Having a lot of TSC content makes the initial load very cumbersome. Was curious, if I already know the ‘exact’ scenario I wish to run (as I have everything cataloged by Route and Scenario ID can I just execute code to directly start that specific item rather than wait 10 minutes each time for everything to load? For me this would be a boon.
I don't think so because you are waiting for the assets for the Scenario to load in to memory. Somebody else, Spike1975, might know better
What actually makes the initial load and menus slow is the size of your installation and scenarios in particular. With every scenario sitting in its folder, it ramps up quickly, combined with how TSC works. Since you mentioned scripting, you could automatically flip-flop content by renaming Scenarios within each route folder to something else, and then back. You can also move individual scenarios between a permanent Scenarios and ScenarioStash. I do that in a different way (very few DLC installed at one time) now and my game loads in a second. Plus the animation.
Interesting Question - again we have no access to the base code so it could be difficult to find a solurtion. When I last looked back in 2017 just prior to the 64-bit releases using some of the Widows diagnostic tools they showed that when TSC loads it reads (checks?) around 14,000,000+ lines of code (that was on an approx 250G install) before the main menu opened. Back then it checked for every DTG asset/content whether they were installed on your PC or not! Hence, it took some time to do that. Obviously it may have changed now with the latest versions. I think that the intial load is to ensure that all is well with the code and that the RAM addresses are correctly assigned, so like someone above suggests having a minimal install could help with loading times. BTW it loads no detail/code of any specific route/scenario until you choose it from the menu AFAIK only base code gets loaded initially.
What it is doing the moment you press the start icon is that it is loading the game for you to play. Without it, you wouldn't be able to play TSC. The bigger your installation, the longer it will take to load. You can increase the loading time by deleting items you don't need. You could also put it on an M2 SSD, which would increase your loading times. My installation is 738 GB, and it takes 1 minute 52 seconds to load to the main screen and all up to driving a train 3 minutes 36 seconds. I timed it with a stopwatch.
I already understood the loading mechanism of the game. I was hoping that it could be possible to bypass loading the complete menu landscape and directly assemble the executable from the unique UID code defining the scenario.
