Upgrade to 2012 from 2010??

[railroy19]

Trying to make up my mind about upgrading to 2012.
My 2010 works very well now and I have downloaded tons and tons of assets. So many that I have no idea how to find most of them" Got to have this asset"
I think my hard drive is almost full. I have an external drive but I'm not sure if I can transfer trainz into that drive instead of the built in drive. And I don't know how to do that anyway.
So any suggestions to this old fart?

Thanks to All.
Bob

 

[shaneturner12]

I should advise you that external drives are usually slower than internal drives (not sure about USB3/Firewire/ESata though)

The best thing to check first before getting TS12 is that your content works in Native mode without problems, bearing in mind that TS12 does not have compatibility mode.

In terms of copying to an external drive, the question would be is the external drive permanently connected or connected only when needed?

Shane

 

[Euphod]

12 is lean on content compared to 2010. Were I you, I would install 12 first, see if you like it. If you do, back up your local folder of 2010 to the external drive, then begin importing content from 2010 into 12. If you find yourself using 12 all the time, then you can delete 2010 once all your content is moved over.

 

[geoffwilliams]

TS12 has serious bugs if you wish to modify routes.
TS2010 has compatibility mode which allows you to run almost anything on the DLS.
Stick to TS2010 would be my advice.
Geoff

 

[railroy19]

Thanks guys.

First off the external drive is always hooked up.
Second that is what I'm after, trying to slim down on all the content I have and never use. Ed that sounds like a good solution.

Guess I'll have to bite the bullet and get my feet wet again.
I'm going contrary to my theory of don't fix what's not broken

Bob

 

[shaneturner12]

If it's always hooked up, you may or may not find reinstalling it onto the external drive helpful.

Be aware that it is likely to run slower however it is run from the external drive, unless it is ESata or FireWire (or possibly USB30

Shane

 

[sniper297]

I actually did something similar when running out of space on my 160GB hard disk - installed a 500GB hard disk as a secondary F drive but instead of installing TS2010 on the second drive and patching it, I just copied the entire TS2010 folder to the second drive and created a shortcut. It actually ran better that way since the new HD is a Western Digital with twice the average speed of the original, and I've also found that works if I copy it to a different computer which doesn't have Trainz installed at all over the LAN. The second computer has no Trainz info at all in the system registry, is running WinXP service pack 2, and does not need to be updated to WinXP service pack 3 since the only thing that requires XP SP3 is the patch, the game runs fine without it so it's possible to patch to 44088 on the computer with SP3 then copy the folder over to the one with SP2.

So I would say go ahead and try it that way, copy the TS2010 folder to the external drive and create a shortcut to trainz.exe, see if it runs. If it does, delete it from the primary hard drive and install TS12 on that. Main thing to think about if you're low on disk space is what else do you have which doesn't require fast loading that could be moved to the secondary drive to make room on the primary? Best use of a secondary drive is reducing clutter, all the zipfiles and backups and pictures and other stuff you're just storing and rarely use, along with things like word processors and paint programs which don't suffer much from slower loading.

 

[railroy19]

Thanks for all the good suggestions.

I may just do what sniper 297 says before I install 2012.
That way I can try it out first before I get into trouble when I load in 2012
I know I will get myself in trouble again but that's the fun of this game. I have the same external drive as sniper has.

Thanks again guys.
Bob

 

[wreeder]

I've done what sniper did and had no problems running TS10 and TS12 from an external e-sata drive. I also tested USB3 without a problem but it seems to be a little slower than e-sata when copying large groups of small files like the Local directory of TS12. Not sure if it affects performance in game though.

William

 

[Mick_Berg]

I installed my new 2012 on a small (60gig) SSD. Huge improvement in loading times, negligible or even negative impact on frame rate compared to 2010 on a regular 5200rpm HDD.
Mick Berg.

 

[kamran]

on a regular 5200rpm HDD.
Mick Berg.

i think regular sata hard disk is 7200rpm

 

[Deano5]

i think regular sata hard disk is 7200rpm

Not all of them Kamran, there are still a few old or cheap drives around that run at only 5200.
Mick, gawd knows how you ever ran Trainz on a drive that slow?
Bob, external drives are really for portable storage, I would not recommend trying to run Trainz from it, they're not built for that kind of pressure. Get yourself a WD Velociraptor hard drive just for Trainz, they just plug in to the sockets inside, load Trainz 12 and watch em fly. :wave:

 

[RRSignal]

Not all of them Kamran, there are still a few old or cheap drives around that run at only 5200.
Mick, gawd knows how you ever ran Trainz on a drive that slow?
Bob, external drives are really for portable storage, I would not recommend trying to run Trainz from it, they're not built for that kind of pressure. Get yourself a WD Velociraptor hard drive just for Trainz, they just plug in to the sockets inside, load Trainz 12 and watch em fly. :wave:

Actually the retailers have been pitching the "green" drives for some time now. 5900 RPM = awful performance. Raptors rock, though!

 

[RRSignal]

In reply to the OP, you don't have to eliminate TS2010 to run TS12. They run side-by-side quite nicely, thanks to the lack of DRM. I prefer using TS2010 for development - I have all my content in it, and I can be assured what I create will be compatible with at least TS2010 (if not TS2009) so others can enjoy my creations as well. Migrate if you want, but remember, it's not mandatory!

 

[n8phu]

I plan on getting 12 here soon and my plan is to install 10 and 12 on an external firewire (1394B) drive plugged into my laptop.

I will be using 10 for Developement and for those things that require compatibility mode, 12 for the new content.

I have been running 10 on an older external drive (cobbled together from a older laptop drive and a case with a built in USB 2.0 controller that I bought from Microcenter) for awhile now and really don't notice too much of a performance hit.

I really think that this idea needs further research, as not all of us have desktop units. Most Laptops come with only enough space for a single drive.

Another idea that I am looking into is a Smart Bay adapter. This unit has a (E-sata,? I think) connector on the end of it and is designed to plug into the space where your laptop DVD/CD internal drive resides (Assuming that your lap top has the provision to allow you to remove it without opening the case). Inside is enough room to mount another hard drive. This idea appeals to me since I have a reallllyyyyy nice external Blue ray/DVD/CD burner unit that I use via USB 2.0 .

Remember, sometimes you have to look outside the box and around the corner for a solution that fits you......

Before anyone tries to point out that I should not be using Trainz on a laptop, I should say that I have an Alienware M17X-R1, 4 Gig Memory, Dual Nvidia GT8700 Gt video cards. It works just fine.

 

[captainkman]

I use TS12 for Multiplayer only. TS2010 is used for everything else. I'd just stick with TS2010, unless you like the routes and content featured.

I personally couldn't care less about the TS12 routes, they are just not what I'm interested in, the ECML being the only British route, and it's set in the BR era, after steam. Having this in steam days would be more attractive for me.

Only 3 steam locos are in TS12, and they're all American. :'(

But merging TS2010 into TS12 by moving the .ja files would be good if you like the layout and features of TS12.

I have TS2010 on a laptop, with 2 drives for storing information, and another one for backup. TS2010 runs very well on it, even Avery-Drexel. But PO&N is a bit too much for it. TS12 runs alright on Mojave and Debrecen, but struggles with ECML.

 

[geoffwilliams]

I use TS12 for Multiplayer only. TS2010 is used for everything else. I'd just stick with TS2010, unless you like the routes and content featured.

I personally couldn't care less about the TS12 routes, they are just not what I'm interested in, the ECML being the only British route, and it's set in the BR era, after steam. Having this in steam days would be more attractive for me.

Only 3 steam locos are in TS12, and they're all American. :'(

But merging TS2010 into TS12 by moving the .ja files would be good if you like the layout and features of TS12.

I have TS2010 on a laptop, with 2 drives for storing information, and another one for backup. TS2010 runs very well on it, even Avery-Drexel. But PO&N is a bit too much for it. TS12 runs alright on Mojave and Debrecen, but struggles with ECML.

I've almost got the complete ECML to date running in TS2010. Has taken a lot of time and effort but it runs well. Like you, I'm more interested in the latter steam days of BR, so I'm eventually converting the signals to semaphores, station signs, lamps etc. Should keep me going well into retirement.
Geoff

 

[captainkman]

I've almost got the complete ECML to date running in TS2010. Has taken a lot of time and effort but it runs well. Like you, I'm more interested in the latter steam days of BR, so I'm eventually converting the signals to semaphores, station signs, lamps etc. Should keep me going well into retirement.
Geoff

I'll operate anything British from Richard Trevethick's steam engine to the fatal day in 1968. Unless it's narrow gauge. Brunel's broad gauge GWR I will also run.

Sorry for going off-topic.

 

[Mick_Berg]

Not all of them Kamran, there are still a few old or cheap drives around that run at only 5200.
Mick, gawd knows how you ever ran Trainz on a drive that slow? :wave:

By waiting ages for things to load!!
It's a 5200rpm IDE HDD with an adapter for the SATA-only motherboard (you guessed it - I didn't do my research) so it could be even slower because of that.
Mick.

 

[sniper297]

All you guys with the 5200rpm and 5900rpm hard drives must have some off brand I never heard of, last I checked hard drives came in 5400rpm, 7200rpm, and 10,000rpm flavors. :hehe: Speed isn't the whole story tho, my Maxtor L160 was a 7200rpm SATA, so is the Western Digital 500 - main difference is the WD drive has twice the hardware buffer size, lower seek time and double the average transfer speed. Western Digital pioneered most of the hard drive technology so they're usually ahead of the competition with newer features.