Track planning software-any hope at all?

[wilfy100]

Hi, I have tried and totally failed to get the Scalextric track designer to run, I am running windows 7 with directx 11. I was hopefull it would work but no.

Could anyone please let me know if they have the track designer running on Win 7, I understood the issues were with later versions of windows.

Has anyone fpound an alternative track designer, I have tried to install a couple but with no success. Any info or experience with track planning software would be much appreciated, has anyone got a track designer that works for them? Alternatively does anyone know of a resource of track plans that could be copied or used a a basis for your own track.

[Jaitu]

I have managed to run it on Windows 10 though it was necessary 'right-click' the properties of the shortcut and set it to run in compatibility mode.

I have also installed Ulimate Racer 3.0 and had a play around with the track editor on that - it's free to use but you'll need to pay a small amount if you want to save desings beyond about 25 pieces of track.

[Blagard]

As Jaitu,

I to have the track designer running on a Windows 10 64 bit. I have mine set under the compatibility tab as Windows XP SP3

 

I used to run it under Windows 7 similarly

[wilfy100]

Thanks for that, I will try the compatibility mode. Failing that I could install windows XP on a old laptop.

[wilfy100]

Hi,

No luck so far, I have tried compatibilty mode (XP service pack 3 and XP service pack 2) and program still crashes every time. I will install XP on an old laptop and see if it will run from there. I am unable at the moment to say if it is a gliitch on my computer, but I will go down the laptop route to see what happens.

[Blagard]

I have found that old software does not always run well on later operating systems and in fact bought a cheap laptop with XP on it just to run some car diagnostics (full size). Although I was able to run that on a Windows 10 64 bit PC it ran batter on the old one!

 

One thing you might want to consider is the state of your PC. If it has not been kept clean from a software installation point of view you should consider getting a utility to clean it up. I have used the freeby from  Auslogics if you choose to use that I would recommend you installl only that and make sure you don't accept other elements offered. I found the registry cleaner to be quite good and that was all I wanted.

https://www.auslogics.com/en/software/registry-cleaner/download/

[wilfy100]

The track designer sorry saga continues. I know the track designer software is old. I wonder if anyone could tell me when it was released or last updated. This is so I can work out what version of windows it was originally designed to work with. I have resusitated an old laptop running windows XP SP3. The track designer fails to launch on this due to d3dx9_32.dll not being found. This occurs despite Directx being succesfully updated to the latest version that can be used on XP. I will now search to see if that dll (dynamic link library) is actually on the computer. I know in the past I have shoe horned dll files into place sometimes succesfully.

I know I should walk away from this aggrevation but I have really got the bit between my teeth to get it running.

Hopefully I can at some point, and then report details of the windows version and any details that may help someone else. I have made a request to Hornby for tech support, I have a notification that some body will get back to me. When this happens I will report any usefull info here.

I have a wishfull fantasy that Hornby make this program open source, then some clever programmer can knock it into shape. That way it may even get ported to linux but that really is wishfull thinking. I imagine that people that have the software working may well design a track and looking at the track parts list buy any bits they do not have to make the track up. This would means Hornby would sell more track, thus a good reason to have the software well supported and working.

Blagard makes a valid point about checking the state of my PC. Due to the fact that it dual boots with Ubuntu I am reluctant to twiddle with the windows 7 installation. I cannot reinstall windows without it killing my install of Ubuntu.

I will dig out another old laptop and make a fresh install of windows 7 and see where I go from there. Please stand by for the next episode of the saga.

 

[Blagard]

I did a search on my Windows 10 64bit machine and came up with two instances of d3dx9_32.dll

 

One in    WindowsSystem32  4.19 MB

the other   WindowssysWOW64   3.26 MB

 

So that was interesting not just for finding the file twice but for the different sizes.

[wilfy100]

Hi,

     After trying all the reasonable steps I could think of I finally took a metaphorical hammer to the registry settings for directX.  This was a major gamble to say the least. But lo and behold afterwards Track Designer actually launched. When I say launched it got to the point of saying the screen resolution was set to low (Which it was not at all) and then shut down. Subsequently the admittedly extremely old laptop became unreliable, so as soon as time permits I will try again with a somewhat less geriatric laptop.