No Xbox One, Ps4 For Tsw7

It will probably be disappointing for those still on older consoles, but not really a surprise.
Also, Dovetail Direct on August 25th should reveal TSW7's existence officially.

Source: TSW Discord.

 

In an announcement this morning, Gen8 consoles have been officially dropped.

finally, took them long enough

 

oops, we posted at the same time

 

Rip old gen, i still remember the time on it until tsw5

 

AT LAST!!! this should’ve happened 2/3 years ago, but better late than never. it was inevitable that tsw6 was gen 8s last dance, but given they’ve only had access to dumbed down versions of the core routes, and a handful of dlc, they really ought to have gone sooner

 

Hopefully this means we can have a little more focus on getting this game running well on consoles now and getting rid of the blurring

 

I fail to see how this benefits any of us. I know many people have been advocating from dropping Gen8 support, as that's supposedly holding the game back. However, as a PC player myself, with a decent spec that's already struggling with stutters in TSW (the only game that stutters), I've always been thankful for any optimizations DTG were forced to make in order to make their game playable on Gen8 consoles.

I fear that now with Gen8 support dropping, DTG feels less need for optimization, and newer content gets even more demanding on my system (which again, runs any other game just fine and struggles with TSW only).

I just fail to see how this benefits any of us.

 

i’d argue it benefits gen 8 users most; the tsw6 core routes were slimmed down to accommodate them which isn’t fair given they paid the same price

 

They’ve released what, less than 5 gen8 DLC’s for TSW6? I doubt gen8 is even considered for most content that’s released. I’d be amazed if this leads to any player facing benefit.

At best gen8 players don’t get misled into buying the core route package, going forward.

 

Trust me, current gen still requires all of the optimisation efforts it can get, so I wouldn't worry.

 

Why communicate this before August 25th?

 

Probably so PS4 and XB1 users don't go into the direct expecting something just to end up disappointed

 

August 25th is a promotional event and they don’t want gen 8 players watching all the trailers and stuff thinking it’s coming for them only to be let down at the end when it says it is for PC and gen 9 only. You don’t put your disappointing news in your adverts if you can help it.

 

But to be fair… If you seriously still hoped for Gen8 support in the new TSW7 version, you were really living under a rock.

 

I, on the other hand, thought that a "Direct" was specifically meant to communicate revolutionary decisions.
Now, thinking that people are rushing to buy a PS5 (because ofDTG) seems a bit optimistic to me...

 

Probably good news, as far as it goes…

But as someone with an older PC, albeit now with a slightly more contemporary graphics card, at what point do they raise the minimum PC specs beyond what many people are running? We have already seen MS recognise the current difficulties in the hardware market, where it’s likely to cost upwards of £1500 to get even a half decent gaming PC, by extending Windows 10 support another year for those on older rigs that can’t take Windows 11.

It’s also not the customers’ fault that DTG can’t optimise or code TSW to save their lives therefore artificially pushing the hardware spec higher which even then still suffers from the jitters and sound squelches.

 

This is one of the things that one would expect from the "Direct", otherwise I don't see what innovations could be defined as "epochal".

 

My personal guess would be that a Tadami release ahead of TSW7 is being unblocked with such a move… No idea if this is really the case, of course.

 

DTG is lucky there isn't enough competion in the rail simming market. Especially if you like a variety of content.

Lately I've been back to playing Euro Truck Simulator 2, and I immediately notice it doesn't stutter. I can drive from the northern point of Norway all the way to Turkey, a multi-hour drive without loading screens, and not once does it stutter. Yet DTG states stuttering is the cause of UE4, an engine they chose because no game engine was able to deal with driving long distances. Oh DTG... ETS2 has been doing stutter-free long distance driving on huge maps long before TSW was even a thing...

If only SCS were to make a train simulation game. I'd instantly switch.

 

Just want to add to what others have already said.

I believe it was in a preview stream for TSW6 where Matt P. said they have to put in a quite large amount of work into making a new version and all its content Gen8 compatible, so now they should have more time and recources for Gen9.

Dropping Gen8 should also benefit the entire QA process for future titles and its core routes.

 

Absolutely! I think you’re making a very good point here. It’s not a punishment it’s a blessing that Gen8 is being phased out. (Annoying for someone who owns a Gen8, sure, but we need to move forward.)

 

It won't change anything since Gen 8 isn't supported by the current DLC so the DLC hasn't been optimized for them for a while now.

 

You’re looking at it very one dimensionally. Even with your disc comparison you’ve completely looked over the fact that Sony going digital lands its users in a very different consumer environment than PC digital.

TSW has always had an issue with new features, bigger projects & generally ‘more’ being dependent on having raw power, rather than being optimised & implemented in an economic manner.

 

Ok so dropping Gen8 makes some development resources available. However, there's no guarantee DTG is using those freed up resources to anything that benefits us. They could instead just fire some staff to cut costs, instead of improving the product. It's not like DTG has a reputation of prioritizing QA.

 

The other thought is that if TSW can’t run on 50% of the hardware it was originally intended to, it’s time to draw a line under the title and release something new where there can be no misunderstanding about the minimum requirements. That could still be the intent at Direct, of course, with current DLC still in development becoming legacy content for TSW6. But it’s a bit disingenuous to keep rebranding the same product year after year and stealthily move the hardware goalposts.

The post above about ETS2 makes an excellent point. SCS have managed to innovate and improve their core game without massive changes to the hardware requirements. And even though it is a cut down world, the distances are still huge and in most places looks as good as, if not better than TSW.

 

There would've still been a whole team dedicated to making things work on gen 8 even if DLC hasn't been released on it recently. They still have that whole version of the game released on those platforms and have had to support it despite the lack of DLC. So by dropping gen 8 support that is two less versions of the game they need to work on and keep supporting, freeing up time and resources for the PC and Gen 9. Because this game really does need optimisation and performance work more than any new features!

Whether DTG will do that is another matter entirely.

 

Maybe they took the opportunity to get rid of them (the Team, I mean)...

 

Fair point! But let’s be clear: console players have always been able to play their games very cheaply, and that era is now over. What you’re seeing now is the real price they’ve actually been paying all along and the console crowd has essentially been financially benefiting from the situation for years. Now that boomerang is swinging back and hitting them in the face. The prices of consoles were simply too low compared to what game developers had to deliver. So, to summarize: console gamers have basically been extremely lucky for a very long time. That’s over now, and people are being brought back down to earth, seeing what gaming truly costs.

Separate from the DTG discussion, of course that’s a different story. There were plenty of red flags showing that this day would eventually come.

 

They're already steathily move the hardware goalposts. It's the only explanation I have on why older routes run quite smooth with only the occasional stutter, but newer routes suffer from stuttering a whole lot worse. Hardware requirements have gone up, and quite a lot too, as I've bought a new PC which is supposed to be a notable upgrade from my previous one, yet recent TSW routes perform worse. And I've heard reports of people with even better machines still suffering from stuttering.

 

I'm surprised XBox One/PS4 support lasted as long as it did. I remember TSW2 being unplayable on my XBox One due to constant crashes and memory demands. I'm sure they'll be blaming the bugs etc on Series S going forward as they're already holding layers back from it for performance reasons.

 

I see what you mean and you're right.

I don't know how DTG works, but when I look at DLCs compatible with Gen 8 on TSW 6, they are all DLC locomotives (and not all DLC locomotives of game, just a little). So I think the workload is less than optimizing a route. Of course, I'm not saying that abandoning Gen 8 is bad (or even good); for me, it's just something that should have been said and done a long time ago. Anyway, I think the Gen 8 players already knew that and weren't playing the game anymore for the new routes.

Afterwards, I also don't think we'll see a significant and big improvement in optimization following this abandonment. DTG is already working on it, and moreover, as I said, Gen 8 was already "abandoned" due to the limited number of compatible DLCs + the nature of the DLCs, it was just unofficial.

 

TSW 6 was at most half a last dance. Other than the base routes, none of the route DLC's were gen 8 compatible. And only a handful of loco DLC's.

 

This should have happened with TSW5, So was disappointed and frustrated to see it rolled out for TSW6.

I do have sympathy for those on Gen8 as it's no different from the PC Master Race telling us Console players to "just buy a PC."

But I hope this does help free up any limitations developers had in making DLCs or trying to sort patches.

 

The flip side to that is it might make things worst. Freed from any consideration for lower spec hardware, the route builders will try cramming even more in!

 

I hope not gen9 cant handle some of the stuff already.

 

I’m curious as to what limitations people think gen8 currently apply? The last 12 months has seen most routes release excluding gen8, so any limitations are already gone & many issues we’ve always had are still there, with some new ones to boot.

As for time spent testing, again most routes haven’t released on gen8, so we’re not going to see any difference there.

More gen9 focused optimisation? Maybe, if there’s some sort of completely different pathway to do it, but with gen8 we saw optimisation was simply cutting layers.

The only reality with this decision I can actually see is they save development time on the core bundle, because there’s very little gen8 development throughout the 12 month lifecycle. This part is quite ironic as Riviera Line was one of the best releases DTG had done for a while, whilst several gen9/PC exclusive routes are just awful.

 

Main difference I see from fewer platforms is probably freeing up QA resources.

 

I wonder if this has any correlation to the Tadami Line being delayed?

 

No! The decision to drop Gen8 was made long before the Tadami Line even had a release date. This was actually already happening last year you could also see it in the Dovetail Direct, where they mentioned they were considering ending support but decided to keep it for a bit longer because there was still a fairly large group on Gen8.

 

Comparing these two titles really doesn't make any sense.

• The TSW map is a 1:1 map. So driving one Km in TSW is like driving 1 Km in real life. ETS is scaled down. Or do you need 35 hours to drive from Oslo to Istanbul?
• TSW tries to simulate a real engine as close as possible (see expert DLCs) via Simugraph. ETS doesn't have such a complex simulation.
• In ETS you drive on roads. Implementing the physics of driving a train on tracks is infintely more complex.
• TSW needs to simulate a signaling system, sometimes even multiple at the same time. ETS does non of that.
• TSW has real AI trains, driving on real times. TSW sometimes has hundreds of timetable services. ETS doesn't need any of that.
• TSW has very complex train interiors, not only the cab, but also passenger rooms. ETS has none of that. Just to mention a few differences.

I'm not saying that this excuses stuttering/bad performance in TSW. Or blurry textures. Not at all. DTG should absolutely fix that.

I'm just saying that comparing these 2 games with each other doesn't make a lot of sense from a technical pov.

 

That´s what it used to cost to get a decent gaming PC in the past. I have been looking into getting a new one. It´s more like 2500 upwards these days. But considering the amount of time I spend on my PC, it´s still value for money, even if the price has gone up like crazy.

 

It's not a good point because they're entirely different games and ETS is far below TSW levels in graphics and features. ETS is FUN don't get me wrong, but the level of "authenticity" that's demanded regularly by the forum for TSW is far and away light years ahead of that expected for ETS. You don't have "realistic physics" or even internals to most of the AI traffic. Just empty frames "driving" around sort of doing the "hovering car" thing that people say they "hate" in TSW.

ETS is held to an entirely different standard. No walking avatar, no ability to "drive anything you come across", no extensive maps you can go very far off the roadway, no advanced physics and sound, etc. If you let TSW build to the low ETS standards then sure it'd run great too.

You can't realistically demand a much higher standard and then complain about the cost or hardware requirements to support that higher standard. That's just silly.
I for one would be fine with a dumbed-down ETS-quality train game for a much lower price than TSW. It'd be a fun option... but pretending they are comparable currently is just laughable.

 

ETS uses a bespoke in-house engine to deliver a very slimmed down experience in a false-scale map. TSW uses an off the shelf one to deliver high complexity of simulation at 1:1.

Apples, oranges.

 

Was "back in the day" when you were making half as much? Making it about the same number of hours of work to buy one?

While anything with a processor and graphics cards is a bit more expensive because of all the focus on AI, datacenters and "bitcoing mining", it's not as insane as people say it is given the huge amounts of government-caused inflation from debt spending. If you want to blame someone, governments printing endless money to inflate the money is your primary reason "things are so expensive."

As for the Gen 8 decision, it was just inevitable. Most of the pushback is simply people demanding more performance but not wanting to pay for it. DTG could release crappier routes at the TSW 4 and before level without the latest features and with less traffic, etc. Those would run reasonably well on the Gen 8s... but you wouldn't accept a "Gen 8" level route for Gen 8s, you'd DEMAND the most modern, latest features route. So they just make that not an option to stop the complaining.

"Well this highway says you can go 100 mph.... but my Model T only goes 50mph... what the hell is wrong with your road! Make my old car go faster!"

 

I just hope that maybe now we can get some form of dynamic pathing.

 

It is time to cut off gen 8… as others have mentioned, QA itself for the annual release certifying the hundreds of DLCs being brought forward for the new version of the game must be extremely onerous; plus ensuring the core remains stable across these platforms when any updates are made. Most (?) mainline multi format games are now moving on from support for PS4 / Xbox One, so TSW should be no different.

 

Oslo-Istanbul is a multi-hour drive. Scale is irrelevant. Even when reducing distances 20 times (which is the map scale of ETS2), TSW stutters with routes that take less than an hour to drive.

If that realistic simulation costs too much performance strain, then DTG bit off more than they can chew.

They could've gone for a more simpler physic simulation (like TSC has). Again, the bit off more than they can chew.

True, I give you that. A realistic signalling simulation is bound to require more computing.

True, but again, DTG made a choice here. Did they bite off more than they can chew, again?

True, and while it's pretty could you can walk around trains, they could've gone for a simpler TSC-like model if perfomance is so much of an issue.

I realize they're both different, but in the end, they're both games in the simulation era. One of which receives 96% positive reviews on Steam, and the other 72%.

DTG chose to make TSW this advanced. But apparently at the cost of performance. Perhaps they didn't correclty set their priorities.

All I see here is another comfirmation that DTG bit off more they can chew, and SCS didn't.

Hey, I'd be interested in a train simulation game based on ETS2 standards. ETS2 has always been realistic enough for me.

What about demanding a gaming studio that doesn't bite off more than they can chew?

Sure, just laugh at me because I have a different opinion. Meanwhile the stuttering in TSW gets so bad, I'm simply getting annoyed instead of getting enjoyed. So I find myself playing ETS2 which is more enjoyable, despite it being simpler or being less realistic. I think judging a game based on its enjoyment is a perfect valid thing to do, considering enjoyment is the sole purpose of any game.

I don't care what features TSW has. If it runs badly, I won't enjoy any of them.

Well, I wonder what a train simulation game based on SCS in-house engine would look like.

Could you please stop trolling.

So would you agree DTG should never have gone for UE then?

 

It isnt an immediate change and improvement for the game, but its a step in the right direction.

While dropping gen8 won't effectively change anything in terms of performance, DTG cant be supporting tech all the way from 2013. There's virtually zero market for it.

The technology in the Gen8 consoles dates back 13 years, which isnt suitable for today's standards.

Its like trying to drive a beaten up, old car, no matter how many things you fix with it, something else will always go wrong and eventually you'll just have to buy a new car.

 

Does anyone have a reasonably accurate estimate of how many loyal TSW players are still on Gen 8 consoles? I don't believe it's a small number.

Working adults are one thing, but maybe there are quite a few kids whose parents can't afford the upgrade, especially these days or even adults who are on pensions or fixed incomes, struggling to pay basic expenses.

It was coming, of course, but my word there are some cold fish on the forum. People often criticise what they perceive as the PC elite, but there's clearly a " console elite " too.

As long as the PS4/XBoxX numbers are substantial, they should have access to all content, old and new.

No-one who loves this game should be shoved aside or compelled to spend money on an upgrade they can't afford.