PRR K4 - Steam 8th February 2012

[johnmckenzie]

Now you mention it, yes - except it's all 3 sets of driving wheels. It's as though they all have independent wheelslip! Impossible in real life as they're all connected together. particulary noticeable at crawling pace!

[styckx]

Yep.. I see it.. Thanks.. Now all I'll ever do is see it.. I can see how that might have been overlooked in development.. I never saw it until I was told what to look for. Now that I see it though.. That's pretty bad.

[007MJB007]

Now you mention it, yes - except it's all 3 sets of driving wheels. It's as though they all have independent wheelslip! Impossible in real life as they're all connected together. particulary noticeable at crawling pace!

Ah thanks, nice to know i'm not alone with this. Will fire of a email to support now then.

Cheers Mick.

[BenBlairL]

To add to the list of problems; I get a "Scenario Failed to load" error for "Westward Wanderer"

For some reason, despite being so motivated for release, it just seems to have flopped in my books, for some reason. It looks stunning and sounds okay, but I don't get that feeling of power and speed above 35 MPH, with that same 3-second soundbyte playing in a loop. It just feels really Bland to drive. The low speed of the Horseshoe Curve doesn't help either- off to an imaginary service on the NEC the K4 goes for me.

[Will]

Looks fantastic. I don't mind American steam locos, they are just so big and loud, I just have one qeustion before I buy this lovely add-on......does it actually require the HSC DLC? I noticed it as I went to buy and I'm a little hesitant to buy it if it does as I'm not buying the HSC, it's not my thing. I just wondered if it was for the scenario's which would be why it requries it.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/65247

[crumplezone]

Was going to buy this, but going from the comments here its another fire and forget DLC with low level of quality checking and i'm honestly not surprised with recent DLC releases containing bugs every time.

Anyway the sound cutting out is probably the same thing as the King class, the sound priority levels are lower than the sound domes and surrounding areas so they get pushed out of the sound channels when they encounter high priority sound domes/areas. If I recall from my experimentations a priority level of 80-100 will ensure the sound always plays, the priority level range goes from 0 up to 100, most low level and less important sounds are set between 10-20 and impotant are set at 100 or 80 (if you ever downloaded any of 92212's steam files they are a good place to check for the sound priority levels), on the King for example I put the chuff beat and clank sounds up to those priority levels and the sound remained in play.

Derek also made mention that had issues with steam locomotive sounds with TSX mode and TS2012 in general way back on the King release and its clear it still has yet to be addressed, even though they had Zane from Oovee working on it with them it would seem either A. its not been fixed or B. whoever works on the sound files is just copy and pasting from existing steam locomotives and hasn't bothered to make sure the priority levels were correct, this is also evident in the King as the Hall script files for sounds were directly copied into the Kings and just the folder paths were changed and some name changes for sound files.

Anyhow, the line of code your looking for in the proxyxml associated with the locomotive is the following:

<Priority d:type="sUInt32">10</Priority> - in this example its set to 10 for low pitched clank sound, if you wanted to hear it all the time you make that 100.

For the sound cutting out on higher speeds, and I must stress I'm not fully sure this still works, now I'm not 100% sure if this still works but it did on the Light Pacific in the past when it came out, the following line of code:

<NoFutherAttenuationDist d:type="sFloat32">500.000000</NoFutherAttenuationDist> - on the Light Pacific, the chuff sound would cut out around 69mph I believe, setting that value to 750.000000 or up to the value of 1000.000000 did restore the sound back then and you could maintain it well up into the 90mph range, you can try experimenting with the value to see if the sound returns, if it doesn't at higher speeds then I'm afraid the method doesn't work anymore.

You can also make sounds louder and such by changing values around in the base volume and pitch section, but I've not delved much into it, but from what I do know from abit of experimentation is the values are 0 = off 0.5 = half volume and 1.0 = full. Have to fiddle with the settings and see if any of that helps really, others who work on sound might be able to poke abit more information into that bit.

I must stress the final parts I'm abit hazy on but I do recall it doing something, once again backup the proxyxml file somewhere before any editting and you do the editting at your own risk, I'm not responsible for anything going ploin shaped or the FBI bursting through your window because you did something you shouldn't have

[bigphill2]

Hi all
Is anone having trouble opening the firebox doors?

Regards....Phill

[styckx]

To add to the list of problems; I get a "Scenario Failed to load" error for "Westward Wanderer"

No worries many people are in the `Unknown Error' appreciation society.

[USRailFan]

Good thing they're applying for a beta tester, I guess...

[chrisreb]

Well purchased the K4 and having read the above amended the Proxyxml values from 50 to 80. In the scenario I did with a fair bit of AI I had no sound issues at all.

Wonderful loco

[styckx]

Not going to even bother doing that as it's just yet another self `fix' that I need backup and add to the database of "things I fixed so the game runs normal/the way I want or patches a 3rd party developer released on their website for a steam product but RSC hasn't sent it out and probably never will" to restore if you do a cache verification.

As I said.. We've been at this for over 5 years now.. Steam locos skipping and coughing and losing their voice isn't new so the fact it's still an issue is absolutely astonishing to me.

[chrisreb]

Bill can understand your reasoning. However with RW Tools was a very quick fix for what appears to be a good result.

Wonder if it would work on a few other steamers with that issue. Certainly works for Matt and his various steam soundpacks. Cannot understand that if he can do it why RSC cannot achieve it with the same sound engine.

[crumplezone]

Not going to even bother doing that as it's just yet another self `fix' that I need backup and add to the database of "things I fixed so the game runs normal/the way I want or patches a 3rd party developer released on their website for a steam product but RSC hasn't sent it out and probably never will" to restore if you do a cache verification.

As I said.. We've been at this for over 5 years now.. Steam locos skipping and coughing and losing their voice isn't new so the fact it's still an issue is absolutely astonishing to me.

Aye, its unfortunate, but it was bearable before and didn't happen to much but due the strain of the new graphics engine putting on the system it made the problem even worse, it does require RSC to overview there priority levels on most steam locomotives, but then I can't really see them doing it, I sent them a email about it after I found how to do a tempory fix, I got a personal reply stating I needed to verify cache and clear blueprints cache and could I sent my system specifications (which I had in the original email).

The other issue, which was apparently secondary sounds not playing was supposed to have Zane and RSC work on it, I feel it was side lined for the recent beta'ed patch and I'll be frank I can't see it ever being addressed without them dropping the current audio codec and EAX (which isn't even supported by MS anymore anyway), its still uses directsound which is a problematic sound platform to use with games.

Personally, I'd rather do a quick fix and do it myself rather than wait for however long RSC "might" fix it, as reinterated by Derek in the Woodhead thread, some stuff is put on low priority and others on higher priority but fundementally the underlining issue is TS2012 is still based off Railsimulator at its very core and at this point I think were effectively hit the limit in which that old codebase can handle.

Bill can understand your reasoning. However with RW Tools was a very quick fix for what appears to be a good result.

Wonder if it would work on a few other steamers with that issue. Certainly works for Matt and his various steam soundpacks. Cannot understand that if he can do it why RSC cannot achieve it with the same sound engine.

From what I tested, it works for all the steam locomotives, it does mean sometimes you will have a quiet AI train go by, but the players train will still make sound so I think its a ok middle ground. Matt sets most of his sounds to higher priority and they work perfectly so it can be done, its just a matter of overviewing the proxyxml for all the steam locomotives, which takes time and is probably low priority for the time being.

[USRailFan]

EAX has never been supported by MS I think? It is Creative's own standard...

[crumplezone]

EAX has never been supported by MS I think? It is Creative's own standard...

It was supported to run correctly up untill the introduction of Windows 7, then MS dropped support for it, which was something to do with how Windows 7 handled sound, its why you need to use alchemy(which is still buggy under win 7 at times). Its also why you don't see EAX in any of the games in the past year or so.