Atomic Systems

It's pretty normal for companies to have an entry requirement for a Beta. These days it's often being forced to buy the actual game before it's even out so I think DTG are being pretty generous on this - quite a few people don't even need to buy the new version if they have the listed routes already.
The focus on the routes in the Pioneer edition might give us a clue to the initial focus for TSW - i.e. modern, modern and modern. I'm going to stick my neck out (as I have NO inside information on TSW) but as DTG's focus for a long time has clearly been purely on modern railways I suspect that if you like anything that happened before 2000 then it's going to be quite some before TSW can scratch your itch for train simming.

Remember we've been here before when Rail Simulator came out. Lots of people stuck with MSTS due to the enormous amount of available routes and stock and it took quite some time before the RS world started to fill up. Now admittedly this time DTG is over 100 people strong, rather than 6, and there are quite a few 3rd party developers so it will probably be quicker than before but clearly the level of detail required is going to have an effect as well.

But colour me excited! The prospect of such detail, the promised base systems that can hopefully deliver the realism we've craved for years, multi-player, a dispatcher that's not a total chump! The future is bright indeed.
I remember feeling like this when Railworks came out (before that the lack of steam engine chuffing left me a bit cold!) and I took a look at the scripting and blueprint system and thought - hey, we can do good stuff with this. 7 years later and developers are still pushing the envelope of what can be done in the way of realism (advanced locos) and effects (such as the TPO coming with the GWR Saint - it's soon, I promise!).
However it's going to be a process as people migrate to TSW, likely running both sims for some time until the locos and era they want to re-create are available in TSW.

From a company point of view, we still have many locos we want to build for the existing TS and hope that people will continue to buy and enjoy them. We've already set out some time to look into modelling in UE later this year (in fact we had a little dabble last winter) but I expect TS will still remain our primary focus for the immediate future unless DTG come up with a surprise steam era route. Somehow I'm not sure any of our locos would look right chuffing up Sand Patch Grade

I just picked up this little snippet amongst the Facebook comments by DTG

Will TSW contain all new routes as compared to TS2016, as you'd have to make them from scratch in UE4, or will we be seeing a lot of familiar routes from TS2016 and past routes?

DTG: We want to explore predominantly new routes initially, but wont rule out revisiting route we have already created in the future

So I think that probably makes even more of a case for running both sims side by side.

The main thing I'm looking forward to is what Unreal means for third party content creators and modders. I'd hope that it'd be a lot easier to navigate than the superfluous mess that is the Kuju engine.

I'd also hope that this means DTG will overhaul their DLC policy. Nobody is going to like buying a train for £11.99 and then 3 liveries for £2.99; at least not when it comes to a brand new product with little content.

Lots of folk wrote:Not for me...wrong route....wrong loco....wrong era....wrong whatever

Don't we get this every year?
Think back to the initial response when it was announced that a back dated Riviera Line was to be offered as a way of getting the full quota of goodies in TS2016. Lots didn't want it, citing exactly the same reasons as we're reading today, but of more importance many more were swayed by it.
OK, 30 quid for a 2 month trial may put some off but break it down...is 50p a day really that expensive? If you smoke, cut down by 2 a day and you recoup that expense; drink a pint of beer less each week, put the dog/cat on half rations for a month......
Thankfully though, nobody is being forced to buy the new game beta, nobody is even being forced to buy TS2017.


Moving on, there have been concerns that the move to Unreal would force everybody to renew their PCs.....

Train Sim World: CSX Heavy Haul Beta – Anticipated Minimum PC Specification

OS: 64-bit Windows 7 Service Pack 1, Windows 8 / 8.1 or Windows 10
Processor: 2 GHz Dual-Core 64-bit CPU
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: DirectX 10 Compatible GPU with 2 GB Video RAM
Sound: DirectX Compatible
Storage: Approx 40 GB available space
DirectX: Version 10

Nothing extreme in that, so it's reasonable to conclude that fears about the level of hardware required have been groundless (as we've been stating since the first doom and gloom post appeared)

gptech wrote:

Lots of folk wrote:Not for me...wrong route....wrong loco....wrong era....wrong whatever

Don't we get this every year?
Think back to the initial response when it was announced that a back dated Riviera Line was to be offered as a way of getting the full quota of goodies in TS2016. Lots didn't want it, citing exactly the same reasons as we're reading today, but of more importance many more were swayed by it.
OK, 30 quid for a 2 month trial may put some off but break it down...is 50p a day really that expensive? If you smoke, cut down by 2 a day and you recoup that expense; drink a pint of beer less each week, put the dog/cat on half rations for a month......
Thankfully though, nobody is being forced to buy the new game beta, nobody is even being forced to buy TS2017.


Moving on, there have been concerns that the move to Unreal would force everybody to renew their PCs.....

Train Sim World: CSX Heavy Haul Beta – Anticipated Minimum PC Specification

OS: 64-bit Windows 7 Service Pack 1, Windows 8 / 8.1 or Windows 10
Processor: 2 GHz Dual-Core 64-bit CPU
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: DirectX 10 Compatible GPU with 2 GB Video RAM
Sound: DirectX Compatible
Storage: Approx 40 GB available space
DirectX: Version 10

Nothing extreme in that, so it's reasonable to conclude that fears about the level of hardware required have been groundless (as we've been stating since the first doom and gloom post appeared)

Couldn't agree more Gary. We have had the first glance of our shiny new sim and it most certainly looks shiny, the future looks very, very exciting.

Thanks for doing all my typing, Pete. Having expected a release in 2017, I was quite amused to see limited beta in Dec.16, first release in Feb.17, with details on only one route, and reluctance to announce a release date for the route building tools.

Sure enough there will be more routes, but likewise it is sure that they will focus on the stuff that sells the most for the first part of the product life cycle.

We ought to set up a team effort for a first UK steam route to make you release your stuff for TSW.

Oh, and I'm so glad they found a new acronym, and one that does not change every year. It could have been TS2017+ or something like that. Though when I first saw the thread title, I thought people were discussing yet another 3rd party setup or a convention or a website. But we got used to "rail works", so welcome TSW!

gptech wrote: Moving on, there have been concerns that the move to Unreal would force everybody to renew their PCs.....

Train Sim World: CSX Heavy Haul Beta – Anticipated Minimum PC Specification

OS: 64-bit Windows 7 Service Pack 1, Windows 8 / 8.1 or Windows 10
Processor: 2 GHz Dual-Core 64-bit CPU
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: DirectX 10 Compatible GPU with 2 GB Video RAM
Sound: DirectX Compatible
Storage: Approx 40 GB available space
DirectX: Version 10

Nothing extreme in that, so it's reasonable to conclude that fears about the level of hardware required have been groundless (as we've been stating since the first doom and gloom post appeared)

Perhaps nothing extreme but nevertheless quite a hike in several areas from the minimum requirements for TS2016 which seem to be:

•OS: Windows® Vista / 7 / 8
•Processor: Processor: 2.8 GHz Core 2 Duo (3.2 GHz Core 2 Duo recommended), AMD Athlon MP (multiprocessor variant or comparable processors)
•Memory:2 GB RAM
•Graphics:512 MB with Pixel Shader 3.0 (AGP PCIe only)
•DirectX®: 9.0c
•Hard Drive: 6 GB HD space
•Sound: Direct X 9.0c compatible

Note this is not a complaint, progress on this scale is bound to require better kit, but anyone who is running TS2016 on the minimum or near to the minimum spec hardware is clearly not going to run TSW without an upgrade.

I wonder how far above the anticipated minimum spec the machines are that DTG used to get the results shown in the video?

Andy L

AndyUK wrote:anyone who is running TS2016 on the minimum or near to the minimum spec hardware is clearly not going to run TSW without an upgrade.

Anyone who's running TS2016 on the minimum spec needs to upgrade to do just that--2GB of RAM and 512MB of vRAM at this moment in time?

There is no real hike anywhere in those projected requirements; if anything they're actually lesser (if you look at big money purchases) a 2GHz CPU as opposed to 2.8 for example. 8GB of RAM is not considered odd today and 4GB of vRAM is becoming the norm.

When you look at what most people should be/are using the specs suggested are nothing outlandish, it's along the lines of what gets recommended in here weekly.

gptech wrote:

AndyUK wrote:anyone who is running TS2016 on the minimum or near to the minimum spec hardware is clearly not going to run TSW without an upgrade.

Anyone who's running TS2016 on the minimum spec needs to upgrade to do just that--2GB of RAM and 512MB of vRAM at this moment in time?....

Which suggests that the minimum specs given for TS2016 to run satisfactorily aren't realistic? If that's the point you're making then how much faith can we have that the anticipated minimum requirement for TSW is going to run it to a similar standard?

Andy L

So what are the "recommended" specs?

smarty2 wrote:So what are the "recommended" specs?

As i know the UE4 and UE4 games already good enough i would say you need a i7 from 47xx series and up with 3.3Ghz and up, 8-16Gig of RAM, two SSDs (one for system and one for the games) with minimum 400mb/s read speed (so a model with 500gig and up) and at least a GTX?70 and up (?80,?80ti,1070,1080, Titan). I do not recommend AMD GPUs or CPUs for UE4 with such open and streaming worlds. At the moment i own a i7 5820k with 6x3.3Ghz on socket 2011-3, 16Gig of RAM (4-Channel Kit), M.2 SSD with 2500mb/s read speed for system (the 951 ones from MacBooks) and SATA III SSD for games, and at least a 1070 OC for the gfx. Runs at UHD with epic settings in Obduction at 60fps, The Assembly with 60fps and so on. So at FHD a 970 and up will do the job. For open world streaming maps like used in TSW you need a fast CPU and SSD or it will stutter and will have long loading times. You can try this with the Fernbus-Simulator (even if that game is not really good). It will tell you if your system can run the new TSW smooth or not.

Finally i am happy to get this new TS and can build AddOns for it with UE4 as there are so many possibilities in that engine. I didn't think that DTG will restrict the main features of UE4 and so we do have a nice simulator/game to work with in the next 10 years. BUT, it will be way more complicated to build stuff for it. UE4 is not a kindergarten type engine, it needs massive knowledge.

MaikG wrote:i would say you need a i7 from 47xx series and up with 3.3Ghz and up, 8-16Gig of RAM, two SSDs (one for system and one for the games) with minimum 400mb/s read speed (so a model with 500gig and up) and at least a GTX?70 and up (?80,?80ti,1070,1080, Titan).

That's rather excessive, effectively you're saying that 75% of UKTS members won't be able to play TSW.
If the machine you're using to play TS2016 on handles it nicely enough, it'll handle TSW--no need to start looking at spending a grand on something new.

Minimum Specs:

Train Sim World: CSX Heavy Haul Beta – Anticipated Minimum PC Specification

OS: 64-bit Windows 7 Service Pack 1, Windows 8 / 8.1 or Windows 10
Processor: 2 GHz Dual-Core 64-bit CPU
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: DirectX 10 Compatible GPU with 2 GB Video RAM
Sound: DirectX Compatible
Storage: Approx 40 GB available space
DirectX: Version 10
A free Steam account and Broadband internet connection is required

Just as the Defered render engine is used in looks UE4.
I think the rendering only works with hardware code antialiasing with DirectX11.
Enter at version 10, which does not work with Defered and aliasing.
Because the would again be oversample ... with all FPS braking technique..

I have an i5 4670k overclocked to run at 4ghz plus 16Gb of 2333mhz ram 2 ssds one samsung 840 pro and a samsung 850 evo 1Tb for TS and a gaming motherboard I think the weak link is my GTX760.

I think this might do the trick? https://www.amazon.co.uk/MSI-GeForce-GT ... x+1060+6gb

gptech wrote:Graphics: DirectX 10 Compatible GPU with 2 GB Video RAM

gptech wrote:
Nothing extreme in that, so it's reasonable to conclude that fears about the level of hardware required have been groundless (as we've been stating since the first doom and gloom post appeared)

Graphics card is a bit extreme, my old PC that broke a few months ago worked RW at full settings and only had 1GB, my new PC has a GTX970, but a lot of people out there will using 1GB cards. So 4GB will be better, but I wont be upgrading my PC any time soon.