Difference between Open Rails, BIN and Kosmos

[Vince]

OR = The software that runs a Simulation.

OpenRails is simply a new "GAME ENGINE" like TRAIN.EXE is the MSTS "GAME ENGINE"

GAME ENGINE = The software that oversee's the running of the Sim.GAME

OR's "GAME ENGINE" is written to take advantage of the latest graphics processing in the graphics card GPU
as opposed to the MSTS "GAME Engine" which did most of it's Graphic Processing in the CPU

Game Engine has nothing to do with a train engine, like a GP38.

OpenRails is simply a new Game Engine that is able to load and run content, routes, shapes and rolling stock that was originally created to run on the TRAIN.EXE software platform.
This IMHO, is an absolutly WONDERFUL way to go, taking advantage of the thousands of man-hours the members of the MSTS community have spent making thousands of models and routes.

THATS why I'm very excited about 'The Project'. You know, if the creators of Rail Sim and RailWorks had climbed down off their high horse and made those Sims able to use this vast library of add-on we have for MSTS, I would have bought it in a New York Minute (41 seconds) But NO! They 'decided' to basically say to all the good folk who created this content, "screw you, we don't want your junk". A disrespect to each and every modeler and builder of MSTS content. We worked very hard to produce better and better quailty and you think we're gonna' just dump it? You must be mad!

Well kuju & whoever . . . your loss. Which proves there is no cure for stupid.
Why for heavens sake would you do such a stupid thing? To get a market lock on your own filetypes? Hmmm?
Sorry, but thats not the way this community operates you silly twits. It's built on sharing and respect.

[kingconrail76]

OpenRails is simply a new "GAME ENGINE" like TRAIN.EXE is the MSTS "GAME ENGINE"

GAME ENGINE = The software that oversee's the running of the Sim.GAME

OR's "GAME ENGINE" is written to take advantage of the latest graphics processing in the graphics card GPU
as opposed to the MSTS "GAME Engine" which did most of it's Graphic Processing in the CPU

Game Engine has nothing to do with a train engine, like a GP38.

Now see, THAT is exactly what I thought...but everyone seems to keep saying/thinking that OR is a completely stand alone Sim that will be able to use MSTS content, but will not need MSTS to be able to run...

My confusion comes from the fact that the "OR team" has not, and seems, will not, come right out and say it.

[baldwin]

Open Rails IS a new game engine, OK, it uses MSTS model content. It does not use MSTS itself to run these. Open Rails in the current Beta form is already handling high detail and poly count models that will simply not run in MSTS. The following two quotes are from the Open Rails website.

...Open Rails software (OPEN RAILS) is a community-developed and -maintained project from openrails.org. Its objective is to create a new transport simulator platform that is first, compatible with routes, activities, consists, locomotives, and rolling stock created for MSTS; and second, a platform for future content creation freed of the constraints of MSTS.

Note that the Open rails team is doing what MS and Railsim did not want to do, provide a better platform for existing MSTS models and look forward to newer non MSTS ways of working in the same game engine.

....The development team is anxious to move beyond compatibility work for MSTS. The team has great ideas for procedural track systems, multi-player, Route and Activity Editors. But we're got quite a lot of work ahead of us before we can tackle the really exciting work.

There we have mention of new route and activity editors in the future.

[Vince]

Yes OR is a developing, stand alone, all new Sim!

".....................
but everyone seems to keep saying/thinking that OR is a completely stand alone Sim that will be able to use MSTS content, but will not need MSTS to be able to run..

Taken as a statement, the above quote from you is correct.

Thats what everyone, including me is attempting to make you understand!

It (OR) IS a stand alone sim! NOT an add-on or an 'enhancement!

[kingconrail76]

Taken as a statement, the above quote from you is correct.

Thats what everyone, including me is attempting to make you understand!

It (OR) IS a stand alone sim! NOT an add-on or an 'enhancement!

It may be what they strive to BE, but they are nowhere near there yet, and it does not appear that they are trying to get there.

Try it yourself. Load up OR on a system or Drive that does not have MSTS "installed", create a Folder for the Routes (and it's subfolders) and Trains (and it's 2 subfolders) then copy content into those folders.

With no MSTS Registry entries and no "Microsoft Train Simulator" directory, OR will not function...even OR says so themselves, MSTS MUST be "installed"...it IS there-for dependant on an MSTS installation, and is not "stand alone".

"OR" may verywell replace the "Train.exe" of MSTS, but Train.exe alone is not MSTS, and without all the "other" parts of MSTS "OR" does nothing.

There is absolutely ZERO provision to add "routes" and "trains" into an OR installation without having MSTS installed.

Look, I fully support having a new Game Engine that can take advantage of the current, and future, computer technology. When MSTS was created 10 years ago, very few people were visualizing the budget priced multi-core/multi-processor computers that we have now. I am in no way trying to discourage the development of OR, nor am I trying to persuade others that my opinions are the end-all be-all, but let's call a Duck, a Duck. It needs to be made clear to the general public that this is NOT something that will be a free replacement for the ever increasingly over priced MSTS...MSTS will ALWAYS be NEEDED for the OR game engine to function.

What OR wants to appear to be, is the equivilent of OpenOffice, which is functionally 100% compatable with MS-Office, but is free (compared to MS-Office costing over $135.00). The difference is that OpenOffice actually works WITHOUT having to still buy and install MS-Office.

If this is not the case, then why not just call it what it is, and enhanced Game Engine for use in MSTS?, (ie, an MSTS 'enhancement! ).

[derekmorton]

Hi Steven,

I suggest you read the Open Rails faq.
http://www.elvastower.com/forums/ind...pen-rails-faq/

It answers some of your questions, particularly this one:-

Open Rails will eventually be a completely stand alone sim, once suitable utilities have been developed for it.

Derek

[NW611]

RW will have multiplayer before MSTS. You can barely run one train in MSTS without lag, let alone two or more PT trains. My own MP efforts let to nothing earlier this year. The game is simply too old. Youd been better off trying to create something like OR for RW and fixing your gripes with that program and expanding on its newer technology. They could fix there gripes with RWs and make it there own. From what I hear the RW team need coders.

All OR is gonna be is something that makes what you do now a little easier and some physics adjustments, but in the end it will still look like a game from 2001. Sorry guys. I had no problems with my sun in MSTS before.

[jovet]

RW will have multiplayer before MSTS. You can barely run one train in MSTS without lag, let alone two or more PT trains. My own MP efforts let to nothing earlier this year. The game is simply too old. Youd been better off trying to create something like OR for RW and fixing your gripes with that program and expanding on its newer technology. ...
All OR is gonna be is something that makes what you do now a little easier and some physics adjustments, but in the end it will still look like a game from 2001. Sorry guys. I had no problems with my sun in MSTS before.

OR will be whatever its author(s) make of it. I'm sure your enthusiastic support and encouragement is most welcome.

[baldwin]

RW will have multiplayer before MSTS. You can barely run one train in MSTS without lag, let alone two or more PT trains. My own MP efforts let to nothing earlier this year. The game is simply too old. Youd been better off trying to create something like OR for RW and fixing your gripes with that program and expanding on its newer technology. They could fix there gripes with RWs and make it there own. From what I hear the RW team need coders.

All OR is gonna be is something that makes what you do now a little easier and some physics adjustments, but in the end it will still look like a game from 2001. Sorry guys. I had no problems with my sun in MSTS before.

I would not be surprised if RW had multiplayer before OR, after all RW is a fully fledged game, OR is still in beta and has a long way to go.

Not sure what you mean by "lag" in MSTS, but you have to remember thas MSTS is a very old game and was never designed with multi-player as an option.

RW is a brand new commercial game and has its own development program, so no need for anything extra there, which probably would not have been allowed anyway. To be quite honest and to the point RW still has the look and feel of a revamped MSTS that went wrong.

[buttercup]

I would not be surprised if RW had multiplayer before OR, after all RW is a fully fledged game, OR is still in beta and has a long way to go.

OR is like a new born baby that is just learning to do things. It is just learning to roll over (alpha stage). It has a very long long way to go before is will be going to college and learning how to do all the things you want it to do. It will need many teachers (programmers) and lots of time to accomplish this.

Its game engine is completely separate from MSTS. You can run it without having MSTS installed. It does use the MSTS file structure and content. (It needs to have a folder the contains the MSTS Global, Sound, Routes and Trains folders and all their sub folders in order to have the information needed to run it.)

Setup a folder (any name you like) and copy from the Train Simulator folder the Global, Sound, Routes, and Trains folders to it. Start OR and click the add folder button and navigate to and select the folder you just setup. OR will now display and run the routes from this new folder. If you want you can now uninstall MSTS and still run the routes from the new folder.

[crstagg]

Not to change the subject but there seems to be a lot posting with knowledge about OR. Could someone tell us how to get help? Several of us have the same problem but no one has offered a solution that works see https://www.trainsim.com/vbts/showthread.php?t=292944 I sent an email to the address on the OR web site but it was returned as undeliverable.

[longiron]

If OR NEEDS MSTS to be installed, and uses the MSTS registry...how can it be classified as a "simulator" and not an "enhancement to an exsisting simulator" ? I guess I am asking (because no one on Open Rails web site says); Is Open Rails ever going to be truely "Stand Alone" ?

The answer to your question is YES, eventually. Right now, Open Rails uses existing MSTS content, routes and activities to determine what is displayed by its game engine.

Thinking about the OR 'stand alone' challenge, perhaps this may help. A train sim is comprised of essentially four major things:
- first, a game engine that displays the train sim world according to the rules defined by the other three elements;
- second, engines, wagons, cars, which are the 3D content of the train sim;
- third, an 3D environment (better know as a route & activities) in which the content follows defined or AI paths along the track and switches;
- fourth, a set of rules (physics, signals, speed limits, AI, etc) which govern how the content behaves within the 3D environment.

Today, OR is only the first, a wholely new game engine that takes advantage of the latest GPU and HW while offering the ability to provide totally new functionality that doesn't exist in MSTS. An example is the ability of OR to take advantage of multi-core systems.

Regarding the second element, 3D content, the OR team is in the process of developing a standard for dedicated OR content. Even without a standard, a few 3D modellers have developed content that ONLY runs in OR game engine. We see a future where, the user will be able to run existing MSTS content alongside new dedicated OR content giving the user the 'best of both worlds'.

Jumping to the fourth element, the OR dev team is actively working on incorporating the full set of rules (signaling, AI, etc) that incorporates the best of MSTS signal scripts within a more open framework. This open framework will allow users to customize signaling and other rules to local international standards via a "plug-in". This would eliminate the need to "re-script" the entire signaling system to change their behavior. Proper designing and coding allows for multi-player capabilites to be innately incorporated, rather than kluged later. Our first step on this path is to be able to correctly interpret MSTS signaling information.

And finally the third element, today OR 'reads' MSTS route information to display a 3D world. The team's long term objective is to offer an complete set of OR tools to develop OR specific routes - but that is a way in the future.

The OR project is a process to provide the train sim community with a platform that is open and free. It brings along the wealth of MSTS content, routes, etc and combines that with the ability to introduce OR specific content and capabilities into a single train sim. IMHO, the ability to incorporate MSTS content alongside dedicated OR content is a huge win for the community.

[Vince]

It's kinda' what I was trying to say.

Thank you Chris for giving out a very clear explaination. I support your efforts 100%.
I get a good laugh at statements like "RW will have multiplayer before MSTS"! Well Duh!! MSTS will NEVER have multiplayer technology . . .Of course it won't . . . .but OR will!

[kingconrail76]

Hi Steven,

I suggest you read the Open Rails faq.
http://www.elvastower.com/forums/ind...pen-rails-faq/

It answers some of your questions, particularly this one:-

Open Rails will eventually be a completely stand alone sim, once suitable utilities have been developed for it.

Derek

I have read all of the info on the OR.org web site...several times, and until the following Quote, I have not seen it be mentioned.

The answer to your question is YES, eventually. Right now, Open Rails uses existing MSTS content, routes and activities to determine what is displayed by its game engine.

Thinking about the OR 'stand alone' challenge, perhaps this may help. A train sim is comprised of essentially four major things:
- first, a game engine that displays the train sim world according to the rules defined by the other three elements;
- second, engines, wagons, cars, which are the 3D content of the train sim;
- third, an 3D environment (better know as a route & activities) in which the content follows defined or AI paths along the track and switches;
- fourth, a set of rules (physics, signals, speed limits, AI, etc) which govern how the content behaves within the 3D environment.

....

Regarding the second element, 3D content, the OR team is in the process of developing a standard for dedicated OR content. Even without a standard, a few 3D modellers have developed content that ONLY runs in OR game engine. We see a future where, the user will be able to run existing MSTS content alongside new dedicated OR content giving the user the 'best of both worlds'.

Jumping to the forth element,.....

And finally the third element,.....

The OR project is a process to provide the train sim community with a platform that is open and free. It brings along the wealth of MSTS content, routes, etc and combines that with the ability to introduce OR specific content and capabilities into a single train sim. IMHO, the ability to incorporate MSTS content alongside dedicated OR content is a huge win for the community.

Thank you. To the best of my knowledge, that is the first time it has ever been said that OR specific content is "on the board", other than references to "future projects", in respect to considerations made in programming the Game Engine, and it's ability to handle more than just MSTS content.

To me personally, this is a key item in the project, as a whole. Again, acknowledging my extremely limited programming knowledge, it would seem that consideration of the extened or "OR specific" features should take place in a "parrallel fashion" to the "compatability" side of the project.

[longiron]

Not to change the subject but there seems to be a lot posting with knowledge about OR. Could someone tell us how to get help? Several of us have the same problem but no one has offered a solution that works see https://www.trainsim.com/vbts/showthread.php?t=292944 I sent an email to the address on the OR web site but it was returned as undeliverable.

Charles,
Apologize for the email returned as undeliverable - we had the spam filter turned down too tight. The best way to get help on any issue is to post on the forums that have OR specific sites. The team monitors TS, UKTS, and ET forums on a daily basis.

We are working to identify the root cause of the error.