Common.cab in ORTS

[ossie]

Hi all, just a question about common.cab and people's thoughts on if it's worth doing or not. Is it only about saving disk space? I've just finished labouring through my SP locos (86 units aliased to common.cab freed up 225Mb) so no doubt if I do my entire loco collection, that is going to be a major change in terms of disk space.

Given the time it took to do it and with today's big HD's though, (I've got well over a TB of free space already) is there any point continuing the process? Having done a bit of a search on the topic, even as far back as 2003, an article I read only talked about saving HD space. If there's no performance bump gained from the aliasing process, is it now worth doing given the more "fun" things I could be doing with that time instead?

I'd appreciate your thoughts.

[R. Steele]

Just speaking for myself. I have 34 working profiles on my SSD disk that is dedicated to running OR.
There is just one Common.Cab and one Common.Snd that is linked to all those profiles. Saves space yes, but also makes cab or sound changes easier that affect all the running equipment.
Any new locomotives (both payware and free) are given cab or sound aliases, that way they can be used anywhere without containing sound folders.

It really depends upon the size and complexity of your installation.

Also when I backup my Common.Cab or Common.Snd folder, there is just one folder that serves all equipment that needs to be backed up. (I have 3 redundant backups for both Common.Cab and Common.Snd folders)

Included in my Common.Cab & Common.Snd folder are all the cabs or sounds that come with Diesels West equip, SLI (TrainSimulations) and BLW. Most locomotives do not have individual sound folders, they have CabView folders Containing a CVF file that points to the Common.Cab folder.

bandicam 2016-09-24 18-59-43-098.jpg bandicam 2016-09-24 18-54-02-428.jpg

[ossie]

Thanks Gerry.... and I guess "complexity" is the key word. I've spent the vast majority of my MSTS time to date on the reskinning side of the hobby. Apart from checking out textures, I haven't done a lot of driving just for the enjoyment/challenge of it and am yet to take the plunge into mini-routes for instance, so I'm currently looking at it all from a very simplistic point of view I guess. I can certainly see the sense in what you say about ease of backup and/or changes etc. Thanks for you thoughts, much appreciated!

[R. Steele]

Glad to help out, the funny thing is...I'm starting to get interested in learning how to paint and reskin, man, talk about tough and I have a background in art and photoshop. Some of the current work out there is very fine, realistic when seen in OR.

[ossie]

My advice... go with reskins to start with. I'm pretty handy with the gluepot but at a complete loss with the paintbrushes. Some of the loco repaints (real and fictional) I see screenshots of and the hoppers Michelle has been turning out are outstanding. There's some very talented people around.

[conductorchris]

I don't believe there is any performance benefit from the common sound and common cab folders. What Gerry says sounds like the elegant solution, but I just leave things as they were when they installed. I just don't have time. I don't really make changes later - not often, anyway, although I'll often make changes on installation or in the first run if I don't like the cab or sound it comes with. When I do, I will alias to what I have in my common sound or common cab and clean up aftermyself.
Christopher

[ossie]

That sounds exactly like the way I do it Christoper... sort it out on installation and then leave it be. As much as its going to be a huge time investment though, I'm gradually going to move towards having my locos aliased to the common folders. It took me a long time to do my SP locos, but using the AC4400CW as an example, I now have a cabview and sound set I'm happy with, so for each subsequent RR that runs the 4400s, all I need do now is copy the SP parameters and add the specific .cvf for that RR. Still a big time commitment but eventually I'll be saving time on the front end. Now to find the time.....

[R. Steele]

I really think Chris described the situation perfectly in post #2 in thread: https://www.trainsim.com/vbts/showth...hday-coming-up

...- It really is a world of fiddling (like a model railroad), not just something you install once and then play...Christopher

Everyone has their individual interests and reasons, up to the person to decide what to do with the time they allot to the hobby.
It's all about the enjoyment it provides.

[ossie]

That's very true Gerry... although I'm yet to master the art of "fiddling" as Chris so neatly described it. Whatever I start, I tend to want to finish yesterday, often being frustrated by lack of progress and/or real life getting in the way. Generally speaking, with MSTS/ORTS, patience is a virtue I'm only on nodding terms with, but with a project the size of aliasing, maybe I'll develop some.