Uploading New Route Specially for OR

[flarrfan2]

I am currently uploading a 258 mb zip file for a route I finished a little over two years ago and put aside. I previously uploaded three routes for MSTS, but this one...a 250-mile ScaleRail CSX P&A/Tallahassee Sub...is what I consider my masterpiece. (It adds ScaleRail and 150 miles west to Pensacola to the existing Tal Sub.)

I built it on an XP machine, but when I sent it out for testing, a major issue arose with testers on Vista and Win 7...after starting from any of multiple points on the route, users on Vista/Win 7 experienced freezes on crossing the second or third tile boundary after the start point. Trouble-shooting with another, more expert route builder (J.H. Sullivan) failed to solve the problem, and I pretty much abandoned MSTS for the last two years until recently discovering that the route runs fine and as intended in Open Rails on all systems. After running it today, I decided, WTH, and zipped it up for upload.

This route is intended for Open Rails users, though anyone still running MSTS on XP should be able to run it as well. Again, the route comes with this very big caveat:

DO NOT DOWNLOAD AND TRY TO RUN UNLESS YOU ARE RUNNING OPEN RAILS OR A MSTS INSTALL ON AN XP SYSTEM!
The route will run for a few minutes and freeze unless you are in OR or running on XP.

Once the route is in the file library, I will see about adding it to the Route Spec sub-forum.

[neyland]

Lovely job, thanks very much. Will look forward to installing this one.

[flarrfan2]

BTW ...been a while since I zipped up a route for upload...I did not use RouteRiter, so it may be unnecessary and counter-productive to run the installme.bat, since that will likely replace a lot of vegetation textures downloaded over the years with the ugly default trees. Once the route zip is downloaded, try just unzipping it to your Routes directory and see if it will run without the bat file. If not, then run it. I'm also seeing some signal issues with OR 0.9 that I did not see with earlier versions, so some of the F4 speed limits should probably be ignored.

[eric]

** OpenRails will run a route without having all of the shapes or textures present **

Glad to see more people taking an "ORTS Required" approach, as several have done with ultra-high poly engines and stock...

[Coonskin]

And I am not. ORTS is still off in the distance when it comes to being ready for prime time. MSTS is currently what we have, and may have, for quite some time. Seems a shame to me to throw a funtioning platform aside and build for a platform that is not complete and won't be for a while yet.

[cbff33]

I am dabbling into OR more now. MSTS is still my primary, but I like the gains made in OR, and it does work on the new windows 8 machine where MSTS will not....have it installed on both 7 and 8 machines. So for me at least, finally, dabbling in OR and contributing my finds will hopefully help the guys out over there. At least they have taken the initiative to do something to keep all the msts content alive. If we wait on one of the major companies to do something, well lets just say, by then, hell would have frozen over.

[seagoon]

....Seems a shame to me to throw a funtioning platform aside and build for a platform that is not complete and won't be for a while yet.

So you are saying that MSTS was "complete" when it was published, Andre?

I think not!

All power to those who are creating for the future (OR or anything at all), because if they sat around with their thumbs up their backsides, nothing would ever get done because of "what we currently have".

[Coonskin]

Not saying that at all. I'm simply saying that it MSTS w/Bin is more complete than OR, and likely will be for the foreseeable future while the OR team continues to address glitches already inherant in the program as well as develop features that trump MSTS.

I personally hope for the absolute best in regards to OR, but being realistic, it does have a long ways to go before it can replace MSTS as an operating system and produce everything within the in-game experience that MSTS does, only better.

Thus, I still build/create for MSTS, and when ORTS is ready for prime time (i.e. does everything that MSTS does, only better), I'll gladly switch. Until then, it is an imcomplete platform and thus of limited use to me.

[metrarailboy1]

Not saying that at all. I'm simply saying that it MSTS w/Bin is more complete than OR, and likely will be for the foreseeable future while the OR team continues to address glitches already inherant in the program as well as develop features that trump MSTS.

I personally hope for the absolute best in regards to OR, but being realistic, it does have a long ways to go before it can replace MSTS as an operating system and produce everything within the in-game experience that MSTS does, only better.

Thus, I still build/create for MSTS, and when ORTS is ready for prime time (i.e. does everything that MSTS does, only better), I'll gladly switch. Until then, it is an imcomplete platform and thus of limited use to me.

I do agree on what you are saying. ORTS does look very promising but is still way to buggy for a standard developer to actually create standalone items for it. But they are on the right track just not ready for everyone to completely drop MSTS and run it.

But I too will give this route a go once it pops up on the F/B. Sounds like a promising route to me. Thanks for the hard work.

[eric]

I'll take OR's 90% (and rising) functionality to MSTS + Bin's 110% functionality hands down.

I'm far less concerned with what OR doesn't do that MSTS does right now, and sold on what OR does better:

• Superior graphics
• Ability to handle higher poly counts & draw calls without blowing up
• Multiplayer
• LOD's which can break the 2000m barrier
• A dispatcher display with the ability to throw multiple switches in advance
• Turning off power on MU's and DPU's
• Loading a route despite missing or possibly malformed files
• Realism in activities (e.g. not terminating the moment you roll 1m past a red signal)
• Better logging and debugging
• Availability of the source code to actually understand how to make things better
• Actual bug support when things don't go as planned

[OTTODAD]

While waiting for this route to be available from the TS.com File Library I downloaded the 2007 TALSUB and converted it to using re-named to X-Tracks DB-Tracks and here it is running in ORTS:

http://www.otto-wipfel.co.uk/video/orts-db-tracks-talsub-superelevation.wmv

It would appear that ORTS is not using the in the route's World files converted to Dynatrax MSTS Dynamic tracks in it's SHAPES folder, that being the cause for the trackbeds textures not being the same as in straights !

But at least it is applying SuperElevation in left as well as in right-hand curves.

Apart from the excellent Distant Mountains there is little in ORTS that will make me use it as my Main Train Simulator at the moment and could supply a long list of what I have found so far I am not happy with, most of which I have already made the team aware of via Walter Conklin, Bug reports and in this forum, even supplying a test route for the team to easily check what the ORTS code is doing to the SuperElevated UK-Finescale curves, I have had no response from ORTS about.

O t t o




.

[smiljacc18]

If some freeware or payware developer were to come out with some trains and routes that utilized OR's full graphic capabilities ie.;hires textures,detailed modeling they would be way beyond where they are now in populariy.I may be wrong but it seems to me there there is plenty of extra processing power in todays modern PCs that cannot be utilized by MSTS archaic game engine but could potentialy be done with OR.

[baldwin]

Nice thought, but you have to remember that there are a lot of people about that actually do not have a nice shiny "modern" pc. Whilst OR can and does do more than the MSTS game engine, it is still a ways from "prime time". Right now it does not have it's own set of editors, relying on MSTS for that, so there is the very first restriction on producing a highly detailed route for OR today.

Rolling stock is a different matter, and is only limited by the ability of the model maker. However, high res textures are a different issue. I tried that set of Amtrak cars that have those humungous textures and they would not display in OR on my computer. They are now gathering dusty electrons while I use a sensible set.

[seagoon]

...... I tried that set of Amtrak cars that have those humungous textures and they would not display in OR on my computer. They are now gathering dusty electrons while I use a sensible set.

Give them to Otto, maybe he can get them to work.

Bruce

[scottb613]

Hi Folks,

Maybe it's just me - while OR certainly needs a bit more work to make their goal of 1.0 - I'm pretty amazed how far they've made it... It's to the point where I find it very enjoyable and I've been spending more time in OR than I have with MSTS... Rick's monster Monon has to be one of the more resource intensive routes out there - it works like a champ... The other route I use a great deal is the Feather River with Derek's incredible - high poly - articulated Mallet pulling around one hundred freight cars... Again - works like a champ - with great frame rates... I really don't think they have that far to go to make their 1.0 goal and I greatly appreciate the donated effort put forth by the team...

Regards,
Scott