Interested to see the responses. I bought RW Enhancer 2 to start with and was initially very impressed. But since getting Armstrong Powerhouse Weather Track and Signals, I’ve found RW Enhancer makes less noticeable differences and I’ve practically abandoned it. That doesn’t mean it’s bad, it maybe a settings thing on my side. The only thing I use if for now are setting up consists and Quick Drives.
Currently, I have TSC installed without any mods but a few months ago, I used RW Enhancer 2 combined with AP Weather Enhancement Pack 2.0. RW Enhancer 2 definitely provides another level of immersion and sharpness not too far off from the default game settings. It definitely brings the game to life with various graphical/texture improvements.
I use RWEnhancer Pro for just for the fog colour and fog level adjustments... that's pretty much it. Used in conjunction with AP Sky&Weather 2.0, it works well. No more silly blue colour in distant mountains when there's mist etc. RWEnhancer 2 adds new effects like thunder & lightning and train announcements, along with new HUD addons. Not really worth it in my opinion, especially as the weather effects are better in AP Sky&Weather Pack 2
I use it (RWE2) for the announcements mostly(hud disabled) and am very happy with it ! (you can custom it) Far less usefull if u are a freight guy Its also do some good for sounds if you are not using AP specific packs. Im not that much into graphics, however if i understand clearly RWE2 and AP weather2. 0 are compatible and dont do the same things. Please note i own only AP Weather 1 so im not fully sure. Finally i cant drive passengers anymore without RWE2 (due to announcements both in train and at station)
As you say announcements are not much use for freight drivers. Presume the station announcement will be "Please stand clear - the next train does not stop at this station" If you were driving a German route I presume the announcements in RWE2 would be in German? Which is ok if you understand the language. Some scenarios that come from RailSim.de have built in announcements and also communications from the signaller. Again ok if you understand German but no use if you don't.
Yes announcements are in language of the route. (for now British/US/German/French) For my part if im not fluent at all in german, i still find it brings a lot of immersion during gameplay. And you can add official jingles. What i like finally is that its very configurable. You dont like motor sound ? Swith it off. You dont want hud, announcements, graphics ? easly off. Still i understand also that people dont want a litlle intrusive soft that plays over TSC.
I personally would now be wary of running any parallel processes when using TSC that may use the same files used in the Railworks folder. I am running Windows 11 and experienced multiple issues with OOM errors whilst doing so. I am not saying that others using this software would have the same errors. I have never even used this specific application. I have found Windows 11 to be less stable and demands driver updates regularly. I do have the Armstrong Powerhouse products as these are fully endorsed by Dovetail. Since I have made sure that I am running only TSC and TSC endorsed products my runs have been much more stable. I cannot comment about other players pcs and configurations. Respectfully
Why is nearly every post you make consistently incorrect? Please learn to fact check its getting rather tiresome tbh. DTG haven't endorsed AP at all you made that up in your head. DTG don't endorse anything, they have partners they sometimes work alongside or will commission third parties but they don't endorse anything or anyone. Regarding Win11, been on it since launch no problems whatsoever in fact TSC in its current state is the most stable I've ever known it. Ok well I guess you're going to come back with an extremely offended reply now, have at it..
I´ve also stopped using the RWE Enhancer 2 after reinstalling... only got the AP weather and cloud stuff now and it´s good enough for me
I've been using RWEnhancer, along with ReShade with AP Sky & Weather for ages, with absolutely no issue whatsoever. I see no reason to warn people about an issue that doesn't exist.
Yet another assassination from Reef. It feels like I am not allowed to express my opinion without a fact check being made. I remember it being said on this forum that AP work very closely with DTG that the confidence level of their products being the cause of an OOM is very low. TSC is not the only online game that I play. I have also seen other OOM errors on other Steam products. Most of my blue screen terminations (using Windbg to analyze root cause) has pointed to driver errors (hence my comments about my experience of Windows 11) having to keep up with constant Windows driver updates (Video, Sound, Bluetooth etc). With respect to OOM errors that I have experience - and I used to experience these very often. I can confirm (and on my pc only - as I have not played TSC on other pc) that running 2 concurrent apps both using the same railworks folder structure have consistently caused OOM errors on my pc. I run AP products all of the time (and have every product they make) and have never experienced an OOM error due to their deployment. I hope this makes clear my findings. Others may have the perfect pc settings and are very happy with their experiences. I am only cataloging my experiences to date. At this point in time I am extremely happy with TSC products and the way that DX12 is performing. Respectfully
For those who complain that RWE2 is too complicated, if you want only its graphics enhancements launch TSC via its normal exe rather than RWE's. Graphics improvement exists whichever exe you use. It's the other stuff that requires launching the game via RWE's exe.
Depends on what you want to enhance. If you don't really want RWE, you could save some money and use Reshade only. The preset I use (which is based off Pookeyhead's one but heavily modified) is designed for those without RWE, and makes the game look more real. It's best used with AP weather, vegetation, cloud, and track packs, as well as a free texture upgrade available from ATS. Here's some screenshots to show what it looks like:
To my eyes the front of the DB 612 and the OBB 1116 look a bit fuzzy - not as sharp as they should be.
I'm completely happy using the set of new shaders that APSWEP2.0 installs, no need for other enhancements here. I've tried ReShade, but to me all these effects are rather movie-style post process stuff, and with APSWEP everything looks pretty natural to me, so I'm only playing around with Contrast / AmbientLight depending on the scenario.
That is just Sky and Weather, correct ? Does it require regular tweaking or is it fire and forget / install and enjoy ? Did you notice it needed any additional CPU / GPU resources ?
Plug'n'Play. Nothing to tweak. AP replaces some of the age old default shaders with much improved ones. No noticeable impact on performance, at least here. I'd say some of these shaders actually improve performance, default AdaptiveBloom is twice the size for example (and boosts lighting in a very ugly manner. The AP version gives a much more natural appearance, and is not as blurry as the DTG one, and has a very subtle eye adaption feature.) The AP shaders are fully compatible with the Contrast/AmbientLight/Sunlight sliders (some 3rd party shaders are not).
Thanks Spike. I am tempted on the AP W and S Those seem to contradict each other. On the AP website I read the following . . . Sky & Weather Enhancement Pack 2.0 The improved mist/fog, new 'Adaptive Bloom' shader and more transparent glass at night will apply throughout the simulator. For everything else, this pack must be applied on a per-route basis. Please see below for a list of routes that are supported: - long list with UK routes - So I guess I should not get it. I drive US routes only.
Peter means adjusting the daylight times and sun angle for US regions. AP Sky & Weather applies to London latitude, but you can easily make a TimeOfDay set for the US, and Aus/NZ. https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/guide-apswep-for-different-regions.79299/ Though the discussion's about shaders - they apply everywhere of course.
My comment was meant for Woodlands. I know she typically likes to thrash US diesels. The AP packs can be used, however, they are designed to work automatically with much of the UK DLCs. I am guessing Woodland would like a no fuss out of the box solution.
I run RWE 2, but the biggest improvement for me in TSC2024 was going to a gaming monitor in January. My old 10-year-old LED monitor could only run at a 60Hz refresh rate now the monitor I have now you can run it at a 180Hz refresh rate. This makes a huge improvement on the sharpness of the textures. The monitor also supports HDR which most newer games are able to support which you can turn on or off in the game settings. As TSC2024 is an older game it doesn't support this function but in Windows 11 there is a display setting called auto HDR which adds HDR to older games that don't support it. Basically what HDR does according to what I have read is it makes the blacks and reds look better. Whether it does or not is up to the user to decide. My monitor as I have mentioned in other posts is a Viewsonic 27/28 gaming monitor which I think is reasonably priced for what it does. The colours etc take a bit of getting used to and you will find as I did spending quite some time adjusting them to your liking through both the game and Windows display settings. I find running at a 180Hz refresh rate puts less strain on your eyes. You will need a decent graphics card to run this. I'm using at the moment an RTX 3060 TI. Please don't take this as a bragging post as I'm only showing what I think can be done to improve the graphics on TSC2024.
