Amazing Game really enjoying the visuals and Game play. Never thought I could get to Japan for £16 virtually speaking. Have combined my love of train sims with my passion for all things Blender 3D and Video FX compositing. More experiments exploring how characters might look and story mode ideas with cut scenes etc. Flying Plane window idea. The People are from Procedural Crowds from Diffuse Studios and the 2nd Character in image is from Human Generator. The last image is a test walking Animation.
Dude, the issue is that you keep going into much deeper topics than what the issues with TSW actually are. And it's LOVE like this: When they can't get even basic material properties right. This is not a technical limitation. This is not a know-how limitation. This is not a performance concern. This is a full team of devs ignoring the fact that a single material property is set incorrectly. Something that could be fixed in a matter of minutes. Or how the boxcars in Clinchfield Railroad cause framerate drops because some badly set up animation or something along the lines. They even suspect the probably clause, because they used to mention it back in the day in a live stream. Probably another 15 minute job, yet never fixed through the years. And this is just two examples. And TSW is filled to the brim with LOVE like this, causing ugly visuals and bad performance. And these are easy quick fixes you would normally assign to an intern. Everything else like raytracing, virtual shadow mapping, etc are just extra. These are also important and areas where DTG is lacking, but these technologies or the UE4 vs UE5 differences are not the issue with TSW.
Just popping in to say, I love the game. More depth with the sim side of things than I anticipated (wheel slip, penalty brakes, etc.) and I love how smoothly it runs. Finally, a train game without stuttering and frame drops. I know it's far from a "true simulation" in a technical sense, but I really couldn't care less. The feel is there. Ironically, it all comes together to make it more immersive for me than an actual full-on simulator. And the game isn't even finished yet. Provided the game performance stays up to par with more feature additions, I will follow this developer wherever they go in the train game space.
I do like how Running Train also handles custom paints for each train, where its just as simple as dropping a texture file into the correct folder.
0.9.2b Hotfix Added Optional selection for UI stop overlay (OFF, 2D, 2D+3D) Fixed new 3D UI stop overlay now correctly respects "Stop Marker Overlay" in the settings Fixed credit menu crash/stuck with gamepad Fixed main menu readibility issue cause by new 0.9.2 update Fixed jagged Speedometer UI Fixed train refusing to move when applying notch 1-2 in the very first station Fixed abnormal rapid deceleration/lack of acceleration on curves over 100 km/h. Fixed missplaced tile at Iwaminato Fixed missplaced rail and collision issue near Nagara Fixed flipped station signage at Nagara.
The only issue I have with the system is that there's a fixed amount of custom liveries that can be in the game at once. I reckon it's easy to fix, bjt at the moment it means you need to swap the reskins you have installed if you have a lot of them you want to use. It feels like there's a new patch for this game coming out every day. A very nice change from DTG!
After playing Running Train for the last few days I am physically unable to play TSW. And no I am not joking. The terrible lighting and other visual issues like the ugly distant haze and the super ugly distant trees as well as the stuttering (which is not constant but happens) is causing me to rage quit and go back to the better looking and 100% smooth running game with far better immersion. I hope DTG is finally getting their act together (doubtful) and release a MAJOR update with TSW 7. Otherwise...well TSW2Prototype 4ever.
why do you think its that far from a real sim (and I would not call TSW a real sim for the most part either)? It may take some shortcuts but the end result is convincing and the game is still in EA and will be improved further most likely. We already got more patches from the solo dev then we get from DTG in many months. Expert locos for TSW might have more depth in the sense of failures and physics simulation but the question is always do you really want 100 different failures simulated, is the pure driving that much more convincing and is it worth that much money expecially considering all the bugs that are in every TSW product even Expert locos.
That's literally a problem with like 25% of all UE games (Not including the shovelware) where they leave a bunch of stuff set to the engine defaults.
I'm not trying to discredit RT at all, so don't misunderstand the phrasing there. I just assume as a layperson, and from the threads here, that a lot of things aren't being simulated to the level of other "simulator games" on the market (not just TSW, but Sim Rail and the like). I was expecting a more arcade-like experience in RT so I was pleasantly surprised at the inclusion of things like wheel slip, different weight behavior based on the consist (2-car vs. 4-car), etc. I have no idea what's actually being simulated vs. what is being "faked" in RT and it doesn't really matter to me. The game feels great. As to your other point about failure simulation and the like, yes I personally would enjoy that. I'm not exactly a fan of the state of TSW so you're preaching to the choir when it comes to cost and bugs, just check my recent posts.
There's the thing, all levels of simulation from basically none to speak of, to deeply in depth realism are "Faked". It's just a question of to what degree and if it's close enough for a given person's tastes.
Despite the fact that, the sounds in this game are not very good. There are 2 examples that DTG should pay attention to: 1. The sound of a thump when departing. In reality, I've heard this sound on every train I've been on. TSW have nothing like this. 2. Flanking sound. This is the sound of a real train, not the constantly stuttering, suddenly disappearing and reappearing LOVE like in TSW.
Now I need to hop on an 80x unit in TSW as a passenger and wait around for departure to check for the cla-clunk noise of the doors a few seconds after it starts moving.
This game is so well optimised I'd like to see a Mac version. I have an M4 MacBook Pro and I reckon it would play pretty well on it. And it would look amazing on its screen as well.
Just Discovered you can set free Practice and then Tab Menu and Switch to Free Mode then you can change the points. View attachment 214391
Was a lot of fun till an AI Train followed me into the platform .. then it took off!! May be over Fictional Tokyo by now!!
I bought this game and I'm exploring it. I've been playing TSC for 8 years. I found it spectacular and very promising. These past few days I've been reading, researching, and I've come to my opinion: What the developer did was PLAN how the game would be, create clear plans and follow this line: What is important to have a fluid, beautiful, and LIGHT game? Before developing a game, you need to create a meticulous plan, rehearse, reflect, and execute that plan, correcting problems along the way, as long as you use the right tools to offer a product that results in the highest satisfaction for players/customers. Profits become the INEVITABLE CONSEQUENCE. I don't know if I was clear, but this is what every company should do, whether in games or any sector of commerce, services, etc. Not to mention that all this was done by ONE SINGLE PERSON. This proves a few things: DTG, with around 200 employees and years of experience in the sector, failed to deliver what it should have in offering its product. It has its departments and hierarchies, like any other company, and they failed (bugs, resource-intensive gameplay, etc.). I think that, in 2026, certain things cannot be tolerated in the gaming world in general. If the developer who produced Running Train manages to attract good partners to expand the range of routes in the game, MAINTAIN and MODERNIZE this architectural technique over time, I'm sorry to say, staunch defenders of TSC and TSW, it will surpass other train simulators in a short time.
It won't for me. Too little variety and fictional and because it's a single person developing it, I'll be bored before it's out of early access. It's brilliant, I'm enjoying it. But it's different to TSC and TSW and for me doesn't even begin to compete with it. Seems a lot here are only interested in pretty graphics which is fine if that's important to you. I'm interested in realism and variety and after the initial wow factor has worn off, I'll be back to playing TSC.
Having a great time playing this hudless, you really have to be on your toes with the grades and speed changes. The physics feel really nice in this, even if supposedly implemented basically. I really like how the developer implemented the distant scenery, the trees on hill sides look amazing from the cab but on closer inspection they are low res. Dont care about this, as long as it looks good from the driving perspective. I think a lot of tsw routes suffer from not great distant/field scenery, that could definitely be improved i feel. Overall, having a great time with this sim, the scoring system is actually quite addictive....didn't think I be bothered about this aspect tbh! If this is the first offering from the dev, well, cant wait for the next.
For real. Current plans for v1.0 are like end of 2027 if I believe. And that's not accounting for the future DLCs containing the currently "locked" routes. Though I wouldn't be surprised if after v1.0 he switches to making an actual real route instead of adding the branch lines to this one. But who knows.
Just to preface this, I think Running Train is really cool and I'm very impressed by what they've achieved with a tightly focused vision for this game. However, if you dig a little deeper you can see how they've achieved this, and why it would be difficult to scale things up. Some observations I've made... The rain and snow effects are really cool, and feel very immersive. UE5's Lumen real-time lighting is a huge upgrade and contributes the most to the game's realistic look. Real-time reflections powered by Lumen, look very good, although a little hazy. The game has had 4 years to get to this point, plus however long it took to learn the tools. 24 miles is very short compared to most TSW routes, so the whole map can be loaded into memory. Because of this there is no asset streaming, loading stutter is side-stepped. If they want a longer route they will need to enable asset streaming which is likely to cause stutter. There are fewer unique assets like POIs or regional Hubs. There's doesn't appear to be any custom code written for the game. Everything has been made in UE5 blueprints, which limits you to very basic vehicle physics. There is little interaction beyond the basic driving mechanics (no cab interactions) No NPCs (On roadmap, but yet to see how good the implementation is or it's impact on performance.) Cars only spawn on the roads next to the track Cars only travel in a straight line then stop or de-spawn. They are not animated to turn corners. The area is surrounded by mountains so less distance detail is required than a flatter region with further line of sight. Distant trees are very simplified. The game is optimised to look good from the cab, as there is no on foot option. If you use the free camera you can quickly find low quality assets and textures just outside of this perspective. Track and junctions are simplified leading to gaps, overlapping and alignment issues. Limited AI traffic. I hope it's clear I think these are smart choices that have enabled the dev to create to a very focused albeit limited game. However, it would be difficult to take this design and apply it on the scale of TSW. That being said there is plenty to learn from what they've achieved here. Junction Detail: Platform Comparison: Track-side Detail Comparison:
Please, don't. TSW have many many poorly made areas right next to the tracks. Maybe near the stations it's still more or less ok(on most of the routes), but in between... like Burbank on Antelope Valley. Sorry, I don't have a route installed right now, but maybe someone could take a screenshot of this "masterfully crafted" place, where there's a bare ground texture, over which levitate road textures, over which levitate cars. It is still yellow under the rain, meanwhile in TSW - "50 shades of grey"
Judging by the fact that even TSG's top representative was quick to try to belittle Running Train, a subtle hint of envy might be inferred. Or something else entirely...
Just having a go at demystify some of the speculation around of the game. No conspiracy theories All games intentionally reduce detail in low visibility areas. It is not a criticism, just a tool for managing performance. Colours appear less saturated in rain due to overcast lighting which reduces the amount of light and makes it more diffuse.
The fact remains that UE4 is an obsolete graphics engine and is no longer updated by Epic. I hope DTG don't think we'll have to wait years to build a more modern train simulator. And I'm not talking about transforming TSW into something else. I'm talking about something new.
Glad someone else caught that. Seeing that person's numerous posts in *both* threads about this game really surprised me. Not sure if it's a culture thing or what but I found the tone to be really unprofessional. Won't be buying anything from TSG in the future.
One other thing I'll add, there are more reasons for stuttering/hanging/hitching in TSW than just texture streaming. Can't count how many times I've had the game hang just from advancing objectives when I'm at a standstill (i.e. before the "close doors" objective appears, or after decoupling prior to service). No one actually cares about the reasons behind it, they care about what they see and experience. Right now, Running Train is a better experience for a lot of people. If that ever changes (i.e. with the addition of longer routes, or passengers), people might have a bone to pick at. Until then, we will enjoy the buttery smoothness. I don't care that the route is fictional, I don't care about on-foot "gameplay", and I don't care about simplified physics when the "real" physics in TSW can cause trains to pop off the tracks for no reason whatsoever.
8 hours of gameplay and I'm done with early access. If this is supposed to be competition it still has a while to go I don't see much replayablity in this game I probably won't touch it again until more is added. Looks great though.
I would love to add a couple of screenshots from the Maintalbahn to show the beautifully designed buildings. /s
Many poorly executed details, even 50 meters away from a given route, are what DTG put on sale. There are countless flaws. I found this justification of trees and other more distant objects parallel to the railway line (citing the Running Train) that you are operating unjustifiable. I don't know about the rest of the players, but I'm not going to pause the game, roll around the world five blocks away from the train, knock on a door and ask for a cup of tea. Personally, in 2026 I can no longer tolerate buying an expensive product full of bugs (there are plenty of examples, what I've seen lately was the disastrous launch of the BR Class 90 Electric Freight Loco), excessive stuttering, and seeing trees transforming when you approach them. You've been carrying these flaws since TSC. It's been a while, don't you think?! DTG, with around 200 employees, should take a closer look at the Running Train and start a deep self-criticism of the quality of the product (expensive, by the way) delivered to people. If you're not concerned about this and Running Train evolves to other routes and builds good partnerships, it might be too late. In 2026 things change very quickly, overnight. These are the usual justifications you give for not changing anything and delivering terrible products to consumers.
Maik's posting history on the forum is very hit-and-miss, so I don't think it's worth taking what he says at face value. He makes good DLCs but his communication on here leaves a bit to be desired. I'm not much better, to be fair.
The physics in Running Train are indeed simplified, but very promising. This game was born very well. Detail: This walking feature in TSW was, for me, a waste of time, energy, and game resources. It's simply dispensable. If they think this is very good for the game, now I'm scared.
Where are you reading that into it? Both Maik and Chris simply matter of factly explained for folks less familiar with the ins and outs of game development than themselves how each game accomplishes the particular things they respectively focus upon, and why TSW and RT are not an apples to apples comparison, as the particular corners each cuts to accomplish its results might result in a poorer product if applied to the other. They're not saying anything that's not true. Both games use tricks and cut corners. TSW probably even moreso than RT, since it is juggling so many more things that obviously performance suffers, I'd frankly say to an unacceptable degree, and I wish they'd stuck with keeping certain things closer to TSW2 when the performance was on average far smoother. But I am pretty sure TSW would get far more flak than it already does, however deservedly, if it pulled the same tricks RT does to run as smoothly as it does. There's nothing to be "jealous" of. It's not even trying to be the same thing. Yes, UE5 has some handy tools which automatically handle a bunch of the workload that needs to be painstakingly manually done in UE4, and deliver things like more realistic lighting and much smoother lod transitions, and UE4 will never be able to do those. But those alone do not make for a better end experience, and frankly I'd expect the more cynical folks here to be pouring more cold water on the idea that just having less work in that one department would lead to a better product that has more work put into everything else from DTG.
As always, and as it should be, everyone interprets things their own way. You hold on to your interpretation, while I'll hold on to mine. Have a good day.
Matt's comment: Hi Paul, Thought i'd jump in with some corrections First up - just want to say i'm super impressed with Running Train and absolutely have been asking the team to review it and challenge ourselves to learn from it. However - you've made some erroneous assumptions so let me correct them. The TL;DR here is - basically everything that makes RunningTrain look and feel better than TSW is specifically because of UE5, let me expand on that simple statement though. Stuttering - The UE4 maps don't like being this huge, all positions are recorded in terms of their offset from the world origin - but you can only get about 2km from the origin in any direction before you hit a limit. TSW uses something called World Origin Rebasing, this moves the origin dynamically as you go. Unfortunately this is an expensive operation computationally, and requires the world to just hang on a moment - hence, stutter. These are the stutters left over after you get rid of shader compilation etc etc. UE5 has done away with all that, with an entirely new and much improved way of creating large worlds that works without the need for any of this. So I would not expect hitching in UE5. It offers lots of other benefits too, it's a much much better system than the one in UE4 (which to be fair, was ahead of its time when it was developed also). Shadows - In UE4 we have developed our own little "trick" to push the shadows on tracks out to the distance (but only works on "simple" track like straights and curves), and we use Distance Field Shadows to get a more efficient approach on other simple objects - though this feature doesn't support Splines, which means lots of assets like walls, roads etc don't benefit. It's a great improvement however. After that, it's all about dynamic shadows, and those are super expensive to calculate, so those are the ones closer to the player. In UE5 you have Lumen. It can much more efficiently give the same effect as a fully baked level without the need to do so and while remaining dynamic. Side Note: You do NOT want to be asking for static baking as that means you only get one time of day per bake, and an end to dynamic time of day. Pop in - In UE4 we build and place assets based on their distance from the railway already, we define three "zones" - "touchable", "near" and "far". Touchable covers anything the player can specifically walk up to, Near covers anything the player can see from the boundary of the touchable area and far is anything out to the distance. The idea being that all the high detail loveliness is in the touchable, and the low detail stuff that definitely shouldn't be seen up close is out in the far distance. You should see the assets I believe named according to their usage in the editor too, and we will sometimes make specific touchable/near/far versions of an asset (if its needed) rather than using the touchable one out to the distance. If you load one of our levels in the public editor, you'll see these lolipops above each asset of scenery - green is a touchable asset, yellow is a near and red is a far. We did this to help make sure artists were using the right assets in each place, but it also demonstrates this in action. Beyond that, we use LODding, which is a dynamic system for raising and lowering the complexity depending on proximity to the player. I will certainly concede there are some issues with the way some of the assets have been "lodded" however part of the problem there is the need for this to be semi automated due to the volume of them - and that's what leads you to wonky windows. The choice of how to LOD is also manual, and what that asset looks like at each level. In an ideal world, lodding would be set up such that you never actually see it happen, with the lod switching to a higher detail version a moment before you can see that it has done so - however the flipside of this is that if you have an asset with say 6 lods on it (not uncommon) - that's like saying every asset takes 6 times the resources in memory etc. Ok not quite, because each one is smaller than the one before - but - more lods means more graphics memory being used. In some routes, you'll see flat "billboard" trees or cruciform (+ shape) out in the far far distance - which normally is fine, but sometimes some unfortunate lighting happening can mean they shine/reflect like a flat billboard and not like a tree, but it does mean you can see it happening. In UE5 you have Nanite. Nanite is basically automatic high quality lodding. You won't see it happen because it lowers or increases mesh complexity in subtle ways constantly which means that you shouldn't ever actually see it happening. You don't have the multiple assets for each lod either, just the highest fidelity asset. So that clarity you're seeing down the track, and no lod popping - that's all nanite, it's all still happening, it's just instead of having a small number of lods to pick from, it's got infinite "slidability". The ballast doing wonky things is a slightly different problem entirely. Basically there was an aspiration when the track was set up to have the ballast also be on top of the sleeper in some cases (as per reality) - but - the way the renderer handles this, those numbers get rounded up and down and suddenly things that were just under the ballast are all now over it etc and it looks like the ballast is moving. I am going to get the team to just abandon that idea and drop all ballast below the sleepers, which should resolve the problem. Bottom line - all those positives you're seeing in RunningTrain are fundamentally because of the foundations on UE5 and the improvements it brings (and of course, very good execution of them from the RunningTrain developers). I guess the next question is - well, if it's confirmed that TSW could look like RunningTrain if you just upgraded to UE5 - what the heck is taking so long, make it happen now!! You don't get the benefit of the stuttering improvement if you don't rebuild all the routes in the new world system - meaning no routes can be ported. You don't get the benefit of the lodding if you don't rebuild all the assets for Nanite - so scenery or trains can be ported. You don't get the benefit of Lumen unless you rebuild all your lighting (and restructure the locos0 - so no trains can be ported. Now - I should clarify "portability" is a variable scale. Obviously with infinite time and infinite people, anything can be done. But - what im trying to say is, it'd involve basically rebuilding all the content to use those features. I have huge huge respect for RunningTrain and love what it's brought to Train Simulation, but I did want to correct some of your comments in the video. Cheers! Matt.
Ultimately, Tsw 7 will be released in three months, identical to its predecessors (there's nothing beyond this standard). Get your money ready, please.
Ive been thinking a lot about how these two games handle their physics, and whether “more complex simulation” actually results in a better driving experience. Chris mentioned that RT only uses fairly basic physics. But is that really a bad thing? I might be completely wrong here, but when I am actually driving a train in both games, I do not feel a meaningful difference in how the vehicles behave. TSW simulates a lot of systems - which obviously costs performance - yet the driving experience itself doesn’t feel more realistic. It’s funny how DTG keeps highlighting features that Running Train supposedly “does not have”, yet those same features in TSW are often poorly implemented, half‑working, or simply not worth the performance they eat up. On paper, TSW has the more advanced systems: Passengers, dispatching, physics layers, complex train logic, but in practice many of these systems either behave incorrectly, cause stutters, or add nothing meaningful to the actual driving experience. Passengers? Yay, they often do not board at all, so I can drive an entire ICE service with every coach completely empty. NPCs casually walk across the tracks as if safety rules do not exist. Walking around is great in theory, but it also exposes how rough and inconsistent the game actually is. Building proportions are off (doors are noticeably too small), you are lucky not to fall through the map if you try to reach a collectible or see how assets were simply slapped together without any real cohesion. At that point, the “exploration” aspect does more harm than good. Honestly, a cab‑only experience would feel more polished than pretending the world holds up under close inspection. Which trees are "better"? Decide for yourself. Trackside "details". So while DTG likes to "brag" about having the “bigger feature list”, the reality is that a feature only matters if it’s done well. And that’s exactly where TSW keeps falling short.
The ox calling the donkey horned: The most famous proverb, used when one person reproaches another for a defect that he himself possesses to a greater extent.
They are, but look incredibly realistic to me (from afar), something hopefully DTG can introduce. The near trees/foliage is also a step up in RT, TSW could really do with an upgrade of foliage, getting bored of seeing the same old trees.
No worries. These were my last posts here and all over. All information about TSG (the real TSG) products will come from DTG marketing as usual though. I will never try to explain anything to the community again to get people the better idea how things really work so they could understand why things are like they are. No one is interested in that it seems. I learned that the hard way over the past 15 years now. All i got back is the hint (more a kick in the a** every time) that a developer is not allowed to have a opinion. Especially not over content from others. Fine, accepted.
0.9.3 Update Note: Back up your custom textures before updating. QOL & Adjustment: -GEFORCE NOW Opt-in -Added remaining distance bar to the speed limit UI -Adjusted sunset/sunrise times based on the selected season -Adjusted Diagram 711A timetable -Adjusted Diagram 1816A timetable -Adjusted interior emissive lighting -Improved departure signal behaviour. it will no longer automatically activate until the dispatcher sets the route -Adjusted buffer crash damping physics -Adjusted signal positions at some locations -Fukugawa line max speed is now locked at 80km/h for all available trains Train: -Updated engine logic for the DC85 series -Adjusted max speed for all trains -Slightly adjusted brake physics for all trains UGC: -UGC Folder name changes: "KC1000" -> "KR5000" "DC8500" -> "DC85" -Destination indicator curtains are now open for editing Bugfixes: -Fixed some typos and misspelling -Fixed speed limit UI not showing the upcoming speed limit -Fixed Nagara down home signal malfunction that caused Ltd. Express trains to rear-end stopped trains -Fixed 3D marker randomly becoming visible even when toggled off -Fixed DGOC-44U not registering the release state when using the HR1100 series -Fixed issue where some game objects displayed real-life branding -Fixed infinity speed glitch Scoring Bugfix and Adjustment: -Fixed scoring bug where the game registered passing scores for the next stop while still at the previous station -Hopefully fixed the evaluation screen animation randomly getting stuck -Fixed Hardmode HP not registering -Rank system is now determined using the average from all category, instead of score/max score -Adjusted scoring equation -Fixed percentage display errors on the evaluation screen -Adjusted difficulty multipliers: -Wet surfaces: +0.15 -Hidden UI: +0.15 -No Speedometer: +0.45 -Hardmode: +0.65 0.9.3b -Small fix: Evaluation bar not showing score correctly
I find your posts providing me with useful information and a nice insight in the technical side. I always appreciate them, even when I do not always agree with them.
