How does TSW being a train simulator have anything to do with graphics? How a train simulator works under the hood has nothing to do with it's graphics. You can make a train simulator in OpenGL, Unity, EU, anything you want. After all, these are just game engines and you're pretty much free to code what you want. The only aspect of TSW that connects to graphics is how the routes are built up. Obviously it's similar to how TS and Trainz used to do it, compared to traditional games with completely "pre-made" maps it's totally different. I suppose it's much harder to optimize scenery loading performance, as we can see pretty much from all train simulators on the market. But that has pretty much nothing to do with lighting andenviromental effects and other things that are the worst offenders in TSW distant scenery.
That's not actually true. If the under-the-hood number crunching is placing huge demands on the CPU, that's much less capacity with which to handle graphics (and graphics do require CPU power, the 3D card doesn't do it all)
I must say, having rewatched some of Rivet's videos on the Ge 4/4 II build: however disappointing the scenery may be, the locomotive is bloody spectacular, really sets a new bar for rolling stock modeling.
Yeh just because tsw2 uses ue4 doesn't mean the sim can't have great graphics. I feel like dtg haven't fully found the graphic potential of tsw2 or it's another issue. The lighting in this game could be better and is not limited because of UE4.
Regarding texture and terrain in TSW, this is what it looks like on NTP with almost every setting maxed out on PC... I don't know how people expected it would be any better on Arosa tbh Just look at the hill on the background. It's appaling.
God that is not good looking. I must say that tsw2 is not the best looking sim that uses ue4 which is a shame. Hopefully with the next yearly update there will be some graphical improvements
A great example of "maxed" being crud. I run a GTX970 on an Fx6300 and it looks better than that. Although, the lighting in UE is poor for the sim application at least, no doubt.
Edited by DTG Natster - Deleted inappropriate meme. Don't do it again or you will be getting a warning or temp ban.
Can't upload a pic without sending one to imgur etc. But yes, I get 30 fps on GWE too, perfectly playable and a decent experience. Yours looked way too dark J.
I thought of NTP recently. From what I have seen in the forums, NTP is quite well received, yet to me it has the worst scenery of all the routes, there is almost no distant scenery at all. Well to be fair, it is one of the older routes (PC release in Dec. 2018) but I wonder what the reactions would be if it was to be released nowadays...
Sorry but I don't understand what does that mean: I wasn't talking about frame-rate and I didn't mention GWE which is completely flat with no mountains and therefore there are no problems there.
This doesn't mean anything. You have to compare my shot with your shot but in the same location. Furthermore you have clear skies and my shot was in cloudy weather ...
NTP is a great route. The distant scenery is not so good, but not as bad as the above screenshot. Doesn’t detract from it for me anyway. But I think if Rivet can get better colours and textures, it will improve a lot. Alternatively drive in the snow where everything is white.
No sorry Jinoss17, I just meant that your game should look better than that image you posted, as my horrible old rig renders the TSW better, but then the snipers jumped on and here we are, in a TSW forum dik-swinging contest. Never mind, but yes, the UE4 engine isn't great. I can run on a GTX970 and fx6300 just...hope you have a good gaming session J.
I have NTP and I think it looks fine, I haven't seen it looking like that in the referenced screenshot. I would say the distant scenery on NTP looks better than the Arosa lines distant scenery.
You didn't get the point. Show us a pic in the same position as Jino posted his, let's see how much better is your distant scenery... You said so yourself! I believe it's the Marsden station or something like that. Here's mine with a 1070 TI:
The difference being that Pennines are plain and without trees in reality so you chose the wrong route to compare to Arosa. This mountain is decently done and textured but let down by core TSW faults like the reflecting grass in this screenshot.
Wait until you see the next US route made by skyhook, I guess we haven't finished screaming ... Especially since there will be no trees to hide the rotten textures of the ground and the mountains ...
They Will replace trees with house and indrustry pictures. As soon as DTG sells a DLC in Sahara they will recieve a very good critic I guess.
For me and others who haven’t particularly noticed bad distant scenery in NTP and other routes, it does prove that a good driving experience, (NTP boasts one of the best in my opinion) goes a long way to distract from sub-par scenery. Rivets locomotive is incredible and if they add some more interest into the timetable I’m confident it will be a enjoyable experience despite the lacklustre distant scenery.
To be clear one time more, I wasn't comparing NTP and Arosa. I just wanted to underline the fact that TSW has a huge problem with distant scenery: no matter what when you have hills or mountains near the railway they just appear blurry and awful. And that's why I was surprised to see many comments about distant scenery in Arosa: I don't know what people expected. That's it.
100% agree. I never said NTP is a bad route: it's the opposite actually as I quite enjoy driving there
I don't think the mountains disturb me more than that, on the other hand the textures of the concrete and the roads do. Even if we don't see that well on the live screens, they are really not that great. Hope rivet will make a patch or a nice modder. For the mountains to tell the truth I think I'll be content, I just did a little tour on the MSB and my god the mountains are not beautiful either. But in the end I didn't have much time to pay attention to it, I was too busy driving. In short, for me, strongly tomorrow that I have a new "toy" ...
I agree comparing NTP to Arosa is wrong. A better comparison would be to compare DTG’s 2nd route for TSW with Rivets 2nd route. By the time NTP was released they had more experience then Rivet. So I agree this is an unfair comparison. We should really be comparing the Great Western Express with the Arosa line. As Rivet and DTG have the same amount of experience under their belt when releasing these routes.
Seriously? Do you know Great Western Express and the enormous density of scenery that is packed in there? That would be a pretty unfortunate comparison for Rivet.
It's impressive how narrowminded some devs can be... If they can't use more tree's on it due to performance issues, then why not better mountain textures? Is that so much of a performance hit to have decent mountain textures like other games have ? If it works for some games, then why not here? It makes no sense to me to be honest..
Because in all the other roads, (DTG's) it's the same thing, the ground textures are horrible !! Basically if the textures of the game were good I think that of the road to Rivet would be too. For once I think that DTG should come out with new ground textures for the base of the game to avoid this kind of bullshit for future roads, whether flat or mountainous.
A little reminder, with the LGV Marseille-Avignon, there was a lot of criticism on the landscape: too green, river Durance unrealistic, bad basalt, bad catenary on the high speed part and so on. Look at the horizon towards Avignon, it's horrible, it looks like it's cut with a knife. And yet, this DLC was a real success by modeling of TGV Duplex, sound, gameplay... I think, like many, that neither DTG nor Rivet has found the right compromise to have a distant correct but in the finality, it doesn't spoil the pleasure of driving.
Well said one of DTG's best sellers apparently. Considering the quality of the train and the wagons at Rivet, I don't think I will be disappointed at least on this point.
One advantage of the scenery on LGV is the fact it's by in a flash. Where as a slow trundling mountain route means more time spent staring at the scenery.
Couple of things... 1) NTP does look exactly like that when the time of day / weather combo is set as it is in the picture. The problem is the lighting first, route second (although the only decent detailed bit of distant scenery on the whole route is where the player is in that shot). 2) You can quite happily upload an image right into your post and have it display properly. You do not need to upload to external sites and then link to it. 3) That fps with that CPU/GPU combo....hmmmmm.
On the LGV Marseille-Avignon, we often look far ahead and it is on this DLC that the distant landscape shocked me the first time (and I have almost all the roads on TSW for 3 years). On Arosa, there are a lot of turns and gradients, not to mention the need to control your speed, braking: it's much more technical than the LGV where you put the "cruise control" and go.
I agree, I personally will be spending most of my time right inside the cab as this route will require much more focus to drive then LGV. I think everyone can agree that Rivet is very talented with creating their locomotives. This is definitely the most detailed and gorgeous cabs and locomotive in TSW.
The rolling stock looks amazing, that's for sure. It's just the shame that TSWs core issues bring down the experience of the route. Because the route has many great things going for it. Not only is the rolling stock really good, but it has properly modelled overhead wires for the first time in TSW, traffic interacting with the trains, even if it's a bit basic, also a first time in TSW. It's also a shame they couldn't simulate the random stop requests, it's always bad when something is simulated in an older product but not in the newer one, but well, this one is just a small thing. I think I'll get this route someday, even though I don't care about Swiss stuff much, but I like the details and the fact that it's narrow gauge. I just wish they could've done something about the scenery issues.
Yes I agree, I hadn’t known of this feature on TS Classic until reading the manual and was interested to see if it would be. This is from the official Rivet games forums. TS Classic and TSW seem like two different games, and two entirely different platforms to create for. I really feel bad for the people that choose they don’t want to experience because of distant scenery outweigh the positive things you point out about this route in your post.