Railworks or Trainz? Whats your opinion on both?? Since they have their disadvantages

[JCitron]

Have not tried RW or MSTS. Do either of them have mac versions? If no I will not try them.

There are no MAC versions of this software.

John

 

[boyerm25]

Then I won't try them...
or do they take a lot less processing power than TS12?

 

[JCitron]

Then I won't try them...
or do they take a lot less processing power than TS12?

MSTS is old so there's not much to worry about with the processing on today's computers. Getting the program to run maybe an issue though because of the new 64-bit environment and the program being 32-bit. Just to give you an idea how hold the program is, I haven't used MSTS since late 2004.

Railworks takes a comparable amount of hardware to run as Trainz TS12. Some people say it takes less. Like anything else with personal computers, this has to do with drive fragmentation, drive space, process speeds, display resolution, etc.

John

 

[HLJames]

Have not tried RW or MSTS. Do either of them have mac versions? If no I will not try them.

Niether of them do, although you'd think by chance they would in some shape or form - especially since Microsoft should be focusing on software in general, not their own OS (but that's a different topic altogether)

 

[RRSignal]

MSTS runs fine under XP-64 bit.

 

[Robert2d6]

MSTS runs fine under XP-64 bit.

How long has that software been around, a decade or so?

 

[sniper297]

June 2001. I uploaded Version 1 of MSTS Port Ogden & Northern to trainsim.com August 15th that year, so 11 years ago.

 

[amigacooke]

Have not tried RW or MSTS. Do either of them have mac versions? If no I will not try them.

No they don't.

 

[boyerm25]

@JCItron: May try MSTS then.

 

[boyerm25]

How is the original railworks on FPS? Not railworks 3, or rail simulator, but Railworks Train Simualtor. I found a copy for $10. One review said it was better on FPS than TS2010.

 

[sniper297]

You're out of luck. From what I hear RW3 framerates stink on ice, I gave up on RW before RW2 came out. But you're stuck with RW3 - when you install what you have it won't work at all until you create a STEAM account and activate the game, and part of the activation process is updating to the latest version whether you want to or not.

 

[sparky15]

The original RailSimulator, was great on frame rates. Once it morphed into RailWorks and the Steam thing, can't say. All of the marketing stuff killed it. Staying with the original, not much for downloaded content. Unless you downloaded the Mark 1 and 2 patches and have the ability to build your own content, not much to offer. Looks good. After that, nothing.
Now the Steam, DLC for content game is on, really see no need to revisit it. It will never "operate" and milk you dry for payware. Railworks became a platform to sell payware while ignoring the broader hobby guys.*
Just my two cents.*

 

[HLJames]

Reason why I got in to train simulators is because you can get a lot of stuff for free or cheaper then the stuff in real life, even though you'll never hold it in your hands. Railworks seems to be made where they're trying to bring in the concept of real world modeling prices, which I don't want or care for. No need for me to go broke just to get the basics.

 

[sparky15]

I have no problem buying payware. MSTS has the edge on dollar spent in my opinion. Last payware I bought for MSTS was Sandpatch. Full route along with rolling stock on sale for about the same as a locomotive for Trainz or Railworks. Given the MSTS route editor, that does say a lot.*
MSTS was my first train simulator and still find it the best for long haul operations. ORTS opens it up for even more.*

 

[HLJames]

Just to note, I don't have anything against payware either. I just don't want to spend a ton of money constantly just to get exactly what I want and maybe only use it once with some exceptions, or something like that.

 

[geophil]

Railworks became a platform to sell payware while ignoring the broader hobby guys.

Look at their website and you get the idea: http://www.railsimulator.com/corporate.php. Quite a few directors for such a small company. According to the webpage, they are responsible for finances, accounting, sales and marketing. No head of development, no QA, no key technical personnel mentioned at all. You can draw your conclusions.

 

[AlanBradbury]

Actually, that page link is quite funny when you read it all. You can call me picky, but I would tend to agree that the key personnel at a software company perhaps ought to include some people who actually make software, rather than what appears to be a bunch of glorified accountants. Of course finances and funding are important, but you'd think that other people who actually make the product would warrant a mention in a key personnel list.

There also appears to have been a fair few convenient coincidences in that resumé when you read between the lines, for example the one about setting up and chairing a BAFTA committee and then, miracle of miracles, winning an award from that committee! Can you imagine that? Gosh what an unexpected, and obviously totally legitimate and completely above board surprise that must have been LOL.

Al

 

[adupuis]

i like trainz more becouse it easy adding tracks

 

[amigacooke]

Actually, that page link is quite funny when you read it all.

As it's a page at least partially for investors, probably demonstrating that your key personnel have a long established history in the business of video gaming is less amusing if you're actually thinking of putting money into the company.

 

[AlanBradbury]

If anyone was genuinely thinking of investing money in a company, they'd want to know more about it than what the accountants did ten years ago, but even that is quite telling. Several things listed on that resume are not exactly great adverts for success, i.e. one mentions a key staff member as as being involved in business development for GAME - this being a company which flopped on its arse in the retail market, closing 277 stores in the UK alone, an occurrence which led to well over two thousand job losses and massive financial losses for the company too, and all because they were slow to react to the shift from the high street retail to an online sales business model. Have you ever bought anything online from GAME? Did you even know that you could?

Investors want to know what prospects there are for growth and future development of the product portfolio, and to know that, they would certainly want to know about the staff that actually work at the coal face making the product, since that is ultimately what makes the money. An investor would want to hear stuff such as 'the lead developer at our company worked on such and such a program and was instrumental in developing this and that, which was a massive success and sold 5 million copies because of that technological push, and he's about to do it again' etc. Reading that sort of thing would be the kind of thing that would get investors interested. Instead we get a press release which claims that adding the ability to use a PS3 controller is 'new technology'. Really? The Playstation was developed in 1988 and launched in 1991 for chrissakes, that's approaching a quarter of a century ago, so they're not exactly pushing the envelope NASA-style with that, are they?

Don't get me wrong, the Playstation controller is great, it's a brilliant peripheral for driving games and shooters, but it's hardly necessary for controlling a vehicle which is on rails, is it? Yes it will allow people who have their PC hooked up to their TV to sit on the sofa and play with Railworks, but really, the kind of people who do that are far more likely to be playing Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto than driving a choo choo train simulator. Using a Playstation controller to create content would be damn-near impossible, and with a train simulator, that's half the attraction of the thing. Surely they must realise that?

Thus the only information someone would initially want if they did have such a business angel investment in mind, would be what are the prospects and what's the phone number or email address of the MD so that they could arrange a meeting; They surely would not base such a financial decision off what was on a web page, and if they did, they'd be crazy given some of that 'key personnel's' track record and their idea of what constitutes a technological advance.

Al