New installation

[jwboyesjr]

I have a relatively new computer. It has a 250G SSD and a 1TB regular hard drive. At the moment, everything is in the SSD and the hard drive contains only the file backup which is using a gig or two, it is essentially empty. I have downloaded TANE SP2 as part of a Platinum deal purchase. I accepted the default of directing everything to the C (SSD) drive. In reading many posts, I am thinking that there is at lease some advantage to putting all of the TANE (program and data) on the D: drive which is essentially empty. There seem to be other advantages such as having multiple releases of the software with separate starting shortcuts. To date, I have done only a few of the tutorials and spent a lot of time reading on the forums.

I will not be trying to save anything from the existing installation. It seems to me that I should uninstall TANE through Windows. Then download again and specify both the program file and the data area to be on my D drive, maybe D:TANE/Program and D:TANE/DATA. Maybe I should get SP2 into the folder name in some way. Can anyone offer me any caveats or suggestions?

John

 

[Christopher824]

There are many discussions on this.

I like the camp that follows this philosophy 'Put the Program on the SSD and the Data on the HDD'

Here is one discussion that gets into some of what you are asking HERE

If you can, get a large sized USB stick to back your Data up no matter which direction you choose to set up your installation.

I do like your thoughts on the naming of the Data directories and to get SP2 in the directory name, maybe add the Build number instead if you are going to create content.

Have Fun Trainzing !!!

 

[philskene]

I, too, have a SSD and a HDD. I have four installations of T:ANE, all on the SDD. You will find that disk access is far quicker on the SDD and this makes loading times quicker and also reduces the stutters when additional processing is required during game play.

One suggestion though if you do install T:ANE to the SDD - strictly limit the number of backups make by T:ANE (set up in the initial boot up menus). These can consume a large amount of space.

 

[SailorDan]

I accepted the default of directing everything to the C (SSD) drive. In reading many posts, I am thinking that there is at lease some advantage to putting all of the TANE (program and data) on the D: drive which is essentially empty.

Why not use the fastest drive you have for everything? Getting good performance from T:ANE requires good hardware, and it makes sense to use the SSD. If you are constrained for space then data is the last thing you would move off the SSD - data access is what benefits most from high speed disk access.

There is usually no reason to have more than one installed version. If there is any reason to install a different version then it will be installed entirely separately on the slow disk drive, so that it will be easy to delete completely when finished with it.

 

[PC_Ace]

Generally speaking, I like to get my primary T:ANE installation away from the poor-choice default setting using your Users/<username>/AppData/local/N3V Games/TANE folder by putting it onto another drive or at least into a dedicated and descriptively named folder (such as D:\tanesp2\ for example) with my Userdata folder placed inside that and named 'Userdata' for good measure.
Like philskene and SailorDan, I also prefer to run my installation from an SSD for best possible file I/O performance, since T:ANE still swaps out many small files from disk to memory during operation as it doesn't pre-cache everything. Database repairs, installations, basic maintenance, route and session loading etc. all run demonstrably faster from SSD.
So I have multiple SSDs to accommodate different installations of T:ANE and leave only older Trainz versions like TS12 that I rarely use on my 7200RPM 3Tb HDD. The spinning disk rust drives are still great for bulk storage and backups, however.
Looking ahead though, a problem will arise for jwboyesjr, when your T:ANE user data folders grow in size, if you have only a 250Gb SSD on your C:/OS drive, you start running our of headroom for optimal performance and longevity of your SSD.
The solution to this (though it costs hard-earned $) is to throw larger capacity SSDs at your Boot drive, or additional 250Gb SATA or PCIe SSD drives at your rig (D:, E: etc.) to maintain high performance.

 

[jwboyesjr]

Thanks

Thanks to all who have responded. I have a fair amount to consider.

 

[jwboyesjr]

A little more information

As I considered some of the responses above, including the link to an area where SSD's and backup were discussed. I checked a few other things and discovered the large amounts of storage that some invest in to operate and design trainz. I thought I might have given a little more background on what kind of user I am.

I got this computer with the idea of playing some mid level games such as Civilization. I like a laptop primarily because I like to sit and watch TV while using my computer. I had a Win 7 i3 with Intel graphics when I bought my first Trainz box: 2009/2010. It would not run on the earlier laptop (actually it ran but produced no usable graphics - everything was like a ghost image). It also played Civ 5 fairly slowly. So I bought the new computer looking at the Civ 6 specs. Around turn 200 in a Civ game the old computer used about 2 minutes per turn of thinking time. The new computer has that down to about 8-10 seconds. Basically I play a Civ game in days rather than weeks.

After I got the computer, I got out my old Trainz 2009/2010 and decided to load it. I did and it worked very well. Loved the graphics. Had a little trouble grasping the size of some of the built in routes but played a few and enjoyed it. So I thought I would take a try at the current product. Along came the big sale on the platinum package and I went for it. I downloaded the program and installed it without any thought to where the files were loaded. I played the first five or six of the tutorials and then decided I should do a lot of reading. The reading has prompted my questions.

The installation as I now have it is about 20G with half program and half data. I don't know if or how the Trainz 2009/2010 figures into that as it is still installed and still runs with no apparent change. My reason for getting the original package was to run trains around a track and maybe actually accomplish some work. I had done that with the 2009/2010 but was looking for possibly some improved graphics and more routes. It is likely to be quite some time before I download much more data although that may happen. My design would probably be limited to adding scenarios to routes designed by others. I don't really expect to design anything although I realize my interests could change.

I got the impression from my reading that the software is somewhat prone to crashing and that this can injure the database of material to the point where it has to be rebuilt. I think mine did a build the first time I ran it with the built in stuff and it didn't take very long so I don't think I am really worried about the time for that. My concern was that some of the posts seemed to indicate that the underlying data files themselves are at risk when there is a crash. I am not sure if that is for driver sessions or only when surveyor is active. I would appreciate a comment on that.

There was also mention of the amount of backup that TANE does automatically. It was mentioned that this defaults to 7 days. I am curious as to exactly what is being backed up. Is it the sessions or the changes made to user data. Some expressed concern about the amount space the backup can consume. If I am for the most part doing just driver sessions, should I be concerned about this?

I really appreciate the time that some of you take to explain things to others. I have learned a great deal just from reading and look forward to possibly trying some of the easier design things. I am amazed by the knowledge expresses by many about the prototypical railroads. I have learned some things about them just by reading posts.

 

[PC_Ace]

jwboyesjr - If you do decide to move your installation to your D: drive, then - if it currently working correctly and without issue on C: Drive - it is just as easy to simply COPY the entire installation over to your D: drive.
Just create an empty folder first on D:\ named D:\TANE (or similar) and another empty sub-folder called 'Userdata' within that.
Copy all of the program files over to the TANE root folder and your local Userdata folders (and all they contain) over to D:\TANE\Userdata.

If as you say, you don't have much in the way of Userdata files right now, then you can skip that step - BUT, make sure that you point the Local User Data folder to D:\TANE\Userdata before running the moved installation for the first time by visiting the Trainz Settings, Install... tab in the Launcher and clicking Browse... to point to your newly created empty Userdata folder there. T:ANE setup will take it from there and establish all of the folders that your require for future use.
Once you've signed in on the Internet tab of the Trainz Settings dialog, and adjusted the performance settings to your taste, run your new setup.
If - any only when - everything is working satisfactorily on D: you can then safely delete the original installation on C:\.

 

[phimat]

I suggest you partition the HDD, say split into two 500gb partitions, D & E. A 1tb partition is potentially unwieldy. Also suggest you back up your data - which will grow and grow - to one of these partitions. PC_Ace's suggestion to move the entire install away from the C drive is to be recommended. A 256gig SSD is not that big, especially once Win 10 gets underway. Also defrag and clean your drives regularly, which will help keep winx at bay.