Frankfurt S-bahn Discussion

I bought the route on PS5 today for 10€ less because of those PlayStation Stars where you can earn discounts. And as long as the traffic is reduced I wouldn´t recommend to buy it on consoles for the full price. Frankfurt HBF and Wiesbaden HBF are basically empty which absolutely kills the immersion. At least I was able to spawn an ICE 3 in free roam and drove to Flughafen.

I really hope they can figure it out on consoles because the route is amazing with all the layers.

 

Don’t agree. The visuals in train sim world are not that advanced. For that usage expect better graphics, events and much better weather and modelling.

Look around at the trackside assets. With a few exceptions, cars and buildings are basic and reused, trees also. Other lineside assets are reused over and over like static vehicles, cranes and diggers for example. It’s only the train and stations that are usually custom crafted.

Weather is just a few custom presets, it’s not that dynamic.

Motor traffic has basic pathing, passengers have basic pathing and are clones. Some parts of city and villages are unfinished beyond a quarter of a mile.

It’s just not a very optimised game and hasn’t been for years and they’ve built on it, bloating the game to such an extent that everything is creaking.

Look at London commuter. It’s years old and has plenty of ai traffic. Why has the sim gone backwards?

 

It also uses far fewer different types of train, with far fewer different individual vehicles, and it has a much simpler track and signal layout.

 

you mean the route where rush hour passengers were never enabled because of memory issues on consoles, had tons of crashes on launch... And don't forget that London Victoria is also one of TSW worst performing stations.

And that's before TODv4 which brought lot of more graphical load, and general increase in track clutter that is present in later routes.

It is dynamic. You can run on any day, at any time, in any condition, you are also not limited by the presets, as you can use the sliders to do any combination you like. And with tools like God mod you can also change it on the fly to your liking.
The lighting changes drastically with season, time of day, cloudiness and precipitation. The same place in winter will have totally different feel than in summer.
Yes, it can be overblown, but the TSW lightning engine is actually quite advanced (it is UE4 after all). Seiously, the way that i.e. clouds can interact with low sun is quite complex (they actually cast shadow), but quite costly. You have reflection, and quite and a lot of objects are shadow casting. Stuff like volumetric fog also aren't free.

When you couple this with a complex scene, like in busy stations, you end up with performance issues.

Also let keep in mind that the reason why consoles have reduced timetable is not performance itself, but rather lack of memory.

 

This is simply, absolutely, totally not true.
I had a 5800X before and my 4070Ti Super was at 40% usage with 20-30 FPS
I went to 9800X3D and I get 50-60 FPS now with GPU at 99%

So unless you have a top end X3D CPU and a mid GPU, the station is indeed CPU limited.
CPU and GPU limitation are abstract terms, if you have a rubbish GPU then everywhere you go would be GPU limited. I'm simply talking in context of that person with 4090 getting 50FPS, I'm able to get more with 4070Ti Super with 9800X3D

Also, your theory about AI traffic does not stand scrutiny, are you able to explain why the game stutters every time you are passing AI trains?

 

Mate, you are already on a top tier best of the best CPU. If you don't have something like a 5080 then of course you will be GPU bound! I'm talking about stuff like non-X3D and Intel. Bottlenecking is relative and it seems like you got something like a 4070 as GPU.

X3D enables people to push about 60 FPS with a decent GPU. Something like 5800X without X3D they won't even get 25 FPS with a 4090

 

No it’s because the software is unoptimised.

Are you saying tsw is more advanced than some of the triple a gaming we see on consoles?

get out of it!

 

I disagee with the math used to figure out that we should get 40% off seems wrong to me.

Route building, creating scenarios surely take up more resources, time a money than the timetable part.

I agree it is a big part of each route so I'll say 40% of making a route dlc. Then you would have to subtract 40% of 40% which is 24% and lets just round that up to the nearest 5%.

So yes we should get a discount but of 25% and not 40%.

Also I'd like to know as well as with the above post why wasn't this a big deal when 8th gen got reduced stuff with no discount, seems like the same people who said then just upgrade to gen 9 are the ones now complaining its happening to them when PC users say then just upgrade.

How ironic.

 

Because 8th Gen is twelve years old. 9 th gen is current. If you can’t ascertain the difference, I’m not sure I can help you. Should games still be being made for ps3 and Xbox 360? Of course not, it’s more resources, more limitations, more tech debt etc

I don’t expect however for modern day machines like XS and Ps5/pro to be struggling to run this game.

TSW is another victim of the mentality that ok will just do. Let’s release unfinished and maybe try and get fixes in later. It’s become common in gaming the last couple of years, it happens across multiple industries. It should not be acceptable and I shouldn’t have to have a super computer to expect it to run at a base level.

 

9th gen is still using a chip from 2019; that's not "current" in technological terms. I think a few console users need to realise what architecture their chips have.

 

Linked it just few posts below
https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/frankfurt-s-bahn-discussion.89729/page-9#post-1000822

 

SONY designed and manufactured the hardware this way. It's probably powerful enough. Proof is that this processor is also found in the PRO version.

 

That does not excuse dtg. Lots of pcs are running hardware from that time too.

Please go and play some other modern games on console and tell me that there’s no way TSW should be struggling with its offering. It’s not cutting edge in any way.

The only reason games struggle is because studios chase dollars rather than you know, actually make their game work properly.

Matt said they are working on it but let’s be fair he will have small resource to do this because they will still be working on other stuff to keep the cash rolling in whether it’s other dlcs or tsw6.

 

You know there is more nuance to the discussion right? Yes, DTG should do more on optimization and general core state. But reducing memory footprint by reducing timetable and static AI assets IS optimization. They cannot do much on reducing the complexity of Franfurt railyard, can they?

Yes, there are core areas where there could be gains without sacrifising route scope, but lets not pretend that what DTG tries to do with TSW is something trivial and something common in other games. As an example, DTG cannot use the 'bubble' approach which is generally used in open world games where only small portion of the game world is actually 'simulated' and you have big control on the scope of the simulation and its memory footprints... like, spawning only few distinct car models.

DTG cannot use these tools, when timetable dictates that 8 distint locomotives set, with separate, detaily modeled wagons, has to be put into the game world, they cannot just replace them all with a BR 422 set, can they? This cost precious memory.

Also the whole rail network needs to be kept in memory, because you need to simulate where each and every train is on the map, because of dispatching and signalling, which also needs to be done always for the whole route. Open world games generally do not need to simulate what's happening on the other side of the map.

And the map is generally larger than even the biggest open world games have (RDR2 map i.e. is some 80 square KM). This also isn't free memory wise. They also don't have years to do work on the map, painstakingly profiling and modelling each nook and cranny to reduce memory footprint.

Yes, there are AAA titles that achieved astonishing things in the current gen consoles, like the latest Filght Simulator on Xbox. But more often then not we're talking about titles with virtually unlimited budget, with the ability to attract the best people in the field, having close cooperation with Sony and MS on optimizing their in-house engine to the nuances of each particual platform. But even after all this, there are big visual differences between PC and console versions. And for me it is kinda given that a small studio with limited budget will just not be able to achieve parity with that...

DTG isn't alone in this, i.e ACC has much reduced field size on consoles when compared to PC version.

 

SCS manage to maintain decent frame rates in their truck sims. The “world” might be scaled down but the distance from Missouri across to LA or Seattle is getting on for, if not over 100 real miles. In addition the game is having to keep track of 100’s of other road vehicles in the player bubble including have them drive (reasonably) intelligently so they seek out their destination and don’t collide with each other or the player. Now admittedly you probably haven’t got so many complex physics calculations going on with the player truck and there’s no signalling AI (other than traffic lights at intersections) to interlock, but still…

 

100's of other road vehicles? Common, I own both truck sims and you really exaggerate how many AI traffic there actually is...

And they don't really have a destination, thay spawn at the edge of the buble and at each junction they randomly choose what path they will follow, and when they reach the edge of the bubble they despawn, never to be seen again.

Semaphores in driving games are a simple assets that periodically block paths on a single junction, they do not exists outside of the bubble and are not simulated outside of the bubble. State of one semaphore does not affect another semaphore.

Even in games like Bus sims, where you roughly track the position of other busses on the map, you don't need to simulate how they interact with each and every junction, because it doesn't matter in road traffic. You just spawn them in once they are in vicinity, because traffic can share the same piece of road.

In train sim it is different. You cannot just 'spawn' a train in randomly in rail network, because train access to piece of track is (generally) exclusive, so the state of player signal is dependant on what is happening outside a potential player bubble. And as train singalling is a complex network of rules and states that works with with dispatching to get trains from point A to B (and not just a periodically switching switch), you need to keep it all in memory if you want to simulate it all.

This is also what drivers the size timetables, becuase if you can spawn into the world every 5 mintues on foot, then timetable needs to keep a snapshot of the train network every five minutes + the snapshot for every playable service start.

And once again, the reduced timetable is there mainly because of memory issues, and tbh, I'm not really sure how ETS/ATS is on the memory front, because it is PC only title, on those memory is not really issue.

 

It also looks significantly better while being significantly older and doesn't hammer every single component in the PC.

 

My thoughts exactly! I know it’s a different game and as the essay above your post puts forward doing things differently, it still shows up the state TSW has been allowed to get into with only now the Frankfurt S-Bahn being something of a wake up call.

 

In my opinion, I think many Gen 9 console players are super frustrated because we've reached the point where we can go no further whether we like it or not - I'm not interested in ever becoming a PC player, firstly because it would mean having to start from scratch literally (both financially and progress-wise), plus I enjoy sitting on the couch in front of a widescreen TV with a controller instead of a tiny PC monitor and keyboard/mouse etc. As someone who was a Gen 8 player on TSW for many years, while it was frustrating to have reduced timetables back then, I accepted that. But, it was London Commuter that was the reason I wanted to save and upgrade to Gen 9 eventually, so, at least we had a choice to upgrade if we wanted. But, returning to Frankfurt S-Bahn, there's no choice other than PC currently for the full experience, which is not viable for me at least.

Well, in my opinion, they could off by not having this route at all (well, at least while the core remains as it). It was DTG's choice to have such a mammoth route for TSW 5 and the current core right now (plus the fact there's now an over-saturation of Frankfurt region content in TSW anyway...), so the outcome regarding performance with Frankfurt S-Bahn is of no major surprise considering console players' already ongoing and well-known frustrations with Frankfurt-Fulda. I understand PC players' perspective, but the whole idea of TSW is that it's meant to be a game for both PC and console - otherwise why isn't there already a standalone PC version of TSW? The idea of reduced timetables for every console player is worrying and rather unfair and whether this is rare thing or new trend, time will tell. There's so many more interesting and busy routes which could have been much better potentially and at least given console players on Gen 9 at least more chance of a fuller timetable.

 

Good point really. Unless this was an older project sat on someone’s hard drive it must have been green lighted since TSW5 emerged, with the already apparent performance issues. Not saying TSW should be reduced to doing single track branch lines with a train every three hours, but you need to cut the cloth, as it were.

 

We will have to agree to disagree there, because for me TSW looks much better, with more dense and complex scenery. One thing going for ETS/ATS is that it doesn't have the horrendous UE4 long distance bluriness.

 

We did the same and upgraded from PS4 as wanted the full timetable/ layers etc. It is a concern for the future if this will happen again on future routes.

 

I dont mind slightly reduced timetable if it stop the crashes. But it dont I've already had two crashes so far on this route. On xbox x.

 

TSW5 and Frankfurt - Fulda Release was the final straw for me to play and " enjoy " new TSW content on my Xbox Series X.
Luckily, its a play anywhere title and i can play everything on PC without have to rebuy everything.
As plus I can finally use mods that enchance the experience even further, or fixing things that otherwise wont be fixed.

On Playstation however you don't have the option without wasting your money again for content you already bought .
So absolutely understand any frustration, overall its the same price tag and less frequent sales.

 

Thank you, Vern. Of course, sensible route selection should be the utmost priority, whether from a performance perspective, reasonable busyness and variation i.e. there needs to be more German diesel content like Maintalbahn etc. Anyway, there's still a lot of things which just doesn't make much sense overall. Even forgetting all the factors regarding performance etc, why have Frankfurt S-Bahn so soon when TSW 5 already has Frankfurt-Fulda and Ludwigsbahn (basically just down the road from Frankfurt) - what happened to the LAMPOIL process etc...

Super frustrating. It should all come down to correct and sensible route choices (alongside continued optimisation, obviously) rather than having mammoth routes which are going to struggle for the majority. What's the point of a reduced timetable if it still causes issue, surely then it's down to route choice itself that's not so intense regardless of whether the player has a full or reduced timetable.

 

What I'd be interested to know is why such "unnecessary track changes" were installed at the exits in Mainz (north and south). Especially towards the Roman Theater, for example, you change to the right track before the tunnel and back to the left before the Roman Theater. The right track is used for trips towards Rüsselsheim/Frankfurt, and the left is used for trips towards Worms/Mannheim. Often, the ICE/IC trains depart at the same time, but that doesn't allow for simulation. In general, more such track changes are noticeable along the route.

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Was mich mal interssieren würde, warum man bei den Ausfahrten in Mainz (Nord und Süd) solche "unnötigen Gleiswechsel" verbaut hat. Insbesondere Richtung Römisches Theater, wechselt man z. Bsp. vor den Tunnel auf das rechte Gleis und vorm römischen Theater wieder aufs linke. Das rechte, dient für Fahrten Richtung Rüsselsheim/Frankfurt und das linke dient für Fahrten Richtung Worms/Mannheim. Oft mals fahren die ICE/IC zur gleichen Zeit ab, so kann man das Spiel aber nicht simulieren.

Allgemein fallen mehr solche Gleiswechsel über das die Strecke so auf.

 

Another question: Did they forget to place the umbrellas? I've already checked several stations and only found one so far.

Eine weitere Frage: Wurden die Regenschirme vergessen zu platzieren? Ich hab jetzt schon einige Bahnhöfe abgegrast und bisher nur einen einzigen gefunden?

 

The map is larger but less dense and has far less detail. The detail is in the trains and track and nearside assets.

Are you saying that it takes more power to run a train sim going up and down a few tracks than a created virtual world with npcs programmed to do jobs and interact with the player, wildlife moving about, vehicles, dynamic weather systems, random events, rivers, seasons and detail from camping to buying individual items and a survival system on top of gorgeous visuals?

 

What does that mean though?

Right now it seems to mean a continuation of the shortish straight line electric bus stop routes that have been the DTG diet since Rush Hour. Simpler routes that fit into consoles and don't stress older PC hardware.

But when will we get the longer routes, the networks that players have been clamoring for in the last couple of years? When the core is fixed, when the game is " optimized "? That could be years away if ever with the current game engine.

I actually applaud this effort by DTG to take a risk, to stretch the game into a more complex network with more paths, more trains.

Of course I sympathize with console players and owners of older PC hardware who cannot experience this route in its fullness.

But, as I said, the alternative to Frankfurt S Bahn is more of Goblin, Glossop and Mildmay. And who wants that?

Unfortunately, with console players being the majority, I guess that is what we are going to get. The understandable reaction from gen 9 players means that DTG is unlikely to follow SBahn with similar efforts.

As a business, DTG, like Willie Sutton, has to go where the money is. I get that. But it will be disappointing, all the same.

 

One for the German signalling experts:

There's a few instances across the route where I get a Hp2 signal with no Zs3 - this means 40km/h, right? However, the junction/route the signals are protecting (mostly) seem to be 60km/h. Should I still be doing 40km/h across these sections, or are there instances where a Hp2 signal can mean 60km/h with no Zs3?

 

You can't compare the 2 ATS is strictly PC the issue with the reduced timetable is on console only.

Perhaps they are not making it on console because it won't run..

Fernbus runs great and looks great on PC but its terrible on console.

And MSFS 2024 still doen't run on console without constant stutters.

So even with other companies they are having issues between consoles and PC.

This is not unique to DTG. And is the reason I fear we will never get Simrail on console as its too memory intensive.

And because I only play on console I know how frustrating it is.

 

I'll purchase this route today. It's actually a birthday gift from the missus. I don't buy a lot of German stuff, but this may be the most advanced and intricate route from DTG for the foreseeable future. I'll be interested to see how it plays on my now fairly mid- range machine.

 

Since Matt said that this route is an order of magnitude more complex than anything they've done before, I'm inclined to think of it as an experiment more than a trend. I'm sure the telemetry from both the reduced and full versions will be incredibly valuable.

 

FWIW, using a PC doesn't preclude using either a TV or a controller. My TV is my monitor, and I do use a controller for a few Steam games, which they make easy to set up.

 

Yeah played TSW on XBOX for years.. Now I play it on PC with all my DLC, carried over progress on same controler and on my OLED TV, so im missing out nothing compared in terms or lazy / relaxed couch gaming.
Its just an HDMI cable you need to connect.

 

Xbox PC playing?

 

Yeah, TSW is a "Play Anywere" Game. You can either play it on your Xbox console or on PC if you buy it over the microsoft store.

 

BML on the other side has much more timetable services than Frankfurt Commuter.

 

You find it really disappointing, that a company is concentrating on the interests of the majority of the customers? What different way they should go, if there business should be not unsuccessful.

 

Hp 2 says "40 km/h, unless otherwise specified", this can be specified through Zs 3, but also through a signal note in the driver's timetable

 

I returned the PC version to Steam now and will wait for further development and patches, especially in regards to some issues like eg missing entry point Stadion via Louisa to Hauptbahnhof/Südbahnhof which I consider important for both "S-Bahn Frankfurt" and "Kinzigtalbahn" for the sake of reality (which exists with layed tracks and environments nearly complete) amongst others like wrong decals, buildings and lastly the S1 stretch which should've been done separately and more detailed especially in the Hochheim area.

I feel sorry, as I really looked forward for patches. This is the first time I returned a route and hopefully will be the last time alike.

Kind regards.

 

Ah, DTG has mastered the art of levitation it seems. This chap was on the platform between tracks 12 and 13.

 

Leviosa! not leviosa... (sorry couldn't resist).

Despite the very odd DTG passengers (and very oddly dressed I might add, at least to a foreigner lol), I'm enjoying the route so far. The odd microstutter is a bit annoying, but that may well be down to my PC combined with running the full-service (all layers) version. There looks a ton of stuff to do and should keep me well occupied through the summer. Route looks quite nice!

 

Totally normal behavior at Frankfurt Main Station

 

I disagree with you. The main thing for a simulation is authenticity. And that is missing for the console version almost completely with the big empty train stations.

So the relative price for content is much higher for console players.

And if DTG can't offer the same experience, why should console players pay for the stuff they developed for the better content exclusive for PC players.

The difference between the situation with Gen 8 some time ago is, that there was an alternative for console players to upgrade to Gen9.

We don't have this opportunity to upgrade for years.

 

docsnyder1911, just remember this is only for Play Stations, the X-Box version can be played on a pc via Microsoft Game Pass.

 

Not if you don’t have a pc and only an xbox

 

Ah, that's amazing, thanks for clarifying!

Could I ask if you'll be putting together your fantastic buchfahrpläne for this route?