The Xtracks Blues

Well, I ran into a bunch of problems today, when I decided to lay out some rail for the Seattle Route... I'll make this a very short story.. no, i'm not gonna give up Ok.. As I rip out.. what's left of my hair, I installed xtracks, per the instructions.. I read and re-read it carefully just to make sure I did it right, backing up everything just in case something goes wrong. It installed correctly, I know this since I am able to run the Indy route... So I pop my head inside the route editor for ETSEATAC, browse around at my new terrain.. and thought.. ok.. time to lay some rail... well.. as I look through the daunting confusing mess of track pieces.. and more track pieces, my head begans to spin... I can't find ANY of the Xtrack pieces... strangely enough, 10 minutes ago (now 2:30am as I write this) I found, what I thought was a piece of xtracks... but baffling enough.. it was using the default MSTS file.. so I can't tell the difference at all (maybe xtracks 3.3 will have different track texture for it, I would hope) So, I decided to open Horace... well... I got as far as Double clicking on the icon, and one of many lovely error messages popped up to my dismay, horror, and being just plain tired.. i read it... "Run Time Error "7" Out of Memory. Well.. as I sat.. in disbelieve... even more confusion ran through my head.. thinking.. Cacheman says I am running at 100...meaning I should have 156MB RAM remaining...being as tired as I was at the current time, I decided enough with the hassle and just post on Train-Sim... well.. I made it here.. but before I began to write this... I moved it (horace) into various directories.. still the same error message... to dead to get frustrated, I write here now... still questioning and wondering... is Horace compatible with Windows XP???Secondly.. is there ANY simple way of changing the names in the RE, so it is better to know what you are working with.. track piece wise... this number coding stuff is making me insane... here be my specs....Third and Last..... This may sound like a plee for help.. but HELP!! Just what are the names I am code names I am looking for? mmmkay...... Stay awake...
Note: VisionTek GeForce3 Installed, running on a network.. Horace works fine in Windows ME *yawns*Specifications of eMachines C1641
AMD Athlon™ XP processor 1600+ (QuantiSpeed™ architecture)
VIA KM 266
7.25"w x 14.125"h x 16"d
40 GB HDD
AOL service included, click here for details
256 MB DDR
56K* ITU v.92 ready Fax/Modem
10/100Mbps built-in Ethernet
Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition
12x8x4x32x DVD/CD-RW Combo Drive;
3.5" 1.44MB FDD
Keyboard, Wheel Mouse, Amplified Speakers
Avance Logic ALC201
VisionTek GeForce 3 in APG Slot
Pre-Installed Software: Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition, McAfee Anti-Virus, Microsoft Works 2000, Money 2002, Adobe® Acrobat® Reader, Real Player, Encarta Online, Netscape® 6.2.1, AOL 7.0, CompuServe®, MSN®, PowerDVD 4.0, BigFix®, McAfee Anti-Virus (90 days trial version)
Bundled with 17" eView™ 17f2 Monitor
4 USB ports (2 on front), 1 Serial, 1 Parallel, 2 PS/2, Audio In & Out, MIDI/Game port, Mic & Head Phone jack on front, 3 PCI slots (2 available)As you can tell, I am a bit lazy.. so I just copied and pasted All and any help would be graceful... Also note.. I tried for the tired humor.. hope it works. *clicks the Post Message button and falls to sleep...*

Brian E. Bundridge
Founder - Evergreen Tracks
Seattle, Washington

Alert | IP

Printer-friendly page | Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Though you don’t say it out straight I think this one is aimed at me.
I’ll try to answer in the same order you’re posing the questions.
If you can run a route needing XTracks there is a very good chans you got it installed correctly, that is true.
When you started RE was that an old route started before installing XTracks?
Then you MUST NOT add tracks to it before converting it with Horace or you will have a lot of problems with dynamic tracks.
You can’t find the XTracks sections you say, they are not that different from the original sections.
Can you locate the ‘A1t20mStrt’? That’s an XTracks section. The XTracks sections uses the same textures as the original sections and that will not change, point is they should blend in with the original sections (btw XTracks 3.3 is out! Have a look in the file library).
Horace won’t change which sections you have available in the object selector in RE. What Horace does is to update all dynamic track sections in your route so that they will still work. Directly after running Horace you MUST rebuild the track database or suffer the consequences.
The error message ‘Out of memeory’ is probably because you don’t have all files installed to run a VB application. Try downloading the full installer version of Horace (in the file library) and use that. It’s the same version of Horace but I did not want to include the installer with XTracks (due to size) as many people already have what is needed installed on their computers.
Moving Horace around makes no difference, should not matter where the Horace.exe is located, it reads the registry to find MSTS and works from that.
Horace does execute on Windows XP, I’ve started it on my XP machine, don’t have MSTS on that computer but then Horace simply tells me it cant find MSTS and that’s it, no run time error.
Changing the names of track sections is not possible. There is a system to the names though and if you learn it things become a little easier. I’m not going to repeat it here as there are several threads on that topic.
Your system specs looks okay, Horace is not very demanding. It will take some time to chew through a route though once you get it running.


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



Steam: 4-4-0 8, 0-4-0ST 9, 0-6-0 12, 0-8-0 15, 2-6-0 25, 2-8-0 27, 2-6-6-2 37, 2-8-2 40, 4-6-2 56
Diesels: SW8 16, F3 53, F7 54, FP7 57, CPA 58, RDC 61, GP7 81, GP9 82, RS11 86, H16 87, TM 88

Alert | IP

Printer-friendly page | Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

I am building a new route (sequel to ATSF Raton Pass) X tracks is outstanding. Gives you ever thing you need to build a prototype RR.

Alert | IP

[ Home | MSTS Forum | MSTS FAQ | File Library ] Copyright © 2002 by Nels Anderson. All Rights Reserved.