I had become quite excited about the release of TSW6 and especially the Riveria Line. I had planned to get the free starter pack and immediately buy both the Riviera route and the Voyager DLC. Having been a user of TSW since 2019 I have witnessed first hand the inevitably disastrous and chaotic launch of the latest "new" versions so I have followed the online streams closely. I have had a chequered history in my interactions with DTG/TSW and actually abandoned the franchise for a couple of years over their repulsive yearly paid update marketing con and general dissatisfaction with the poor performance of the game. The last few months have been a high point for me with DTG now continuing the free starter pack brought in with TSW5 and very noticeable improvements in performance and reduction of the dreaded immersion shattering stutters that ruins TSW's reputation. So here I am now having watched the 4 hour official DTG preview of TSW6 Riviera line and I feel bitterly disappointed. The route seems as beautiful and picturesque as in real life but the performance is embarrassingly poor with constant stutters and ugly scenery pop-ups. These glaring shortcomings were completely ignored by the DTG employees apart from a couple of mentions that were casually brushed aside so that they could continue their over excited commentary, sounding at times like heavily caffeinated Blue Peter presenters as they gushed away desperately trying to squeeze every last molecule of positivity from the event. I was NOT impressed and will not fall for the usual excuses about lagging on stream. I watch enough streams of OTHER games that are silky smooth just like the products they feature. How comes only DTG products create streams showing a poorly performing game? My personal experience of owning TSW is that the performance problems are real and a direct result of shortcomings in the way it is coded. TSW6/Riviera streams from other people (including the irritating ever joyous Ambassadors) also show the unacceptable stuttering and nasty pop ups. It is clear that this route needs extensive further optimisation work before it reaches the minimum standard for me to hand over money for it. In the last few weeks I have bought Assetto Corsa Competizione and several DLCs plus the original Assetto Corsa and have been blown away by the realism and sheer quality of these titles. I have also bought a submarine sim called Uboat which is also absolutely superb. I don"t mind paying for quality products but with TSW it is not a case of once bitten, twice shy but more several times bitten, forever wary and very dubious... I cannot hide my disappointment because I am mostly contented with the performance of TSW5 and was so looking forward to 6 and especially the wonderful Riviera route but feel the previews show another sub standard release that should be considered as a step backwards and not worth spending any money on till the required improvements are made.
All of this moaning could have been a question: 'Hi guys, is there a way to change the shadow pop ups?' and we would have helped or at least tried our best. But its seems you are looking for validation over an opinion you made several years ago instead?
The OP is quite right & I wholeheartedly agree with his statement. I gave up watching the Riviera stream after about 20 minutes. I can understand DTG’s excitement but to gloss over concerns people have is indefensible. Time after time DTG proclaim to ‘hear’ the communities concerns but nothing ever comes along to address them. It’s getting boring now DTG!
Have run a few runs on the Riviera line - I can say I haven't been plauged with any stutters - Contray to the OP, I always view the performance on a stream with a grain of salt. While I did notice some LOD pop-ins on my first runs - it wasn't overly distracting and I am sure as I tweek the ini files that problem will soon be a problem in the past. Of course that is why I use a PC so I can adjust such things. Best
I've said a 1000 times the live streams do more harm than good- you could even see many of the worst issues weren't reflected in the on-screen fps counter- they were when he Alt-tabbed to adjust streaming settings etc. But people watch a short clip and it looks like garbage. It's gotta hurt sales to some degree. I've had some stutters while shaders cache for sure (why can't we precompile???), but overall it's performed better than TSW5 for me. I still don't have EVERY layer installed yet as i'm downloading one region at a time, so that could change. Your mileage may vary so if it's a huge concern wait for the free starter edition and see how your legacy content performs before spending anything.
They mentioned in the live stream that the stutters were apparently due to the streaming software - apparently Alex investigated it
I've no idea what the stream showed as I've no time to watch stuff like that but I'm playing Riveria now with everything turned up to ultra with no stutters whatsoever (on my gaming laptop I was advised here to never consider buying and I would regret etc etc)
Stuttering will always be a problem, even on high end systems. It has to do with how tiles are streamed in and out as you move through the route. At any given time, only a certain number of tiles within the vicinity of the player are loaded. As you move away from tiles, they're dynamically unloaded while others you get closer to are loaded. It'd be nice if there were more optimizations to this such that tiles get queued up/loaded in the background without causing stutters or hitches. Having faster CPU/storage/memory helps as well as tweaking your engine.ini settings. Stuttering also reduces as the shader cache gets rebuilt. When you run the route for the first time OR when you install new graphics drivers, the shader cache has to be rebuilt which results in more stuttering until it's complete. Hope this helps.
I know how to suppress shadow pop ups by running without direct sun light using an overcast weather setting. The fact that I need to do this is more proof that TSW is not well coded as I have no other software that needs me to limit the weather settings to make the graphics rendition seem acceptable. It is actually the amateurish looking scenery pop up that I find most grating. Is that a question? I have 24 TSW routes and over a dozen loco add-ons too. I also own TSW2020, TSW2, TSW4 and TSW5. Perhaps that may enlighten you about me actually liking the game but I am not so close minded as to accept it as being anywhere near as good or polished as it could and should be. I am not looking for any validation from you or anyone else but as a long term user who has spent a fair amount of money on this game I am fully entitled to voice my opinion. I always intended to do that. Certainly as it stands I will not spend £43 for the Riviera route and the Voyager. Perhaps when it is offered in a sale at a hefty discount I may get it but there are so many other titles out there that so fully deliver that it makes TSW increasingly less attractive. The stutters during the stream were absolutely appalling and tragically counter productive. It was like having an aircraft manufacturer attempting to sell a shiny new fighter jet to customers at a prestigious air show only to have it wreck itself on landing when the undercarriage collapses! Sadly I have now witnessed both of these personally. Thankfully no one was harmed in the air wreck though I feel DTG's reputation suffered serious injury during this terrible flagship launch event. As for Alex investigating, I fear he may need the help of Columbo to solve this one. "Wasn't too bad" is not good enough and never will be whilst "awful" is just completely unacceptable.
Or you could tweak your engine.ini file. Or you could use the brilliant .ini setup by Jetwash. Pop-in is only a problem for those who let it be.
my first runs where awful but then i noticed i was running it in dx11 switched to dx12 and major improvement
I asked Matt on the DTG Discord about additional graphics settings on PC that push out pop-in and shadow distances. He said that an Epic graphics setting was something on his list to look into adding to the game. I don't use ini edits or DX12, TSW6 has been running a smooth 60fps for me on Riviera. Honestly, haven't noticed too many drops or stutters in comparison to TSW5. I am running on a 4090 at 4K Ultra, no mods installed at present.
I’m on a 4090 as well. You’re missing out, massively. I’m not going over well trodden ground, but I would say that with the recent improvements DTG have made the game runs the best it ever has.
I agree live streams cannot be very representative performance wise, because often Matt uses a completely fresh install, which suffers from the shadow cache issue a lot. I played TSW6 a lot last few days and performance looks OK to me. If you play a route for the first time there may be long lags at some point, but it improves. You cannot judge from playing once.
I play on PS5 and the performance is fine, but I have learnt to get used to the occasional stutter. The shadow ‘pop’ is something I feel could be addressed, the same way the track shadow issue was. So hopefully we’ll see that get some attention.
I tend to agree. So many little bugs could have been fixed (like the wrong route shown when finishing a run, or more save slots) but instead programmer time was given over to the ghastly UI changes, announcements and TSR’s/faults the latter two of which seem flakey at best.
Yes, the new routes may be better than those that came with TSW5 last fall, but the core game is about the same. The new " features " don't seem to be working that well and, truthfully, they're rather gimmicky and it seems that many players will probably toggle them off. TSW 5.1/2 is about right. And you're right. Once again the current iteration and its bugs and shortcomings have been simply swept under a rug, without anything being fixed or even addressed, a tradition that started with the transition from TSW2 to 3.
I can't argue with that. Plays the same, HUD is almost the same, even the menu backgrounds and UI are largely the same. I don't have a problem with the latter - I despise "change for changes sake" - but the overall similarity is a bit shameless! That said, I'm warming to the new music. Big fan of the TSW4 and TSW5 music, and hopefully I will grow to love 6 too!
Really? You are just repeating the standard blurb from DTG that they push out regularly to excuse their apparent inability to tackle the issue. Towards the end of the TSW5 life cycle, time and resources were allocated to improve performance and the difference was obvious and very welcome despite happening years too late. Have you played some of the stunning huge open world games like GTA5, RDR2 Asassins Creed or Ghost Recon? They are massively more complex than TSW, managing dozens or even hundreds of vehicles and NPCs and extremely detailed scenery with complete freedom of movement and they run stunningly smooth with zero stuttering. At this point you will no doubt tell me that DTG cannot be compared with the likes of Rockstar games or Ubisoft and whilst that maybe true they do expect us to cumulatively pay out MORE money for their products despite it being inferior in performance. Not on a PS5 and again it can be argued that it is DTG who should ensure the product works properly when sold rather than relying on the ingenuity of others to create bolt on remedies for their failings Stuttering is a problem for everyone and still continues to be because so many customers allow DTG to get away with it and often valiantly defend their failures because of some inexplicable fanatical loyalty. Unhappily so have I and the improvements made with TSW5 did make things more tolerable. The problem I have now is that the OFFICIAL DTG launch stream has shown a serious deterioration in the stuttering. Whether that was due to "streaming software" or actual coding shortcomings, the result is the same. My level of trust with DTG is fragile and tenuous at best and that is entirely their fault. If DTG are apparently so incompetent that they cannot even put out a flagship product internet launch stream without screwing it up then why should I trust the product they are trying to sell?
Respectfully, I don't feel like I'm missing out. I use a small selection of mods that suit me, LondonMidland's signal mod being my personal favourite. That's the whole point of mods, isn't it? To cater your experience to personal tastes if you want to. Do appreciate the time and effort you guys put into creating these options for us though
I’ll have to have a think, but ultimately it depends upon what you want to achieve. The lighting alone is performance neutral, so you could take all of that. From there it depends on what your aim is? Less pop-in, sharper shadows, smoother gameplay etc
I’d be surprised if you tried my lighting & graphic quality mod and then went back to the default game, particularly with a 4090.
For me without Jetwash’s lighting mod the game is pointless. The mod brings so much to the party. Eagerly waiting the next iteration for TSW6!
Yeah I agree, I can vouch for how good the mod is as well. What's the point of having a 4090 if you arent going to at least try and run every game with the best graphics, lighting ect.
Agreed. I'm running a 4070 Ti Super, with the mod's Ultra settings. Could not go back to the default game now, the difference is clear to me.
Huge? Not really. Game designers have a whole toolbox of tricks to make a pocket-sized world appear "huge", but it's an illusion. The entire map of GTA V is only 5 miles across.
The map of GTA5 is 29.28 square miles. Every inch of that can be explored with details going down to individual rocks and clumps of grass. You may travel freely anywhere in a massive collection of vehicles (including boats, cars and aircraft) covering huge distances in constantly changing scenery without even a hint of a stutter. All this in a world that is rich in variety and populated with life like realistically behaving animals and NPCs that don't look like expressionless horror film zombies clunking around clumsily. TSW on the other hand only has up close detailed scenery for a very small area either side of the tracks. Further out the details can be as sparse as required to give a sense of depth and distance. Unfortunately in the several years since TSW started nobody at DTG has found the magical tool that does away with annoying stuttering and choppy framerates, unlike the devs at Rockstar games
The issue is Unreal Engine, every Unreal game has some form of traversal stutter. Its not a good fit at all for a train simulator where you will be covering large distances quickly. To be honest UE is not a good engine at all and its sad to see devs like CDProjekt ditch their own engines that don't have those issues and switch to UE. Silent Hill F which is on UE5 has horrid stutter every time it has to load new assets, which is pretty much whenever you turn a corner and that's a brand new game which is made by a much bigger studio than DTG.
Running TSW6 on pc. Have tried several routes. I have almost ALL DLC loaded onto my SSD drive and have not noticed any issues whatsoever. My glass is half full and glad I took the leap. Respectfully
