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"Taking the X out of Xtracks."

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sniper297 (1873 posts)
Mar-24-02, 08:10 PM (EST) "Taking the X out of Xtracks." Try again, this is a little clumsier, but it actually works when an Xtracks route is installed.http://www.train-sim.com/dcforum/User_files/3c9e758d08983744.zip
The only problem is that it has to be installed in each Xtracks route, and then run in each Xtracks route every time you switch back & forth. I couldn't figure out why the interference, but apparently trainsim loads all the tsection.dat files from all the installed routes when it starts up, and compares them to the global tsection.dat file. That's why routes that are not based on Xtracks have problems like derailing dynamic track, the blasted thing is consulting the tsection.dat file in \global. And when you replace the Xtracks tsection.dat file in \global with the original, you get send/don't send. This is not because of the additional shape files from Xtracks, it's because on loading, the sim compares \global\tsection.dat with all the tsection.dat files in all the installed routes, and when it gets to hoboken there's a conflict.I tested this utility with Hoboken 5 and a bunch of non-Xtracks routes on two computers, so this one actually works. It hasn't been tested with any horaced routes, or the thing where you enable the 250 meter curves without installing Xtracks. This does not replace Xtracks, it must be downloaded and installed seperately.If this works OK for you, and you are making an Xtracks route in the editor, feel free to include this utility with your route. Again, tho, I caution all of you that you should include a disclaimer in the route description that it uses Xtracks when you upload it.
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Subject Author Message Date ID RE: Taking the X out of Xtracks. patm41 Mar-24-02 1 RE: Taking the X out of Xtracks. OkrasaGhia Mar-25-02 2 RE: Taking the X out of Xtracks. sniper297 Mar-25-02 3

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patm41 (759 posts)
Mar-24-02, 08:43 PM (EST) 1. "RE: Taking the X out of Xtracks." thanks Sniper.. in going to d/l it but going to wait till Craig uploads his version 3 Guideway tracks..before i do any xtracks again..
patm41
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OkrasaGhia (285 posts)
Mar-25-02, 02:53 PM (EST) 2. "RE: Taking the X out of Xtracks." My experience is you get the send/don't send message when you have a route installed using track sections that are not in your global/tsection.dat.
Be as it like, I'm currently hard at work testing some ideas David Beach had about all this and it looks very promising. Needs more testing but this could be a big break through and allow people to use standard routes and routes with add-on tracks side by side in the same installation without all the problems now encountered and without needing to convert any routes. I'm currently running NE and Marias without any problem (and I knew of some problem areas in those with XTracks 2.0) and having add-on track sections installed.
Further test will be carried out ensuring compability with other routes also (have tried PO&N 5, Hoboken and A small world) and that it's possible to upgrade from XTracks 2.0 and/or any other add-on tracks. More to come but it's looking good.

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



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sniper297 (1873 posts)
Mar-25-02, 07:11 PM (EST) 3. "RE: Taking the X out of Xtracks." Glad to hear that. This is working for me currently, I do XT_on.bat and play with the Hoboken shore, XT_off.bat and play with other routes. With Xtracks installed, the regular routes seem to do wierd random error messages more often, altho that's hard to pin on Xtracks specifically when the sim is so buggy to begin with. The dynamic track thing is different tho, the one place I can duplicate it is by Northland Grain elevator one, and that section of dynamic track was layed in version two, hasn't changed since, and never caused any uncoupling or derailment problems. With the original KUJU tsection.dat in global it works fine, with your tsection.dat it goes off into the weeds and derails. Note that all the additional track shape files in global don't affect it at all, the only thing that XT_on or XT_off does to \global is swap the tsection.dat file. But that's where it gets wierd, if you just change the tsection.dat file in \global and don't change the tsection.dat in the root of every installed route based on Xtracks (I have two experimental routes using Xtracks that I normally stow outside of \routes), the sim goes to the send/don't send error message every time when loading. My solution was to take the tsection.dat file out of a route that was barely started, maybe a dozen track sections and two pieces of dynamic track, and substitute that. It's included in this package, as tsection.off, so when you run XT_off.bat it writes it to the Xtracks route's tsection.dat file. That doesn't work, since the tsection.dat don't even come close to matching the .tdb, but the funny thing is it don't even show up as a route choice in the sim menu. That's why I suspect this thing scans all the tsection.dat files on loadup, only KUJU knows why the mismatch between the two tsection.dat files would cause a problem, and with a tsection.dat file that couldn't possibly work with that route it just blips right by it, that's not a route, don't load it. Trying to reverse engineer this program is like attempting to make sense out of Bedlam. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

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