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Last Updated 16-Jan-2003

Turn down the volume

It can be a noisy experience driving the Z5600 without adjusting the cab sounds.

web•TrainSim is one of those people who likes to set his volume on the sub-woofer and leave it set, not only for MSTS but also for Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin. So being too lazy to reach down under the desk to adjust the volume when driving the Z5600 or XPT, he read in An Introduction to Making Sounds for MSTS by Chuck Zeiler that the cab volume can be changed by adding, or adjusting, the Volume parameter in a cab's SMS file.

So start up WordPad or your favourite Unicode text editor, load a cab SMS file from a loco's Sound sub-folder, and look for a section like this (there are usually several):

    ..............
    Stream (
      Priority ( 6 )
      Triggers ( 1
    ..............
    ..............

Add a Volume parameter as follows (the range is 0 to 1, 1 being full volume):

    ..............
    Stream (
      Priority ( 6 )
      Volume ( 0.3 )
      Triggers ( 1
    ..............
    ..............

It takes some trial and error to set a volume that will suit your ears.

Note: apart from the MSTS sound settings, it seems that the SoundBlaster Live! soundcard drivers and Play Centre utilities, or whatever they're called, have an affect on the sound volume that gets to the speakers - it would seem that the volume is moderated by the SoundBlaster utilities. web•TrainSim is surmising here, because after installing XP, he has yet to update to the full set of SoundBlaster Live! utilities and there is a larger volume range (i.e., louder) available than before with 98SE. web•TrainSim also noticed this effect after his system had an upgrade to the SoundBlaster Live! card in the first place twelve months ago.


FreightCorp 81 class locos install

FreightCorp 8110, with the help of an NR loco, moves some freight.

You're able to install as many 81 class locos as you prefer from the download archive, fr81.zip (02-Oct-02, 3.2Mb), available at Train-sim.com.

Locos are to be installed in the Aunsw81 folder and you will already have this folder if you've downloaded and installed the candy-liveried 81s in Aunsw81_Setup.exe (1.2Mb) from Australian Add-ons to MSTS.

If you haven't got an Aunsw81 sub-folder in your Trainset folder, create it, otherwise move on.

Let's say you only want to install 8110 and 8181 (that's a good idea because then you'll be ready for the London Siding to The Brewery activity).

  • Open Explorer at the Aunsw81 folder.
  • Open fr81.zip in WinZip; now we can drag'n'drop the required files.
  • Obviously you need to copy all files with 8110 and 8181 in their name. There are five for each loco: an ENG, an S, an SD and two ACE files.
  • Select the files for 8110 in WinZip and drag'n'drop them into the Aunsw81 folder. Similarly, select the files for 8181 and drag'n'drop them into Aunsw81.
  • This is where web•TrainSim got caught because he wasn't paying attention! One file in the archive is common to all the locos: 81Incab.ace so drag'n'drop this one.

Now you've done most of the work.

Since web•TrainSim has already installed the candy 81s, he decided to install the cabview in fr81.zip into Common.Cab so it would be available to all 81s and even the 82 class he's got installed. This is what he did:

  • In Explorer, navigate to your Common.Cab folder and create a new sub-folder named Auclass81.
  • Using drag'n'drop, copy the cabview files from fr81.zip - they're the ones which have a path denoted as Cabview.
  • There's no need to do any aliasing; it's already been done for us.
  • web•TrainSim renamed the CVF file for easier recognition later on when he's looking through 81 ENGine files; he called it auclass81.cvf.
  • You'll need to edit both 8110.eng and 8181.eng so MSTS knows to find the cabview in Common.Cab. Open each ENG in WordPad or your favourite Unicode text editor and replace:
  • CabView ( dash9.cvf )
  • with:
  • CabView ( "..\\..\\Common.Cab\\auclass81\\auclass81.cvf" )

Another job worth doing is using the EMD 645E3 sounds, 645e3_10.zip (05-Oct-02, 829kb) available from Train-sim.com. If you haven't got these, after downloading install them into the Common.Snd folder because you'll find you can use them for many EMD locos. Here's what web•TrainSim did to change file names for easier recognition.


  
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