Hi
Is it possible to run MSTS using a "Linux" operating system?
Regards
Mike
Linux
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RiscaStation
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johny
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Short answer, doubt it.
I have tried, under Windows, Virtual PCs such as VMware and MS's VPC2007 in which you can run WinXP as a guest OS. Unfortunately there are currently no 3D graphics drivers for VMware and MS's VPC2007, MSTS profiler will not build, it flags a message that states MSTS requires Hardware Acceleration. Both VMware and VPC2007 have DirectDraw Acceleration enabled after running their respective additions applications, but not Direct3D Acceleration and AGP Texture Acceleration. I was hoping to get round the white texture tears that occur under Vista, but to no avail.
I should imagine the same applies to the Linux versions of those two PC emulators, you can run Win XP but not MSTS within it.
John
I have tried, under Windows, Virtual PCs such as VMware and MS's VPC2007 in which you can run WinXP as a guest OS. Unfortunately there are currently no 3D graphics drivers for VMware and MS's VPC2007, MSTS profiler will not build, it flags a message that states MSTS requires Hardware Acceleration. Both VMware and VPC2007 have DirectDraw Acceleration enabled after running their respective additions applications, but not Direct3D Acceleration and AGP Texture Acceleration. I was hoping to get round the white texture tears that occur under Vista, but to no avail.
I should imagine the same applies to the Linux versions of those two PC emulators, you can run Win XP but not MSTS within it.
John
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thegoonden
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It might run under winex/cedega, loads of windows games do.
But as stated above, you can forget doing it with vmware or simillar.
I have not tried it, might do so in the morning when I get home (for the sheer perversion of running macroshaft software in the free wolrd
).
BVE would not install under winex/cedega because it has no .exe, only a .msi file which wine does not really understand. Maybe MSTS will do better.
Take a look at transgaming.org to see if MSTS is listed as a supported game.
EDIT: I had a look, and it seems it DOES run.....
http://cedega.com/gamesdb/games/view.mhtml?game_id=2932
If you do not have cedega, PM me, you are very welcome to my login for transgaming, I subscribe, but not one of my fave windows games run on it, so SOMEONE may as well get my money's worth Will try MSTS today though to see how it goes.
But as stated above, you can forget doing it with vmware or simillar.
I have not tried it, might do so in the morning when I get home (for the sheer perversion of running macroshaft software in the free wolrd
).BVE would not install under winex/cedega because it has no .exe, only a .msi file which wine does not really understand. Maybe MSTS will do better.
Take a look at transgaming.org to see if MSTS is listed as a supported game.
EDIT: I had a look, and it seems it DOES run.....
http://cedega.com/gamesdb/games/view.mhtml?game_id=2932
If you do not have cedega, PM me, you are very welcome to my login for transgaming, I subscribe, but not one of my fave windows games run on it, so SOMEONE may as well get my money's worth
Will try MSTS today though to see how it goes.-
RiscaStation
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Hi "thegoonden" and John,thegoonden wrote:It might run under winex/cedega, loads of windows games do.
But as stated above, you can forget doing it with vmware or simillar.
I have not tried it, might do so in the morning when I get home (for the sheer perversion of running macroshaft software in the free wolrd
BVE would not install under winex/cedega because it has no .exe, only a .msi file which wine does not really understand. Maybe MSTS will do better.
Take a look at transgaming.org to see if MSTS is listed as a supported game.
EDIT: I had a look, and it seems it DOES run.....
http://cedega.com/gamesdb/games/view.mhtml?game_id=2932
If you do not have cedega, PM me, you are very welcome to my login for transgaming, I subscribe, but not one of my fave windows games run on it, so SOMEONE may as well get my money's worth
Thanks for the info it has made me wonder if there would be a problem getting "Train Store" and "Conbuilder" to load into "Linux"?
Very grateful for your help.
Mike
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thegoonden
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I tried installing MSTS this morning, but the installer bailed out with only a small error from Cedega[1] to offer by way of explanation.
However it is worth noting that my wine setup is a total mess, there are bits of 4 or 5 different versions from 2 or 3 different sources, all over the system, having neglected it while I had two separate windows and linux machines. I've never gotten it to run anything that uses Dx, although I know it ought to, and have had it do so in the past.
With regard to conbuilder and trainstore, they would be more likely to work than MSTS itself. I have had 80-90% success with anything non-directx I've installed under wine, not that I actually need anything except my digiguide tv guide app, which even has a wine support page
Funny enough a lot of MS stuff works well in wine, mainly because MS use the windows API's legally, so it's easier for wine to deal with, the snags happen with things that integrate tightly with windows, because they often look for specific MS file versions rather than simply looking for this or that function they require.
Vmware is useless for high performance purposes, it can barely manage to play an mp3 on my 2GHz machine, I installed it only for the perverse pleasure of seeing win-xp trapped in a window on a KDE desktop
Maybe some of the expensive comercial versions of vmware are better, but I am not about to pay up and find out.
[1]Cedega is the new name for Winex, which is wine with a directx implementation, wine itself is one of those recursive acronyms that unix folks love so much.....wine=Wine Is Not an Emulator
However it is worth noting that my wine setup is a total mess, there are bits of 4 or 5 different versions from 2 or 3 different sources, all over the system, having neglected it while I had two separate windows and linux machines. I've never gotten it to run anything that uses Dx, although I know it ought to, and have had it do so in the past.
With regard to conbuilder and trainstore, they would be more likely to work than MSTS itself. I have had 80-90% success with anything non-directx I've installed under wine, not that I actually need anything except my digiguide tv guide app, which even has a wine support page
Funny enough a lot of MS stuff works well in wine, mainly because MS use the windows API's legally, so it's easier for wine to deal with, the snags happen with things that integrate tightly with windows, because they often look for specific MS file versions rather than simply looking for this or that function they require.
Vmware is useless for high performance purposes, it can barely manage to play an mp3 on my 2GHz machine, I installed it only for the perverse pleasure of seeing win-xp trapped in a window on a KDE desktop
Maybe some of the expensive comercial versions of vmware are better, but I am not about to pay up and find out.
[1]Cedega is the new name for Winex, which is wine with a directx implementation, wine itself is one of those recursive acronyms that unix folks love so much.....wine=Wine Is Not an Emulator
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thegoonden
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As for Linux in general (thought it better to put in a separate post).....
I use Gentoo, and frankly it is the proverbial canine romantc equipment. Every single thing I ask it to do works, it's amazing, and none of this chasing round and round in circles after dependencies that some of you may know (well all of you know it from MSTS and/or Trainz I suppose). It uses a system called portage, whereby you ask it for, let's say, Firefox, and it has a look, works out everytthing Firefox needs, grabs all of it, compiles it just for your machine (no gobs of wasted code optimized for Intel on an AMD machine and so on), and installs it in order.....imagine being able to open a DOS prompt and type "gimme class37" and get all the cabs and noises and everything all at once. Of course the downside is the installation times because things need to compile. A modern dual core 64bit machine (which linux will make excellent use of, certainly better than xp, not sure about Vista on that front) will take nearly a half a day from blank disc to full desktop OS, a pain if you need the machine for other duties.
Ubuntu us supposedly very good and very easy to install, although I'm not sure how easy it is to add programs too, one often finds that those distros which insall quiickly proove stroppy later when you want to add some new program you spotted, mandriva is a prime example, installs a charm, but nothing you ever try to add to it works.
If you want to have a look at how the penguin is doing, I advise you download Knoppix. http://www.knoppix.org it is a run-from-cd distro.....you just download it (for free naturally) burn it, set your machine to boot from CD and away you go, it'll do a complete hardware detection and driver asignment each boot, and most hardware will work well enough (no 3d drivers though as those are proprietry and cannot be on the free cd). You get a full desktop computer basically, and at no risk of wiping something important in a botched install. I actually keep a knoppix on a tiny 1GB usb flash drive in my wallet, I can start any pc that can boot from USB, straight into linux.....and way quicker than the cd too cos it's solid state.
I use Gentoo, and frankly it is the proverbial canine romantc equipment. Every single thing I ask it to do works, it's amazing, and none of this chasing round and round in circles after dependencies that some of you may know (well all of you know it from MSTS and/or Trainz I suppose). It uses a system called portage, whereby you ask it for, let's say, Firefox, and it has a look, works out everytthing Firefox needs, grabs all of it, compiles it just for your machine (no gobs of wasted code optimized for Intel on an AMD machine and so on), and installs it in order.....imagine being able to open a DOS prompt and type "gimme class37" and get all the cabs and noises and everything all at once. Of course the downside is the installation times because things need to compile. A modern dual core 64bit machine (which linux will make excellent use of, certainly better than xp, not sure about Vista on that front) will take nearly a half a day from blank disc to full desktop OS, a pain if you need the machine for other duties.
Ubuntu us supposedly very good and very easy to install, although I'm not sure how easy it is to add programs too, one often finds that those distros which insall quiickly proove stroppy later when you want to add some new program you spotted, mandriva is a prime example, installs a charm, but nothing you ever try to add to it works.
If you want to have a look at how the penguin is doing, I advise you download Knoppix. http://www.knoppix.org it is a run-from-cd distro.....you just download it (for free naturally) burn it, set your machine to boot from CD and away you go, it'll do a complete hardware detection and driver asignment each boot, and most hardware will work well enough (no 3d drivers though as those are proprietry and cannot be on the free cd). You get a full desktop computer basically, and at no risk of wiping something important in a botched install. I actually keep a knoppix on a tiny 1GB usb flash drive in my wallet, I can start any pc that can boot from USB, straight into linux.....and way quicker than the cd too cos it's solid state.
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RiscaStation
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Hi="thegoonden"thegoonden wrote:I tried installing MSTS this morning, but the installer bailed out with only a small error from Cedega[1] to offer by way of explanation.
However it is worth noting that my wine setup is a total mess, there are bits of 4 or 5 different versions from 2 or 3 different sources, all over the system, having neglected it while I had two separate windows and linux machines. I've never gotten it to run anything that uses Dx, although I know it ought to, and have had it do so in the past.
With regard to conbuilder and trainstore, they would be more likely to work than MSTS itself. I have had 80-90% success with anything non-directx I've installed under wine, not that I actually need anything except my digiguide tv guide app, which even has a wine support page
Funny enough a lot of MS stuff works well in wine, mainly because MS use the windows API's legally, so it's easier for wine to deal with, the snags happen with things that integrate tightly with windows, because they often look for specific MS file versions rather than simply looking for this or that function they require.
Vmware is useless for high performance purposes, it can barely manage to play an mp3 on my 2GHz machine, I installed it only for the perverse pleasure of seeing win-xp trapped in a window on a KDE desktop
Maybe some of the expensive comercial versions of vmware are better, but I am not about to pay up and find out.
[1]Cedega is the new name for Winex, which is wine with a directx implementation, wine itself is one of those recursive acronyms that unix folks love so much.....wine=Wine Is Not an Emulator
Many thanks for the trouble you have taken to provide me with information on "MSTS" and "Linux".
I will have another think about this over the next few days.
In the mean time many thanks indeed.
Mike
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thegoonden
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No worries, have a play with Knoppix for a laugh.
I doubt that even Linux's cleaner system performance, would claw back the performance you would lose running through even a thin emulation layer like wine. In other words, unless you only have one machine and that machine prefers to be in Linux, you're going to be better runnung MSTS as God (well Gates) intended
I doubt that even Linux's cleaner system performance, would claw back the performance you would lose running through even a thin emulation layer like wine. In other words, unless you only have one machine and that machine prefers to be in Linux, you're going to be better runnung MSTS as God (well Gates) intended
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johny
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I have been able to run MSTS in XP under the latest version of WMWare with both the host and guest being XP as Vista is not supported as a host, although it can apparently be used as a guest. The latest version has a means of adding Direct3D within the configuration file (.vmx) for the virtual machine. Quite frankly, performance is absolutely abysmal, frame rates of 2 fps with a train standing still are far worse than what was being obtained on low specification PCs six years ago.
If similar happens under Linux, then as thegoonden writes, "you're going to be better running MSTS as... intended".
John
If similar happens under Linux, then as thegoonden writes, "you're going to be better running MSTS as... intended".
John
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RiscaStation
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Hi both,johny wrote:I have been able to run MSTS in XP under the latest version of WMWare with both the host and guest being XP as Vista is not supported as a host, although it can apparently be used as a guest. The latest version has a means of adding Direct3D within the configuration file (.vmx) for the virtual machine. Quite frankly, performance is absolutely abysmal, frame rates of 2 fps with a train standing still are far worse than what was being obtained on low specification PCs six years ago.
If similar happens under Linux, then as thegoonden writes, "you're going to be better running MSTS as... intended".
John
Your views and comments are very much appreciated. I think I will go with the "intended".
Best regards.
Mike
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thegoonden
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Yes, as bad or worse in vmware, as far as I am aware the linux version (the free vmplayer, which you can use with vm's set up with the demo version of workstation), does not yet have the Dx implementation. Pretty much all 3d stuff is useless in vmware.johny wrote:I have been able to run MSTS in XP under the latest version of WMWare with both the host and guest being XP as Vista is not supported as a host, although it can apparently be used as a guest. The latest version has a means of adding Direct3D within the configuration file (.vmx) for the virtual machine. Quite frankly, performance is absolutely abysmal, frame rates of 2 fps with a train standing still are far worse than what was being obtained on low specification PCs six years ago.
If similar happens under Linux, then as thegoonden writes, "you're going to be better running MSTS as... intended".
John
The trend towards hardware virtualisation might ultimately lead to vmware and it's like running much better, with them being allowed "ring 0" hardware access.
Wine would run MSTS much better, but still slower than windows. That's purely the drag of running through the eumlation layer (transgaming can refute that it's an emulator all they like, but it gives Dx apps access to SDL (the broad linux equiv of Dx, that sounds like emulation to me). The annoying thing is, that where a game is released for Linux and Windows, the Linux version always performs better. Though this is mainly due to better memory management and multitasking control, there does also appear to be a frame rate increase too, which is difficult to account for, as prior to running the game, neither OS was burning the CPU at idle. An example....unreal tourney, same machine, same level, same settings......Windows 98=100fps, Windows XP=60fps, Linux=190fps. Same story with Doom3.
Anyway, the way I divide up my machines is this.....
Windows-Fast racing car games, Train sims, Cubase
Linux-everything else, mail, web, music, tv, video,dvd, some games, office and so on.
DO have a look at knoppix, it's free and only a 650mb download, chicken feed on broadband, AND because it runs from CD, it's damned handy to keep around in case your hard drive checks out on you and you badly need to get online (internal and USB modem users may have trouble, but anyone with router/hub/proper-modem will be online without even knowing it. As I think I mentioned I carry it on a little USB key ( 2cmx5mmx2mm), you should SEE people's faces when I boot their machine from it....doubly so when I do it with their broken HD removed.
Sorry for rambling, but after digging inside msts, I realise all of you could eat linux for breakfast, none of it's scripts are half as brain bending as a .eng file
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RiscaStation
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Hi "thegoonden"
I very much welcome your views and guidance on "Linux".
Yesterday I down loaded "ubuntu-7.04-desktop-i386.iso".
Is there a difference between this and "knoppix"? The file sizes are around the same 690 MB.
I have read some good things about "Linux" and I also understand it has limitations. It may, however, be unsuitable for "MSTS" although there is an add-on "cedege" (commercial ware) for it.
I think that at the end of the day it would be better to use "Windows" for "MSTS" as you have already said and to follow your lead and use "Linux" for the rest.
I am again very grateful to you.
Mike
I very much welcome your views and guidance on "Linux".
Yesterday I down loaded "ubuntu-7.04-desktop-i386.iso".
Is there a difference between this and "knoppix"? The file sizes are around the same 690 MB.
I have read some good things about "Linux" and I also understand it has limitations. It may, however, be unsuitable for "MSTS" although there is an add-on "cedege" (commercial ware) for it.
I think that at the end of the day it would be better to use "Windows" for "MSTS" as you have already said and to follow your lead and use "Linux" for the rest.
I am again very grateful to you.
Mike
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thegoonden
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Ubuntu, as far as I am aware, requires that you install it, much like windows. I hear it'd very good and newbie friendly, but have not personally used it.
Knoppix on the other hand is the "risk free" option, as it runs direct from CD, simply set your PC to start from CD, pop the disc in and switch on. Anyone can have a go with it, and it can prove useful if your windows breaks down.
The different "distros" are like kits, each distro maker gathers together a bunch of packages and gets them all working together, usually adding some way for the user to manage what's installed.
You might want to look on youtube for "ubuntu beryl", especially if you were thinking of paying for Vista.
I would not advise anyone to ditch their windows, but it's always worth a look at linux. I started out with it as a thing to poke at and tinker with, and it's now my only real OS (windows is only a game loader ).
PS, if Knoppix chokes on any exotic hardware you have, walk away, or be prepared for reading, should you ever fancy a proper installation. While linux supports loads more hardware out of the box, when it lacks a built in driver, unlike with windows, there is not always a proprietry one available.
In short, try knoppix first, if you like it, then try installing ubuntu......unless it;s a live CD version too of course, in which case, play with it all you like instead.
Knoppix on the other hand is the "risk free" option, as it runs direct from CD, simply set your PC to start from CD, pop the disc in and switch on. Anyone can have a go with it, and it can prove useful if your windows breaks down.
The different "distros" are like kits, each distro maker gathers together a bunch of packages and gets them all working together, usually adding some way for the user to manage what's installed.
You might want to look on youtube for "ubuntu beryl", especially if you were thinking of paying for Vista.
I would not advise anyone to ditch their windows, but it's always worth a look at linux. I started out with it as a thing to poke at and tinker with, and it's now my only real OS (windows is only a game loader
). PS, if Knoppix chokes on any exotic hardware you have, walk away, or be prepared for reading, should you ever fancy a proper installation. While linux supports loads more hardware out of the box, when it lacks a built in driver, unlike with windows, there is not always a proprietry one available.
In short, try knoppix first, if you like it, then try installing ubuntu......unless it;s a live CD version too of course, in which case, play with it all you like instead.
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RiscaStation
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