How large can my custom route be in MBs to load it on the DSL?

[netjam99]

I have gone too far on my route. Right now I have over 1100 MBs contained in the Soldier Summit Route I am building and rapidly closing in on finishing. I looked around the forums and keep seeing 500 MBs is the limit. Is that still correct? The forum posts I saw were for Trainz 19, I didn't find a size limit on Trainz 22. Obviously I need to start cutting out base boards and reducing number of assets I am using. I had thought that desert terrain was going to work in my favor since it so sparse...but looks like I made the airplane too big to fly out of the hanger.

Satellite view of the route with the performance numbers just in case that helps. (its 71 miles long but we could move the yard to the southeast in Provo and cut that right away by 5 miles or so.)

I want to know the target max size? I can slice off a bunch of base board tiles, cut the vegetation and go low rez so to speak on my two important cities and get under the number you guys tell me I should aim at. Help and/or advice will be greatly appreciated. This is the first route I am seriously trying to make for the DLS so forgive the rookie mistake.

 

[pware]

I want to know the target max size? I can slice off a bunch of base board tiles, cut the vegetation and go low rez so to speak on my two important cities and get under the number you guys tell me I should aim at. Help and/or advice will be greatly appreciated. This is the first route I am seriously trying to make for the DLS so forgive the rookie mistake.

There are two size limits in place here. Firstly to upload a route (or anything) to the DLS it must be submitted as a .cdp file. This is done automatically when you highlight the asset in Content Manager and select the Upload to DLS option from the assets popup menu.

The maximum size allowed for a .cdp file is 1GB (1000MB) - note that the size shown for your route in Content Manager is the raw uncompressed data. When you save an asset as a .cdp file it will be compressed to a smaller size. If you are using Trainz Plus or TRS22 then a much higher compression level will be used. So your 1100MB will be reduced to a significantly smaller size when compressed.

I just checked the route files available for download from the DLS and the largest of them is about 450MB (assuming that the figure is for the .cdp file), so the 500MB limit could be correct.

Your post did not indicate which version of Trainz you are using. If it is Trainz Plus then the default resolution for all baseboards is HD (High Definition) which stores about 1600x as much data per baseboard as the more common 10m resolution. This will blow out your file sizes enormously. If this is the case then you may try cloning your route and then converting the clone to a lower resolution such as 5m or 10m to see the effect that has on its file size. You can manually save an asset as a .cdp file by selecting the Export to CDP option from its popup menu and specifying a location for the file.

For a comparison, my current largest Trainz Plus route (still unfinished) is about 280 miles in length, uses 10m resolution (not HD) and has an uncompressed size (in Content Manager) of just over 300MB. When compressed to a .cdp file it is just over 73MB in size.

HD resolution routes are, so far, restricted to small routes (relatively few baseboards). Improving the HD compression to reduce their file sizes even further is on the N3V "to do" list - along with many other things.

Hope this helps.

 

[netjam99]

There are two size limits in place here. Firstly to upload a route (or anything) to the DLS it must be submitted as a .cdp file. This is done automatically when you highlight the asset in Content Manager and select the Upload to DLS option from the assets popup menu.

The maximum size allowed for a .cdp file is 1GB (1000MB) - note that the size shown for your route in Content Manager is the raw uncompressed data. When you save an asset as a .cdp file it will be compressed to a smaller size. If you are using Trainz Plus or TRS22 then a much higher compression level will be used. So your 1100MB will be reduced to a significantly smaller size when compressed.

I just checked the route files available for download from the DLS and the largest of them is about 450MB (assuming that the figure is for the .cdp file), so the 500MB limit could be correct.

Your post did not indicate which version of Trainz you are using. If it is Trainz Plus then the default resolution for all baseboards is HD (High Definition) which stores about 1600x as much data per baseboard as the more common 10m resolution. This will blow out your file sizes enormously. If this is the case then you may try cloning your route and then converting the clone to a lower resolution such as 5m or 10m to see the effect that has on its file size. You can manually save an asset as a .cdp file by selecting the Export to CDP option from its popup menu and specifying a location for the file.

For a comparison, my current largest Trainz Plus route (still unfinished) is about 280 miles in length, uses 10m resolution (not HD) and has an uncompressed size (in Content Manager) of just over 300MB. When compressed to a .cdp file it is just over 73MB in size.

HD resolution routes are, so far, restricted to small routes (relatively few baseboards). Improving the HD compression to reduce their file sizes even further is on the N3V "to do" list - along with many other things.

Hope this helps.

Pware,

Thanks for the great information. I have Trainz 22 Plus Gold if memory serves. I went to the route and checked. I have the terrain set on HD.. So there alone should be substantial savings. I am going to clone and take it up to 5M terrain and see what that does as you recommmend. I had already started deleting baseboards since I had way too many selected due to grabbing too big an area using DEM. Just doing that has me down to 749.6 MBs.

Thank you again much appreciated!

 

[stagecoach]

HD increases the size dramatically because you have vastly increased the number of squares on a board.

 

[grazlash]

Be careful there, a DEM map will still load in 5m in surveyor unless it has been converted.
TurfFX layers will add quite a lot of MB's to a route, but your best solution to your size problem will still be to judiciously trim baseboards. Try using a highly visible object on the outer boards and view from different angles on the track, that will help find boards that can't be seen from the track and are safe to trim.

 

[netjam99]

Thank you Stagecoach, Grazlash and again to Pware! I got it down to 428.5 MB. I cut a bunch of baseboards and ended setting up at 10M on the terrain.

 

[coop2]

Pware,

Thanks for the great information. I have Trainz 22 Plus Gold if memory serves. I went to the route and checked. I have the terrain set on HD.. So there alone should be substantial savings. I am going to clone and take it up to 5M terrain and see what that does as you recommmend. I had already started deleting baseboards since I had way too many selected due to grabbing too big an area using DEM. Just doing that has me down to 749.6 MBs.

Thank you again much appreciated!

How about cutting your route up, upload the parts to DLS, download parts and do a merge

 

[pware]

How about cutting your route up, upload the parts to DLS, download parts and do a merge

You can do that without needing to upload/download the parts. Plus putting them on the DLS will almost certainly create issues or "mysteries" for anyone who downloads one of the parts expecting a complete route.

Cutting a route up is what I have done with my current Trainz Plus project (but without the step of uploading to the DLS). The route, originally released to the DLS in 2009 with a minor update in 2021, was in need of a major upgrade to bring it up to TRS22 standards. In particular one section of 80km was created at the wrong altitude and with the wrong scenery (a long story).

Cutting out the faulty part and saving what was left as the new "original" route was the easy part - although after the merge I have encountered a few floating "legacy" assets left over from the original (and what I thought were "deleted") baseboards so clearly I did not do a thorough enough job of firstly deleting all assets from those baseboards.

Splitting a route into separate parts has a number of advantages, in particular lower overheads. But it does have its problems:-

1. creating a "seamless" join between the routes when the terrain is not perfectly flat is one minor issue (some surgery needed after the merge).
2. effect layers between the two routes is another issue (either do not use effect layers in the original and "addons" until after the merge or leave them in the original and create the new "addon" routes without them and then add them from the original after the merge)

 

[coop2]

What you are going through is an indication of what the real world someday will go through when everything is tied to AI

 

[ricomon35]

What you are going through is an indication of what the real world someday will go through when everything is tied to AI

@coop2 > There is absolutely ZERO correlation between route file sizes and anything A.I. >>> Z-E-R-O.

LMAO

 

[pware]

I think coop2 may have been referring to the ChatGPT type of AI.