Raildriver & ICE3

[michaelth]

Last week, I have sent the following support ticket to Railsimulator support:

Dear Support team,
thank you for the fantastic ICE3. To make this train even more enjoyable, please add Raildriver support.


This is the answer (received today):

I am afraid that you have it backward, it is not for us to ensure that third party products work with our software, it is the responsibility of the maker of any third party products to ensure that their product is compatible with the game, especially if they make claims on their website that their products are indeed compatible. To date we have received no approach from Raildriver to this end. Regards Rail Simulator Support


I am aware that Raildriver (P.I. Engineering) is responsible for their product compatibility. However, since their Raildriver controller works fine with other locos but does not work with the new ICE3, there must be some new control logic in the ICE3. We had a similar problem with Just Trains Advanced Voyager. Just Trains was able to fix it with last weeks Voyager SP1. It would be good customer support if Railsimulator could do the same...

What do you think?

Michael

[OrpheusRocker]

Was that a squadron of pigs flying past?!

[FoggyMorning]

I think you would probably be best served by addressing your email to the manufacturers of the Raildriver controller

[OrpheusRocker]

I'm not 100% sure of my facts here so I'll tread carefully.

I think the authors and therefore owners of the 'Raildriver.dll' file are RSC.
That file hasn't been updated in ages. Using the dll, RailDriver used to work with almost all locos.
More and more developers are now scripting their controls and circumventing the dll inputs.
Most developers are now addressing this shortfall with one exception.

This is the elephant in the room.
Instead of supporting enhanced simulation immersion and the designed-for-purpose input controller, the choice has been made to plump for gamepad support.
Useful for playing Donkey Kong but not really for a product with the word simulation in its name.

<Conspiracy Theory ON> That is, unless the next release isn't planned to be a simulation.<Conspiracy Theory OFF>

BTW, I just checked and PIE's website does not claim support for 'Railworks 3 (Train Simulator 2012').

Andy

[transadelaide]

I'm not 100% sure of my facts here so I'll tread carefully.

I think the authors and therefore owners of the 'Raildriver.dll' file are RSC.

Has to be wrong, I can't see them messing around creating hardware plugins for a product that is supposed to be supported by the vendors. It's probably just published on behalf of PIE.

That file hasn't been updated in ages. Using the dll, RailDriver used to work with almost all locos.
More and more developers are now scripting their controls and circumventing the dll inputs.
Most developers are now addressing this shortfall with one exception.

It's worth pointing out that this group of "most developers" you refer to who are making complicated controls which work with RailDriver basically boils down to only Just Trains, a business which is a reseller of the RailDriver and therefore has a financial interest in its success. Interested parties acting in their own interests, no surprise there.

This is the elephant in the room.
Instead of supporting enhanced simulation immersion and the designed-for-purpose input controller ...

There has to be far more than just a choice of what to support or whether the next update will replace everything with death matches between flamethrower-equipped Black 5's and missile-launching HSTs.

RS.com have a long history of not doing the hard work so other companies can swan in and make a quick buck from it. Judging by the negligible evidence of PIE putting in any hard work (for example, the freeware community doing a better job than them) to make their product work for RW, that would be a logical move for RS.com until PIE show some more interest in adding value to their own product.

<Conspiracy Theory ON> That is, unless the next release isn't planned to be a simulation.<Conspiracy Theory OFF>

Interesting, could be a good topic to discuss on Thursday when I have lunch with Harold Holt, Elvis Presley and Lord Lucan.

BTW, I just checked and PIE's website does not claim support for 'Railworks 3 (Train Simulator 2012').

So they update their website as often as they update their drivers, big deal. Lets at least hope the underwear change cycle is a little more regular than that

[gptech]

<Devils advocacy>

I think the authors and therefore owners of the 'Raildriver.dll' file are RSC.

Most certainly the publishers, but there's every chance that the .dll file was supplied by PIE

BTW, I just checked and PIE's website does not claim support for 'Railworks 3 (Train Simulator 2012').

The response from RSC didn't say they did:

it is the responsibility of the maker of any third party products to ensure that their product is compatible .........especially if they make claims on their website that their products are indeed compatible

</Devils advocacy>

I can see both sides of the argument, and can agree with both , but RSC will produce assets/add ons as they see fit, just as any other provider will. It's feasible that in making a new model that behaves as they want it to that support for Raildriver isn't included because it would break that behaviour. The response from RSC was certainly badly written, as if it was rushed out at the end of the day, and some would say quite terse and even condescending, but it could be argued that the original question to RSC was rather brief too.
Unfortunately as RSC don't/won't/can't provide support for a Raildriver, and PIE apparantly don't claim compatability with TS2012 you could end up with both parties 'blaming' each other---of course this remains to be seen, so drop PIE a mail and see how they react.

EDIT:...I was beaten to it by an Aussie, good job they couldn't do that at the Olympics


(will I regret typing that after the next Ashes series??)

[transadelaide]

EDIT:...I was beaten to it by an Aussie, good job they couldn't do that at the Olympics


(will I regret typing that after the next Ashes series??)

Ah yes, the home ground Olympics where Britain did better than usual (as is customary for the hosts) at everything except ruling the waves!

You will regret that at some point, mainly for your nation giving the world the "gift" of One Direction, I'd love to see someone like Kevin Pietersen take a cricket ball to the face (or the groin) as recompense for that.

[gptech]

Of course we gave the world 'One Direction'---we don't want 'em

We're moving too much off topic now though, but has the lack of progress in RD support (regardless of whoever is dragging their feet) helped to bring about the introduction of the gamepad as an alternative input device?
Going back to OrpheusRocker's post;

Instead of supporting enhanced simulation immersion and the designed-for-purpose input controller

wasn't the RailDriver designed for the purpose of controlling trains in MSTS?
Maybe the inclusion of Raildriver.dll is a throwback to Railsimulator, when Kuju first worked on the code base and possibly saw RD as the controller of choice--after all, they developed MSTS.

[Kariban]

Usually the issue is using the built in virtual controls in the script, and force-writing the core controls every script loop. Easily fixed to let RD drive the core controls by cacheing the virtual control value every loop, and only updating the core if it's changed or if you want a higher priority than RD,. The ICE has AFB? it's probably that.

Note that doing it that way completely bypasses all the fancy scripting anyway... hopefully you RD guys can make it pretend to be a joypad when RW4 arrives which will solve a lot of this. Otherwise I'm not losing any hair if my fancy scripting disables RD.

[OrpheusRocker]

I said I wasn't sure of my facts.
One thing is for sure,
<Holds pin in teeth, pulls pin from grenade, throws... 2... 3... 4...>
It doesn't do us users any good if two highly marriagable and niche products continue in a mexican standoff
(I was going to say ******* contest but thought better of it)
<Ducks... Calls for reinforcements>
Anyway, Gamescom might yield pleasant surprises, who knows

[gptech]

It doesn't do us users any good if two highly marriagable and niche products continue in a mexican standoff

Certainly not, particularly when we get gamepad support I imagine a few would, after a month or so, wonder if there was anything more realistic....seems a perfect marketing opportunity for PIE.

EDIT: hang on....by "two highly marriagable and niche products continue in a mexican standoff" you did mean Railworks and RailDriver, and not transadelaide and myself??

[FoggyMorning]

Isn't it possible that support for peripherals such as gamepads will also allow for improved compatibility with other types of controllers, such as raildrivers - underneath the stylised casing aren't they essentially the same thing; or at least do they not function on the same principles?

[gptech]

I'd go along with that theory Steve, it was touched upon in one of the other threads about the upcoming new features.

[mojo12012]

There is a lot of discussion going on in another forum where people are testing a beta Raildriver software update for PI. Early reports look promising, but no release date set yet.