Route size limits ?

[cascaderailroad]

If a route is 633mb with just track, on gray baseboards ... what can I expect after adding textures, buildings, trees, grass ... etc ?

Would it be safe to assume it would double in size ?

Gotta get on the treadmill, and start trimming down, baseboards: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAtKcwew8zY

 

[gawpo50]

If a route is 633mb with just track, on gray baseboards ... what can I expect after adding textures, buildings, trees, grass ... etc ?

Would it be safe to assume it would double in size ?

Gotta get on the treadmill, and start trimming down, baseboards: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAtKcwew8zY

No it does not double in size. I have loaded up routes in excess of 700Mb which includes all textures, buildings, etc but....and here comes the but......if you try and modify anything in said route and then try and save...surveyor will have a heart attack and die. Those limits I quoted above are pretty close to hard limits, go past them at your risk. T:ANE should do away with a lot of these limits.

 

[jacksonbarno]

There are some really large routes for Trainz. Several WIPs of ours, including our C&O project span several divisions, and they don't affect frame rates on average systems that much.

 

[JCitron]

No it does not double in size. I have loaded up routes in excess of 700Mb which includes all textures, buildings, etc but....and here comes the but......if you try and modify anything in said route and then try and save...surveyor will have a heart attack and die. Those limits I quoted above are pretty close to hard limits, go past them at your risk. T:ANE should do away with a lot of these limits.

I was going to say the same as I've run into this myself with routes created by TransDem. Like T:ANE TransDEM is a 64-bit application and can make use of the system RAM, which on my machine sits at its maximum of 32GB. Content Manager, being a 32-bit application, can only see a maximum of 4GB of RAM and files much smaller, causing that to croak and die very quickly almost without warning.

John

 

[steamboateng]

Ahhhhhh, yes! We're back on the Kokoda Trail................

 

[nicky9499]

if you try and modify anything in said route and then try and save...surveyor will have a heart attack and die.

Interesting. A long time ago I ran into a similar problem as well with Cities In Motion (rapid transport simulation). One of my campaigns actually became so large that one time I saved and quit and couldn't reopen the save at all - program would just crash. After I built a newer, faster machine, it loaded up just fine.

Is this a similar case with Trainz or purely a software limitation?

 

[phimat]

A related question is the max number of scheduled consists that can be run. I got as far as 25/6 in TR2010 before Trainz began to drop them (have done nothing under Tr12). The mash-up route is only about 150mb - so not that extensive - but I seem to like sorting out the timetables. Wish we could set accurate tables.

 

[Vern]

With regard to Transdem routes, don't forget it is essential to apply the route filter, not extract the whole DEM area. You can bring this down to as few boards as you feel will provide the necessary background scenery/distant mountains without revealing the edge of the world. Transdem also allows you to export just the course of the route as 5m grid with the remainder as 10m (good enough for simple texturing) which saves on the .gnd file size considerably.

As a rule of thumb, I extract to around 5 "boards" either side of the route in relatively level country and 6 or 7 in the hills, trimming later as required. However the file sizes can still come out huge using this approach. A recent narrow gage venture covering around 100 miles, comes in at around 450Mb before anything other than the Transdem textures are applied. Although well within the limits kindly stated by Gawpo50, I've decided to put this one on hold (along with the similar length tundra route) until TANE as even though within workable limits, it still takes an age to save and pointless doing work that may be lost if the project becomes unstable.

 

[cascaderailroad]

If a route becomes so big that it will not save ... cut it up into several overlapping pieces ... and iPortal trains to each separate route.

 

[JCitron]

A related question is the max number of scheduled consists that can be run. I got as far as 25/6 in TR2010 before Trainz began to drop them (have done nothing under Tr12). The mash-up route is only about 150mb - so not that extensive - but I seem to like sorting out the timetables. Wish we could set accurate tables.

The limit is about the same as I've found out. The other issue too is there are now so many AI-active program threads as the program keeps track of events such as triggers, industries, signals, etc., that the AI lose their way, get stuck, and everything becomes a dogged out mess.

With regard to Transdem routes, don't forget it is essential to apply the route filter, not extract the whole DEM area. You can bring this down to as few boards as you feel will provide the necessary background scenery/distant mountains without revealing the edge of the world. Transdem also allows you to export just the course of the route as 5m grid with the remainder as 10m (good enough for simple texturing) which saves on the .gnd file size considerably.

As a rule of thumb, I extract to around 5 "boards" either side of the route in relatively level country and 6 or 7 in the hills, trimming later as required. However the file sizes can still come out huge using this approach. A recent narrow gage venture covering around 100 miles, comes in at around 450Mb before anything other than the Transdem textures are applied. Although well within the limits kindly stated by Gawpo50, I've decided to put this one on hold (along with the similar length tundra route) until TANE as even though within workable limits, it still takes an age to save and pointless doing work that may be lost if the project becomes unstable.

I've done the same, using the same trim parameters which I usually trim back more once I start editing the route. There's nothing like a slice through a hill in the wrong place!

The other issue too is the overall daunting size of the route that large. Ever feel tired and overpowered? I scrapped a really nice route I was working on since it was just too much to work on after I laid my 110 miles of track carefully on the topographic map. I don't know how many countless routes that have been binned for this reason.

John

 

[steamboateng]

Generally I'll clip a TransDEM route to 4 boards either side of the route. However in hilly or mountainous terrain I extend that out to cover visible higher elevations, lending the route some realistic depth.