Backwards compatibility

LAST EDITED ON May-11-03 AT 09:16 PM (EDT)

Lots of people are hoping for backward compatibility, but I would prefer to start over from scratch and have to redo everything;A. Using a totally different game engine ("game engine" means the main program that drives the whole thing, nothing to do with locomotive) and graphics engine, we could see higher framerates with much more detail. All these limitations due to clumsy coding is cramping my style, trying to create a work of art while constantly keeping one eye on "what does it do to framerates" and "will it trigger a bug" sucks. For example, changing to the Quake 3 or Unreal 2 game engine would increase framerates dramatically, but would not be backwards compatible.B. Unless they started over from scratch, many of the MSTS bugs that they don't consider to be bugs will be carried over to the new version. Some are hoping for at least rolling stock compatibility even if the routes aren't, but take a look at the rolling stock. Uncouple, run around to the other end of a car and couple on, the wheels turn backwards, the trucks pivot the wrong way, and unless the bounding box - coupling box values are perfect, sometimes it won't couple at all. And don't even get me started on the front coupler,wouldn't release the brakes on the cars until the patch, and the patch itself only half fixes it and causes occasional crashes and lockups itself.So that's my feeling in a coconut shell, we can only speculate since we don't know, but I feel it would be much better if it were a totally different program. I'm optimistic about it, MSTS 1 was a once in a millineum accidental freak of nature, they couldn't code that many bugs into MSTS 2 if they did it on purpose! Comments, insults, flamewars?

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RE: Backwards compatibility, TVRRMAN, May-11-03, 09:22 PM, (1) RE: Backwards compatibility, CSX_CW60AC_GregMarck, May-11-03, 09:51 PM, (2) RE: Backwards compatibility, Stooopid_person, May-12-03, 10:38 AM, (8) RE: Backwards compatibility, robertreedy, May-11-03, 09:58 PM, (3) RE: Backwards compatibility, davereage, May-11-03, 11:12 PM, (4) RE: Backwards compatibility, sniper297, May-12-03, 00:36 AM, (5) RE: Backwards compatibility, rgarber, May-12-03, 08:53 AM, (7) RE: Backwards compatibility, IcyFire, May-12-03, 01:25 AM, (6) RE: Backwards compatibility, OkrasaGhia, May-12-03, 12:32 PM, (9) RE: Backwards compatibility, Bing, May-12-03, 10:11 PM, (10)

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Sniper,I like your cartoon there. Definitely a fiting description for Microsoft. On you comment about being backwards compatible, I do have a question: Lets say you just finished up a model that you have been working on for a few months, putting both your mind and soul into it. Would you rather backwards compatibility, or would you just tell that boulder, "New program, scrap everything..." Would you scrap that model, or have the backwards compatibility..?Just a little question for ya sniper. Not meaning any insults or ham by it...

Thomas Pearce,

Freight Car Builder, Broadway Limited Locomotive Works

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I agree with you totally, although I've never really contributed to the community, nor put thousands of man-hours into making really good models or routes, what have you. But with that aside, I for sure, would like to start everything over, if AND only if, we have a new and improved game engine. Let's face it, if we're going to have the same bugs, with the same fixes, why start over? What’s the point of non-compatibly with MSTS1? I sure wouldn't want to face the time of all the modelers out there.But, again, with all that aside.....I think things will be a lot better around. IMHO, Train Artisan is involved, they can get things right.
Greg
HighV0lt6ge - AIM/AOL
gregoryis411@hotmail.com'No matter how far we've come, I can't wait to see
tomorrow.' Linkin Park - With You

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>But with that aside, I for sure, would like to start
>everything over, if AND only if, we have a new and improved
>game engine. Let's face it, if we're going to have the same
>bugs, with the same fixes, why start over? What’s the point
>of non-compatibly with MSTS1? I sure wouldn't want to face
>the time of all the modelers out there. I will be sure MSTS 2 will have a number of bugs as well. This is only the second version! It can't be all bugs free! Look at Flight Simulator! How many versions did it past to become an almost bug free! But maybe Kuju will never listen so maybe 20 versions later, there will still be a lot of bugs...

------My favourite LUL train------

HAPPY NOW? It's not moving anymore.
It's still the same train but in another livery, that's all.

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Not Sniper, but injecting my $.02 worth anyway Having spent almost two years on my little pet project and having TS2 pull the rug out from under it by offering no backwards compatibility .. would suit me just fine under a couple of conditions. Namely, what Sniper said above. I would gladly redo my route with some knowledge that it was actually going to work correctly, be useable on less than magnificent machines, and actually be easily uploaded to anyone wanting it by making aliases possible. Even fixing the coupler bugs, the AIgnorance issues wouldn't hurt my feelings at all if it would just work. As it is now, I have to keep TERMINEX available at all times since you never know when or where the bugs will appear.

RobertR .. ADF-M&RM at http://www.adfrr.com

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I would be happy to lose backward compatibility only if the benefits of a whole new game engine etc outweighed the issue of not being able to carry over rolling stock, routes and such.

Dave Reage
www.geocities.com/d_reage

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"Lets say you just finished up a model that you have been working on for a few months, putting both your mind and soul into it. Would you rather backwards compatibility, or would you just tell that boulder, "New program, scrap everything..." Would you scrap that model, or have the backwards compatibility..?"Yeah, TVRRman, it's like Dave said, "if the benefits of a whole new game engine etc outweighed the issue of not being able to carry over rolling stock, routes and such."I've been screwing around with the game since it first came out, and the editors just a couple weeks after that, and my opinion is that the existing product is too clumsy and buggy to even use for a base. Jim Steven, one of the senior MS windows application programmers, was on this forum when it first started, and told us a whole bunch of things about it. Speculation is that's why he disappeared, Microsux employees are not allowed to criticize Microshaft even off-duty. But one of the things he said:http://www.train-sim.com/cgi/dcforum/dcboard.cgi?az=show_thread&om=1213&forum=DCForumID6#3This program is put together using code designed for a spreadsheet, totally unsuitable for a 3D game. Those who remember Windows 3 will recall the OLE (Object Linking & Embedding) tool for embedding a picture, sound, or link to another document within a document, that's essentially what this is. Bad enough that DirectDraw and Direct3D were cobbled together from the same type of code and then hacked like crazy to try to overcome the limitations, MSTS makes it even worse.http://www.train-sim.com/cgi/dcforum/dcboard.cgi?az=show_thread&om=1259&forum=DCForumID6&archive=yesThe only way to get playable framerates with that kind of garbage programming is to overpower it, ultra fast expensive computers with lots of RAM are the only thing that will give decent scenery with reasonable FPS. And when trying to create something better than ho-hum, that limitation is always there. To put it in terms that are easier to understand, say I built a model railroad in the basement using wet juicy green lumber for the benchwork, then created beautiful scenery, perfect trackwork, with a complete set of working signals and block control so I could run several trains simultaneously. While I was still in the process of building it the benchwork started warping, expanding, and contracting, and turned all my trackwork into humps, gaps, and sticking switches. Lots of patching involved, and the end result is considerably less than perfect. So when I go to scratch build cars, instead of building true to scale and using RP25 wheelsets and Kadee couplers to make a thing of beauty and precision, I use oversized trucks and flanges to ride out the humps and dips and twists in the crappy rails, and screen door hooks for couplers to avoid operation problems. I decide to build a new layout, I'm gonna use kiln dried lumber this time, and I sure as hell ain't gonna try to salvage anything at all from the old layout no matter how much time I put into it. Time spent on first attempts is never wasted, everything is a learning experience. Time spent trying to recover wasted time only wastes more time, and leads to mediocre results.So that's my opinion, the benefits of a new game engine would outweigh the issue of not being able to use anything at all from MSTS 1 by several million tons. It could be done right, and it would be easier to do.

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I agree with Jim. Doing routes and activities in MSTS is so tiresome that even one route can wear you out of the hobby. The only thing though is from most of what I seen, the fundamentals of a great sim are there, but the implementation is bad. Someone in an email once suggested to me that if the interface of the RE and AE were rewritten, and left the data files intact, we'd essentially have the sim we were always looking for. I tend to agree with that. Anybody whose been smart enough to stay away from the editors (AE, and RE to be specific) have always seemed to have a better blood pressure level than those of us who haven't. Folks doing structures, locos, rollingstock is what I mean. MSTS opens itself to alot of third party development tools and for the most part, they seem really good. Our biggest frustrations come when we are working within the editors and a missing AI. My point is the sim can be overhauled quite a bit without disrupting most of which has been accomplished. There's no need to. Objects still have to be made and loaded. Rollingstock/locos I'm certain will be the same. Even routes will still need a way to map track and how to place objects. I don't see why even the xtrack routes should suffer for the new changes. It's their handling that needs changing. I can't figure a way to make route building easier. Even some of the neat things you can do in Trainz would be great, but we're still working with miles and miles of track and just that alone is pretty tough. For me, I really don't expect to see much in the way of new stuff for MSTS2. I believe we'll finally get what we thought we were getting with MSTS1. Maybe multiplayer and distance visibility changes but that's about it. IMO. Rich Garber

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LAST EDITED ON May-12-03 AT 01:52 AM (EDT)

Source Files.If you keep them, Whats the issue?EDIT: except routes

Shawn shawnssk@yahoo.com
Screen Shot Forum Mod
TKW & YLW Repainter

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Yes I agree.
Engines, wagons and scenery items you have a shape source file in some format (3ds/gmax/tsm/3dc) and texures (bmp/tga). These files are independent of the game engine and should be able to use for the new version with conversion tools for that (conv3ds a.s.o.) even if there are no tools to convert the current .s files for the new version.
That Pensy engine is made in some tool and I doubt they have used some new totally different 3D modelling tool. Only thing that might need re-doing are the eng/wag/sd files or whatever they are named in the new version. Small job compared with modelling an engine.Problem is the routes, some people have spent enourmos amounts of work on their routes and if they are headed for the trash it would be very sad (routes not the people).
I think there is much that can be done to MSTS without dropping the possibility of updating current routes. I tried looking at the track in the published pictures to get a clue to how they will be in MSTS2 but there is not much to be learned. There are only straight tracks in the pictures, no switches or anything. Textures looks to be tiling as they are now (no surprise) but if the tracks are shape based as now and if they use the same basic set with updated improved shape files is impossible to tell. Tracks as in the pictures are certainly possible to make today for the current version.Do hope for some serious updates doing away with the problems of the current version but I also hope there will be some way of keeping routes. I hope MS/Kuju realises the amount of work that has been invested in routes and provide some way of updating them for MSTS2.


//Okrasa
Chief Engineer
okrasaghia @ yahoo.com
http://www.geocities.com/okrasaghia
http://www.geocities.com/okrasaghia/XTracks

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Backwards compatibility has been announced by Microsoft, so it looks like we'll be able to make a choice whether we want to use it or not. I have doubts regarding COMPLETE compatibility, but we'll see.Bing

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