Help required with Hornby Virtual Railway 2 software

[Chrissaf]

Welcome, Tony.

There must be a thousand threads on here that were titled "Help"  before they were re-edited. 😎

It is more helpful if you state what the help is that you require.

I may be wrong, but I thought  that Hornby Virtual Railway 2 is a simulator game, so fail to understand how it would help you to build a model railway. If it only loads onto XP, it is pretty old, too.

It would be more useful to you to read and understand the thread at the very top of this section, called

Getting Started, including Track Extension Packs

before you spend/waste any more money.

Please bear in mind that new posters are only allowed two posts in the first 48 hours or so - to help block spammers - so don't waste your second post with a nothing one.

Also DON'T use the  Blue button with white arrow, to reply, this is a repeat post button! Scroll down to the empty space below, type your words, and use the green button that says REPLY.

Thanks.

[Chrissaf]

Hi All, I recently started to build an N guage layout so bought Hornby Virtual Railway 2 to assist me. I tried installing it on my desktop PC (Windows 7) but No-Go. So I bought an old Windows XP laptop to run it on. It installed with no problems, until I tried to run it that is. Immediatetly an error message comes up stating "Failed to open a 16-bit or 32-bit adaptor mode". Anyone know what I must to to solve thir error and get HVR2 up anjd running please ?

[Chrissaf]

Tony,

Hornby Virtual Railway 2 as Eric indicated is primarily a game so won't be a huge amount of use in designing a model railway. HVR2 has been obsolete for years and all the support services that were ever available in the past have been disbanded. Thus no official Hornby support for this product is currently available. Questions about this software do very occasionally come up on this forum, but I can't recall those questions ever being successfully answered, by anyone on here with knowledge about this application.

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Hornby Trackmaster......has more to do with designing a layout, but that product is totally obsolete and unsupported as well.

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Just for completeness of information. Hornby RailMaster software is supported but that software is a model railway control application and is absolutely no help to you as a layout design tool.

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There are a number of non Hornby commercial software applications that will help you to design a layout. Both of these are downloadable and offer free evaluation periods with appropriate limited functionality.

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Two that come to mind are [click the underlined links below]:

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AnyRail

&

SCARM [simple Computer Aided Railway Modeller].

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SCARM includes a 'simulator' function that will render your 2D layout track design in 3D and run simulated trains on it. In 3D mode, SCARM also allows 'flyby' camera control so that you can view your layout creation from any angle.

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"Failed to open a 16-bit or 32-bit adaptor mode"

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No idea with any certainty what that error message refers to, but I suspect that it may be related to the graphics sub-system on your XP Laptop. HVR2 in its heyday would have been a highly graphical application, using cutting edge graphics (for those times). I suspect that the error message relates to some aspect of the graphics chips and driver in the XP laptop. You would have to bare in mind, that game type software in those days would have been running on Desktop PC machines with high end (for their time) graphics cards. Laptops of the period were never intended as gaming machines.

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TIP: As this is your very first post, just be aware that the 'Blue Button with the White Arrow' is not a 'Reply to this post' button. If you want to reply to any of the posts, scroll down and write your reply in the reply text box at the bottom of the page and click the Green 'Reply' button.

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See also – further TIPs on how to get the best user experience from this forum.

https://www.hornby.com/uk-en/forum/tips-on-using-the-forum/

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In particular I would refer you to TIP 9 in the above list regarding post titles [i have retitled your original post to something more meaningful].

[Chrissaf]

PS - When you tried installing it on your Windows 7 PC......did you try installing or running it in Windows XP compatibility mode.

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Right click the installer.exe file (might possible be called setup.exe). Choose "Properties", then open the "Compatibility" tab.....try using XP Service Pack 2 compatibility.

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I also suggest ticking (selecting) the check boxes for the 640 x 480 screen option and the check box for the 'run as administrator' option. You may need to experiment with various settings in this screen to find one that might work. Such as checking the 'Run in 256 colours' option as well.

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Notice how most of the 'Settings' options relate to different aspects of graphics. This potentially re-enforces the comments I made in my first reply above about graphics.

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/media/tinymce_upload/3ed15b3c0861bc53b015b844b5d9cad6.jpg

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Similarly, if it installs but won't run. Find the .exe file that runs the HVR2 application and use 'right click' on that to open the 'Properties' window. Then perform the same 'check box' exercise I have just documented on that as well.

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Once all the boxes are ticked that you want to try, then click either the 'Apply' or the 'OK' button. Both will save the settings, but OK will close the window as well.

[ModelerXYZ]

I successfully installed HVR2 on my windows 10 laptop a couple of days ago, after finding it while sorting out my railway. It was installed using Windows XP service pack 3 compatibility.

The game only lets you model in 00 though, so it won't be of any help with N gauge modelling. It does have a useful shopping list feature though, if you are thinking of planning an 00 layout.

Hope this helps,

XYZ