Making a route fit into a memory card

Soon I will be going on a two week vacation! I thought I would like to bring my route with me to work on with my Grandpa's computer! I have determined that the easiest way to do that is with a 128mg memory card.My route is 120 megs, and I also need to be able to bring along the Xtracks exe file, USAPhotomaps with about 30 squares downloaded, waypoints, and Poker besides some other things that I might need. I am concerned about just writing it on a CD, because my CD burner isn't very reliable and doesn't work with all computers.I pretty much have just the main alt series and altbridge.s series track, and a dummy doublestack I made to measure bridges. What files in the route are necessary and what can I just delete to make the file size smaller?BTW, I also have a 16 meg card, but I kind of need something to take pictures onto Thanks!
METRAUP

Chicago-Geneva Metra Line

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RE: Making a route fit into a memory card..., Craig H, Jul-25-04, 09:56 AM, (1) RE: Making a route fit into a memory card..., sniper297, Jul-25-04, 10:21 AM, (2) RE: Making a route fit into a memory card..., Craig H, Jul-25-04, 01:14 PM, (4) RE: Making a route fit into a memory card..., OTTODAD, Jul-25-04, 11:33 AM, (3) RE: Making a route fit into a memory card..., sniper297, Jul-25-04, 02:03 PM, (5) RE: Making a route fit into a memory card..., metraup, Jul-25-04, 03:03 PM, (6) RE: Making a route fit into a memory card..., sniper297, Jul-25-04, 08:29 PM, (7) RE: Making a route fit into a memory card..., ATSF104, Jul-25-04, 08:32 PM, (8) RE: Making a route fit into a memory card..., heffed, Jul-26-04, 03:45 AM, (10) RE: Making a route fit into a memory card..., lenglel, Jul-25-04, 10:07 PM, (9) RE: Making a route fit into a memory card..., metraup, Jul-26-04, 09:01 PM, (11) RE: Making a route fit into a memory card..., sniper297, Jul-26-04, 09:08 PM, (12) RE: Making a route fit into a memory card..., ianmacmillan, Jul-27-04, 10:15 AM, (13)

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Metraup,The first question that comes to mind is, does your Grandpa's computer have MSTS on it or are you planning to install it from your CD's?There's a couple of things that you could try.First, if you haven't compacted your route with Route-Riter, you could do that to cut down the size. Then when your ready to return home, you would only need to bring back the files in your routes root directory and the tiles and world folders. If you add any new shapes to the route, you'd also need to make sure they got installed when you get home.Another thing you might do is to use that 16 meg card for files like Poker and USA Photomaps that you wouldn't need to bring home with you. Install them on your Grandpa's computer and delete them from the 16 meg card to free it up. You wouldn't need to bring them back since they are already on your home computer.One more option would be to have a friend with a reliable CD burner make a CD for you.Good luck with your project.
Craig

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Well, don't look at me, my CD burner is about as reliable as the French. If you got the Galena Division down to 120 megs I suspect that's as small as it's gonna get, altho packaging with Route Riter might help, delete RAW and write bat eliminates anything not unique to the route.I don't recommend this for everyone, but if your Grandpappy don't mind, a "poor man's ZIP drive" would be easiest.Take your hard disk out of your computer (turn it off first!!), put it in a ziplock sandwich baggie and take it with you. If your gramps isn't comfortable with you fiddling with his computer, wait til he isn't looking and remove the case cover.If there are extra connection cables this might not be necessary, if not unplug the data ribbon cable from the CD drive, grasp the power connector by the plastic plug, NOT by the wires, and wiggle it loose.Plug both connectors into your hard disk, making sure the jumper is set to "CS" for "Cable Select", and find a box or whatever to set your HD on, just so it's level and supported and not hanging by the cables.Boot up, most CD drives are D: or E:, so your hard disk will show up as whatever the CD drive was. Open Windows Explorer, copy all the files from your hard drive, paste them onto his.Shut down, disconnect your hard drive, reconnect the two cables to the CD drive, reinstall the cover and boot up again.

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Sniper,That's an interesting approach to Metraup's problem, but could be a little risky. If the Operating systems are different on the two computers (for example Win 2000 on one and XP on the other) there's a chance that the drive could get messed up. I tried that a few years ago, moving a secondary hard drive onto a different computer as a secondary hard drive, and lost all the data on the drive when I booted up. Never was able to recover the information, even after moving the drive back to it's original computer.The OS's were different - Win 95 on the older machine and ME on the newer one. Might have been an issue with ME (I never did like that OS) but could potentially be a problem with other OS's too.Craig

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The most cost effective and practical solution is an external USB-2 Hard Disk you can connect to any computer which has USB-1 or later.O t t o

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LAST EDITED ON Jul-25-04 AT 02:03 PM (EST)

Yeah, Otto, problem is I'm too cheap to buy hardware that I'm not gonna use for anything other than transferring files. If I did it frequently it might be worth the cost.Craig, I dunno, never had ME or 2K. I have used this method to transfer files to and from Win95, Win98, and WinXP, with FAT16, FAT32, and NTFS in assorted configurations, no problems. Whether the second drive gets designated slave or secondary master is irrelevant since it boots from the primary, whatever OS is on the secondary is ignored. The one problem I did have was with one ASUS A7V motherboard, Win98SE, for some reason that computer recognized the second hard drive on bootup, but Win98SE refused to see it unless the CD-ROM was disconnected and the second drive connected in the CD-ROM's place. No idea why, I currently have one XP system and two 98SE systems in the house, and all three will take as many secondary hard disks as you want to hook up along with a CD drive.

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Interesting ideas!Say, what takes up the most space in a route with no imported shapes or textures?Yes, I will be installing MSTS on my grandpa's computer (he has a pretty new one and only uses it for text documents).Thanks!
METRAUP

Chicago-Geneva Metra Line

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LAST EDITED ON Jul-25-04 AT 08:31 PM (EST)

What takes up the most space in any route is textures, which is why I use default textures as much as possible, so they can be copied from the end user's default folders. Ace files also don't compress very much, so they fatten up a zip file more than any other file type. Using Route Riter, click on confirm route, then check route. After it finishes checking (takes a while) the next step depends on what you want to do. If you intend to work on the route while on vacation, running "Compact Route" and "Write Bat" will eliminate anything that's not used in the route, and rewrite the ref file. So any object you haven't placed at least once somewhere on the route won't be available. To get around that you can make a backup copy of the ref file, and then after installing on Grandpa's computer restuff the shapes and textures. If you look in the Route_Riter folder there's a "stuffitpack.zip", and in that zip among other things is "EZstuff4.bat", you can take the stuffitpack.zip with you and use the old EZstuff method instead of taking the whole Route Riter along.All that may not be necessary, depending on how much space you need to save, little tidbit of info that you might have missed:In the \Tiles folder are files for the terrain, the ones named -019ae6b8_y.raw and -019ae6b8.t contain the actual info on terrain elevation, terrtex textures, and so forth. The -019ae6b8_n.raw and -019ae6b8_e.raw files are terrain lighting and geometry, these files are necessary to run, but since they take their info from the -019ae6b8_y.raw file, whenever they're missing the game or route editor will automatically recreate them from the -019ae6b8_y.raw files.For that reason you can safely delete all the files in the tiles folder ending with e.raw and y.raw at any time, which saves a lot of space. Run the Route Riter "Delete Raw" button and see how much smaller it is.

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There are things at Fry's Electronics (I'm sure there at other places as well) you can plug into the USB port and copy. They range from 40-300 depending on the file size.-MattATSF GP60M #104 works on the local in Flagstaff, AZ.

www.atsfrr.com Please attend the up coming convention in Pasadena, California.
Vice-President of FWLS. Now Hiring!

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That is the same concept as what he is planning on using. -Jeff

Union Pacific fan.

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Call your Grandpa before you go and tell him what you have in
mind, he may have some helpful suggesions as well.Lloyd

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Is there anything wrong with just deleting the .t files in the TILES folder and just keep the ones in the area you are working on? Then I could just paste the ones in Geneva when I get back!P.S. Any suggestions for the IHB bridge?Thanks!
METRAUP

Chicago-Geneva Metra Line

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Haven't tried that, deleting a t file might screw it up beyond repair. Try deleting *e.raw and *n.raw and see how much space that saves you, it's the safest thing since they automatically regenerate. Then WINZIP the whole folder and see how that fits on the memory card.

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Download Savetex from Decapod.http://www31.brinkster.com/decapodYou'll find it under shape viewer downloadsThis fantasic little beastie will gobble up all your big ace files and poop out neat little compressed ones.Use it on the rolling stock as well.

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