Create Empty Free Roam for World Editing?

[Ericmopar]

Maybe some of you already knew this but...

I just figured out certain engines/assets can cause the editor to crash particularly while painting terrain, if the game engine decides to open certain scenarios for using the Route Editor.
Mikes FEF-3 is one culprit for some bizarre reason.
When editing my Donner Redo, I haven't been having any crashing problems until I put 844 in there. I couldn't believe that would cause it, but on a hunch, I deleted the 844 and consist from the Sparks Free Roam and Viola, it stopped crashing. I reinstalled Mikes FEF-3 and it started crashing in editor again. (The game engine was using the Sparks Free Roam to go into the Route Editor, when starting with the home page's "Build" button"
I can open a Free Roam scenario that doesn't use the FEF-3 and I can use the Editor as long as my butt can stay in the chair.
I'm suspicious it's not just Mike's engine because I've had that happen before I bought it, but I suspect scenarios with steamers and therefor more particle emitters may be suspect and/or any scenarios with too many trains placed in them.

It made me wonder if anyone else had already known this and simply uses a Free Roam with no rolling stock to do World/Route editing?

Eric.

[BoostedFridge]

When I select my route and click the 'edit' buton, the route loads with the consists from the last scenario that I played the route with showing. This is a big pain b/c when route editing in areas with the DTM SD45 present everyting gets quite laggy. The blank free roam is a great idea to get around this!

[artimrj]

I have a blank freeroam for each segment of my route. Then I can just run one of them in the area I am working at and hit CONTROL E and am in the editor. The guys helping me with the route use them also. Good for a quick start.

However, my editor keeps crashing while painting terrain, nothing else. I use the task manager to monitor memory and when FREE memory goes to 0, I crash after one more click. But if I pay attention to the free memory and stop painting and do something else like lay some roads or fiddle with trees or houses the memory comes back and I can paint some more. I can do this for quite some time before it can't take it any more and just crashes. So I got in to the habit of saving, A LOT.

[Ericmopar]

I save a lot too Bob.
Boosted, what you were saying about the DTM SD45 was interesting . That engine uses a lot of scripting like Mikes engines. Hmmmmmm.
I have the SP SD45 in one of the scenarios the game will pull up to get into the editor, but I don't have any problems with laggy behavior.
I have 8gigs of RAM and a GTX780 with 3gigs of video RAM, so maybe that gives me a slight edge.

I fired up my system monitor and let it record while I was in the editor, and this game will use all 4 gigabytes of RAM that it's little 32bit heart can muster in a heart beat.
I was really shocked by that.

Here's a screen clip of my system resource usage RAM and CPU cores, while painting in the editor.

PaintingInEditor.JPG

[buzz456]

Quick aside here the 64 bit is like night and day as far as stability when doing editing. My 8 gig machine can be challenged sometime if you get too many things going on at a time while my 16 gig machine, never.

[mrennie]

Yep, it's definitely advisable to use the route editor with no rolling stock at all present.

All the editors (World Editor, Scenario Editor, and even the Blueprint Editor) have problems with memory leaks and, quite possibly, with how they initialise the context. The Blueprint Editor will often crash eventually if you just leave it open and go off and have lunch. In the scenario editor, if you press the play button instead of going back to the main menu and playing from there, some things aren't always initialised properly (one that caused me a lot of grief was the "silent whistle" problem, which has something to do with sound instance groups not working properly when you launch a scenario directly from the editor).

It doesn't surprise me that the FEF-3 doesn't get along well with the route editor - they probably end up having an argument over who should get the memory, and one of them ends up going off in a huff and sulking in a corner.

[buzz456]

"they probably end up having an argument over who should get the memory, and one of them ends up going off in a huff and sulking in a corner."

[OldProf]

... In the scenario editor, if you press the play button instead of going back to the main menu and playing from there, some things aren't always initialised properly...

Unless I'm mistaken, the only way to close the scenario editor (after having saved the scenario, of course) is by clicking on that large arrow in the lower right corner. Once the edited and saved scenario loads, press ESC, select Quit, and select Yes. Then, if you want to play the edited scenario, go through the usual motions to do so.

[mrennie]

Unless I'm mistaken, the only way to close the scenario editor (after having saved the scenario, of course) is by clicking on that large arrow in the lower right corner. Once the edited and saved scenario loads, press ESC, select Quit, and select Yes. Then, if you want to play the edited scenario, go through the usual motions to do so.

I think you're right, Tom, and yes, they do force you to follow a very convoluted route just to reach the exit (rather like some department stores I could name).

[Ericmopar]

Quick aside here the 64 bit is like night and day as far as stability when doing editing. My 8 gig machine can be challenged sometime if you get too many things going on at a time while my 16 gig machine, never.

I'm running 64bit Windows 7, but I noticed the game itself caps out at 4 gig of RAM usage. Being a 32 bit game engine doesn't help.
I keep my startup programs to a minimum, which is why you don't see the whole 8gigs of RAM being used.
I'm always dumbfounded when I look into others PCs at all the crap they have running in the background. That is so old school. The new PCs are so quick, you don't want to let anything run on startup, unless it's something like overclocking software for the rig, or your security software.
That being said, I still see PCs that have things like Adobe Reader loading on boot, plus they're letting Microsoft look at everything when they feel like it, instead of turning off things like "remote assistance" "Windows Experience" etc. They'll have modules turned on for commercial networking and other functions they don't need.

[buzz456]

The game does not cap out at 4 gigs. You have something else going on.

[Ericmopar]

The game does not cap out at 4 gigs. You have something else going on.

Yeah that's weird. In that snip I shared it's capping out, almost like a 32bit OS and yet I know I have Windows 7 64 bit installed. The system is clearly recognizing the 8Gigabytes of RAM.
Someone else said in a forum "somewhere" that 32 bit software won't use more than 4gig of RAM, even if Windows x64 is installed.

According to that snip, my OS is using about 1.46 at idle. That's probably with Steam running in the background and the rest security and OS idling along.
so TS 2015 was using about 3gig of RAM and then flat-lining...

[buzz456]

I have about the same usage you show and as far as the limit with a 32 bit program everything I read that's true. It's hard for me to compare between my two computers because I have the Steam setup over on what on my computer is the "I' drive which is a Samsung SSD while on my other one it's on a conventional drive. In any event it doesn't appear that TS uses more than about 3 gig max at any time.

[artimrj]

My system acts just like Eric's. 1.7 gig at idle of just Win7 64 bit. My RW acts the same way as well. When I am route building, I reboot. Then I turn off a bunch of things, Adobe crap, Logitech crap, camera crap, a few other little dumb crappy programs that are supposed to be helpful and then I run Steam. I do not run anything else so RW is getting it all and that is usually 6 gig free. After Steam loads I have about 4.8 gig left. Then I run RW and I and load my route and I have about 1.6 gig free. 3 gig + is still reported as cached. If I am painting I can deplete the free memory in about 8 minutes. Otherwise I can build to my hearts content for about 6 hours before the free memory goes even close to 0.

The part that really kills me is if I stop painting when I am close to 0 and do something else for a few minutes I get all the free memory back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can do this this 25 - 30 times, by then I am so frustrated I have to stop for a while. Paint then place, paint them move stuff around, paint them, blah blah blah. AAARGH!!!! We could have had the Lafayette route done by now... one of our helpers also has the same problem.

[buzz456]

Are you talking about painting on the route or painting a asset? We need some expert like Peter Hayes to get on here and help you out. I don't get this condition at all.