Train Simulator 2014 - 26th September

[smarty2]

Well, there is always the "do not keep this game updated" option

Unfortunately Martin, in my experience, this option is not always the case.

Why shouldn't I expect, after spending a load of money on a new PC a year ago, that my Railworks experience be the same after the upgrade as it was before? I don't think I'm being selfish. I think the ones being selfish are the ones who demand more, more, more. If RSC do move the sim a whole big step forward like they have before. I hope they release it as a whole new base sim and those who have the rigs to run it to a decent level can buy it and leave those of us who can't justify spending £500 to upgade thier PC's to enjoy our experience as it is.

I am running a p.c that is over 5 years old and is in computer terms old and very outdated with the cpu being below the lowest minimum, and I can tell you I was very glad of the changes made from 2012 to 2013! I can now run routes with settings on high even with shadows on medium, no way would my p.c run it at those settings before, I welcome improvements to performance, and if it means pushing the low specs upward slightly then I can live with it. Don't forget TSX can always be disabled, the price one pays unfortunately for having a poor performing p.c.

[gptech]

Well, there is always the "do not keep this game updated" option

Unfortunately Martin, in my experience, this option is not always the case.

That has been noted by others, so possibly the final piece of the jigsaw is to deny BOTH Steam.exe and railworks.exe internet access via a firewall rule.

What shouldn't happen is that the game is then changed without your control to such a degree that now it won't run on your spec of machine.

The alternative would to for RSC to treat each upgrade as a new product and charge for the privilage of using it; can't see that going down well myself.
What is within your (our) control is to choose the 'don't automatically update' option, take Steam offline and deny railworks.exe 'net access, leaving you with a known working version of the game.
It's then easy enough to install a separate copy of Steam/TS20xx to test if the upgrade functions on your hardware.

RSC seem to completely avoid anything negative. You see it on FB where tons of comments or criticisms will be made and they never respond

Like many companies, the facebook pages are basically a digital advertising hoarding so it's not surprising that any negatives get glossed over.

I wish they would make it an 64 bit application

Whilst a 64bit operating system brings huge benefits, it's not always the case with applications; nor is it such a straight forward procedure. It would, unless they decide to junk 32bit users, mean there'd be further variations of the game to support, and each item of DLC would have to work on both platforms. I still seriously doubt RSC have the skills to take the game to 64bit in-house, afterall if they can't read the dump files produced by the game how can we expect them to work at a lower level than that?
The biggest gain a 64bit environment brings is the huge amount of usable RAM, but does the game need more than 4GB? --in various threads about SBHH it's been noted that memory usage doesn't appear to get near the 32bit applied ceiling of 4GB(approx)
SBHH is a vague error message, though no vauger than an 'unhandled exception error' generated by Windows, and is usually the result of a bad .bin file and not lack of memory. Bear in mind that the game, like all applications, is given Virtual Address Space by the Windows Memory Manager--space that is comprised not only of 'real RAM' but hard drive space on the system partition which the application views as 'real' memory. This is space that is completely independant of the swap/page file so if your C: is getting 'cramped' an 'out of memory' error may actually mean you're out of hard drive space.

[smarty2]

Sure I've had games in the past that utilise either or, and older than railworks? Not sure RSC would confirm its beyond their capabilities Gary? I'm pretty sure they could read the dump files, because I have sent them in the past (long ago) and they have responded with the reason for the error? Also I have cleanmem pro with a little icon showing memory used memory total and commit total and every time TS gets near 4 gig of usage TS crashes, seen it, because TS even though it crashes doesn't release the ram its using straight away, I'm convinced it's memory related in my case even though I have 8 gig installed, so that indicates to me a limitation of the 32 bit architecture?

[Fincra5]

Would be nice of them to fix L2B so that it doesnt have an SBHH all the time!!!! Its need proper portals too... etc etc!

This is a problem down to system resources and individual system specs are affected differently - I've never had an SBHH on L2B, so it isn't really as clear cut a problem as something that affects every user.

See thats what I don't get... my PC is powerful enough to run top end games with ease... all other routes are fine and run very well but for some reason L2B is a problem child. Making scenarios is a nightmare, I do the old scenery_old trick but then if I want to add stopping points I have to guess where the Car stop markers are.

[david1]

Would be nice if RSC listen to peoples concerns when updating versions that it does not cause third party reskins or scenarios to fail, i am getting tried of having to fix my own scenarios that no longer work after upgrades. Not only does this effect users of the product and attracts a lot of negatives comments but it also causes lose of revenue to RSC. I spend weeks after the upgrades fixing what the upgrade as broken that i dont have anytime left to try out any new content that comes along so i stop buying any DLC. after have either fixed or re-done my scenarios a sale is round the corner so then wait only a few weeks and get it in the sale.

[gptech]

part

I'm pretty sure they could read the dump files

They released a statement a few months ago that they couldn't, I'm sure it'll have been covered in here. I've never needed to monitor resources personally, but when I've been curious enough to do so Task Manager/Resource Monitor built in to Win7 have never shown much more than 3GB of RAM (in total) beinbg used by the game----time for a few of us to do some research and collate results?

Would be nice if RSC listen to peoples concerns when updating versions that it does not cause third party reskins or scenarios to fail

Apart from the fact that RSC have no obligation to provide support for 3rd party offerings, I've only had a single occurence of a 3rd party product not working after an upgrade (South West Wales, and as I'd hacked it about a fair bit the fact that it didn't work wasn't a huge surprise)
Are you mixing upgrades to routes which may involve changes to waypoints etc with core upgrades to the software which should have no effect on routes?
One other explanation could be that you've inadvertantly utilised a 'loop hole' in the software when creating scenarios, and that 'loop hole' has been closed by a subsequent upgrade---the number of scenarios at UKTS that have worked before and after changes would indicate that said upgrades have very little impact on older content.

[theokus]

part

I'm pretty sure they could read the dump files

They released a statement a few months ago that they couldn't, I'm sure it'll have been covered in here. I've never needed to monitor resources personally, but when I've been curious enough to do so Task Manager/Resource Monitor built in to Win7 have never shown much more than 3GB of RAM (in total) beinbg used by the game----time for a few of us to do some research and collate results?

Would be nice if RSC listen to peoples concerns when updating versions that it does not cause third party reskins or scenarios to fail

Apart from the fact that RSC have no obligation to provide support for 3rd party offerings, I've only had a single occurence of a 3rd party product not working after an upgrade (South West Wales, and as I'd hacked it about a fair bit the fact that it didn't work wasn't a huge surprise)
Are you mixing upgrades to routes which may involve changes to waypoints etc with core upgrades to the software which should have no effect on routes?
One other explanation could be that you've inadvertantly utilised a 'loop hole' in the software when creating scenarios, and that 'loop hole' has been closed by a subsequent upgrade---the number of scenarios at UKTS that have worked before and after changes would indicate that said upgrades have very little impact on older content.

As always, good arguments, grounded and very well written

[shanyiqua]

HAHA another "new" default content, another headache for free and 3rd party developers

[gptech]

As always, good arguments, grounded and very well written

Welcome back Theo, but it wasn't that well written----I've no idea why I made a mess of cutting and pasting and left "part" in at the start of the post
It also moved a little off-topic, so to try and get back to the upcoming treat we're all going to get (forever the optimist, me)....

I doubt we'll see a 64 bit version, if that ever comes I imagine it'll be as a new 'from the ground up' simulator.
The Kuju\RailSimulator folder may vanish in a default instance of the game, but as most UKTS members will be moving on from TS2013 it'll still be there post-update. Removing it would afterall break every route and scenario we have.
The editing tools would seem to be one of the most obvious areas that'll see improvements---easier selection of lofted assets once placed would certainly save a lot of frustration.
Routes taking advantage of new technologies, as indicated in the blurb I've seen, suggests improvements/enhancements to the TSX engine, hopefully the end of 'legacy mode' and the all or nothing situation we presently have replaced with more user control over the various elements that comprise TSX. I'd suggest that those who are still running in 'legacy mode', or those who find that they can barely get by with TSX on make a back-up copy of their install, take the game off-line and hold off upgrading until reports show the new version has no dire consequences on older systems. As previous updates have been trouble free for the majority and meant the game runs better than the version before I fully expect this trend to continue though.

[theokus]

As always, good arguments, grounded and very well written

Welcome back Theo, but it wasn't that well written----I've no idea why I made a mess of cutting and pasting and left "part" in at the start of the post
It also moved a little off-topic, so to try and get back to the upcoming treat we're all going to get (forever the optimist, me)....

I doubt we'll see a 64 bit version, if that ever comes I imagine it'll be as a new 'from the ground up' simulator.
The Kuju\RailSimulator folder may vanish in a default instance of the game, but as most UKTS members will be moving on from TS2013 it'll still be there post-update. Removing it would afterall break every route and scenario we have.
The editing tools would seem to be one of the most obvious areas that'll see improvements---easier selection of lofted assets once placed would certainly save a lot of frustration.
Routes taking advantage of new technologies, as indicated in the blurb I've seen, suggests improvements/enhancements to the TSX engine, hopefully the end of 'legacy mode' and the all or nothing situation we presently have replaced with more user control over the various elements that comprise TSX. I'd suggest that those who are still running in 'legacy mode', or those who find that they can barely get by with TSX on make a back-up copy of their install, take the game off-line and hold off upgrading until reports show the new version has no dire consequences on older systems. As previous updates have been trouble free for the majority and meant the game runs better than the version before I fully expect this trend to continue though.

Well, I had so much fun to make my own route
I even went back to my hometown to make photos of an old railway line which now no longer exists. And this after more than 30 years.
Luckily I could still find traces on google earth.
I remember very well that I and my mother took the steam train.

The editor is my problem. It's a real mess. It's hard to find something.
The colors on the TSX are not natural. Always the blue tinge (cast).
This is not so much criticism but rather a determination that I can not work with.

[shanyiqua]

Would be nice if RSC listen to peoples concerns when updating versions that it does not cause third party reskins or scenarios to fail, i am getting tried of having to fix my own scenarios that no longer work after upgrades.

It's simple. If RSC would fix the reskin blueprint, then no further fixes would be needed, except if the 3d model and the texture map changes, which is very unlikely.

[gptech]

Would be nice if RSC listen to peoples concerns when updating versions that it does not cause third party reskins or scenarios to fail, i am getting tried of having to fix my own scenarios that no longer work after upgrades.

It's simple. If RSC would fix the reskin blueprint, then no further fixes would be needed, except if the 3d model and the texture map changes, which is very unlikely.

That's a bit blinkered and smacks of just being able to persue your own hobby horse with little explanation. The re-skin blueprint, as useful as it may appear to be, would not 'save' a moved asset, nor an asset that called for a shared resource that had been moved.
It's a 'feature' that's been available for quite a while although undocumented nor apparently supported. If this is because it has never worked properly (but not discarded) then it can't be classed as something that has been broken (implying that it once worked) and needs fixing.
I'd certainly support a call for a fully working version, as that would make reskinning easier but it wouldn't address the problems associated with too many .bin files loaded/referenced from a Provider/Product folde

[SaMa1]

Today we start the countdown to the launch of Train Simulator 2014. Each day we will have exciting new coverage for you across all of our social site. Join us here on Facebook at 5pm GMT this afternoon for the first look at ‪#‎TS2014‬

A snip from RS.com Facebook. I really hope its something more important than a Xbox-controller this time. Still 5 hours to go?

[theokus]

Today we start the countdown to the launch of Train Simulator 2014. Each day we will have exciting new coverage for you across all of our social site. Join us here on Facebook at 5pm GMT this afternoon for the first look at ‪#‎TS2014‬

A snip from RS.com Facebook. I really hope its something more important than a Xbox-controller this time. Still 5 hours to go?

"Much to do about nothing" ?

[Rockdoc2174]

We can only hope that "All's Well That Ends Well" and that some of our number do not feel, yet again, "Love's Labours Lost."

Keith