Massive 500+ megabyte file size

[sagevanni]

Thanks Linkster,
Much appreciate your work on finding this solution. I'll look into it.
The strange thing is that for me the file grew big even before I did ant seam blending.

Thanks............

Sage.......

[Southcitygolf]

I can see how it became so massive. What a beautiful job on your trees and planting Sage and the course played flawless. You can zoom in and zoom in and it only gets better. That's a lot of detail. I've posted my round here. https://youtu.be/J5pSxf7pdmU What a great course to play. Well done sir

[sagevanni]

Thank you very much Southcitygolf.....

I'm not done yet.......Ron Weel my finish up planter still has his go at it. And there are a few 3D things to go in place.

Might have a beta ready after the holidays.

Thanks everyone for your help.

Sage......

[sagevanni]

Hi everyone,
I want to massively thank Linkster for bringing to light opening and saving a course file in Links Extender.
It reduced the size down to under 80 Megs.....!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am able to open and save in APCD and then Validate/Save in APCD and then open and play in Links 2003.

I did this without losing any seam blending................

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you...... Linkster

Sage......

[pmgolf]

Linkster!

Pete

[Ian Wells]

Sage,
That’s great news, I look forward to playing the finished course. It looks fantastic.
Linkster,
Thank you for finding the solution. I echo Petes comments.
Ian

[dwg]

I wonder what caused it and what Links extender does to resolve it.

The course played well, I did note some incorrect textures - I was in a sandy area but it said something like rough or long grass do not recall which, I was just playing to see if it did play all the way. This was on my temperamental Windows notebook with Intel GPU and dgVoodoo.

The course is certainly no walk over.

Looks like it will be a fine addition to the Links Course Library.

Des

[linkster]

I wonder what caused it and what Links extender does to resolve it.

I am glad that Links Extender worked in this situation. It doesn't always work, but lucky it did here.

My "theory" on the APCD is that the additions made to APCD 1.5 versus 1.1 were done quickly and not properly tested. Seam blends, two-texture blends, sound planting, longer hole lengths, etc. are the common problem areas with the APCD that don't always work properly.

The end of the course file has data on the locations of the various parts that make up the file. Links Extender reads this and extracts the file pieces (I have no idea on how it does this). Any save with Links Extender would put the file parts it can read back together and into the saved file. My theory is that sometimes there are "extras" put into course file. My experience with odd geometry seam blends is that the APCD seems to put extra data into the path mapping which eventually causes problems and crashes.

Those are my thoughts on the problems with the APCD. Too bad it was never properly updated and tested, it is a very powerful little program.

[dwg]

I looked at the APCD many years ago.

I always felt it was undercooked and had too many little and not so little issues, to say it is temperamental is probably an understatement.

I also felt they could have done more to get a new user into the software with a less steep initial learning curve. Make it so you can get a basic course done fairly easily, and people will come back for more, and learn to do things better and also get into the more advances areas.

It is pretty clear that Links Extender is rewriting the complete file rather than just saving changes or additions. Looks like it is a worthwhile tool for all developers to have around, perhaps a tool to run all courses through if it does do some cleaning up.

I'm pleased it worked here, the developers put a lot of effort into the courses, and this looks to be a good course.

Des

[dwg]

As I have a copy of the course I thought I would try Links Extender.

Makes a very dramatic difference.