Improved sounds

After seeing a post by Stuart on the UK Trainsim forum regarding his thinking about improving MSTS sounds, web•TrainSim didn't really take any action until he had installed the freeware TGV Duplex set. Once again he was driving a trainset with sounds especially developed by Belphegor (the Z5600 trainset was web•TrainSim's first experience of Belphegor's sounds; another is his TGV sound set in web•TrainSim's Eurostar). So here's how to get the best out of the MSTS sound system. This assumes you've turned up, or MSTS has turned up, your MSTS sound options to the high settings.

• Go to the Global folder and find a file named soundcfg.dat. Make a backup copy of this file. That is, copy it to your MSTS backups folder, outside the Train Simulator folder.
• Get WordPad started (or use your favourite Unicode text editor) and load soundcfg.dat in the Global folder.
• Scroll down to the bottom of the file until you find this line:
• SoundSystem ( 5, 40, 20, 31457280 )
• Stuart suggests changing the 40 to 200 (the 20 refers to the cabview sounds and can't be increased). So the new line looks like this:
• SoundSystem ( 5, 200, 20, 31457280 )

Save the file and exit WordPad. How much better you experience MSTS sounds depends on a number of factors (see Stuart's post and his replies to some queries) but, all things being equal, MSTS sounds should be improved.

XTracks

This is more of a reminder to web•TrainSim that he's installed XTracks V3.4.

XTracks is a set of enhanced track shapes that you copy into your Global MSTS folder. Many route builders are now using these shapes in their routes so XTracks is a requirement by these builders.

As of version 3.4, XTracks is available in two packages: one for Trainsimmers and one for route builders. Unless you're a route builder, you only need xtracks.zip (1.5Mb), available from the Train-sim.com library. The version for route builders is xtracksr.zip (8Mb).

Some people get confused with the installation. Okrasa's instructions are clear enough. Note the step to make a backup copy of the Global folder (use WinZip and store this backup in your MSTS backup folder which should be outside the default Train Simulator folder.

web•TrainSim prefers to see what's happening when extracting files from a zip file so, after backing up the Global folder, opened Explorer and the archive. Then he used WinZip's drag'n'drop capability to copy the files to the appropriate destination folder (in this case, the majority of files require copying to the \Global\Shapes\ sub-folder).

30-May-2003 Update: XTracks standard, xtracks.zip (2.3Mb, 30-May-03), and XTracks for route builders, xtracksr.zip (16.3Mb, 30-May-03), have been updated to V3.6 (compatible with V2 and V3), both available from Train-sim.com.

Installing EMD 645E3 sounds

The EMD 645E3 loco sound set can be downloaded as 645e3_10.zip (829kb, 15-Oct-02) from the Train-sim.com library.

To make it a little easier to recognise, web•TrainSim changed the folder name and the names of the SMS files.

• the sub-folder under the Common.Snd was created with the name of EMD645E3
• the SMS and WAV files were extracted from the WinZip archive using drag'n'drop
• the SMS files were renamed as follows:
• emd645e3eng.sms
• emd645e3cab.sms
• start-emd645e3eng.sms
• start-emd645e3cab.sms

You'll see the above used in the tune up page for NSW classes 81 and 82 locos. The start up sounds are good, by the way.

Note (1): in the cab SMS file, remove the folder path in front of the couple/uncouple WAV files; it's unnecessary since MSTS looks these up in its own Sound folder. ConBuilder will report this error but MSTS doesn't hiccup!

Note (2): The start up sounds have a missing WAV file so ConBuilder will report an error. However, MSTS doesn't seem to mind!