Railworks core updates!

[jimmyshand]

Smoothness improvements in scenery streaming
Less GPU stalling at high frame rates
Multicore improvements
Smoothed ‘dirty network building’ to stop stutters

That's the items from the list that jumped out at me as being something to get excited about. Remains to be seen just what it will mean in real life but as someone with a PC that operates on the edge with Railworks, I'm hoping the above points will make a big difference.

The sceptical side of me can't help but think that TS2012 launch back in September was meant to bring a lot of performance improvements such as multi-core support but it didn't really.

[Griphos]

I expect good improvements in smoothness and some improvement in performance, with better balance of demand across GPU and CPU. If AA isn't completely sorted by this change, then at least it may be improved. Like Bill said, why dismiss it before you've tried it?

[SaMa1]

Thats good news. I can assume that NDA still holds for lucky beta testers?

[Griphos]

I would assume so.

[Retro]

I think I will run Steam offline for a few days and do yet another complete backup as I did before Woodhead. I just hope it addresses issues for those who cannot run TSX and sorts out some of the problems in Legacy mode so everyone can enjoy the Program again.
Kind regards James.

[drfisher]

Ok, is there an easy way to do a backup and then copy things back and keep the updates?

I've lost track of the number of small fixes, updates etc that I have downloaded and installed that will get rolled back by this update, can't bear the thought of having to install the lot again!

[crumplezone]

Well I had a long post, then the forum ate the post, so I'm not going to write it again.

Call it knee jerk reaction or whatever you will, they have just wrote the FXAA injector into the core which is what you do when you implement FXAA anti alias into your game, they have also removed MLAA, which worked under railworks 2 and was still working under legacy. They left in SSAA which beyond 2x1 is a massive performance hit, like SSAA has been for a number of years and why gaming studios hardly use it now, only the shogun 2 total war game in the past few months actually had the option for it as barely worked at that, its a bodged AA brought in with a bodged DX10.5, DX10.5 was wrote off.

So, they can add the performance and all that, but it doesn't change the fact your running straight edged vehicles, straight edged wagons on straight edged rails which might have straight edged over head powerlines past straight edged buildings, which are still going to remain, even with FXAA slightly less jagged but still inherent all the semi circle disortions and flickering which a full working anti alias would fix.

Its a immersion killer for me when nameplates are unreadable at angles due to jagged lines, or edges of locomotives which should be smooth are not and liveries on locomotives are broke up and look wrong because they don't line up properly due to lack of anti alias.

But sure, I'll wait to tomorrow for this "miricle" patch.

[ashgray]

Crumplezone

You're either guessing, which is less than helpful when it comes to informing an "eager" membership here, or you know for certain, in which case you're in breach of an NDA.

Either way, please let's just lose the attitude and await the upgrade, then we'll see what we end up with. If you have any valid criticisms then, well that would be the time to post about them.

Ash

[jimmyshand]

Everyone has their own set of demands and wishes and I doubt RSC'll please everyone! It seems that those with high spec rigs are irked by things that lower spec users don't even know about!!
Most lower to mid spec users just want to be able to run the game with stability, reasonably high settings and with most or even some of the bells & whistles turned on without getting memory bugs, sbhh and other strange phenomenum.
Higher spec users will tend to be more demanding of the finer things like AA vs MSXXX, FSX2012 or whatever the heck it is?! I don't even know what those things are let alone be troubled by them not being good enough!!

Everyones wishes are valid however, nobody should be mocked for them. If you've paid 3 grand for a NASA PC then you've every right to be irked if the game still has flaws at that spec!

[bdy26]

If you don't want to read the next 97 pages, the following is a summary:

- those who can get it to work will be underwhelemed
- those who can't get it work will revert to MSTS/KRS/RW2/Ivor the Engine/Brio and/or refuse to buy any further payware
- there will be pages of discussions about graphics cards
- the server at http://www.clearmycache.com will fall over
- there will be at least 3 demands for a progress update on the Electrostar
- someone will enquire about whether the update will include their local route as it would be great if someone could build it. Really great, in fact.
- there will be a very helfpul FAQ added that noone will read
- more pixels will be added to first class
- there will be an issue with a shader or something that might as well be written in wingdings
- facebook will trckle updates prompting people to say they couldn't possibly visit that site, and the rest of us to scroll though and endless wall page of comments by the Nerdcubed brigade
- BDY26 will be sitting under the stairs drinking Gin until someone PMs him to say its safe to come back out.

Seriously, as James says, lets hope this actually lets everyone run the game.

[TransportSteve]

Tomorrow night, that's less than 24 hours away, what chance do some folks have of backing up everything before they switch on their machines and the update starts straight away 'cos they're logged into Steam automatically, that's a cockeyed way of working, where's the sense in that.....Surely, RSC could have given us 5-7 days, at least.

So, no work on the core issues then, loco physics especially, have they sorted out the cab issues on the locomotives they messed up last September on the changeover, I still cannot drive the Class 37, 47 and 55, and these are default locomotives, not DLC, no mention of the TSX and legacy problems for peeps who still have problems playing the game from last year, or, the anti-aliasing issues for those of us with ATI graphics cards, is this update some sort of wind up, what was all the kerfuffle about getting 300 BETA testers for if this is all they've come up with in 2 months, it's a joke, from what I can see this is a very small patch to let the low end laptops and PC users catch up with the rest of us, but, how much damage is going to be caused to those of us who have a stable running RW3 today, that's going to be the most important issue, and when are RSC going to address the major blinkin' problems, do they need yet another 300 BETA testers to do a proper job.

I won't be logging on to Steam anytime soon.

Cheerz. Transport Steve.

[ihavenonamenoreallyidont]

Shame the NDA appears to still be in effect.

Still, I am sure we'll have plenty of opinion tomorrow.

[SSimon]

Hi gents, I'm glad you have seen the key change list published on our website. That list has been edited to provide the most usable information for the majority of users (obviously not for technical luddites like me!), but I wanted to share with you the full change list which will be published on Steam with the update. Some of you with more technical understanding may find this useful. It is straight from our core technical team, so deals with nitty-gritty stuff and may not all make sense to less tech-minded folk.

This update is really intended to improve game performance, especially for those with lower-spec PCs, and includes various other updates which it made sense to roll out at the same time. I know many of you are content creators, so please back up any necessary files before tomorrow night.

Cheers, Simon

Fixes:

Fix for floating grills

Kuju RailSimulator Bridge Lofts fixed

Kuju RailSimulator Digital Clocks do not illuminate at night

Fix for crash in ScriptManager update

Use actual frame timing rather than time sliced frame timing for edit camera, so frame rate is consistent with camera motion

Fix for showing incorrect FPS with shift + z

Less GPU stalling at high frame rates by flushing the command buffer when 2 frames are queued for rendering

Unstepped rather than unclamped for frame time updates on camera

Physics transformation interpolation for Player RV geometry and Physical cab camera

FXAA replaces MLAA

Brake pipe pressure gauge fully working in HUD

Increased protection against skidrow cracks

Fix for mixed double head steam running out of fuel

Fix for facing double head steam fighting

Particle optimisations

Multicore improvments

Superelevation works on 3D track

Casting lights are scaled back on lower settings

Tile File loading optimisations

Emitter shaders are only loaded once

Smoothed dirty network building to stop stutters

FXAA doesn’t up then down sample when SSAA enabled - less blurry

Platform character update optimisations

Incorrect water clipping fixed

Electric power on 3rd rail with no pantograph

Gantry tool offers height offset

HW instancing turned off in PS2.0

Changing the time of day in the scenario editor will not permanently turn off day/night type lights in the current tile

Scenery decals are incorrectly lit in TSX

Seasonal lighting up times

Invisible decals

AA issues with precipitation fixed

Day/Night lights additional fix for randomly being in wrong state

Fix for point light / spot light / water changes not saving when only

properties in the fly out are modified

Fix for hex colour parsing / display

TrainBumpSpecMask shader was ignoring specular mask fixing a loose end with Career Mode cheating

Smoothness improvements in scenery streaming

[batling]

Crumplezone

You're either guessing, which is less than helpful when it comes to informing an "eager" membership here, or you know for certain, in which case you're in breach of an NDA.

Either way, please let's just lose the attitude and await the upgrade, then we'll see what we end up with. If you have any valid criticisms then, well that would be the time to post about them.

Ash

I don't want to take this thread off topic so I'll just make this point:

Since when was freedom of speech revoked?? I've seen other posts on this thread just as sceptical or hesitant as this and no slaps are dished out. This is crumplezones opinion, I was under the impression all were valid.

[ashgray]

Valid if adding positively to the thread and helpful.

Ash