(Apologies for the 3 posts in a row, I can’t seem to edit in pictures on an already made post) this sign on the left i believe to be for Germany, though I can’t seem to get closer for better detail. edit: I’ve looked into this sign further, it seems to appear at German borders it states “Freistaat” along the top and “Bayern” at the bottom. (Free state of Bavaria in English it seems) so assuming it’s the Bavaria region sign like with Austria
45-minutes into the stream so far. The stutters are incredibly annoying as is the late tree textures popping in. Also, DTG Matt, Why are some trains going blurry when you pass them. It looks terrible. Although the sounds are wrong, I’m not hating them. Given there’s a new scoring system, surprised Matt turned that feature off and kept it off this long into the stream.
I didn’t seem them specifically, but they come up to close the MCB, which if you don’t know what you’re doing, is all you have to do to continue onwards.
It's really close to release, but it would be great if DTG could correct the stopping points to align with the stop boards which are actually right there!
I won’t be driving at night. The night lighting is awful. The Vectron sounds very nice indeed. Matt was driving with safety systems on, but didn’t get any points for that according to the stat report at the end. Also, it seemed quite easy for Matt to get Platinum. I’d expect it to be harder to achieve. Don’t like that the doors have to be open for a minute or so. The requirement should be something like 5-seconds. That way you can depart earlier if running late or stay longer (whatever you want to do). The mini-hud should show the stations at the very least. Signals and speed limits are handy, stations would be useful. More than 1km notice should be given via the barber pole. Maybe 2-3km.
Agree night lighting is bad. BCC all over again. I just hope the night lighting in Dresden doesn’t get ruined by getting upgraded.
That's the only criticism I can make for the new track monitor...I think the 2km range needs to dynamically change depending upon the current speed as it does in TSC. Stations being there also would be a nice addition although the barber pole countdown does give a decent warning for the station stop. I cannot see anything changing in this regard before TSW4's release but certainly something to think about for a future patch.
Can we seriously do something about the lighting and everything be wayyyy overexposed. The PZB lights are flashing here (restricted monitoring) but I can't even tell they're lit up - not good if you want to use the mini-hud. The best lighting I saw was when Matt went into photo mode and knocked back the exposure setting and suddenly things started looking realistic instead of shiny plastic toys.
I did think some of the screenshots looked like someone had drawn the grass in green highlighter, glad I’m not the only one!
Yeah, some of the blatant bugs that are mysteriously invisible to testers: In-cab lighting is horrible to the point you don't see any of the indicators, Matt had emergency brake multiple times that he did not understand because he cannot see the PZB lights at all Austrian stations have elaborate station markers that are even presented in the preview, but the player stop point is at the other side of the station, so stopping correctly will deduce your points for driving incorrectly Lack of any main power switch sound features, passing neutral section under current should make a loud, audible sound and change the whole soundset coming from the train Opening doors with a hotkey still cycles through all the positions instead of just switching directly to the correct one, killing your passengers as they jump under the passing train on other track
Mentioned this earlier or in another thread. The lighting is over bright and puts a gloss sheen on everything, in certain conditions. This has been mentioned numerous times as regards TSW3 but consistently ignored by DTG. And I bet TSW4 still doesn’t have any sliders for more fine tuning of the lighting and graphics. Stuttering is a concern and it’s not just those of us with potato PC’s, my PS5 version does it all the time. You would think if you are rebranding the version to “4”, the coders in charge of the base program changes would have this at the top of their to do list. Of course that said, and not excusing DTG, I had a quick dabble on SimRail the last couple of evenings and the performance and stuttering on that is abysmal. In built up Warsaw progress was a lurch fest. Out in the country was still getting pauses and every time another train passed the screen would freeze for a couple of seconds. Far worse than TSW! Could be server latency or lag but given in this much vaunted “multiplayer a priority over everything else” game, I was the only person on EN2 for the best part of an hour, I think not. It is disappointing that Matt seems to have slammed the door on obtaining a better sound set for the 4024. I mean it doesn’t sound bad but “That’s good enough”, or “That’ll do”, is not really what paying customers want to hear. It also gives credence to the thought that most of this content, once it’s out the door, rarely sees attention to other than show stopping bugs. Certainly doesn’t hold out much hope for the Class 700 sounds getting fixed.
That’s curious to me though because older trains in this game used to do it realistically. I.e not on every slight curve, just on sharp curves.
This exactly. If they can introduce brightness sliders for photomode then why not the main game itself? It's my biggest issue with TSW3 and hope some is TSW4 to address it. The tools look to be there but are not being put to use. It's TOD4 that needs adjusting, it only works well as it is at dawn and dusk. Night is too dark dark and day is too bright.
Vectron is available with Deluxe Edition from Early Access on 21 Sept. If you want to get it separately, it will be available individually later in October.
I’m almost positive that the testers are not at fault here. It’s just the devs aren’t given the time to actually sort out any of the problems. It does make you wonder what the point of having testers is if the aren’t going to be listened to.
This is incredibly frustrating. What is the player meant to do? You can either stop where the game wants you to stop and look like a completely incompetent driver, but get your points. Or stop where the actual stop marker is but have no chance of getting platinum. How can they advertise a new scoring system but have things like this all over the place…
And the worst thing is?, They are completely ignoring the issue It's not going to go away, they couldn't fix it in TSW3, and TSW4 doesn't update any part of the game engine (from what the stream shows) that would affect it, so it remains. I can't justify spending a penny on it until those, dare I say, game breaking issues, are resolved. I'm just glad I managed to be TSW3 at a massive discount before it leaves gamepads.
I will wait and judge to see how badly TSW4 stutters on my own machine. Obviously we cannot know how well the DTG PC is set up, its specs, or what other processes were running during the stream. They also seemed to be streaming in 1080p with scaling (screen percentage) at 100%, which means plenty of aliasing to make a nice mess of the track and overhead wires. You would think with the world watching they would use a fully-optimised 4K experience on a monster PC to show the game at its best. My opinion is that after each route is "officially" showcased, they should allow the ambassadors to do the same with their beta versions (with the usual WIP caveats) so we can see how the same route performs on other hardware.
Did anyone already mention the shadows on the tracks in front you if we are hammering on stutters? It's different but also still not good enough.
I think you can adjust them to be brighter (and thus visible) with the switch under the PZB Lights, like in the 110 for example
I don’t think I need to worry about the volumetric fog and the way it reacts to the headlights and it only reacting to some of the external lighting as I suspect it will have too much of an impact on performance on PS5 and need to be disabled. There seemed to be some funky internal reflections on the Talent windscreen too. I seem to remember they took away internal reflections on the windscreen of one of the ICE 3 variants to prevent this effect but it still happens on other trains since. Removing or reducing the intensity of internal reflections on all train windows would be one way to improve the player experience in TSW. It’s particularly bad in the passenger view on most trains due to the way it works.
The stuttering, the OHLE, the lighting & the sounds killed everything good about this for me. Please DTG tell us that the OHLE isn’t the finished product, half of it is invisible. The stuttering is getting worse, again DTG, why do you think you can just keep adding & adding to the engine but not address the performance which is getting worse each year. The lighting which IMO is one of the worst things DTG have done to TSW, is still blowing half the textures on the screen out. The sounds - well lol.
I sometimes find that routes seem to run better on my computer, which certainly isn't up to date, than they do on the stream. I also find routes don't look as washed out although that is probably because all our set ups are different. My overall impression of the route is that it looks lovely and I think will offer an interesting and immersive experience. I love the mountains in particular. The Talent is nicely modelled, it is a shame about the sounds but for me that shouldn't be a show stopper. The Vectron also looked very nicely modelled, sounded good too.
Think at this point we need to tag DTG Matt and DTG JD if they wish to offer any comments re concerns over the lighting and stuttering as this now seems to be the main issue in the build up to TSW4.
I doubt they’ll give us anything concrete. If it’s been an ongoing issue, they either can’t solve it, don’t want to or don’t care about it.
Why would they not want to cure the stuttering, to suggest they don't is just baffling and if you sit down and think about it is nonsensical! I would say it is most likely they can't or fixing it is a long task.
I don't read too much into the stuttering on preview streams as I find my own experience is usually a lot better. I am guessing they are using maximum (or thereabouts) graphic settings to showcase the route not to mention the load of streaming itself which will also impact performance. I remember watching the Linke Rheinstrecke preview stream and that had very noticeable stutter but I have never personally had any issue with it.
I get very little problems with that route too. MML is the worse for me although only in places. I find that everytime we get a Nvidia driver update (seems a regular occurrence) it seems to be worse after until you have driven the route again. When I got BCC the stutters were terrible but then they improved, yet there is one area just outside Reddich going towards Barnt Green where you get a bad stutter and it sometimes hangs, yet I have never worked out why as it is quite a rural part of the line, going up the Lickey Incline isn't the smoothest, yet when heading into Birmingham the stuttering seems to be minimal!
They completely ignored all the comments about it during the stream, why do you expect them to comment on it now?
Yes, they should probably remove the timer, and the requirement to open the doors all together. Stopping with your doors open for a minute on tiny station with no passenger isn't realistic. Stopping, unlocking the doors for the 10 seconds and then departing when nobody opened the door is... more realistic anyway, in my opinion. Instead, you should get deducted points for leaving excessively early.
DTG will never comment on the stuttering or try to fix it. This is basically tsw3 nothing has changed in the performance department lighting is nuked stuttering same as ever. Very disappointed in Tsw4 looks good but can't perform.
Is there a shortcut for the cruise control on the Vectron? I don’t mean the usual ones to activate, lower and raise the target speed- but the one for the Vectron where you have to press the lever down to confirm it?
The scenery overall looked very good, I will give them that. The information screen at the stations look good, glad to see something new finally. I wonder if the US route will get the same treatment as well, or the US gets the same british PIS again, as always? One thing that annoyed me really is how bright the track becomes as it gets further away. After some distance it's just one bright gray blob. How can track textures be this bad in a train simulator game? But that is something I have noticed as well. They changed the thickness of the overhear wires, but not the supporting wires? Typical DTG, lol. But other than that, the OHLE equipment looks great and seems to have a realistic setup, unlike many previous TSW routes. Can't comment on the sound of the EMU, as I am not familiar with it. It did sound "good", but apparently not prototypical, so that's again a letdown. The thing that annoyed me the most is that the light cones once again are set up horribly. When they put the high beams on in the night fog, the headlight shined upwards as well. I am quite sure they do not do that. Even with high beems, a vehicle headlight will be somewhat angled down, as there is no point in shigning at the sky... No wonder it's so blinding in the fog when it shines that high up. So once again they introduced cool volumetric fog, then made it impossible to actually enjoy driving in said fog. Good job.
I was thinking the exact same thing during the stream, what key is that confirm speed function mapped to? (if any)
Agreed. Especially the German part looked pretty neat along side the lake. I found the overall trackbed quite uniform and bland and gets especially boring around large stations. I mean, I don't expect large sections overgrown by weeds, but some trackside detail would be nice (especially at lower speeds)
The route look nice and the mountains look beautifull. But I have seen a strange bug during the livestream: The "live" hour is off by an hour but the departure hour is right. A magical time zone between the train and the platform ? Edit: Already know by DTG
If the brighness of the PZB indicators stay like it was in the stream it will be hard to drive with the Mini HUD because its impossible to recognise the current PZB state. I remember that this problem also appeared in the "Karlsruher Kopf" at BRO and was patched after the release. But it is a bit of a shame that such a important thing isn't made right from day one, especially when having a new feature like mini HUD.
This is an issue with many trains since TSW3 TOD. The cab lights (like door open, or brake release) in the F40PH on Boston Sprinter are also pretty much broken since the route got the new lighting.
Nice to see the big freight yards packed with a lot of trains and rolling stock. I miss that on german routes so far.
Regarding the neutral sections: I will attempt to explain how this would work IRL (rather than divulging any details about the in-game Vectron that I may or may not know). The neutral section is a short section of overhead line electrification that is electrically isolated from the grid before and after it. When a locomotive runs through the neutral section the line voltage drops to zero. The driver would have opened the main circuit breaker before encountering the neutral section (following the signs) but if not, the locomotives (modern ones at least) undervoltage protection will automatically trip the MCB. On most modern locomotives, when the voltage is re-established there is a short moment where the voltage indication reads zero since the locomotive is performing tests to determine that the input voltage is appropriate for the pantograph (this takes around 2-4 seconds). After everything checks out the voltage is displayed. This delay in displaying the line voltage also occurs when raising the pantograph. Before these self-tests are completed the MCB is blocked from closing (indicated by an "opened MCB" indication with a line struck through it on the Vectron). An interesting feature, unique to the Vectron (or uncommon at least), is that when the MCB is open and the speed is sufficient the traction motors will go into dynamic braking to keep everything powered. This is called Trennstellenbetrieb ("Disconnection Point Operation"?). The amount of dynamic braking is quite small so it won't significantly decelerate the locomotive/train, but it will mean that you can take power much quicker after a neutral section than compared to other locomotives (for example on the BR101 I think the delay before you can apply power is over 40 seconds). You can see the whole sequence in action (including the Trennstellenbetrieb) in the following video at 2m51s.
Oh yes, that was another big red flag in the stream I initially forgot. Not only that the "confirm AFB speed" was done by mouse, but also Matt controlled the train brake only by mouse the whole time during presenting Vectron. He braked normally on keyboard/controller in 4024 in both earlier parts. If I learned anything from DTG over the years, it is that if you don't see something implemented on streams, it will not be implemented.
It appears that beta testers don't drive with minimal HUD or no HUD and QA testers are not knowledgable at all and will only look if the gamey aspect works but not if it matches the route at all. It lacks a roster of testers who are dedicated to test realism and if the gamey aspects match the scenery, signalling, etc. Moreover, the yearly releases seem more of a feature upgrade of the same technology then a major new version. They gatekeep it behind a new game to reduce the amount of technical backlog they need to support.
