Copy & Paste Lag (TRS006)

[Vern]

I can't find a recent thread on this, or indeed one at all so here goes...

As my route has grown in size I have noticed on occasion a considerable lag when C & P'ing terrain/objects between pressing the paste command and the items appearing on the boards. Sometimes as much as a minute. It's the same whether working with a small or large area selection. The effect is random, it has gone away after saving but other times this has made no difference. Doing a second paste operation with the same orientation can be quicker but then the third time, it's off to put the kettle on while waiting again.

I guess my route is getting near the maximum the sim can cope with but I can't understand why the problem occurs erratically, possibly memory management related (though I have 2Gb of RAM in the laptop). Just wondered if anyone else has encountered this or come up with a solution (other than only building short routes ).

 

[Gandalf0444]

I have ran into this many many times myself. Which does not make it fun to work with after a certain size Becasue it takes so much time just to add 1 small section. I usually just end up doing it by hand which may take a little more time but at least its not time spent sitting there doing nothing.

 

[jrfolco]

I found this phenomenon occurring on large routes in TRS2006, however, I'm working on a large route in TRS2004, and the copy & paste action is almost instantaneous.

Joe

 

[HiBaller]

Greetings Vern. All of us at the DHR ran into this quite a bit. It involves all the 'bits & pieces' of the copy and paste. As your route becomes larger, the files associated with it have to be rebuilt each and every time you paste something. This takes time. The next time you paste something, keep an eye on the disk access light. It will flicker quite a bit until the cursor comes back. I also recommend that you save often - sometimes overwriting the old files, and about every fifth save, make it a new name. We gave our chunks (called SCABS) one-up naming conventions.

It was for this reason we broke the DHR into small sections for texturing and scenery dressing. Once done, you paste them back together and touch up the seams. All is well again.

Bill

 

[Vern]

Thanks Bill, your experience seems to fit with mine. When I first started to extend the route all the new boards/sections were in place with just the Transdem textures on them. At that point C&P worked rapidly but after filling about 30% of the new 60 miles (which is in addition to the existing fully populated 45 or so miles) with terrain texture and 3D items I started to get the lag which has got progressively worse.

Luckily I only have about 11km left to do now, then it's just the fine detail and of course track objects plus testing. However I have a feeling that 11km may try my patience and some compromise may be needed. Using the largest area I can (for terrain texture) and maybe painting a single texture on the more distant hills.

The next route I'm looking at will be much shorter and more compact so hopefully not an issue. If/when I take the West Highland from Crianlarich to Glasgow that will definitely have to be built as a separate entity then joined on completion.

If they are aware of it, maybe it is something Auran need to look at improving in 009/X particularly as we are getting the finer terrain grid.

 

[HiBaller]

Vern:

Since it doesn't seem to make and difference how big a copy square you make it, I'd opt for the largest one you can manage to see. Sometimes bad things happen when you try to copy a chunk that you can't quite see from your highest viewpoint. You tend to get things in the copy that you didn't mean to. One of our scenery dressers happened to grab a small water tower near the tracks and pasted it all over the hillsides. It's kind of an Easter Egg now.

Good luck on your 11Km left. I think if it were I that I would break the route off at the closest finished piece and do the scenery on the smaller piece. Once done, re-join them. It is simple and painless.

Bill

 

[Vern]

9km now...so I'll probably stick with it, but for next time I reckon a maximum of 50 miles/80 km modules is the way to go.

 

[HiBaller]

The entire DHR was just 54 miles and we broke it down into roughly 5 to 7 mile chunks - smaller in places.

Bill

 

[nismit]

The drag of paging

Posting Deleted.

 

[Vern]

Well all the terrain texturing via C&P is now done so that's a relief. There's a few areas to do a bit of hand tuning and still a little 3D placement and tidying up but that will be quick compared to waiting up to 2 mins for the paste operation to complete.

 

[feguk]

To avoid this problem, build the route in sections and merge it a bit at a time. Merge bits- copy and paste there content then delete squres not wanted after you had cut and pasted the content you require.

Sequence as follows

1.Create the land scape shape for the next bit of your route hieghts etc

2.You can build a town on a couple of squares or have squares with a preprapared content mix you can use again and again. You can have squares for industries, city centres, houses, villages, leafy suburbs or rundown ghetos all with building required to get the right look ie of similar style or regional appearance. Merge these squares to the route as required.

3.Cut and paste and orientate the bits from each square you want on to the route. Recon figureing and orientate them so that it don't all look the same.

4.Delete the squares where you have just added them to steal there content.

It you merge routes then try to adjust the height (by much) to fit you will run into problems, as it takes ages to change elevation if there are a lot of objects.

Using this sort of technique can avoid doing the boring bits like creating built up areas and searching for appropriate content. Cities with vast sprawling commuter suburbs can be created like this, or cross county routes with towns and villages. You can then demollish huge tracts of them to build your railway.

No planning permission is required