Cascades in Syracuse… WOW! Best $20 I ever spent

Thats all I can say thus far about this monster route by MLT. After more than 2 hours, I have yet to only conquer maybe 50 or so miles of the 220. I had to stop only becasue my 75 car manifest led by 2 SD 70's, a C-44-9 and a SD 40 stalled outside of Oakridge, where the grade truly increases.Anyone who is still thinking if the route is worth buying, I can only tell you that I am still speechless and in awe over this route. The rolling stock and thier sounds are top notch, as are the SP engines, right down to the horns and bells.This route is however a FPS killer. Where I normally get about 20-30 on most routes, I am keeping right at about 20 on Cascades, sometimes as low as 15, and when scenery loads, which is often, it stutters a bit. Me personally, I have just enough to run the route in all it's glory while keeping things running and looking smoothly, but those with older or outdated cards or drivers may want to consider about a upgrade so you don't have to slide any notches back and reduce the effect.The bright signals take a bit of getting use to, I understand the effect they were going after, but it still takes some getting use to. I was a bit stumped by the in cab sounds of the SD 70, which really were not all that much when it notch 8, compared to outside the cab in notch 8. Perhaps they were going for a quiet cab effect or something. Overall, thus far, no complaints on the route or any of the engines and rolling stock. Everything is top notch and very well done. Lots of detail, and I even found Cumberland mall in Eugene!Great job MLT, thanks for this awesome product.Chris Bogley
Syracuse New York
www.msnusers.com/AshleyPhotography
www.msnusers.com/cnytrains3rd Shift Production, Krispy Kreme, Syracuse NY.
Making the countries best doughnuts, 1 dozen at a time, with tender loving care, and plastic gloves.

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Cascades in Syracuse...WOW! Best $20 I ever spent [View All], SVTS, 12:57 PM, Jul-23-04, (0) RE: Cascades in Syracuse...WOW! Best $20 I ever spent, Texas Eagle 550, Jul-23-04, 01:19 PM, (1) RE: Cascades in Syracuse...WOW! Best $20 I ever spent, davereage, Jul-23-04, 05:43 PM, (2) RE: Cascades in Syracuse...WOW! Best $20 I ever spent, SVTS, Jul-23-04, 06:08 PM, (3) RE: Cascades in Syracuse...WOW! Best $20 I ever spent, davereage, Jul-23-04, 06:27 PM, (6) RE: Cascades in Syracuse...WOW! Best $20 I ever spent, niknak, Jul-24-04, 07:58 AM, (11) RE: Cascades in Syracuse...WOW! Best $20 I ever spent, ssw_96, Jul-23-04, 06:18 PM, (5) RE: Cascades in Syracuse...WOW! Best $20 I ever spent, Cell0518, Jul-23-04, 07:06 PM, (7) RE: Cascades in Syracuse...WOW! Best $20 I ever spent, sinclair97, Jul-23-04, 08:24 PM, (8) RE: Cascades in Syracuse...WOW! Best $20 I ever spent, djt, Jul-24-04, 00:23 AM, (9) RE: Cascades in Syracuse...WOW! Best $20 I ever spent, BNSF4723, Jul-24-04, 01:19 AM, (10)

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LAST EDITED ON Jul-23-04 AT 01:21 PM (EST)

I agree with you 100% This is on of the BEST routes I have evre seen. I just got finished taking a 60 car Intermodal from Eugene to Klamath Falls and I was absolutley speechless the entire ride. The scenery kicks a$$ with very realistic trees, roads, etc. The FPS hit hard going along through the very dense areas with scnerey (around 7-10 FPS) but are real good everywhere else (20+ FPS). The rolling stock is amazing also. The wearthing on the SP locos give a real life look to them and the freight cars look so real especially the Intermodal cars. All around one of the best routes created to date. Excellent job MLT. CC gets 2 thumbs way up
Chris

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Can't wait to get it once Digital River finally gets their act together!Chris, do you mind sharing your system specs? Based on what you've said about frame-rates, I'm guessing they're similar to mine, but I'm curious to see how my system will run this route.Dave Reage - Beta Tester
Halifax, Canada

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Sure Dave,We have a Pentuim 4 3.0 GHZ Pro., 512 MB Ram, 180 GB HD, and a NVIDIA GeForce 5200 128 MB Video Card.This route puts a tight grip on my system, but as I said before, I am able to get by with moderate FPS, but I really feel for anyone with much less of a set up than what I have. No way would my old system be able to keep up with this route.Chris Bogley
Syracuse New York
www.msnusers.com/AshleyPhotography
www.msnusers.com/cnytrains3rd Shift Production, Krispy Kreme, Syracuse NY.
Making the countries best doughnuts, 1 dozen at a time, with tender loving care, and plastic gloves.

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Wow, that's kind of funny, I actually have the same CPU and amount of memory as you Chris, I have a GE Force 4 though.Sounds like I should be OK (I better be, I only bought the damn CPU in March! )Dave Reage - Beta Tester
Halifax, Canada

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Definately that 5200 card, Chris. A week ago my new 3.0ghz Dell computer arrived complete with 5200 card. my fps was terrible, nearly as bad as my previous 1.7ghz system, until I swopped out the 9800 card in the old system and put it into the new Dell - fps immediately more than doubled !!Regards, Nick (UK)

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SVTS, the problem lies with your vid card. That 5200 wasnt all I thought it would be. One shipped with my system, and it didnt like msts too well so I changed it back to my old G4 Ti4200 and fps shot up. SO far from what i've ran, I average 30-55fps, 60 in some areas.
I have a P4 @ 2.80ghz, 512md ddr sd ram, G4 Ti4200. I also run EndItAll before I play it also.

The best railroad there ever was

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Well, I have a ATI Radeon 9600 Pro with 256MB of ram. I'm not sure HOW you guys get such good FPS. Maybe I just have too much crap running. I've tried End It All, but maybe I just didn't get rid of the most important stuff.Chris

PLEASE Visit->

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so...so..some of...of u..us o...nly ha...ha...ve a 64 m...m...megabyte v...v...video c...c...ard, b...b...but if I...I s...stopppppp t...the t...trrrrain the...the jjjjjek...ing sssstoppps!Mike (owner of laptop)

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I just spent the last three hours looking this route over and I am very impressed. The rolling stock alone is worth $20.00 dollars. I am also surprised that despite the level of detail the route performs very well. Maple Leaf Tracks in my opinion has reached an excellent balance with a well detailed route without overly taxing MSTS’s graphics capability. I photographed part of the route in the early 90’s and also took a short cab ride with a friend of mine who worked for SP out of Klamath Falls. MLT’s has definitely captured the overall look of the route. The only thing I found lacking is the Dash 9 sounds. The cab sounds at idle are fairly accurate but at full throttle I was hoping for that familiar GE chant with the desktop control vibration. Better dynamic braking sounds would also be welcome.I don’t think that anyone who is considering purchasing this route will be disappointed.
Pentium4/3.4GHz
Asus P4C800-E Deluxe/Rev 2
Mushkin PC3500 Black Level II/1024 Mb
ATI X800XT Platinum
Audigy2 ZS Platinum
2x WD Raptors/RAID 0
Plextor Premium CD-RW
Plextor PX-708A DVD-R
SilenX 520 Watt Power Supply
Coolermaster Praetorian Case

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>I am also surprised that despite the level of detail the
>route performs very well. Maple Leaf Tracks in my opinion
>has reached an excellent balance with a well detailed route
>without overly taxing MSTS’s graphics capability. Looking at your computer specs, I think your view is a bit biased!

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