Looks impressive. At least two locos and passenger and freight stock from what could be seen in the screenshots. I enjoy the four corners of the Earth choice in TS.
Standard TS Classic route price, and you can buy it right now if you wish, came out a couple of hours ago.
More info about the route, including a map of the route, pictures, video's, what rolling stock you get with the route, what rolling stock is in development, and some other bits and pieces is available here:- https://www.facebook.com/NZTSWorkshops/?ti=as For those of you on discord there is a discord group too:- https://discord.gg/RD6MsgM
Trev Here you are. https://store.steampowered.com/app/...Midland_Line_Aikens__Springfield_Route_AddOn/ Shouldn't that be AICKENS? and the OTRIA Tunnel beats the OTIRA one! Pity its not the full route from Greymouth to Christchurch! Had a few exciting trips on that line!
They have corrected it now. https://store.steampowered.com/app/...idland_Line_Aickens__Springfield_Route_AddOn/
Ignore the stuttering. He hasn't tweaked his settings as recommended in the manual. Turning off Ambient Occlusion makes a big difference to the frame rate too.
Midland Line New Zealand 1968 route - YouTube This route took 6 years to make by 2 people whom I think did it part-time. This video looks better than the other one.
Still awaiting a proper video showing the route before I make my mind up. It looked like the chap was trying to make things work without reading the manual
I am a bit alarmed by the videos and the garish look of the vegetation. My interest was in the old electric locos but the Russian reveiwer on steam says that the electrified section is 9 kilometers long, and 8 kilometers of that is in the tunnel. Hence we would not get much use from the electric loco. He added that New Zealanders would know this which may be why it is not mentioned in the blurb. Not sure this would be for me, sadly.
Hi Peter. Mike from Smokebox highly recommends this route. If those on here don't know who Smokebox are they make highly detailed American steam locomotives one that is nearly finished is Big Boy.
The two videos Trey mentioned are good, they don't have the stutter problems the early ones were plagued with.
This might be more like what you're after. So far this is the only video that does the route justice.
The garish look I think you're referring to can be fixed by tweaking your graphics settings. Something along the lines of this.
Also the electrified section is 15 km's long. 8.5 of it is the tunnel. I don't know where he got 9 from.
I have purchased this and drove from Springfield and about halfway to Craigieburn until I went past a red signal. I'm using max settings and the scenery is first class. It is frame hungry I was at 15 at Springfield but I can most probably fix that by adjusting the settings. The scenery looks quite different from what you get on UK and European routes and is typical NZ mountain scenery depicting NZ native trees and bush. Crossing the rivers and their shingle beds looks what you would expect in that area and the colour of the water looks perfect. I would recommend purchasing this but you might need a good computer to get the full benefits out of the scenery.
I have purchased it and find that my modest 16 gig RAM, I7 8700, RTX 2070 runs it at least as well as any other route. Hardly any stutter at all. The garishess of the foliage is ameliorated by turning off the headlights and I will get used to vegation that is simply "not British". The main revelation is that unlike in the videos the views from the cab are panoramic, not to mention the head out positions. The diesel loco is very interesting. I am sure the eletric one will be too. Good tracks sounds. Good sway and bounce. There is good feel - big ? - to the locos and the environment.
As you can see I'm running an Intel 10600K which is faster than your CPU and is a newer gen of CPU. I actually think that the route could be better optimized to run on less powerful computers.
Trev You were right about the scenery -first class, pretty representative and different - I think that I even spotted a Pohutukawa and the gorse is how I remembered it.
I'm pleased to hear you like it. Not a bad job for two developers part time ehh. The route does push the TS graphics engine to it's limit and beyond in some places, hence the frame rates being low in certain areas, especially the hilly areas on max settings. It's due to the way the graphics engine renders mountains, and gully's. It's inherintly broken.
I don't know if much more can be done to optimize the route. A lot of optimisation has already been completed. You should've seen it before they started
Yes I saw those too. It nearly put me off buying it but since I have a sort of fast machine I would purchase it and I'm not disappointed. I was playing at max settings and got a bit of stutter but shall lower them a bit. I have the antialiasing settings up fairly high but shall try dropping them back a couple of settings. Antialiasing is one of the biggest performance hogs on any game I always try and get away with the lowest setting possible without taking away the quality of the game.
Does the DTG staff still pick photos based on likes? I thought they did away with that system a few years ago after some people were creating fake accounts to boost their submission.
Turning off the Shadow Casting Lights option (Ctrl+Shift+H) will give you the biggest improvement in performance. It doesn't seem to make much of a difference to the picture quality judging by the video I posted above. Also have a read of the manual. There is a section in there that tells you which settings to lower to improve the performance. You will also want to read the manual to get the most out of the route and loco's. There are so many little features that the loco's have that are not immediately apparent.
That reminds me. For those of you who now have the route the developer's have released an unofficial patch on their website that will reinstate the scenario's that were split, back to how they were intended to be. It will also reinstate all of the makers plates and branding, and add a tour scenario that gives you informative pop-ups as you go for a relaxing drive. You can download the patch from here:- http://www.tsnz.co.nz/browse.php?latest=Midland%20Line%20Unoffical%20Patch
I meant to say that my modest 16 gig RAM, I7 8700, RTX 2070 is running the route very well with hardly any stutters with all parameters maxed out and with RW Enhancer.
dwal1, it's wrong to start lobbying for mob votes to influence the screenshot competition, especially the subject for the next one. Unless you want to submit something for the subject you select, don't vote. If you force a subject that competitors aren't interested in you'll just get a poor competition with few entries.
I have dowbnloaded this twice and installed it. Part of the installation warns of a zero byte file. It has not made any difference. I guess they will wish to correct this later.
I don't think it's wrong at all. He's simply asking folks who are interested in this route to make their preferences known in a FUN, LIGHTHEARTED screenshot competition on the forums. If you don't want to vote for those things, then don't. You are not the community gatekeeper of who gets to vote in a community poll and who doesn't, nor do you get to decide on the purity of a voter's motivation.