train simuator

[damian2]

Hi i am just wondering if it is possible to run train simulator from a portable hard drive ? as my hard drive on my laptop is shrinking lol ,

thanks Mark

[petethetim]

I would Imagine it would be a Nightmare

[ashgray]

Hi

Agree with Pete - portable hard drives are only really useful for data (docs, photos, music files etc). Once you install an actual program on one, Windows will always expect to "see" it on that drive. The minute you try to boot up your laptop without your portable drive attached (or if you get a USB connection failure), Windows would, I imagine, end up severely screwed up and you'd probably be facing a complete re-installation of the program.

You'd be much better off installing a larger capacity main hard drive.

Cheers
Ashley

[Lad491]

I tried it as i thought it would be a good idea, but even with USB 2 it was a disaster. Response time was so slow that frame rates never got over 2fps

[OTTODAD]

Hi i am just wondering if it is possible to run train simulator from a portable hard drive ?

Yes, you can run MSTS on any removable Data Media, CD, DVD, Flash Card or USB external drives.

It does not matter where MSTS was installed into from CDs, this making the concept of my MINI ROUTES possible.
http://www.train-sim.com/howto/miniroutes/mini.htm

Just left-double-click on any Train.exe anywhere and it will run MSTS if all it's folders are present. The Editors will also work after creating desktop shortcuts for the Launcher.exe -runeditor.

If MSTS has not been installed at all on the computer a Train.exe is being run on then the MSTS OPTIONS need to be set every time MSTS is being run.

If using a USB-2 external drive and your WIN-XP has SP-2 installed then data transfer speed is good enough so as not to significantly increase the stuttering MSTS, fetching more data to run a route !

O t t o

[OTTODAD]

I tried it as i thought it would be a good idea, but even with USB 2 it was a disaster.

Unless you have got WIN-XP SP-2 installed a USB-2 drive will transfer data at USB-1 speed.

Below are the frame rates in this WUPPER-EXPRESS 10 scene at Dortmund, helped by the ATI X1900XT PCI-Express card, running MSTS on an external MAXTOR USB-2 drive and I did not notice any stuttering either !

O t t o

[45002]

I tried it as i thought it would be a good idea, but even with USB 2 it was a disaster.

Unless you have got WIN-XP SP-2 installed a USB-2 drive will transfer data at USB-1 speed.

Below are the frame rates in this WUPPER-EXPRESS 10 scene at Dortmund, helped by the ATI X1900XT PCI-Express card, running MSTS on an external MAXTOR USB-2 drive and I did not notice any stuttering either !

O t t o

Click the image to zoom in


I take it thats in Explore mode

MARTIN

PS,Whats the Spin speed "RPM" on your external MAXTOR USB-2 drive

[OTTODAD]

I take it thats in Explore mode.

Yes it is, Martin.

The spindle speed on that 300 Gb MAXTOR Onetouch is 7200 rpm.

Below from the "WE10_Gueter nach Dortmund" activity, an AI departing on the left !

O t t o

[45002]

I take it thats in Explore mode.

Yes it is, Martin.

The spin speed on that MAXTOR is 7000 rpm.

Below from the "WE10_Gueter nach Dortmund" activity, an AI departing on the left !

O t t o


Click the image to zoom in

Thanks there

MARTIN

[petethetim]

Well I have a Targa Databox 300GB 7200 8mb cache USB 2.0 & the performance was shocking Like Laurie frame rate rarely went over 3 FPS

[petethetim]

And one other point "WUPPER-EXPRESS 10" is very FPS friendly try it on Thames Mersey Dorset coast East Coast express or Irish Enterprise & it would most likely fry most PC's

[OTTODAD]

And one other point "WUPPER-EXPRESS 10" is very FPS friendly try it on Thames Mersey Dorset coast East Coast express or Irish Enterprise & it would most likely fry most PC's

This is from the N.&.J.C., a known frame rates killer !

But don't forget that this is an ATI X1900XT PCI-Express crunching graphics data, still using the USB-2 MAXTOR !

Have you got WIN-XP SP-2 installed and have these routes you mentioned loads of loose consists in activities, affecting frame rates ?
O t t o

[mikesimpson]

I copied my Dorset Coast mini-route to my USB drive K: and ran it from there. The drop in FPS leaving Bournemouth on the Bournemouth-Weymouth activity was only around 3 FPS.

This was using a Seagate 7200 rpm 250 gig USB drive.

Users should note that not only has USB2 to be activated, you must go into the BIOS and set it to HiSpeed which is 480 mps whereas FullSpeed (which you might be forgiven for thinking is the fastest) is only 12 mbs.

Mike

[petethetim]

I copied my Dorset Coast mini-route to my USB drive K: and ran it from there. The drop in FPS leaving Bournemouth on the Bournemouth-Weymouth activity was only around 3 FPS.

This was using a Seagate 7200 rpm 250 gig USB drive.

Users should note that not only has USB2 to be activated, you must go into the BIOS and set it to HiSpeed which is 480 mps whereas FullSpeed (which you might be forgiven for thinking is the fastest) is only 12 mbs.

Mike

Good Point Mike a Lot of Folk Forget that

[kevarc]

Yep, you can get higher frame rates in explore, but WHAT really counts is in an activity. Explore mode doesn't count for much as far as stretching your system.