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cjmaclean (895 posts)
Feb-10-02, 03:09 AM (EST) "An Idea that might help..." Hi folks,
it still happens to me that when I am driving on an add-on route the game will suddenly freeze (well, it will "halt" and display a message box) because it was trying to load a texture file that was not in the right place. Thus I was just thinking about the following:
Wouldn't it be good if somebody could program a tool much like the ConBuilder which would check the reference files of each single route and analyze whether there are any missing shape or texture files? I am thinking that such a tool might help both route builders as well as the "end users" a lot!
Or is there a way already to do such a file check that I am not aware of?Just an idea ...D.M.
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Subject Author Message Date ID RE: An Idea that might help... sniper297 Feb-10-02 1 RE: An Idea that might help... Jak_Fearon Mar-01-02 2 RE: An Idea that might help... sniper297 Mar-01-02 3 RE: An Idea that might help... dvdhoven Mar-02-02 4 RE: An Idea that might help... sniper297 Mar-02-02 5 RE: An Idea that might help... dvdhoven Mar-02-02 6 RE: An Idea that might help... davidbeach Mar-17-02 7

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sniper297 (1817 posts)
Feb-10-02, 10:46 AM (EST) 1. "RE: An Idea that might help..." I've been busy with a bunch of other projects, so I haven't even tried Jak Fearon's "route control" yet, but some say it does do that, others say the route has to be properly installed and working correctly before "packing" with route control, so I don't know what the real story is.
Having something for route developers to check it before uploading would be a godsend, as is, you have to test each section of the route both in summer and winter to insure all the terrain textures are correct, test each section at night to make sure the objects with night textures aren't missing anything, then go crazy with vegetation. Test all sections on a clear day, winter/spring/summer/fall, then test winter/spring/summer/fall with snow. Even all that isn't an ironclad guarantee, since the bugs in the program can cause other wierd things to happen after the route passes that battery of tests.
Testing the extraction is something else, I have a new AMD 1500, gave my old AMD 800 to my youngest son, and his old K6-2 450 is set up with an unmodified plain-vanilla install of MSTS. If the extraction, installation, and playtesting works on the K6-2 450, it should work on anybody else's computer. Unfortunately we're all amateur hackers doing this in our spare time, and most people don't have 3 computers to test it on.
On this computer, I have a \backup folder with 3 subfolders in it, \mytrains, \theirtrains, and \global. Obvious what each is for, I delete the entire \trains folder with all my downloads, copy and paste \theirtrains into the trainsim folder, so when I'm making activities I don't accidently include the C&NW commuter train. That would work perfectly on my computer after exhaustive testing, but wouldn't work on anyone else's unless they also had the NorthWestern double-decker. After I'm done writing the activities for the route I can copy \mytrains back in so I can play! The \global backup is a recent thing, all the Xtracks releases so far require a modification to files in the \global folder, and it's easy to forget and place a 250 meter single track curve on your route, which works great since you have the modified \global files, but somebody in Walkabout Creek or Stump Hollow Whistle Stop who got the route from a friend won't be able to figure out why it don't work on his. So when I work on a route I'm planning to upload, the default \global folder goes back in, that way I'm working with something everyone else already has on their computer, no need to download anything else to make it work.
I also just recently added \patchbak and \patch1 to it, so I can replace the files from the patch with the originals for testing. The patch has night textures for two japan1 stations and a snow texture for us2fuelstation.ace in japan2. The night textures were missing from the two Japan1 train stations, and if either of these were used in a route with a batch install there would be missing night textures if the end user didn't have patch1 installed before running the batch file for the add-on route. US2fuelstation's snow texture wouldn't affect an add on route, since the same texture would be copied from USA2's \snow folder.
Man, I got long-winded that time. Ya had to get me started, didn't you? Anyway, to sum up, I agree. I Should have said that in the first place. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
Jak_Fearon (405 posts)
Mar-01-02, 09:07 PM (EST) 2. "RE: An Idea that might help..." LAST EDITED ON Mar-01-02 AT 09:08 PM (EST)LAST EDITED ON Mar-01-02 AT 09:07 PM (EST)some say it does do that, others say the route has to be properly installed and working correctly before "packing" with route control, so I don't know what the real story is.For the majority of routes we've actually written special script files the Route Control uses that will copy the various files in where needed. That's for routes that are "drag-and-drop auto-installed" with Route Control, such as the PO&N, and any route that uses a standard zip file format.Certain routes (those that use EXE installers (with the exception of PO&N)) need to be installed into Train Sim manually though, before being "packed" into Route Control, and this is where the user has to verify that everything works before forging ahead.Jak Fearon
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sniper297 (1817 posts)
Mar-01-02, 10:48 PM (EST) 3. "RE: An Idea that might help..." Yeah, I was just over in the MSTS forum looking at Sol's post about getting Seaview to install with your latest Route Control version. I still don't know why EZstuff4 wouldn't work for him, but Seaview has over 3000 downloads now (guy blew me out of the water!), PO&N5 over 2000, and that's the only report of an EZstuff4 problem so far. Aside from the earlier version route control incompatibility, of course, but when that failed everyone was able to install it "manually" by double clicking on the batch file except Sol. Being a dinosaur I resist newfangled notions as long as possible, so I only started using winzip a few years ago. And I have seen downloaded zips with corrupted or truncated files that won't unzip, so winzip obviously has some kind of CRC checksum error subroutine built into it, but all too frequently the file unzips anyway with no error messages, and you don't have a clue that anything is wrong until you download a good copy of the zip and start comparing the extracted files. Possibly that's what happened to him, the batch file was somehow corrupted in the download.
What the first guy here (forgot his name already) was talking about would be a nice addition to Route Control, something that would run thru the \world\*.w files to check that all the .s and .sd files listed were in the \shapes folder, but of course you'd have to weed out all the references to track shapes and other things accessed from the \global folder, and unless you can read the .s files without uncompressing them you'd have no way to check the textures. I suspect a lot of future routes are going to be using the new ffedit (the one from the patch that actually works) to compress the *.w files eventually, so those would need to be checked in the compressed format too. The \terrtex terrain textures used are in the \tiles\*y.raw files, and those are binary as well, so putting together something similar to activity analysis to test a route that don't run after installation would be an unholy beast of a job.
Meantime, all youse guys delete the original route and test the extraction before you upload, and warn people in the description if you use something like Xtracks on it. Sim's only 9 months old, we'll get the wrinkles ironed out eventually. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
dvdhoven (640 posts)
Mar-02-02, 05:14 AM (EST) 4. "RE: An Idea that might help..." > and unless you can read the
>.s files without uncompressing them
>you'd have no way to
>check the textures. Ho, wait a minute. About a month ago, I have uploaded cross-reference files for the six default routes, so you check every shape which .ace files this shape uses.These files can be easily read into a script file or Excel or Access.
So it is no longer necessary to "uncompress" .s files to see what .ace files are needed.Dick van den Hoven
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sniper297 (1817 posts)
Mar-02-02, 10:06 AM (EST) 5. "RE: An Idea that might help..." Hey, Dick, long time no see! Yeah, I got that little critter, don't tell me you did all that cross referencing by hand?! Did you write something that read it from the compressed .s files, or did you actually uncompress every last .s file to read it? It's a great list, and I'm sure it will come in handy somehow, especially on routes that only use default original objects. Probably something that checks the .w files for all the shapes could be written, then the cross reference would be checked for the ace files, and the whole mess compiled into a monster sized batch file that would copy only the necessary objects. As an error checker it might work on any route that didn't include custom objects, but I suspect most future routes (including mine) are going to include custom objects, and a pre-compiled list that was written before the new object was uploaded wouldn't do anything for that. As an example, using your list to check for missing textures on the Hoboken Shore or Seaview routes wouldn't work, since there are a lot of objects in those routes that are not on your list. I'm curious if you've seen Seaview or PO&N5, a lot of the missing/broken objects that you put so much time into fixing the SD files for are in both routes. I still gotta get back to optimizing that package one of these days, and maybe we can whack together something that will auto-compile at least part of an installation routine to copy only the necessary default shapes and textures that were actually used, since any custom objects would have to be included in the zip anyway. Something to think about. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
dvdhoven (640 posts)
Mar-02-02, 01:17 PM (EST) 6. "RE: An Idea that might help..." Hi Jim,To make the cross reference list, I copied all the .s files from one route to the ffedit folder.
Then I run a bat file, the receipt for this file can be found in the Techdocs, and afterwards I had the uncompressed .s files. Then I run a script to find the .ace files and put them in a file.For the non-default objects, it is somewhat more difficult and also for the "lost" and refound objects.I haven't see the SeaView.
But I have seen and played the PON5. A great route!! Really great and also nice to recognize the objects that I helped looking for. I have played several hours. Nice and clever way, you found for the AI.But I didn't know that you know my clever nephew. I cannot be me to whom that city in the North East of PON5 is named. Yes reading the world files in a script is one of the things on my list. But when you keep building such great routes, than I have no time to write script files.Dick van den Hoven
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davidbeach (103 posts)
Mar-17-02, 01:51 AM (EST) 7. "RE: An Idea that might help..." >I suspect a lot of future routes are going to be using
>the new ffedit (the one from the patch that actually
>works) I seem to be missing something. I installed the patch (into a temporary set of folders) and did not get anything related to ffedit. Where does this new ffedit come from?Thanks,David Beach Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

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