MSTS in Windowed Mode

Good morning

Please can some kind soul remind me of how to run MSTS in windowed mode - I seem to remember it was a command line extension, but it escapes me.

Best wishes

PW

Hi Pete,

From my trainsim short cut properties: '/nofiltercab -vm:w1280x1024x32'

the dimensions are for the resolution and number of colours that you want to run.

Justin

Wow, I'm impressed by the speed of the reply - unfortunately, it does set the resolution correctly but leaves it in full-screen mode rather than in a window.

Thanks for trying - I'll carry on experimenting.

Best wishes

Pete

Ha, ha - found the problem...

My shortcut was pointing at launcher.exe, which seems to ignore the command line extensions.

When I changed it to point at train.exe and then added the extensions, it worked perfectly.

Thanks for the suggestion.

Best wishes

Pete

Hi Pete,

No worries mate, probably my fault for not suggesting the train.exe bit.
As for the speedy reply, I got home and had dinner by 7:20pm (AU) so I spend my nights haunting this fourm till about 11pm (AU) (or later if I cant sleep) as well as working on different things.

Justin

Hi all,
Going on from this subject, after a recent install, I have noticed that my MSTS Installation is in big screen mode. This was once in a smaller window. I have changed the MSTS shortcut as suggested and have even tried the following under the shortcut tab and next to the Target line; C:\MSTS\train.exe train.exe -vm:w -mem:1024
Whatever I do this is still almost filling the screen? Am I missing something? I am running Windows 7 if this helps.
Many Thanks
Best Wishes
Andy

Hello Andy

I don't know whether this helps, but my Target is now "I:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Train Simulator\train.exe" -vm:w,1280,1024,32 and that works.

I don't understand why you have C:\MSTS\train.exe train.exe -vm:w -mem:1024 ( i.e. train.exe twice)

I think the space after the first "train.exe" is telling the system that what follows (train.exe -vm:w -mem:1024) is the command line extension. I suspect it doesn't understand the second "train.exe" and ignores it.

It then reverts to the default settings i.e. full-screen at whatever resolution is set within the game options.

(As an aside, and not necessary in your case - the quotation marks in my Target are needed because of the spaces in the folder names)

Hope this helps

Best wishes

Pete

peteworsley wrote:Hello Andy

I don't know whether this helps, but my Target is now "I:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Train Simulator\train.exe" -vm:w,1280,1024,32 and that works.

I don't understand why you have C:\MSTS\train.exe train.exe -vm:w -mem:1024 ( i.e. train.exe twice)

I think the space after the first "train.exe" is telling the system that what follows (train.exe -vm:w -mem:1024) is the command line extension. I suspect it doesn't understand the second "train.exe" and ignores it.

It then reverts to the default settings i.e. full-screen at whatever resolution is set within the game options.

(As an aside, and not necessary in your case - the quotation marks in my Target are needed because of the spaces in the folder names)

Hope this helps

Best wishes

Pete

Hi Pete,
I've adjusted the mistype, but still it is enlarged when I start MSTS??? A very weird one indeed. Any other ideas? The line now says this; C:\MSTS\train.exe -vm:w -mem:512

Thanks

Best Wishes
Andy

Hi Andy,
The parameters for train.exe should look something like this :
-vm:w,1024,768,32 -mem:512
As you've found, if you don't include the width and height, in pixels, you get full screen!!
The 1024 and 768 may be any values but should really be those which result in a valid 4:3 screen, and the 32 is for 32bit, but may be set to 16 for reduced quality.

Cheers,
Ged

Hi Ged and all,
I have put in the following parameters now; C:\MSTS\train.exe -vm:w,1024,768,32 -mem:512 and am still getting MSTS loading up taking up the screen. I am using Trainstore as well to unstore and store as you always should.
I wonder if this is anything due to the fact I am running Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit?
Any help to resolving this would be much appreciated.
Many Thanks
Andy

Hello Ged - many thanks for your clarification

Hello Andy - I have to say I'm using Windows 7 Ultimate as well, and it seems to work with the parameters I quoted above.

Good luck sorting it - hopefully someone will recognise the problem

Best wishes

Pete

Hi Andy,
Can I suggest that you put quotes around the part before the parameters, like this :

"C:\MSTS\train.exe" -vm:w,1024,768,32 -mem:512

It shouldn't be necessary, because there are no spaces in the path name, but it's worth a try
You may also need to put quotes around the path shown in the 'Start in' box.

Cheers,
Ged

Hi Ged and everyone,
I've tried as you suggested and is still the same.
Here are a couple of screenshots to see what else we can do to work around it;






Thanks

Andy

Hi Andy

Have you tried it with a smaller resolution, if you are using a lappy a resolution of 1024x768 could very well be still filling your screen.

Markh5682 wrote:Hi Andy

Have you tried it with a smaller resolution, if you are using a lappy a resolution of 1024x768 could very well be still filling your screen.

Hi Mark,
Yes, I'm using a Laptop with a screen resolution of 1366x768 (Recommended). I am sure before I reinstalled my machine that this was my resolution before??...
Cheers
Andy

Andy,

Did you put the 2 apostrophise in?
These little buggers ‘ ’.

They need to go around the extra section as I showed in my first reply otherwise the screen resizing or any other feature won’t work.

Justin

Hi Justin; Ged and Everyone else.
I found a little issue and that was when I had everything unstored with trainstore it made no difference; I loaded up the MSTS shortcut and guess what it worked fine; albeit different before I decided to reinstall the laptop. Anyhow I decided to put the full link into trainstore and worked a treat and as I did so Ged came back with the same thing! Great minds think alike!
What a great team/nice bunch of people we have on here!!
All the best guys
Andy

no matter what i try and do msts is giveing me no end of grief, first time in years its been on the pc .... thought it be nice to see my work in game as i usually send them to peeps to test and then they post screens as i havent had a copy of msts for a while but pinched my dads over the weekend as he no longer uses it hehe yay for me lol

22 inch widescreen monitor left as is it strecthes everything, so ive tried windowed mode with the switches .... and i can set it at 800 x 600, 1024 x 768 and 1280 x 1024 and i still get a small box in the centre, altering the settings for the graphics has no avail either i is somewhat stumped, i dont wanna have to wear my binos to see the game lol

Hi Steve,

Just looking at your screen shot I can already tell you what is going wrong.
You are missing these two little buggers ' & ' at either end of the -vm:w1280x1024x32 bit.
It should look like this: '-vm:w1280x1024x32'
Give that a try and see what happens.

Justin

It's solved the small box but the has turned it back to the monitors native res of 1650 x 1080 I'm baffled now

Steve,

Have you tried the /nofiltercab bit at the front as I posted at the top of this topic?
I have a 22 inch monitor and it works fine on mine.

Justin

Sadly I have and it puts it back in a ill box in the middle.

Just a thought what resolution to you have the sim set to?
Try setting the in sim resolution to 1280x1024 with 32 bit colours, with the '/nofiltercab -vm:w1280x1024x32' in the properties.

Sims set to match and I have also tried other resoulutions too and always Witt the same outcome it's got me scratching my head. What graphics card do you have just out of interest. ??

Mine is running a ATI Radeon HD 3600 series display adapter.
I don't have an dedicated graphics card fitted.

Wonder if it has anything to do with the nvidia drivers I'm sure it used to work in windowed mode when I first built the pc

Hi,
I am running a 22" Samsung monitor with MSTS in its 4:3 format sitting between two black side bands. I can't help with an NVidia card as I'm using one from AMD/ATI, but there should be an entry in the NVidia Control Panel with a name something like 'Maintain Aspect Ratio', which should be selected. The AMD/ATI option is a bit of a pig to set up, but I hope NVidia's is more straight forward!

Incidentally, you don't need the quote marks around the MSTS windows command, but what is needed is a comma between the w and the first number. Also, I've just tried mine with various values and always ended up with the same sized box!

Cheers,
Ged

I have given up nothing seems to work sigh, tried almost everything I can think off even installed drivers from the disk with no luck, and to top it off I've lost most of my route disks so only had backups in a folder and none have paths so I can't explore them.... What a week lol back to the paint shop i go and work on some more 37's I will have to find a volunteer to test hehe.

Hi Steve,
Sorry I can't help, but it seems to be a regular problem, judging by the items found by Google!
If you've got an NVidia display as shown here :
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=36173413&postcount=249
it might help.

Another thing which may affect the ability to show the correct aspect ratio is how the monitor is connected to the PC. There shouldn't be a problem if you're using a digital connection (DVI or HDMI), but might be if it's a VGA connection.

Cheers,
Ged

Thanks GED I do appreciate the help that everyone has given and I do hate to give up

Graphics card is dvi but the monitor is older and only has a VGA connection on it guess its time to buy a new one, I'm tempted by something bigger like a 27 inch one hehe and then I can plug xbox into it as well

Hi,

I use a 21(?) inch screen that only has a VGA connection. The "normal" resolution of the display is 1920*1080.

My shortcut for MSTS is:
"G:\Microsoft Games\Train Simulator\train.exe" -vm:w

within the sim I have the resolution set to 1280*1024 and it all works fine.

I am wondering if the additional parameters appended to -vm:w are confusing the sim?

Hi Geoffrey,
Well, I've said it before, and I'll say it again - You never stop learning with MSTS

I'd never noticed the 1280*1024 entry on the Display Options screen! Of course, the reason would have been because the monitor I used couldn't display at that resolution, but I've been using this 22" Samsung for about 6 months!! The only problem I have is that (using vm:w with or without the following parameters) the initial screen isn't centrally placed and has to be moved, but maybe this is caused by my Catalyst Control Center being set to "Retain Aspect Ratio".

Many thanks,
Cheers,
Ged

Hi There,

I have been banging my head on a wall with this problem and it seems I have found a solution.

My laptop was either full screen or little box if I altered the properties exe line.

so,

I had a look in display properties for the AMD catalyst software and the scaling option was locked out so the laptop could not identify or rectify the early game resolution so.................,I lied to it, which enabled me to switch the scaling option on. I then reverted back to the correct factory set screen resolution and it now works a treat with MSTS displayed in the correct size window.

Below is the AMD link which shows you how to do this and it also tells you to lie to the computer.

http://uk.search.yahoo.com/r/_ylt=A7x9Qb.tJ5FRpDcAq8xLBQx.;_ylu=X3oDMTE1MGRnOXJpBHNlYwNzcgRwb3MDMQRjb2xvA2lyZAR2dGlkA1VLMDY1MF82NTA-/SIG=12pjmfk3i/EXP=1368496173/**http%3a//support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/UnableToSetGPUScaling.aspx

I hope this is of use to anyone with AMD catalyst graphics software.

Mick

Mick

Hi Mick,
I have been using that specified procedure for some time now (you'll see the date on the page is about a year ago!). However, the instructions state to switch to a lower non-native screen resolution, but I've found that it depends on which one you select! It can be a matter of trial and error (was for me, anyway!), but if the horizontal AND vertical values are both lower than their respective values in the display's native resolution, it works. I now give it some silly initial value like 800 x 600, although it depends on the native resolution of the display!

Cheers,
Ged

Is there anything in this Steam4me Tutorial that might help?

There is also a reference to an ATI Scaling Steam4me Tutorial that might help others.

Alec

Hi Alec,

It is very similar to what I have done, software has moved on a little from the "steam 4 me" link, so appear slightly different but the core of the instructions is the same. So the link is still relevent

Mick

Mick
Thanks for that.
I am often intimidated by some elements of computer speak, and hence need simple explanations and guides. I acknowledge that some of the Steam4me tutorials are slightly dated, but their step-by-step approach give good guidance.
How many times do we see the statement "that's too hard for me" from a simmer, who either accepts an inferior appearance or even worse gives up and goes away.
Perhaps at some time this thread could be precised into a post suitable for the HFL thread?
Whilst MSTS may not now constitute the mass market end of train simulation we should still do all we can to promote it's continuance - even at the age of 10+ years.
Alec