Hello from the land of the FEC

[Barney]

I would like to start by thanking Hawk for having a very healthy RRT3 site. While I can not imagine the work that goes into this site, I have noticed how well it is maintained. I have visited this site for years, and it is always up to date and a very vibrant site and community. I found RRT3 a while back, after buying SM Railroads! One would never guess they where evolutions of the same game. I have done some work on modding SMR, but to be honest, the game is not worth the effort. Those at Bobby's Rails, Snoopy 55 and Bobby, have done some great work with it, but truly, the program is a mess, and until 2k and Firaxis fixes it, , not much can be done with it without a super computer. 12 GB of RAM and 12 GB of VM should be fine. Any way, I do some work in Blender, but I have not opened the PK4s to see if anything is possible. What ever they did with SMR, Blender and SMR where not happy working together. Got a little fed up to say the least with 1 step forward, 3 back. CONSTANTLY.

The point is that I have been playing some of the newer maps and have some questions and comments. So here I is making a pest of myself. Again, thanks to Hawk and the group for keeping a great site and informative forum alive, as well as a great game. I will also be looking into Ned's Trainmaster, as soon as I can get this computer to like it.

[Grandma Ruth]

What's the FEC? Will I regret asking?

[Hawk]

aboard Barney. Good to have someone else from the South of the good ol' US.
Make yourself t' home. Folks 'round these parts are quite neighborly and happy to help ya' out if you have any questions.

Ruth - I believe he's referring to the Florida East Coast Railway.

[Sugus]

Great to see a new (and I hope active) member

[nedfumpkin]

Welcome aboard Barney....If you have a question, you'll most like find the answer here, or at least get an opinion. If there is something we don't know then expect us to obsess over it until we get an answer (think Vista fix) :)

Trainmaster should work on your computer if you have RT3 working at all. It was always designed to work on the computer that RT3 1.05 and 1.06 could not. So that won't be an issue. I do suggest holding off right now since I am in the stages of going to an unreleased Alpha 3 to the Beta. I should have that done soon, and it will be an easy installation. (should be)

[Barney]

Yes, Ruth, Hawk is correct. The Florida East Coast Railway. I have been a fan of theirs since I was a kid, and the trains would run behind my daddy's shop. While I was also a fan of the Seaboard and Atlantic Coast lines, that was ruined by the the CSX. Stupid name for a Railroad, in my opinion. I guess I figured that any one that was in to this game would be familiar with one of the most profitable roads in the world, so please excuse me on that. The history on that company would appear to be just the thing RRT 3 was made on. All built in one mans lifetime. Lets not forget that it helps to marry rich and invest in oil as a an equal stock holder with Rockefeller. When the the first marriage runs dry, put her in the happy house, get divorced, and marry a DuPont. The biggest irony is the first wife out lived all of them. LOL.

Sugus - While my activity depends on many factors. Time versus money. We will see which one wins. As well, I am still working on things for SMR. Most of which are log jammed, until I can figure them out. I came here to get that out of what is left of my mind. Who knows, something here may break the brain constipation. No, Exlax has not worked. LOL

Nedfrumpkin - Please do not take this as an insult, but about 2 years ago, I had a problem with Vista. The best solution I found, was FDISK. Since then, I have not had a problem with it, and XP works just fine, thanks for asking. Until they get the VM problem corrected, MS is just selling a fatter sow, that eats more resources. I will agree that Vista renders some pretty pictures, but that is not what gaming is about. For now, I will stay with XP. Maybe later, who knows? I may give Linux a try if MS can not produce a better product for consumers. Resource hogs are not going to make it. On the other side of the coin, I must say that it is quite impressive as to what you have been able to do with this game. While I have ideas, I have yet to research the options. Plus, I am not looking to cloud your mind while progress is being made. There will be plenty of time once you come up for air. While I have not touched programing in almost 30 years, some how I am still able to understand it. That is how Snoopy 55 and I came up with SAM and SAM2 for SMR. While it would have been great to fix SMR, research tells me that to do so would be rewriting from scratch. And as well the game engine is all wrong, so why bother. Anyway, I am better at building models then programing anyway. My graphics could use improvement, but so could most of the graphic artist getting paid now a days. As for your comment about easy installation, I was going to make a proctologist joke of, but instead I will just let that one pass this time, no pun intended. LOL. As I stated before, I have yet to break open the PK4's, although they have been copied to another drive. Once I get the tools from the cars pack that you up loaded, I will take a look and sort things out. Since I have no idea about formats and conversions in/out of Blender, it is hard to tell what will happen. Again other factors are involved so we will have to see.

Anyway, if I can be any help, let me know. Or on the other hand, being a pest, let me know.

Thanks and Be safe all.

[Hawk]

Everything I've been reading says that Win 7 will be far superior to Vista, even though it's built on the Vista core. It's due out the 22nd of this month. I'm even considering giving it a try, and you can ask some of the folks around here, I was drug kicking and screaming to XP. I will wait until there's been a service pack or two though before I give it a whirl.

It would seem that Vista was a public beta and they got a ton of bugs worked out from the testing and fixed a lot of it in Win 7.

BTW! I never did install Vista, but I did see it in action on a few other computers. It wasn't for me, even though I had an opportunity to get it for free.

[Barney]

When it comes to upgrading systems, it is always better to let someone else be the lab rat. Surprisingly, there are always plenty of volunteers, though I do not know why. Waiting until a couple of service packs are released sounds like a good bet. In the case of Vista, that was a very expensive Beta. If ned had done that with Trainmaster, we all would have been broke, while he would be in the Caymans drinking Margaritas and visiting his(was ours) money. The point is, Vista was half baked upon release, and MS knew it at the time. When everyone got wise to the stunt, they tried to force it on us. It was not until the gaming industry put its foot down, and said they where not going to write for it. Shortly after, Major corporations made matters worst, by stating that they were not going to upgrade to it and some went to Linux. Regardless of what is printed in the press, when you apply for a patent for a new operating system(win 7) on the same day you release your latest version (Vista), someone is going to look at you funny. Honestly, I think the real problem with Vista, was that they subcontracted the thing to death. Then when it came time to put it together, you wound up with the bride of Frankenstein. Some loose ends are normal in any project, but when you have script written in umpteen different countries, by people who have no guidelines as to how it will be tied together, you get Vista. Plus, I believe Vista was the first time that MS tried to subcontract an operating system. Hopefully, they will not try that again, but only time will tell. From what I have read about Win 7, is the work was restricted to only a few contractors and the main body was tied together by MS its self. As to how it works out, again, time will tell. Did they ever fix the issue with memory usage? I remember hearing the fairytale back when 95 was the greatest, that 98 was going to remove the Virtual Memory issue. Here we are 15 years + later and Vista eats more RAM and VM then anything, and as well the size of both are still the same. Now boards are available with more then 4 slots for RAM, but Vista can not read more then 4GB anyway. Any idea what gives? or will all games be moving to servers? That would be no fun since user content is normally not allowed on such an arrangement. Modding, is half the fun of gaming, at least to me, I just keep telling myself that bald is beautiful as I rip another clump of hair from my scalp because the game just chewed up another model. But it truly is fun, I swear. Got to run, the guys with the large net are circling the block again. Be safe.

[Hawk]

I ran the Win 7 upgrade test and my 3 year old system passed with flying colors.
I have an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ AM2 processor with 4 GB DDR2 PC2-5300 667mhz RAM and an old Nvidea GeForce 7600 GT KO 256 MB vid card.

I've read that the overhead for Win 7 is a lot less than Vista. I've also read that they've improved the UAC for Win 7 so that it doesn't take full control of your system like it did in Vista. You actually have more control over it than it over you, so I've read.

BTW! With a 64 bit OS (XP, Vista, Win 7) you can run up to I think 16 GB RAM.

[Gwizz]

Barney, are you the same Barney that used to make business trips to Seattle?

I think the barney I am thinking of, came from outside of the US.

[Barney]

No, I have not been to Seattle since I was 11 years old, and that was quite awhile ago. Sorry.

[Beancounter]

Hi Barney,

Welcome aboard!

BC

[Barney]

Thanks Beancounter, I hope that I can be productive to both projects, RRT3 and SMR.