OT: Do you like trains?

[Snuffy]

So what are you saying WC? You got both RW and MSTS now?

[SirBenn21]

Got my copy last night. Always been inquisitive and now the price was right to have a look.

Ben

[warchild]

So what are you saying WC? You got both RW and MSTS now?

Yup, i do, because i figure that anytime you want to get serious about something you need to examine past efforts as well as present effort in order to plan the future of your involvement in that hobby. MSTS offers a great deal, inspite f its age, poor organizati9on, and bad graphics. It itself was the successor and spin off from 1990s scale model planning software. Railworks is simply whats here today. For some reason, i cant bring myself to trust in the companies involved with it, and microsoft has obviously show us its true colors, but i digress..
for all of its sparkly sham and dodge, railworks has many good things going for it, just as msts has had, but if there is going to be improvement in the enjoyability of this hobby, the its going to be yp too us few to help define what that should look and feel like.
on a more personal note, i've also started pricing n-gauge stuff and am hoping to start on a new diorama later this year,,,

[gajit]

Its now over a week since i flew FSX due to this tread forcing me to buy Railworks. With self shadows, bumpmapping, etc it is very appealing and quite challenging.

[empeck]

Sorry I've started this thread :ernae:

I'm playing with World Editor, and I've managed to make my route template and import SRTM data Now I've stucked with markers and decals.

[warchild]

::LOL:: 'm Jealous.. i got raising the dirt kinda figured out and i can lay a straight piece of track, but thats about it so far.. world editor is daunting to me, and after three hurs today, i finally gave up on trying to join two rails together, and went back to flying a plane ::lol:;...
i will say this much.. After a week of frustration, my challenger finally works and i was able to copy in better sound files for the DD40 although i still think msts has better sounds. i wish i could find a way to convert wav files into dav filles..

[deimos256]

got msts back in but in the course of some 6 to 8 years I have lost all the documentation!!! UH OH

[Snuffy]

try um and find out
if they dont work delete em
but i hev found out most ovem do
H

Well Henry, I'm befuddled now. The folks over on another forum devoted to train sims says that none of the stuff is cross compatable. :isadizzy:

[warchild]

Well Henry, I'm befuddled now. The folks over on another forum devoted to train sims says that none of the stuff is cross compatable. :isadizzy:

its only cross compatable with railsim . Anything zugu before railsim 1 is not compatable.. which is really too bad because msts sound files are SO much more accurate that railworks/railsim..

[gajit]

::After a week of frustration, my challenger finally works and i was able to copy in better sound files for the DD40 although i still think msts has better sounds. i wish i could find a way to convert wav files into dav filles..

Hi Warchild

I just bought the Challenger and its the only train i cant get to work without a prob - did you find a simple cure?

BTW - just realised that a reflection of a signal showed on the side of an engine as i passed it - amazing!

[Brett_Henderson]

I've been following this thread.. thought I'd pop in

I've been a passionate rail-fan for about 40 years.. got hooked living near the CB&Q main-line in suburban Chicago.

Along the way, I've tried a couple of Desktop train simulators. My favorite for general "aura", is MSTS. But, it's just too buggy. I even went as far as to edit the cofig files for things like coupler breakage, traction, de-railments over certain track types.. etc. It was really educational, because you got to see where they tried to appy real physics.

Another MSTS plus was that it does indeed allow you to select specific terrain meshing.. from a global map, to at least give you broad, real-world elevations to build your route into. But again.. the sim itself is so buggy, it got dis-heartening.

As for software that helps you design layouts before laying track ? I've used CadRail.. it's pretty powerful software.. This link is to some photos of my HO layout under construction.. one of the photos is a track-plan made in CadRail, with arrow references to some of the photos.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/17121447@N08/

As for simming ? I've settled on Trainz2009. It has the most realistic physics.. decent selection of rolling-stock built in.. and the downloadable stuff is good too. But as mentioned.. be careful about compatability.

Trainz is also fairly straight-forward when it comes to route design.. I'm about 1/2 through replicating the old; SooLine/WisconsinCentral route connecting, Manistique, Newberry, Trout Lake, St.Ignace and Sault Ste Marie, in Michigan's upper peninsula. The first trick to learn.. is to lay the track (grades and all), and then "force" the terrain to meet the track-bed. The turnouts and signal laying is more logical and functional than the other sims.. and the triggers and priority markers aren't as likely to cause conflicts. To me.. the idea is to get it so that several AI trians populate the route on realistic schedules.. then you as the virtual engineer can pick any of them and run it as you see fit.. it can get pretty intense when your industries start screaming for products..

[Snuffy]

Have I mentioned, I've narrowed down my selection to either MSTS or RW ... and with that in mind, that was the question I asked on the other forums with regard to compatibility.

That the answer was NIL, that leaves me with the quandry ... MSTS has the rolling stock in the era I want to build in ... RW doesn't. Do I really want to have to learn how to model 3D equipment just to make my layout work? Or should I go with MSTS and use the existing equipment?

Hmmm ...

BTW ... welcome to the thread Brett.

[empeck]

I've been following this thread.. thought I'd pop in
Another MSTS plus was that it does indeed allow you to select specific terrain meshing.. from a global map, to at least give you broad, real-world elevations to build your route into. But again.. the sim itself is so buggy, it got dis-heartening.

It's quite easy to set real world elevations in Railworks. Free global SRTM data is available here:

http://dds.cr.usgs.gov/srtm/version2_1/SRTM3/

Download suitable chunk for your route. Unzip them to DEM\SRTM\ folder. In proper lon/lat place just press T. Thats all.

I've also found two useful apps that makes few things easier:

http://www.rwdecal.co.uk/ - it grabs snapshots from Google Earth to make decals in RW (RW as far as I know doesn't allow to make photoreal ground textures) Those decals are used for reference only.

http://www.rstools.info/ - RWTools. It's quite powerful tool, but I haven't read all docs yet. I did new route template and created new markers with this program.

[Brett_Henderson]

I'll admit to not having any Railworks experience.. and if I wasn't already so wrapped into this route with Trainz2009, I'd buy it and try it.

Does it have a good physics set ? WarChild seems to think otherwise, per the DD40 tests.

What I did with Trainz, was to test it extensively. I set up a long, straight track with a 1.75% grade and put 100 coal hoppers on it. I won't bore you with details.. but the testing worked out well. The load behaved as expected from empty car, to full cars; and the number of engines needed to pull them up the grade.. right down to wheel slipping (and sanding)... you have to "nurse" the throttle, and can even end up sliding back down with the throttle jammed in notch-8... wheel-slip light flashing. The multi-unit lash-ups work perfectcly.. even for helpers at the rear of the train.

Another neat thing, is that you can jump from loco-to-loco.. train-to-train.. during any session. I seem to remember that wasn't possible in MSTS.. don't know about RailWorks. For me, that means setting the big train into motion (with several, conditional commands stacked up), and then popping over to the destination yards to start puting another train together with a switcher. All the industries are fully designable.. You can set what materials they need delivered to them.. and what they produce.. with very good animations for loading and unloading. Again.. not sure how RailWorks handles that, but Trainz works very well.

[empeck]

I haven't tested Railworks physics that much. Locomotives are acting different, I can feel how much power they have, etc. But don't know if they act like real. I like graphics, tools are nice and playing is fun

I've tried Trainz few times, but every time I tried to download custom route I failed, there was to many dependencies from various sites to download. Unfortunately a great freeware route has been released lately - Sudety 1976 - my favourite place in Poland. I'll have to buy Trainz 2006 (I have TRS 2004 and Classic) and give another try.

http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?p=498204

Trainz has almost every Polish locomotive, Railworks doesn't have even one (yet)

[Brett_Henderson]

but every time I tried to download custom route I failed, there was to many dependencies

Oh yeah.. that's a nightmare. I don't even try to download routes. Building my own keeps me pretty busy.

I do cheat a bit though. There are several good parts in the routes that come with it (2009).. I just load one of those routes.. delete all but the tiles I want to add to my route, and then merge them. You can also cut/paste several tiles worth of the work (elevations, textures, trees, buildings and all)... that makes filling the large parts of your route that are mostly "background", and that don't need custom detailing, quick and easy.

[Snuffy]

Well I have a somewhat major problem here.

I finally caved in late yesterday afternoon and swallowed the "deal" from steam. What a catastrophe.

No, my railworks doesn't work. I don't even know if it was properly downloaded and installed.

All I know is when I click the icon on the desktop it tells me that my version of Direct X isn't strong enough to support RW. I have (as far as I know, the latest 9.0c version of Direct X.)

My OS is the latest upgraded XP Pro, and the rest of my system is more than strong enough to support this. I also didn't get a CD Key so I can't authorize my download.

What a mess this is turning out to be.

[deimos256]

There's a thread about your exact problems over at the trainsim forums, I didn't read any of the replies but I know the OP has the exact same issues.

[Snuffy]

There's a thread about your exact problems over at the trainsim forums, I didn't read any of the replies but I know the OP has the exact same issues.

You didn't happen to notice that the OP had the exact same nick as mine did ya? :mixedsmi:

[deimos256]

I actually didn't notice but as I was writing the reply the thought had crosses my mind sorry

[warchild]

One trick you might try is to open steam, and go to "My Games". Right click on Railworks and select properties from the popup menu. Under the properties selection, choose "Verify local cache ( or files)" Then go have coffee and a golf game with your buddies { No lie, it takes that long } while steam goes in and checks all your files. If anything is wrong, it gets flagged for redownload the next time you start steam. Now, once thats done, close steam and restart it. Although my directx is the absolute latest, for some reason, every single time i do that, it downloads a new copy. That should take care of your problem, but seeing what ive seen, it may not. still, its worth a try. I had to do that a great number of times trying to get the challenger addon to work. i dont know what finally happened that it started working, but it did, and all those directx reinstalls did no damage to my system at all..

[Snuffy]

I actually didn't notice but as I was writing the reply the thought had crosses my mind sorry

Its okay ... LOL! :salute:

[Snuffy]

One trick you might try is to open steam, and go to "My Games". Right click on Railworks and select properties from the popup menu. Under the properties selection, choose "Verify local cache ( or files)" Then go have coffee and a golf game with your buddies { No lie, it takes that long } while steam goes in and checks all your files. If anything is wrong, it gets flagged for redownload the next time you start steam. Now, once thats done, close steam and restart it. Although my directx is the absolute latest, for some reason, every single time i do that, it downloads a new copy. That should take care of your problem, but seeing what ive seen, it may not. still, its worth a try. I had to do that a great number of times trying to get the challenger addon to work. i dont know what finally happened that it started working, but it did, and all those directx reinstalls did no damage to my system at all..

Similar advice I got from the other forums Pam ... I'll give it a go tonight when I get home from work. It'll be after 1800 hours EST though.

I have another question.

If I go and find this simulation on a CD/DVD in a store, am I still expected to hook up to steam?

[gajit]

One trick you might try is to open steam, and go to "My Games". Right click on Railworks and select properties from the popup menu. Under the properties selection, choose "Verify local cache ( or files)" Then go have coffee and a golf game with your buddies { No lie, it takes that long } while steam goes in and checks all your files. If anything is wrong, it gets flagged for redownload the next time you start steam. Now, once thats done, close steam and restart it. Although my directx is the absolute latest, for some reason, every single time i do that, it downloads a new copy. That should take care of your problem, but seeing what ive seen, it may not. still, its worth a try. I had to do that a great number of times trying to get the challenger addon to work. i dont know what finally happened that it started working, but it did, and all those directx reinstalls did no damage to my system at all..

Thanks very much for that advice - im giving it a go now - just putting the kettle on!!

[Snuffy]

Still no joy in this.

I've done everything and RailWorks tells me my Directx is no current ... I went so far as to find the directx that came with the download and ran the exe file from there ... still no joy.