Hi guys,
Just thought I'd offer a "Trainzer's perspective" on some things in this thread.
From the reports I have read, there are a few extra tweaks in the UI and a lot more content, but otherwise it really isn't worth it.
Two other improvements over TRS2004 are a much-improved physics engine verified by real engineers, and the new Content Manager Plus that allows one to view, organize, and edit your downloaded content and a majority of the built-in content as well.
What has happened to the track - I've seen some shots in the Auran forum that shows superb detailed track but the track shown here is awful.
Yes, even the Trainzers on the
Trainz Forum admit that the Auran-made track could use a major facelift. However, a lot of the new track in 06 was made by third-party creators (as was much of the other new content) and most of it is absoutely splendid.
I know it's an old discussion worn out like old boots but there is something about the washed out misty look of the entire Trainz series that does not work for me. I presume it's due entirely to the game engine it uses. The colour palette might appeal to some as real loife mist in the distance but that's not the impression I get from it. I find the whole look of the game's environment far less convincing than even MSTS' rather poor depiction of the world, at least in MSTS it's possible for content creators to give the user some different feeling environments.
Again, one of the major complaints of even veteran Trainz users is the comparatively stone-age graphics engine. One thing to keep in mind, however, is that this is indeed the last iteration of Trainz as we know it. Now that TRS2006 is out of the way, Auran will soon begin work on a ground-up rewrite, to be called Rail Sim Pro, in which the graphics engine has also been majorly reworked, and possible even rewritten as well.
TRS does tend to use more texture filtering than MSTS, also less mip bias so texture tend to blur more at distance and at sharp angles (unless you used the hint=dynamic flag to disable mips)
If you have Anisotropic Filtering and Anti-aliasing for your graphics acrd turned on, this should not be the case. If it still is, this may be due to creators using the Level Of Detail (LOD) system implemented in TRS2004, in which they can specify lower-detail models be loaded when the object is a certain distance from the camera. This often includes lower-detail textures.
not sure about others, but when i play TRS2004, all the textures are blurry on locos and rolling stock when veiwed from a bit of a distance. Also the steam sounds do not appeal to me. While the steam sounds are good, i do not belive they have enough "bass" to the sounds and the steam sounds when traveling at around 15km/h seam to kind of "skip" other sounds and be very repative.
Most of this depends on the content creator. Yes, most will agree that Auran's default steam sounds are, well, somewhat sub-standard. However, it is completely up to the locomotive's creator as to what sounds to use. Many custom steam sound assets are out there that much better capture the sound of a real steam locomotive.
It may also have to do with your sound card, althought his may not be the case here.
I hope this has shed some light onto the monster that is Trainz. Please feel free to ask further questions if need be.
-Chris (tm)
