followed links to the TrainzHaven site for Trainz Asset Repair ... (TARL). There are a lot of asset fixes, but just spotchecking did not show any that I need. There doesn't seem to be much traffic there, either.

Is Auran going to have faulty asset problems with Trainz Classics???

Dick
 
Hi!

Very beautiful layout. It's a perfect job. :) I just finished download it. But I have a question. I can't find only 5 objects for this layout :( .

Unknown Location: <kuid:239249:100151>
Unknown Location: <kuid:239249:100153>
Unknown Location: <kuid:239249:100283>
Unknown Location: <kuid:239249:100363>
Unknown Location: <kuid:239249:100366>

Can you help me?

Thank you.

Eugene.
 
These items by Partyman79 are all on the DLS
Chapparal_c-m, <kuid:239249:100151>
Chaparral-9_c-m_grnd, <kuid:239249:100153>
Darjeeling-Hillside-14, <kuid:239249:100283>
Potato-spline, <kuid:239249:100363>
Lettuce1-spline, <kuid:239249:100366>

ricsee
 
But on DLS these kuids are missing :( . All names you write are kuids of dmdrake (33404).
 
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Both dmdrake and Partyman79 have many items with the same and/or simular names on the DLS

Search the DLS for Kuid:239249 all these items are on the DLS

ricsee
 
With permission from the old forum I updated some of dmdrake's objects to fit TRS06-standards and uploaded them to the DLS.

A couple weeks ago in these forums even a "thanks" by dmdrake was to be read.

Last weeks on one day I received about 180 e-mails about removed content forced by dmdrake. Somehow his mind changed and all items were deleted from the DLS though they have been there several months and it never seemed to be a problem.

Also I did not receive any message from him though I contacted him personally afterwards.

I am afraid that happened. But I won't upload these objects under any circumstances again. I do not upload these objects again to get them deleted after some months because of a minor new thinking by original author.

Finally, please use the faulty objects instead.

PMs will let me help out.
 
I have just uploaded the revised version of the route - I would suggest that the missing items are not integral to the working of the route. I would advise loading and the going through the 'delete missing assets' routine.

As and when I upload any further revisions I will attempt to replace those items with some of the excellent new stuff from Jankvis - with permission of course.

Keith
 
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