I've got a few quid of PS5 credit coming my way, and am keen to get a TSW route or two. On my wishlist, I have: Medway WCML Trent Valley Crewe to Preston Manchester Airport Thames Branches I'm not asking about the gameplay - in all cases, the gameplay looks great, and absolutely right up my street. But for PS5 users that have bought any or all these routes: what's the experience like? What's the performance like? What's the texture situation like? If there's stuff taken away for console, does it appear missing? Is it worth waiting until these are addressed, or the route is on sale? Which of these would you say is best, and worse, from this perspective?
Medway, WCML Trent Valley (bad at the first run, run of loading shaders) and Thames Branches are all 10/10 in terms of perfomance and texture after the 1st run. On the other hand, Manchester Airport is a fun and short route however perfomance wise is actually the worst on the list for me, especially near Manchester Piccadily and LongSight Depot. Not that I'm aware no, there's nothing taken away from console. Imo, these are all solid route depends on type of route, pace and trains you like to drive. All this perspetives are from playing on the PS5 Pro.
Medway is the tip of the spear when it comes to detail and it runs really well on PS5 with no blurry textures. Thames Valley I've also had no performance issues or blurry textures with but it's a tiny route so that makes sense. These two run the best for me. I get blurry textures on WCML TV too. MAC is mostly fine just a little short for my tastes. Crewe Preston is very good but it's a real performance hog I'm afraid and I have gotten bad FPS and textures. If I had to pick one it would be Medway
Medway & MAC would be my picks. Medway is just a really solid route overall & has practically no visible issues, really good fun in the class 465. MAC is short & whilst it’s not what I’d call poor performing, it does have a couple of areas where the FPS is inconsistent. I will say that if you don’t have all the layers for it, it’s probably not worth it. Between the two, it comes down to your preference on rural vs urban settings. Then of course if you have the layers or not for MAC. As for the others I don’t own them, going off the feedback for the WCML picks they’re just more of the usual poor performing console routes. FYI your first run will be the same as the 100th run performance wise. Unfortunately DTG has incorrectly assumed shader caching works the same on PC & console, which it doesn’t - an error which people seem to be parroting.
On Medway and Thames Valley I have no issues whatsoever. On MAC it's slightly less smooth, especially in busy areas, but still very much on par. Crewe-Preston shows blurry textures. I don't own Trent Valley (yet).
Thanks, I have been away on holiday for the past few weeks and haven't tried since the update. I'll give that a shot!
Trent Valley is an excellent route. The 350/4 is such a welcome upgrade. But its a shame the others didn't receive thos same updates, makes it hard to return to them. I'm still to get Medway Valley Line and possibly TVB but Crewe to Preston won't be added to my collection unless its on a serious serious discount. MAC is good, but the lack of Crewe makes the services always cut short which is disappointing.
On PS5 I can thoroughly recommend Medway and Trent Valley. Both are impressive really well built routes with beautiful detailed scenery and they run very smoothly. Both have varied services and interesting layers. Trent Valley leans more towards long-distance sustained high speed runs whilst Medway is more of a relaxed pace in a picturesque Kent setting. Currently avoid Crewe to Preston as even with reduced timetable and all layers turned off the performance is poor with lagging, frame freezes and stuttering ruining the immersion. There is talk of patches to address this and a small one was released today but better see the feedback for improvements so you don't end up like me feeling you have wasted £30.
I have not really noticed them but this is a mostly high speed route where stuff flashes by pretty quickly. I really like it but as in everything in life that is down to personal taste.
