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While in an Activity, Any activity. The game will just shut off and go back to desktop. It is doing this more frequently. It is happening in different spots in different activities. Saving helps, but it gets old saving every 10 railroad mins when running a train. Any ideas or easy fixes out there that anybody can help with?An idea on operating system. Dell Dimension 4500 with 20 GB of memory, two 512 MB DDRAM memory chips added. Windows XP. ....in control panel under system it says: pentium 4 cpu 2.00 ghz 1.99 ghz 1.00 gb ram a while back I added 2 qty of 512 mb ddram into system. in my comp under c drive properties it says 19.1 gb 14.3 used 4.77 avail 64 mb ddr nividia geforce 4mx 420 with tv sound max digital audio.I have been playing Rich Garber¡¯s Ohio rail and while in the grain running activity. At McConnelsville. After having picked up cars at Ratledge I will save. Then I check with F11. I check out the setout cars and leave f11 at the work order. I close window with mouse and Wham, game goes back to desktop. This is happening way to frequent. I wet to Microsoft and got the patch. And went to direct x and got the update. NOW, game is freezing on sound and controls goes nuts.How do I remove patches from Microsoft and Directx? I followed installs, but D__med if I can figure this out.Would a complete uninstall and reinstall be worth it or are there other fixes? If re install is necessary, can saving the routes and accessories I have downloaded to CD save what I got and not cause conflict with re install?Thanks Bill
>How do I remove patches from Microsoft and Directx? I >followed installs, but D__med if I can figure this out. To remove the patches, you would need to reinstall MSTS, to remove DirectX, you would need to reformat and reinstall your OS. Just reinstalling the OS won't do it, because it only reinstalls certain parts of the OS. It won't overwrite newer DX code with older. (tried this before)DX installs have been permanent since version 6 I believe.-Jeff
Bill--You say it happens in any activity, does that include Explore? I see it on my system from time to time because Windows XP is running something in the background...Norton virus check, internet connection goes off line and has to re-dial, Internet Explorer is updating, whatever maintenance sub-routine might be going on, many of which you can't find and disable, yet you see your system dragging while it's happening.The more seasoned forum vets will tell you to ensure your virus program is disabled when running MSTS, and anything else that you can. I don't disable them and usually get by, but those other system operations can impact FPS. But if mine kicks out, there's usually the MSTS icon on the bottom tool bar to go right back where I left off...which is an irritant, but not too bad. I don't have to re-boot MSTS.Just a thought, see what background programs you can turn off, your problem may have nothing to do with MSTS other than how it reacts to what else is going on in your system. Good luck!Aloha, Jeff Link Island Electric - West
Bill -I have an identical problem if I leave the vettray icon, in the bottom right of the taskbar, of VET antivirus running.Doing an ALT-CTRL-DEL to access task manager in Win98 and closing vettray overcomes the drop out.Phil
Bill,Another issue may be overheating. I had similar problems with the sim until I installed a couple of more case fans. One way to check this out is to take the side off the case and place a fan so that it blows into the computer, and start driving some trains. If things run OK, then heat is probably your problem.Regarding getting rid of all that stuff that runs in the background, go to a search engine and search for EndItAll. This is a great shareware application that closes all that stuff for you with the click of a button. Closing all that stuff that runs in the background adds to the heat issue, and also makes the sim take longer to load as well.MC
From personal experience, one of the ddrram cards may not be properly seated. MSTS gradually builds up in ram usage, and I had a similar problem with errors after ten or so minutes. I reseated the second card, and everything ran ok. I moved the second card to a spare slot further away from the first, if u have that option, try that.As someone else has suggested, it could also be a heat problem.I would try these two suggestions first.David