Atomic Systems

OK so for the umpteenth time in my PC life a hard disk corrupted and I’ve had to bite the bullet and reinstall everything over .....well the OS and all relevant files to that anyway.

A huge hassle as those of you who’ve done it will know. Of course it means downloading all the patches and drivers etc.etc.

NOW I did do one thing on this box (learnt the hard way) and that is install ALL non OS or OFFICE files on my main “other” disc. However the reinstalled OS is obviously lacking files that programmes like FSX and MSTS wrote into the SYS32 folders on the C drive and this means a lot of stuff no longer works.

Looking at the error messages and finding out what files are missing it’s obvious that much of this is to do with the stuff that was current back in MSTS’s day and so an obvious thing to do is reinstall MSTS. Hopefully that will put all the DirectX9 stuff back for a start?

This is where I could use some help.

I’ve decided to put all my MSTS stuff onto an SSD. I have a lot of Mini Routes created with Route Riter and these obviously copied over as folders. Most still run but others bring up the BSofD.

My plan is to back up the folders that might have any NON default MSTS content in my current install on my main “D” drive and then uninstall MSTS. Remind me which I need to backup?

Having done this I then want to use the STEAM4ME installation method and reinstall MSTS onto the new SSD. Then I can update that install by copying my BACKED UP FOR MiniRoutes “Master/fully patched/fully tweaked MSTS” into the new install and overwriting it to update the new installation.

If you haven’t glazed over yet....

My questions are will the uninstall and reinstall sort out all necessary registry issues and will the Mini Routes find the installed MSTS from that?

BTW headsup’s on any other pitfalls would be welcome ....in fact any arguments on why NOT to do that of interest too.

I guess the old WWII joke is valid for ALL sims? “...if you didn’t have a sense of humour , you shouldn’t have joined!”

Thanks in advance for any help

Geoff

Hi Geoff
I cant answer for mini routes as I don't have any.
But I recently moved MSTS from C drive to E drive (both SSD) as C was getting a bit full.

I copied the Routes folder into mydocs.
Then uninstalled MSTS. Deleted anything that was left on C.
Installed MSTS as per steam4me instructions onto E. Deleted Routes folder and copied Routes from mydocs into the E installation.
It worked a treat. Breeze must have been in the right direction!!

Garry

peacockg wrote:Hi Geoff
I cant answer for mini routes as I don't have any.
But I recently moved MSTS from C drive to E drive (both SSD) as C was getting a bit full.

I copied the Routes folder into mydocs.
Then uninstalled MSTS. Deleted anything that was left on C.
Installed MSTS as per steam4me instructions onto E. Deleted Routes folder and copied Routes from mydocs into the E installation.
It worked a treat. Breeze must have been in the right direction!!

Garry

Thanks Garry

My concern is that the Mini Routes will automatically detect the registry entries for the base/default programme install.

BTW I have to say as a tip to anyone else who suffers from a crowded C drive that my 5 year old machine was one of the first shipped from that manufacturer with the OS on an SSD. It took five years of careful management to keep that C drive alive and well and now that SSD prices are down I'd recommend anyone looking to upgrade to buy at least a 240/256 Gb SSD JUST for the OS and Office and the STILL keep all documents and other programmes off the C Drive. For those who scoff at such a large disc for a C drive I'd suggest that the golden rule for HDD/SSD's is work out what you NEED ...Double it ...and the actually buy the best you can afford that is even bigger than that . It may STILL corrupt ....but it won't fill up and waste your time fixing that issue

I don't understand enough about the files involved to know how installed stuff "interacts" with the System files and that's before we consider the headache of GPU drivers! GPU drivers seem to be written by people who spend their days dreaming of systems to come and beta's that are about to complete ....but with an attitude of scorn that finds folk like us using 15 year old software totally incomprehensible

Geoff

BTW my original SSD was "nominally" a 64Gb ...so I worked out I needed a 120 at least but actually settled on a 240Gb for the reinstall. Looking at space used/freespace that looks to have been the best call.

Hi Geoff,
Modern SSDs may have a longer life expectancy than earlier ones, so the following may not have so much relevance today, and is, therefore. my personal view.

SSDs have a finite life, based on the number of read/write cycles performed on each "cell". If you are running a large MSTS installation with Train Store, it will result in a very large number of read/writes every time it's used. For this reason, I wouldn't recommend an SSD for MSTS use. Also, my earlier tests with a normal MSTS on an SSD didn't offer any appreciable improvement; although the "pauses" were reduced in size, they weren't eliminated completely.

I do use an SSD for the OS system drive, but the Page File, Documents and TEMP folders are located on a "normal" HD.

Cheers,
Ged

Hi Ged,

Yes I've read quite a bit about the "read/write" cycles of SSD's and on one "techie site", amidst a heated squabble (nerds do like to throw their teddies out of the pram a lot? ) a voice of reason cut all of this short by doing some math on the life expectancy of SSD's for "normal use". His conclusion was that you were far more likely to need or upgrade your entire box LONG before this became an issue? .....so if he was wrong you'll be able to say "I told you so"! in a while

I haven't had enough time to evaluate the MSTS performance yet, but then so much else about PC's has improved in the last 15 years that it's hard to tell exactly what has improved performance and what hasn't had so much effect? All such discussion is somewhat dampened by the fact that I doubt there are more than two machines of identical spec in use anywhere at any one time?

I do know that I observed long ago that on intensive routes I had one disc that seemed to work very hard, constantly and noisily when I ran the Sim. Given SSD's lack of moving parts and other improvements in systems I do hope to see some smoother running? Even with CPU's that were beyond the developers dreams MSTS still stutters (?) and I've often thought that the HHD speed could be a major factor in this?

The way technology "sells" is interesting? Since SSD's got good reviews for being "fast" (I use the generic term as different reviewers have different takes/tests/values on this) the traditional HHD market seems to have concentrated on increasing capacity rather than performance? Great for pictures, downloads, music etc. but anything less than 2Tb seems to be oddball nowadays.

The frustrating part about this is that I have so much invested in my PC now (don't we all?) that when it died I used that as an excuse to buy the upgrade "Flight Simulator" machine I've been wanting. That sits idle at the moment because I want to sort out as many issues with FSX and MSTS on the old machine before I make any mistakes on the new one.

....and then of course the next hurdle for Simmers is .....Windows 10! ...and if recent experience with M$ support is anything to go by the community will be sorting out issues that throws up because I doubt they'll be interested.

BTW my original SSD was "nominally" a 64Gb ...so I worked out I needed a 120 at least but actually settled on a 240Gb for the reinstall. Looking at space used/freespace that looks to have been the best call.

...err that should all have been Terrabytes! ...not Gigabytes

Hi Geoff,

..err that should all have been Terrabytes! ...not Gigabytes

I don't think so, mate You won't find ANY drives having more than about 6 TB, and definitely not SSDs - you'd need to win the Lottery to be able to afford one, if they were available !!

Cheers,
Ged

slipperman12 wrote:Hi Geoff,

..err that should all have been Terrabytes! ...not Gigabytes

I don't think so, mate You won't find ANY drives having more than about 4 TB, and definitely not SSDs - you'd need to win the Lottery to be able to afford one, if they were available !!

Cheers,
Ged

....and that is when you KNOW it's time to go outside and do something else????

Hi,

When I recently reinstalled after having to purchase a new PC; I did the following:

Installed MSTS into c:\msts\Microsoft Games\Train Simulator

Copied the mini-routes from my old PC into
c:\msts\miniroutes

The mini-routes pick up my graphics settings correctly from the registry.

As my previous machine had space for a separate drive which this one doesn't; I did have to edit my registry files for Trainstore for each mini-route so that my launcher correctly fires up the right version of Trainstore when I switch mini-routes
(I didn't like the mini-loader and preferred Trainstore!)