MSTS West Coast Express

 

Hi everyone, I am just navigating through the site and as I am a big fan of MSTS (I used to post many videos of my gameplay on my old video games channel before I closed it in 2009 due to a certain company throwing up a fit! However I have just recently discovered OpenRails which is a bit similar to OpenBVE in someway's but unlike MSTS. OR uses the memory from the video card rather than the RAM which (if the graphics card can handle it). The route loads faster and seems less likely to lock up. However the PC I am using has a 4GB ram but the Intel graphics card on my bucket of bolts is a bit on the laggy side of things.

(Military Sea Transportation Service in Korean War) By Salvatore R. In January of 1950, Captain Alexander F. Junker (USN) arrived in Tokyo, Japan to oversee the transfer of Army Transport Service personnel and ships to the newly established Military Sea Transportation Service (MSTS). Set to take place on July 1, Junker could not anticipate the magnitude of his assignment when six.

So later this year, I do plan to build a proper gaming PC from the ground up with one of those Nvidia block type graphics (yes I am a rookie on this jargon;)) card which I am hoping to get a 2-4GB graphics card so I can max everything out on the settings and enjoy full HD train simming. I am sure that many of you will agree that MSTS boasts the most amount of freeware available on any train simulator, be it routes, trains, scenics etc. The list makes the mind boggle on the quantity of stuff. But my favourite routes are: Cajon Pass V4.2 Surfliner V2.0 (Jeff Farquhar) West Coast Express Midland Mainline Great Eastern Irish Enterprise (North & South) So I know MSTS is retro when compared with Railworks and even in some cases OpenBVE. But its a classic that I still play even now since I got it some years ago and I still enjoy the amount of stuff that is available freeware.

So I was wondering if I was the only one that feels this way about the sim. Richard, you ever heard of RailWorks?

It's THE best rail simulator available. The cabs are all 3D environments, you can press buttons in the cab, change points, activate AWS, DRA etc. The list continues. It does however come at a cost. All DLC from Steam (Downloadable Content) is expensive. The average route costs £24.99 with locos and units following in at about £11.99.

Msts west coast express

It is a lot and I know as I've got a tonne of downloads which I can't use. That moves nicely onto the next point.

Coast

It heavily relies on decent computer spec. I've got a basic PC and even on the most basic of settings, struggles at times. Thing is, if you want realism, you've got to pay for it.

I'd recommend checking out a few videos on YouTube and searching around. There are pleanty of third party sites such as JustTrains, IHH and of course UKTS which offer free/cheap add-ons that users have created. They can range from really poor to really good and so again, look around.

Hope that's of use! Oh, and Ash, thanks very much for that! Never knew OpenRails existed! Going to have to try that now;). OpenRails improves a few things that MS overlooked in their original game engine (the graphics were based on 16bit I think) and uses the CPU RAM rather than the RAM on the Graphics Card that most modern games take for granted (GTA, Minecraft etc.). OpenRails rectify's this error as OR uses the RAM off the graphics card, so if you have a content heavy route (Great Eastern, West Coast Express are prime examples), you will need a decent card for it to render appropiately without lag or else it may look like a slideshow on some older cards:). Here is a video of OpenRails which includes the latest build.

Msts West Coast Express Schedule

However the PC I am using has a 4GB ram but the Intel graphics card on my bucket of bolts is a bit on the laggy side of things. So later this year, I do plan to build a proper gaming PC from the ground up with one of those Nvidia block type graphics (yes I am a rookie on this jargon;) ) card which I am hoping to get a 2-4GB graphics card so I can max everything out on the settings and enjoy full HD train simming. More memory on a Graphics card doesn't improve the performance. The more memory the card has, the higher the resolution the card can handle (GPU RAM 'remembers' current pixels). So for dual screens or very high resolution displays more Graphics card memory is better. Graphics cards with 1GB memory and more powerful GPU's can out perform 2GB low end GPU's easily. To give you an idea on Railworks, i can run almost max settings but can be a little jittery still (10-15FPS) on:.

8 Core AMD FX-8120. 16GB RAM.

256GB SSD. 1GB AMD ATi Readon HD 5850.

Outputting to a single screen, too jittery on dual screens usually (5-10FPS) So to get some really smooth gaming, you need the best of the best now a days.