Wow!

[landnrailroader]

I just saw the news of the release of 0.9 and played the video, while at work with nothing coming to me yet. I must say it is impressive and ought to extend the use of MSTS items for years to come. As soon as I get home this evening, I will download it and try it on my "GAP" route. Very impressive guys, very impressive. The addition of track circuits may be the most important item for me because the "GAP" has only APB signals and hopefully this is a step toward proper operation of those. Although all the Milwaukee Road western routes are APB, I have included buried signals for proper AI operation.

J. H. Sullivan (FLorida, USA)
(aka landnrailroader)

[landnrailroader]

After getting home, I downloaded the new release and installed it. I used it to run my test activity on the Gap and
put myself on the front coupler. The first thing I noticed was that there were gaps in the sub-ballast textures at
regular intervals. I use 70M in tangent track, and lesser lengths in curves. There is no way to avoid some overlap
in the inside corner on curves, but tangents are placed carefully so as not to overlap. I suppose this is something
that will be fixed eventually and does not bother me much. As I have indicated on here a number of times, in my
early career, on the Southern Rwy., I often ran yard and road trains during strikes so a simulator is fun, but I
much prefer creating new routes.

The other thing I noticed was that using the indicated command, I could not shift into full screen mode. My system is
a Win-7/64. I have a high end ATI card with latest drivers installed, 8G of memory.

One other thing was three errors about a bad pin in the .tdb file, with no references. The route runs anyway, and
there has been no problem editing or running the route with MSTS, so I have no idea if this is a serious problem or
just something to benefit the programmers. The .tdb/.rdb have been rebuilt once on this route with no problem
either.

J. H. Sullivan
(aka landnrailroader)

[muskokaandtahoe]

Full screen vs. windows is set on the initial window -- it's just to the left of the start button.

Error checking is far more rigorous in OR than in MSTS. If it says there was something not quite right in the .tdb, there was something not quite right. It may or may not have any affect on running the sim... but something is not quite right.

As a route builder myself I'm quite sure you will quickly convert to using OR to check your own work. You can see soooo much better in OR... there's no going back.

[eric]

And yet, ORTS is a bit more forgiving in other areas. Throw in a shapefile missing its textures, and ORTS will still render it. Throw in a texture that's 512x510 and OR will render it. Launch an activity where you can't get trains positioned for some reason or another, ORTS will log the error & keep going...

[dcarleton]

Error checking is far more rigorous in OR than in MSTS. If it says there was something not quite right in the .tdb, there was something not quite right. It may or may not have any affect on running the sim... but something is not quite right.

Here's a specific example, from Whitefish 9. After showing eight RDB errors, and eleven telepole token errors because the telepole feature is not included in OR at this time, then it adds this warning:
"Warning: Section 959, Pin [1,0] links to section 599 already linked by 959"

Diving into the TDB and then looking up the tile and coordinates, it turns out that 559 is the turnout before the baloon track in Libby. So it's "warning" you that both paths through 559 go to 959.

[baldwin]

Here are three of my favourites,
Warning: Track node pin has invalid link 0 in F:\Train Simulator - Dorset\ROUTES\Dorset\Dorset.tdb:line 18282
Warning: Section 1789, Pin [0,0] is 0 reference
Warning: Skipped track section 44469 not in global or dynamic TSECTION.DAT

Plus these little gems,
Information: Platform split by junction at Barton Mill Carriage Sidings
Information: Cannot locate TCSection for platform 14027

Things like this crop up on lots of routes, but they all seem to run OK.

[landnrailroader]

dcarleton's error is very similar to what I see. However, I also see it on most other routes as well, so it must be some obscure item that ORTS tests for. One improvement would be a way to save that error listing on demand.

J. H. Sullivan

[dcarleton]

One improvement would be a way to save that error listing on demand.

For each session, OR automatically saves the report to a file called OpenRailsLog.txt
If you want to keep it for reference, just copy it to wherever you want.

[muskokaandtahoe]

If you believe OR is calling out something as a problem AND as a result the route is not behaving as it should, please report it as a bug, here: http://launchpad.net/or Please include as much information as you can (e.g., route, error noticed, what's not behaving correctly). If it can be confirmed, it most likely will get fixed.

If you believe OR is calling out something as a problem AND you understand why it does that AND that its an erroneous conclusion (e.g., post #5, above, might qualify), please report it as this isn't right because of x, y, and z. It will be examined and time allowing it may get corrected.