Moving a metric ton of content to a new system - is there a better way?

[epa]

Alright, I've already posted quite a bit on the forums here about my little "adventure" in switching to a Mac after being a lifelong Windows user.

And after nipping a little performance issue in the bud on my M4 Max MacBook Pro (pro tip: if you're having Trainz performance issues on a system that should easily be able to handle it, turn shadow quality down to high. It's not a huge graphical difference but my performance improved dramatically just making that change and leaving everything else on ultra), I'm finally ready to start migrating my content collection, about 10-12 years of accumulation, from my outgoing gaming PC to the new Mac.

This comes to over 700 GB and counting. Over 770,000 assets. As you can imagine, database repairs take all dad gum day. And I will need to source an additional storage solution on the Mac to fit all this and have room on the internal SSD for anything else.

In the meantime, I've been periodically backing up my Local folder on the PC to an external hard drive, partially preparing for the move, partially preparing for a hardware failure on the PC (half my USB ports have unceremoniously stopped working and I want to get as much backed up as I can before the rest quit). My plan here is, when I have extended storage figured out on the Mac, to simply copy the backed-up local folder to the data directory on the Mac install, or import directly from the external HDD in content manager. This should move all my content over, minus any Trainz Store content that will likely need to be downloaded again. I'm pretty sure official DLC is all stored elsewhere.

Theoretically, everything should just copy over, right? Trainz content is all cross platform, more or less, I assume? I know TurfFX will be missing from the routes that use it, but everything else should just be there?

 

[wilts747]

I sync my current 'local' and 'original' Trainz folders to an ancient NAS and have done since the days of Win 7. I'm now a Linux user but when between OS never had an issue cloning these folder between Win and Linux and visa-versa. Remember we are talking .tzarc files but the same will apple to the likes of .cdp files and so forth. Over the years I've learned that backup/cloning is not 100% fool proof and I still export my current work alternatively to two USB sticks as .cdp files after each building session. Peter

 

[JCitron]

Matt,

Share your hard disk on the PC and run SAMBA on your Mac.

You can then copy the folders (directories) over the network from your PC to the Mac.

Your 700 GB will take about 2 or 3 hours to do that depending upon your hard disk and networks speed, based on a wired-network. If you are using a wireless connection, this can take much, much longer but it's still doable.

Before transferring your content, download any and all packages from the Content Store. If you're a Plus user and have downloaded everything, this can take a couple of days. (How would I know...) Do this first prior to copying your content over.

Once this content is downloaded, copy over the Local and Original folders to your new data-folder on your new M4.

If you receive a prompt about overwriting anything, choose skip and then let it rip.

When everything is done run a DBR to incorporate the new content.

I also use High for my shadows. Using anything more caused my video card to scream loudly as the jetliner fans kicked into full speed.

 

[rwk]

I always thought Macs were more limited with gaming compared with Windows, but there are games made for Mac as well as Windows. Is the Mac OS more stable than Windows? Windows seems to have hiccups sometimes.

 

[johnnydeluxe2g]

Matt,

Share your hard disk on the PC and run SAMBA on your Mac.

You can then copy the folders (directories) over the network from your PC to the Mac.

Your 700 GB will take about 2 or 3 hours to do that depending upon your hard disk and networks speed, based on a wired-network. If you are using a wireless connection, this can take much, much longer but it's still doable.

Before transferring your content, download any and all packages from the Content Store. If you're a Plus user and have downloaded everything, this can take a couple of days. (How would I know...) Do this first prior to copying your content over.

Once this content is downloaded, copy over the Local and Original folders to your new data-folder on your new M4.

If you receive a prompt about overwriting anything, choose skip and then let it rip.

When everything is done run a DBR to incorporate the new content.

I also use High for my shadows. Using anything more caused my video card to scream loudly as the jetliner fans kicked into full speed.

Hi, I'm having the TRS app installed on my M1 Apple computer, but all the TRS22 files are on an external 1TB SSD - G-Drive Pro connected with an (expensive) Apple Thunderbolt 4 (USB‑C) Pro Cable. It runs smoothly, and when I had issues with the former external SSD drive, I was able to copy it to another drive and recover the data. I'm using the CCC backup/copy app. to make a copy from time to time to another SSD.

 

[epa]

Alright, bumping my own thread here with an update.

I more or less followed @JCitron's instructions.

First, I completely nuked my existing TRS22 Mac install, deleted the content directory, and reinstalled TRS22 from scratch, pointing my data directory to a folder on a dedicated external SSD. I then installed most of the DLC available in the Content Store. That took a good few days by itself.

Then, back on my Windows PC, I copied the 'Local' and 'Original' folders to a backup external HDD. I could have just used this as my Trainz drive on the Mac and dealt with slower speeds, however it's formatted as NTFS, which the Mac can read from but not write to, and I didn't want to reformat it and lose all my backups.

Back on the Mac, I simply copied the 'Local' and 'Original' folders from the backup drive to the SSD, and had a snack and a coffee while that was doing its thing. I gotta say I'm really impressed at how quick the copy was. Those two folders made up a little over 500 GB, and took about an hour to copy over USB 3.0 (the HDD) and Thunderbolt 4 (the SSD).

I then ran a database rebuild, which, as expected, took a little while. Some 2000 errors on nearly 800,000 assets ain't bad, right? I held my breath, closed my eyes, and clicked 'Start Trainz', expecting all of my content to be broken. But lo and behold, everything copied over nearly perfectly. I think I might actually have less broken content?

Well not so fast, as it seems now every new piece of DLS content I've downloaded since turns up faulty with the same error, "VE67: The texture texture file name does not seem to have a primary texture set. Please verify the texture.txt file." In each case, the texture text file appears to be corrupted in some way, each appearing as '._name.texture.txt', and I can't even open these assets for editing to investigate.

Upon further investigation, I can't save routes in surveyor either. Seems even though I have full disk access enabled for Trainz, it still isn't being allowed to modify files on the SSD. Internet says it could be a formatting thing, with exFAT being weird about permissions. Good thing I formatted this drive... as... exFAT. Cool, sounds like I'm starting over in APFS. In hindsight, I can't even tell you why I used exFAT seeing as how I don't plan on using this drive with any other system. Just stuck in my old ways, I guess.

Thanks for the help, guys!
Matt

 

[JCitron]

I'm glad your copying worked. I would've shared my PC data-folder and enabled SAMBA on the Mac. With SAMBA, your Mac can see the shared NTFS disks on the PC and mount the shares. The copying would've been about the same and not require sneaker-netting.

You do have the latest build of TRS22 installed, right? I don't know what it is for the Mac, but content can show up faulty if you are not up-to-date. Sometimes, the version on My Trainz isn't the current one and that can wreak havoc with installed content.

 

[johnwhelan]

I always thought Macs were more limited with gaming compared with Windows, but there are games made for Mac as well as Windows. Is the Mac OS more stable than Windows? Windows seems to have hiccups sometimes.

Macs are limited on the GPUs available. The Mac OS is based on a Flavour of UNIX. Win 11 is getting a bit bloated. When you control the hardware as well as the software there are fewer diver permutations and complications. In general Macs are more expensive than the equivalent Windows machine and adding memory etc is not as easy.

Cheerio John

 

[epa]

I'm glad your copying worked. I would've shared my PC data-folder and enabled SAMBA on the Mac. With SAMBA, your Mac can see the shared NTFS disks on the PC and mount the shares. The copying would've been about the same and not require sneaker-netting.

You do have the latest build of TRS22 installed, right? I don't know what it is for the Mac, but content can show up faulty if you are not up-to-date. Sometimes, the version on My Trainz isn't the current one and that can wreak havoc with installed content.

Following the install, I am immediately prompted to update to SP6-HF1, which appears to still be the current Trainz+ build for Mac.

I just gave in, nuked this install, and reformatted the SSD as APFS, which is strongly recommended for drives that will only be used on Macs. I did find many threads about exFAT having... quirks. So I'm downloading the Content Store content again, then I'll copy everything from the backup drive again, and we'll see how that goes. I am getting the occasional "failed to download precached data" error while downloading content off the Store, but hitting 'retry' always works. Come to think of it, that happened about half the time on my old PC, too, so I don't know if that actually means anything.

Matt

 

[JCitron]

Following the install, I am immediately prompted to update to SP6-HF1, which appears to still be the current Trainz+ build for Mac.

I just gave in, nuked this install, and reformatted the SSD as APFS, which is strongly recommended for drives that will only be used on Macs. I did find many threads about exFAT having... quirks. So I'm downloading the Content Store content again, then I'll copy everything from the backup drive again, and we'll see how that goes. I am getting the occasional "failed to download precached data" error while downloading content off the Store, but hitting 'retry' always works. Come to think of it, that happened about half the time on my old PC, too, so I don't know if that actually means anything.

Matt

That sounds like a plan. I find exFAT to be slow on the PC as well and plan on reformatting my exFAT drive at some point. I have about 2 GB of downloaded programs, etc., on the drive and I need to move it off first.

With the stuff off the store, click on the View error and then cancel and that will clear that error from the store. It's a bug in the Content Store that has never been fixed.

 

[epa]

Macs are limited on the GPUs available. The Mac OS is based on a Flavour of UNIX. Win 11 is getting a bit bloated. When you control the hardware as well as the software there are fewer diver permutations and complications. In general Macs are more expensive than the equivalent Windows machine and adding memory etc is not as easy.

Cheerio John

Apple Silicon is insane, from what I've seen, but there just aren't a whole lot of games out there that utilize it to its fullest. Lots of older apps are still made for Intel Macs and run through Rosetta 2, a compatibility layer, and that does come with a bit of a performance hit. And with Apple not really seeming to be too interested in gaming, besides the occasional quick gameplay clip during a keynote, I don't think we're going to see many big devs get on board. I was skeptical of the GPUs being integrated, but this isn't the same as Intel HD Graphics, not even in the same league.

Apple Silicon Macs, architecturally, are closer to iPhones than PCs now. Great for devs that already make iPhone apps, maybe not so great for devs who only do x86. And I think that will stunt development of third party apps, especially if the rumors are true that Rosetta 2 will start to be phased out as the last Intel Macs lose support in MacOS 27.

And yeah, the upgradability thing... yeah. Apple's got me in their walled garden, but as a proponent for right to repair, Apple's anti-repair, anti-upgrade design philosophy really rubs me the wrong way. Want more storage? Tough, you should've thought about that when you bought it (and paid their exorbitant markup for it). More RAM? Nope, that's built directly into the SoC.

Matt

 

[epa]

That sounds like a plan. I find exFAT to be slow on the PC as well and plan on reformatting my exFAT drive at some point. I have about 2 GB of downloaded programs, etc., on the drive and I need to move it off first.

With the stuff off the store, click on the View error and then cancel and that will clear that error from the store. It's a bug in the Content Store that has never been fixed.

Thanks for that, John. I was wondering what was going on there.

Come to think of it, I have a flash drive formatted as exFAT I move between my Mac and a Linux Mini PC running console emulators, and I do occasionally end up with files showing that "._" tacked onto the beginning of the filename. There, it creates duplicate game listings that don't play in the emulators. I wonder if that's one of these "quirks" of the exFAT file system.

According to Google AI, it's a metadata file created by MacOS when copying files from Apple formatted drives, to non-Apple formatted drives, like exFAT. Since I was copying directly from NTFS to exFAT without a stop along the way at Apple's file system, that didn't happen to my existing content. These appear as hidden files (and may not appear at all on a Mac), but it's enough to throw Trainz for a tizzy. Mystery solved. Don't use exFAT where these duplicate files will break everything... like in Trainz. So that means, in theory, I shouldn't have any problems with APFS. If only I knew that the first time around.

TL;DR: It's an OS quirk creating extra files on non-Apple file systems, and these extra files are making Trainz throw its toys out of the crib.

Matt