Yesterday I started trying BVE2/4 routes on Open BVE. To my surprise two of my favorite routes which are Hammerwich-Wood Green and Southern electric fared very well. There were missing files of course and errors, but overall the experience was good. Milngavie-Springburn also worked but the catenary was a problem, specifically the single poles and not the frame catenary poles. The top portion of the poles has white patches all along. Then came the WJ-Milton keynes which did not run at all. Lastly I tried the Tyne Valley. To test it fast, I choose to drive the Voyager 220. As I exited Carlisle in full throttle and as it was just mere testing of routing, I did not mind the speed which went above 170+ and later on a tight curve though I had decreased the speed, I was surprised to find the train first driving cab detached from the rest of the coaches. Most probably it was a resulting of toppling. Later I went back to find the remaining coaches, only to find them at slow speed coming towards me, eventually resulting in collision and derailment. This was really a bizzare phenomenon which I have only experienced in MSTS.

My question is whether this is a common thing with 220 in other routes or happened related to trying the Tyne Valley on Open. Specifically the detachment thing puzzled me a lot.

Later I tried two Australian routes of Kurra and Camdem. Damm....it shows tracks uprooted and raised inclined at many places. This was a total unsuccessful attempt.

Desert freight (US) is one of my favorite routes of BVE2 and I am definitely missing it on OpenBVE. I did not try it here at all because I was well aware that it will not run. Also both the locos are not available, but is there any news of development of this route along with locos on OpenBVE.

I've experienced the kind of detachment you describe with several times, except that the carriages I left behind were always toppled and no longer moving along the track. Perhaps you were going at just the right speed for this effect to occur.

Why makes you think Desert Freight will not work in openBVE? It works just fine on my system, and so do the default trains, though admittedly they do not look great at high resolution.

Without websites given, only people familiar with the lines mentioned will know what is spoken of.

I know of a few desert routes, and using the one called USA Freight, there actually is a problem: The route does not come with speed limits, thus the preceding A.I.-controlled train will drive very fast and eventually derails. Aside from editing the route, the only way to circumvent this is to disable derailments in the Options menu.

Thanks a lot Juergen.

I was under impression that .rw routes have lot of problems in openbve, but after loading it with openbve, there were no problems at all. In all the routes, there are missing files ranging between 30-40 though but no major problems encountered in the first 10 minutes. The cab resolutions are of BVE 2 era of GP38 and GS4 as you say, but really I love GP38. Like the way it accelerates and then mainly the horn.

For those not aware about this route, here is the link

http://www.trainsimcentral.co.uk/usf.htm

Michelle and others,

Here are the links to the above-mentioned routes,

Kurra and Camdem (Australia)

http://bve_fan.tripod.com/bvefan/id3.html

Problem - Lines uprooted and pointing towards the sky.


Tyne Valley

http://www.eezypeazy.co.uk/

Problem - Not a major problem, just experienced Voyager coaches getting detached at curves.

Milngavie to Springburn

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/m.milmine/bve2.html

Problem - In some routes the catenary poles at top have big white patches.

WJ-Milton Keynes

http://www.railsimroutes.co.uk/wj-mkc/index.html

Problem - not running at all. Open BVE crashes, have to revive the machine by closing program from task manager.

Lastly just now tried the heavy coal route of Australia. It is working fine.

Rest if any problem, will notify..

Kurra and Camdem (Australia)
Expected behavior. For rails, the route file makes heavy use of free objects which contain yaw/pitch/roll arguments. The author probably wanted to insert comments into the code, but didn't do it right, thus creating a conflict with one of openBVE's newly introduced features, which are interpreted correctly where possible.

Tyne Valley
Carlisle - no such station on the route. I drove the Voyager from Hexham to Riding Mill at full power instead. After Corbridge, the train toppled at 120 mph but did not derail. Then, after Riding Mill, it derailed at above 130 mph. I could not observe detached cars other than those derailed. Maybe you just encountered a preceding train, and maybe even one that derailed.

Milngavie to Springburn
Correct behavior. The author did not make certain areas in the catenary bitmaps transparent, and therefore, they show opaquely. The author may depend on quirk of BVE Trainsim which sometimes makes things transparent even if not explicitly requested by the author. This is a non-predictable glitch of BVE Trainsim, and it does only happen on some machines. The route therefore depends on this machine-dependant quirk which cannot be reproduced by openBVE.

WJ-Milton Keynes
Runs fine with me. I could not reproduce any crash.

I've heard from a little Bird that there is an update for Tyne Valley due out quite soon and it is updated for OpenBVE as well as BVE4. "Watch this space", as the old saying goes!

The route is definitely Carlisle to Newcastle.

Michelle,

You must have played one of the routes which starts from Hexham, which are few actually. The majority of the routes start from Carlisle only including the Voyager default one. You can try it later though.

Anyway not a problem at all. Tyne Valley still is rocking on OpenBVE, and I am more than happy to listen that an update is on the way.

Today I started playing New York metro and other US routes from this site

http://www.bvestation.com/

Most of the routes were written for BVE2 or 4 but are working very fine on Open. However, it looks like there are no trains with exterior views.

Looks like the routes is almost done for OpenBVE. Here is the link

http://www.eezypeazy.co.uk/BVE%20Scene/index.htm

Sam wrote:Most of the routes were written for BVE2 or 4 but are working very fine on Open. However, it looks like there are no trains with exterior views.

The trains are not equipped with external views with the exception of the R46B and the R42. They might not be the best exterior views, but there are some that are in development that I believe are the quality that you are looking for.

http://www.bvestation.com/forums/index.php?topic=3454.0
http://www.bvestation.com/forums/index.php?topic=3064.0
http://www.bvestation.com/forums/index.php?topic=3457.0

Actually later I am realizing that some of the NYCTA routes are giving me very bad frame rates, about 9-10, though high resolution routes like NWM and Birmingham-Reddich are giving 30-40 on open BVE. Also of note is that my machine is well tuned machine with 2Ghz core 2 duo and 1 GB of RAM. Any remedy for this.

Sam wrote:Actually later I am realizing that some of the NYCTA routes are giving me very bad frame rates, about 9-10, though high resolution routes like NWM and Birmingham-Reddich are giving 30-40 on open BVE. Also of note is that my machine is well tuned machine with 2Ghz core 2 duo and 1 GB of RAM. Any remedy for this.

Loading New York City Transit Authority routes on openBVE do require a moderately powerful machine. If you have a very old computer, it will most likely give you a Virual Memory Too Low display. However, your computer seems powerful enough to handle the run which is awkward.

Not all NYCTA routes are creating problems, actually a few ones only. I will give the names of them specifically once I encounter them later.

The problem is simply that when I started writing openBVE, I didn't know much about programming 3D engines and took a path that has relative slow performance: Sending the whole geometric data from the system RAM to the graphics card every frame.

Many routes focus on photo-realistic textures and use as little geometric complexity as possible to achieve the desired effect, thus the amount of geometry to be transfered is low. The NYCTA routes are essentially the opposite approach: Low-res to no textures while achieving the desired effect through high numbers of polygons.

Unfortunately, this latter approach is not handled well by openBVE's renderer at the moment. You can expect major improvements though in the unforseen future.

I was one of the lucky few who managed to downjload the Tyne Valley update earrly. The download worked first time and I soon had everything running with no problems. The main route is from Carlisle to Newcastle with an extension to Sunderland.

I first ran the HST over in the none-stop route and I was very impressed with your updates. At the start I got 23-27 FPS and over the route got an average of 33-38 FPS, with momentary peaks at 40. Getting nearer to Newcastle FPS reduced to 22 fps.

I must add that I was in OpenBVE but as Alan is using BVE4 then you will receive a report covering both.

The overall 3-D effect is excellent. You could really see where you were on an embankment, with a sense of height looking down to road or river level. Even in some cuttings there is 3-D effect on edges and such like. Another marked point is the impressive scen of Newcastle from the control signal on the approach. You get a really wide view odf the city, with the station around the long curve and to the right. It really looks like there is a big city out there and you see where the station lies well off to the right. There is a good mix of external trains enroute.

Everything ran really smoothly. New signal boxes, buses and lorries look good and makes for extra objects and new housing makes for a more populated landscape, village & town areas. I also liked the rusty rails in unused sidings, a nice touch. Metro Centre looks great too.

I got held up at signals as Eezypeezy explained, during the last few miles into Newcastle but that added a realistic touch and happens when approaching most large railway centres on the real railway. As I stuck to line speeds the stops were quite brief.

What with the many improvements, especially to the stations I felt at times as if I was driving over the route for the first time but quickly remembered the basic layout in the previous versions.

I really enjoyed the overall 3-D affect and you notice height & depth much more readily as well as the gradients.

I next ran the 'fast' Sunderland route, with a Class 143 train. Once again the 3-D affect is very noticeable. The scenery around Newcastle is excellent as usual and as is the approach to Sunderland. The Coal train looks nice and realistic as you leave Newcastle, or should that be Gateshead!

Sunderland station is itself a disappointment in that it is very stark and dreary but you have made the best of it. However the route runs smoothly and is good to drive and I was getting fps of around 28 throughout.

It's a pity that the Cl 142 isn't fully OpenBVE compatible. The cab is too large in the frame and can't be reduced any. For interest , and immediate convenience I tried the 2-car 160 and that worked even better but of course is not a correct train for the area.

I would like to congratulate Ezzypeezy for updating Tyne Valley to a very high standard that matches the ECML.

Go to:
http://www.eezypeazy.co.uk/