Using firewall to disable "Top Tips" during route loading ..

[wacampbell]

Following up on some discussion on the subject here:

http://forums.uktrainsim.com/viewtopic. ... 5#p1662904

It was suggested to use the windows firewall to block outgoing access to the internet for railworks.exe. I can confirm that this does indeed nicely block the top tips from appearing, with the previous route loading graphic appearing instead. But, there is no saving in route loading time. I did some careful measurements on route loading time, running multiple times to ensure hard drive caching wasn't impacting the measurements, and there is no improvement in loading time - with or without the top tips. It seems the top tips display runs in the background and doesn't effect route loading time at all.

So if your concern is that the tips are annoying - then this method will help. But for improvements to route loading time - there's no gain.

[749006]

Instead of using a firewall I disconnected from the internet but still got these Tips when starting the game.