What Are Blueprints.pak File?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by jpmackay, Sep 29, 2019.

  1. jpmackay

    jpmackay Active Member

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    I see that I had several Blueprints.pak files in my Assets Folder with several folders like RSC, DTG, etc. I was told that I have to delete them otherwise will not work with third party repaints. So I did deleted them and see that the third party repaints are working in Train Simulator 2020. So my question is that why are DoveTail Games create those files that are NOT needed? Can you give me a reason for this that Blueprints.pak file are included in several Assets Folders. Also can you give me the command line to delete them everyday if I have the files that I DON'T need Blueprint.pak. It took me a while trying to figure out why is the third party repaints not working till someone told me at other forums about this and said that I have to delete them. Then my third party repaints will work. What's a shame with DoveTail Games for creating Blueprints.pak files? I was not happy about this.

    Thank you,

    John
     
  2. Brickrail782

    Brickrail782 Active Member

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    Could you provide a screenshot of one of those files?
     
  3. Maik Goltz

    Maik Goltz Well-Known Member

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    The .pak files are simply blueprint data cache files. They get re-generated when the content will load and was changed or the pak file is missing. You don't need to delete them, even when using 3th pary content. Simply ignore them. Back in some older TS days the cache was not regenerated by itself when content was changed and you needed to clear the cache when you edited some content without the BPE (BPE 1 was deleting the .pak file by itself when exporting). Since TS2013 or so, thats not needed anymore as the cache gets regenerated automatically.
     
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  4. jpmackay

    jpmackay Active Member

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    Brickrail782 -- The Blueprints.pak files are gone for good after deleted yesterday before writing my first message. So I will not providing the screenshot now -- sorry for the inconvenience.

    Maik Goltz -- First want to say thank you for your comments and it's not true that I don't have to delete them. Several train simmers over at Railworks America mentioned to delete the Blueprints.pak files to make sure the files are working especially with third party repaints. Right now my program is Train Simulator 2020 and still have the Blueprints.pak files in several folders under Assets and not sure about Content. I have not checked the files at Content folders yet.

    Anyway want to say to both of you thank you for your messages above. I will still delete them if I see the Blueprints.pak files every time before startup the program of Train Simulator 2020. That will save me time trying to figure out what is the problem with some of the third party repaints in some Assets folder.

    Thank you again,

    John
     
  5. 749006

    749006 Well-Known Member

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    I run a bat file to get rid of the Blueprints.pak files which I run each time I start the game.

    Not sure why Maik Goltz says you don't need to remove them as when you install a reskin you are usually told to clear the Blueprints.

    Peter
     
  6. Maik Goltz

    Maik Goltz Well-Known Member

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    Maybe because i have abou 20k work (not play) hours with TS over the last 8 years. Or maybe because i have no idea what i'm talking about. Nevermind, i repeat what i said. You don't need to bother with the .pak files until you edited a .proxyxml file within the assets and not the source. For all other edits you dont need to clear the cache (the actual pak files). That they always come back as soon as you use the asset pack that contained the pak files what was deleted by yours (asset pack == Assets/Provider/Product/*.* == for example: Assets/DTG/BR146Pack01/*.*) is because they get generated automatically each time the assets will be loaded by a session.
     
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  7. jpmackay

    jpmackay Active Member

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    749086 aka Peter -- Can you tell what is the bat file to delete the Blueprints.pak in Assets Folder? I think that I saw this before somewhere but can't remember. So I would like to have the file to write so every time before goes to Train Simulator 2020 and want to make sure there is no Blueprints.pak file in Assets folder.

    Thank you,

    John
     
  8. Maik Goltz

    Maik Goltz Well-Known Member

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    Just for notice. When you delete all the .pak files each time before starting TS, you will wait longer until a route/vehicle got loaded. Thats why the cache is there. With the .pak files in place all asset packs will load way faster, esspecially on lower end computers. It just makes no sense to delete them all each time. Lets say you load a scenario what uses 20 different asset packs (different addons). If you deleted all the cache before, TS needs to regenerate the .pak for each of these 20 packs before it can load the route and vehicles. That needs time. You can see that while the loading screens botom bar doesnt move at the very beginning of the laoding proccess.
     
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  9. jpmackay

    jpmackay Active Member

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    Well it doesn't matter to me because it's already took a long time to start up the simulator after pick the route and scenario. I don't find any difference for this. Unless you tell me how to get the simulator have a quick start up. I guess that I have too many routes and rolling stock in my program of Train Simulator that is probably why the simulator took a long start up before run the simulator?

    Thank you,

    John
     
  10. 749006

    749006 Well-Known Member

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    Why is there a Clear Cache button in the Options menu?

    Peter
     
  11. 749006

    749006 Well-Known Member

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    When I start TS2020 in 64 bit I have to wait about two mins for the information to load before it gives me the screen to go in to Drive or Build or something else - from there a scenario can be quick or slow to load depending on the amount of assets it has to draw

    Peter
     
  12. 749006

    749006 Well-Known Member

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    Asking on UKTS the general opinion is you would only Clear the Cache (deleting the Blueprints.pak files) when you install something new in the game

    Peter
     
  13. moponi

    moponi New Member

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    About .pak files.

    .pak files reside only in the Assets directory structure, and there is one .pak for each "product".

    The .pak files contains a compressed compilation of the .bin files (which are binary semantically equivalent derivates of the .xml files) from underlying directories. This saves time during scenario loading because accessing a single file is much quicker than wizzing down a directory structure opening, reading, and closing a lot of separate files. That is the only thing the .pak files do, and collectively they are called the cache.

    You need to delete the .pak file pertaining to an asset in which you have modified the contents of one or more .bin files. This happens when you manually install mods by copying .bin files into the asset directories, adding a livery for instance. It also happens when you edit an .xml file and create its equivalent .bin file using serz.exe. In those cases the toplevel .pak file for the asset in question no longer represents the actual underlying set of files and must be deleted. TS2020 does not check to see - that's the whole point of having a precompilation .pak in the first place.

    Deleting a (or all) .pak file(s) forces TS20XX to recompile new .paks by doing the wizzing about, and this will lead to a longer scenario loading time the first time after you did so.

    Having a button to "Clear Cache" is just a way of forcing this to happen and thus obtain a known valid correspondance between the .paks and the actual data in place.

    Steam and most of the commercial installers (i.e. AP, Just Trains and so on) do this automatically when you install new stuff.

    Hope this helps with this long standing question of to do or not to do.
     
    Last edited: Mar 13, 2020
  14. Reef

    Reef Well-Known Member

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    Bear in mind that if you run 64bit and use the in-game Settings> Tools> clear cache, button then it will restart the game in 32bit mode (same as it does when changing any graphic settings that requires a restart)

    So for this reason you're definitely better off with the .bat file that 749006 mentioned which can be easily implemented by following this guide here
     
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  15. Supertone

    Supertone New Member

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    After 'Clearing the Cache' either in game or via a .bat file, everything you select in game has to load from scratch again and the game makes a .pak file for each product and puts it in it's respective folder so next time you select it, it loads a lot quicker, it takes my 'Garage' about an hour to load if I want to make a 'Create New' consist (or just investigate what I have) after a clear cache!..so i'd say if you know what product/s you have changed then just delete the .pak file/s in the corresponding folder/s. Whilst on the subject of the frankly rubbish 'Garage' I really wish they would update this and make it more user friendly and useful.
     
  16. Peter Hayes

    Peter Hayes Well-Known Member

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    Google how to set up a bat file on the desktop and use these code lines
    Where E:\ is the drive where TSC is installed usually by default C:\ProgramFiles(x86).
    Always choose 'Run as administrator'
     
  17. Cyclone

    Cyclone Well-Known Member

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    The last post in this thread, until yesterday, was March 16, 2020. Be careful when replying to older threads to verify that there is a reason to bring it back up.

    In this case, I don't see any reason for replying to this thread at this point as the OP has not been seen since August 2021. That said, yes, Blueprints files are loaded for routes and trains as you use them and data stored in game memory for them. Too many loaded can crash the game, so clearing once in a while is good. Especially if you do asset-intensive routes and scenarios, update it every two or even one scenario if possible.
     
  18. torfmeister

    torfmeister Guest

    Too many loaded? How do you get to this conclusion? Only the ones needed for the actual route you are playing are being loaded. That's why having a lot of assets will not slow you game down.

    The ONLY situation in which ALL assets/ cache files are loaded is the Edit custom consist function in the QD menu - to create the file RVDBCache.bin. (That's why it's so prone to crashing and takes ages loading if your library has grown - became unusable for me and I assemble them in the Scenario Editor, TSTools or create PreLoad files myself in Notepad++, copypaste makes it faster to assemble long freight consists, than having to click a hundred times in the laggy consist editor.)

    To add to the speculation - blueprints.pak are caching sounds, route templates and 3d model files at least. Asset folders which do not contain such will never have a blueprints.pak created. (I'll check for examples but I ran into one so I came to this conclusion). Corrupt assets can lead to a zero size blueprints.pak which will crash the game if you do not use -DisableFastload. (Two ap's in the same folder sharing one or more exact duplicate assets (there can only be one! ;) - that was the UnionWorkshop issue with GEEastAsiaSceneryAssetPack.ap and GE_EastAsia_Scenery_AssetsPack.ap)

    So now I have a question too: What is Content\TMCache.dat?
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jun 29, 2022
  19. Cyclone

    Cyclone Well-Known Member

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    I have occasionally had OoM errors on an asset-intensive route like Dresden-Riesa before. And that's without Leipzig. Often it can involve going into the editor at some point mixed in with actually playing. In that case, the editor seemingly overloads things and crash.
     
  20. torfmeister

    torfmeister Guest

    Ok, it sounded you meant overall big asset collection.
     
  21. Peter Hayes

    Peter Hayes Well-Known Member

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    Torf
    My RVDBCache.bin is only 1KB in size and has been since 2013. I thought it stood for Rail Vehicles data base cache. What size does it become unstable?
     
  22. torfmeister

    torfmeister Guest

    Mine is 374 bytes - the minimum empty size, only xml header.
    It is RailVehiclesDataBase indeed - this is only needed for the Consist Editor to build your own consist, creating the list of ALL available rolling stock, and is built upon hitting "Create Custom Consist", browsing through all asset folders. I can't tell you a specific size - it becomes unstable when it hits a somewhat unplausible asset file, and there's plenty. It is reading every single asset file (LogMate tells), because it does not know where engine files are located, because there is no standard for this. (RailVehicles is a de-facto standard, but every dev is free to name their folders as they want (Rollmaterial). There's only very few restrictions to folder names (PreLoad, RouteMarkers, RouteInformation, LocoInformation (must be present in the folder where the engine blueprint is located) and the Route's subfolders are standardized). If you just open the Quick Drive menu to select your consist, it is just reading all PreLoads.

    Try for yourself if it manages to build the cache without crashing.

    Btw, the Locos and Routes shown in the Profile page get their information from the steamapps\userdata folder.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jun 29, 2022
  23. ex_railwayman

    ex_railwayman Active Member

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    You have to manually delete these files yourself. Peter (749006) has given you one way of doing it, I do it another way. I go into my Assets Folder area on my computer and in the top right hand search function I type in Blueprints.pak and it brings everything up for you to delete all in one go and puts everything into your recycle bin. I've attached a screenshot which shows you what I mean. Every time you go onto any route a .pak file will be created, depending on the route you will have a small number or a large number, it's up to you how often you delete these files, it only takes a matter of minutes to complete.

    Cheerz. Steve.

    Blueprints.pak search.jpg
     
    Last edited: Jun 30, 2022
  24. Cyclone

    Cyclone Well-Known Member

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    Note that an update to a route or locomotive typically requires a cache clear for the item to work properly. So anytime you update something - no matter what it is - or even install something new, clear that cache.
     
  25. TheConductor

    TheConductor New Member

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    Still have to manually delete and update the cache from time to time when i add new models or textures. But way better than it was 5 years ago.
     
  26. Cyclone

    Cyclone Well-Known Member

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    Something I've learned about this, as well: apparently, the paks can be left there. You only have to manually delete the ones involved when updates are made to a product.

    Say the LIRR gets an update on Monday next week, for instance. You can either delete the pak file in that folder if you know what you're doing, or you can go clear the cache yourself. This lets a new pak get generated for the new version. Otherwise, leaving it there literally had no effect on the game, and if it's still there two weeks later, can actually apparently speed up your loading then instead of having to recache everything.

    (Note: I am not saying there will be a LIRR update on Monday. I just used a recent example.)
     
  27. torfmeister

    torfmeister Guest

    GeoPcDx, TgPcDx and sound data added or modified require a rebuild of the cache, that's why you should do this after an update.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 15, 2022
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  28. Peter Hayes

    Peter Hayes Well-Known Member

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    C
    I tend to disagree, Cache files are "old technology" used when PC's were not as powerful as they are today, and they are quite small in TSC. I guess I tend to delete cache files at the end of every TSC session - then I don't have to worry if there are any changes made to my TSC install that might affect the cache.
    I would guess that you would gain around 1 millisecond in loading times if you kept the cache. against if you deleted it.
    Just a personal opinion.
     
  29. torfmeister

    torfmeister Guest

    Be aware that not everybody is playing this from an SSD. For magnetical hard drives caching is a good thing (also considering drive lifetime) and it's a difference that can add up to minutes on routes requiring access to a lot of Asset folders (e.g. 't Heart of the Netherlands). Clearing is not necessary, only when updating files in an already cached Assets folder.

    So what would make sense in your case Peter, would only be completely disabling the creation of blueprints.pak files by hacking the exe. You delete them, TS rebuilds them every time, doesn't make real sense tbh. Like Sisyphus :cool:
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 16, 2022
  30. Peter Hayes

    Peter Hayes Well-Known Member

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    Torf
    That may be so for disk cache, but this is a software TSC cache, written over 10 years ago, and IMO would have little relevance in speeding up loading times on a system that complies with the specs for TSC.
     
  31. torfmeister

    torfmeister Guest

    So that means you think that an absolutely unnecessary file operation is better because - it only takes a little longer? Completely ignoring all the facts about the cache that this thread delivers?

    Well of course, I won't stop you from doing so. All being said on this topic now multiple times. ;)
     
  32. Peter Hayes

    Peter Hayes Well-Known Member

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    Torf
    I was just trying to offer an alternate opinion.
    What worries me is that there is no visible option in TSC to inform you when you should delete the blueprint.pak files and TS since eons ago has given you the option in the internal menu to delete these cache files - BUT when you RESTART TSC it defaults back to a 32-bit version, not the 64-bit version you have just been playing. That needs fixing.
    You are absolutely correct in the vast majority of cases they cause no harm and do not need regular deletion.
    But I guess old habits die hard. Just a note I have been deleting them since around 2012 (plus .tgt, .cost, etc) I last verified the gaming files in 2014 so deletion hasn't caused me any instability as DTG have suggested.
     
  33. torfmeister

    torfmeister Guest

    Those .cost and .tgt files are development leftovers, probably from DDS/IGS > TgPcDx/GeoPcDx mass conversion process. TS ignores them, but for saving space I've also deleted them.

    You're right on the 64-bit issue - it should have been already made the standard option.
     

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