Series X Performance

Discussion in 'TSW General Discussion' started by dreampage, Aug 11, 2021.

  1. dreampage

    dreampage Well-Known Member

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    I'm a little bit worried about the slide below, shown on yesterday's live stream, and I'll tell you why.

    tsw2.jpg

    I think performance is more important than resolution. More accurately, a stable, consistent performance is more important. From this slide and what Matt has told us during the stream, it looks to me that 4K will be fixed and the only way to run Train Sim World 2 on Xbox Series X, no matter the performance sacrifice it will mean on different routes. In a video game "should achieve around 60 fps" is just not enough in my opinion.

    There are techniques which can be used in order to assure that a game never, or only very rarely deviates from its target framerate. These techniques are used to provide a consistent, stutter-free gameplay experience. In short, you don't notice a temporary drop in resolution but you do notice even a momentarily drop in framerate, which hinders the experience.

    I think that forcing a fixed 4K resolution is not a good way forward. Pixel count should be allowed to drop in cases where the game can't keep to the 16.66 ms rendering budget, instead of keeping it up and letting the framerate drop. One route may run very well while others struggle. It's just not a great experience in my opinion, and I would like to see more options in the game to mitigate this. In short:

    - Train Sim World 2 should use DRS (Dynamic Resolution Scaling), which is fully supported by Unreal Engine, in order to keep the 60 fps framerate and drop resolution when needed. Due to efficient upscaling techniques in UE this would provide a much more consistent experience, without visible drop in image quality, even on a 4K screen.

    and/or

    - There should be an additional, lower resolution (say, 1440p) graphics mode with the same shadow and texture detail setup, in order to make sure the game never deviates from 60 fps (although in all fairness, I don't know if the CPU or the GPU is the bottleneck in over-the-budget cases). This way players could decide whether they favour resolution at all costs or are willing to sacrifice some pixels to get a fully stable experience.

    ------
    Right now, due to an unlocked framerate and backwards compatibility, TSW 2 runs extremely well on Xbox Series X, which achieves and keeps 60 fps most of the time even at 4K rendering. I honestly wouldn't like to see this ruined by a new setup that is much more variable. 40-45 fps is not enough. 50-55 is not enough. On a traditional 60Hz screen anything that's between 30 and 60 fps causes distracting stutters and/or screen tear. I wish the developers were willing to sacrifice resolution in order to assure a perfect performance. I personally would hate to load up TSW 2 after the update to find that it runs worse than before, in that case I wouldn't even care about the graphical enhancements. Resolution and graphics are not everything if there's no performance to back them up.

    -----
    And finally a side note on the Series S. It was not designed for 4K gaming, forcing 4K on it doesn't make much sense in the case of most games, even if technically it can render and output at such pixel count. Simply unlocking the framerate and hoping for the best, while forcing (again, a fixed, non-dynamic) 4K resolution is not a good way to utilize its capabilities in my opinion. If anything, framerate should be capped at 30 fps in that mode, so that when there's GPU overhead, it just sticks to a perfectly stable framerate, instead of fluctuating up and down. Again, variable framerate on a 60Hz screen doesn't provide a good experience - it doesn't matter if it's 35 fps or 40, if it's not 30 or 60 it will stutter. So I think the 4K "hopefully around 30 fps" mode on Series S is overkill and only forces the GPU to work at 100% at all times, providing an unstable performance. Personally, I would choose a 1440p resolution capped at 30 fps on that machine.

    -----
    I'm looking forward to see the Series X version in action on Thursday (please enable the frame counter), and more so on my own console later. But in any case, I would really like to see the option to at least lower the resolution on Series X, because I simply don't trust that a "should achieve 60 fps" performance profile will be adequate in the long run, especially if it's variable by route.
     
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  2. Mattty May

    Mattty May Guest

    I don’t think 4K is forced on Xbox Series S. The slide Matt showed for the S had 1080p and 4K. I’m also sure Matt said the resolution can be set at 1080p on Xbox Series X and PS5 and that it would be a 4K image worth of data squished down to 1080p so that the 1080p image was even better.
     
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  3. Princess Entrapta

    Princess Entrapta Well-Known Member

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    This needs to be true of EVERY game.
    Plenty people still only have 1080p screens and barely notice the difference between supersampling of a 4k image vs a 1440p image. But not everyone has a VRR monitor, so frame drops are going to be more noticeable than that.
    Too many "performance" modes in games sacrifice a bunch of useful effects in order to keep 4k resolution, when the performance of many games on Series S should show quite clearly that you can maintain most of the effects of the Series X version while simply rendering at a lower resolution and hit a solid 60fps (which several games on Series S do more consistently than their Series X counterparts, I would point out)..
     
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  4. Princess Entrapta

    Princess Entrapta Well-Known Member

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    That's just supersampling, that's when you render at 4k, the console is still pushing 4k, it just looks sharper than a native 1080p image on a 1080p screen because it was originally rendered at 4k. That's different from setting the console to render at a lower resolution, which would free up system resources.
     
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  5. Mattty May

    Mattty May Guest

    Something learned today :)
     
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  6. Princess Entrapta

    Princess Entrapta Well-Known Member

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    It's part of why I honestly have zero desire to drop £1500+ on a 4k monitor with the same featureset I can get at 1080p for a fraction of the price.
     
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  7. dreampage

    dreampage Well-Known Member

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    Yes, there is indeed a 1080p mode on Series S and I think it's great. That's the best way to play TSW 2 on it probably, due to the high framerate. My side note only addressed the 4K mode which I think is unnecessary for Series S games. But of course, you at least have the option there. Series X should have that as well. What Matt said about 1080p on Series X was about if you have a 1080p TV, the game still renders at 4K, you just see it downsampled. But performance can still suffer the same as if you used a 4K TV.
     
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  8. Princess Entrapta

    Princess Entrapta Well-Known Member

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    Yeah, as I said, supersampling is nice and all, but a native 1440p mode could give us the antialiasing benefits of that on 1080p screens and give more overhead to hit a solid 60fps.

    It's ironic, right now I play TSW2 more on my Series X, but come the patch I may start to play it more on Series S for that solid 60.
     
  9. DTG Matt

    DTG Matt Executive Producer Staff Member

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    Series X does not have the option to drop to 1080p.

    However - i've spent many hours just since the stream last night and now playing various services and scenarios on Boston (testing, honestly...) and I haven't seen it go below 59.99fps. It's been nailing 60fps fairly hard the entire time so honestly I don't think there's much issue here.

    TSW2 on Series X using the 4K tv I have here at a solid 60fps, is frankly an amazing experience that my £2k PC would only wish to be able to achieve :) I fully expect to be playing TSW2 much more on Series X now rather than PC if i'm honest.

    Matt.
     
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  10. Princess Entrapta

    Princess Entrapta Well-Known Member

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    That much is reassuring. It's a shame this is a bit too niche to see digital Foundry do a comparison when it drops :D
    How is it looking on other routes? I'm particularly interested in that one particular area, we all know the one on peninsula corridor.

    As I have a VRR monitor, I know I'd probably be good with anything from 50-60fps, but I know not everyone does, so it's something that's still going to be on my mind.
     
  11. DTG Matt

    DTG Matt Executive Producer Staff Member

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    Which one do you mean on PenCor, sorry im not in with the cool kids :)
     
  12. Princess Entrapta

    Princess Entrapta Well-Known Member

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    Just outside San Jose, the backcompat version even on Series X experiences a bunch of framerate drops and stuttering, which gets noticeably worse on Series S and the last gen consoles..
     
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  13. Mattty May

    Mattty May Guest

    This sounds amazing. The PS4 version on the PS5 runs beautifully, but getting PC timetables, DFS and improved textures etc on the native versions, whilst still getting a solid 60fps is going to be phenomenal. I can’t wait to see what other improvements this extra horsepower and memory can allow DTG to achieve in the future.
     
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  14. DB628

    DB628 Well-Known Member

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    I can reach 120 FPS with my 4K TV, but the game want stay at 60 FPS right?
     
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  15. DTG Matt

    DTG Matt Executive Producer Staff Member

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    You wont get to 120fps even if the FPS was unlocked above 60, but no it won't go above 60.
     
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  16. DTG Matt

    DTG Matt Executive Producer Staff Member

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    Can you give me a service name to run and i'll give it a shot.

    Matt.
     
  17. Princess Entrapta

    Princess Entrapta Well-Known Member

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    Soon as I finish this TGV run, I'll go and find one.
     
  18. DB628

    DB628 Well-Known Member

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    Can you also checked the LGV route because the Landscape is loading pretty bad and I can see the tracks are loading on the bridge.
    And the Third Rails on Long Island Rail Road pretty buggy because it load first for the Trains on Series X
     
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  19. Princess Entrapta

    Princess Entrapta Well-Known Member

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    As far as I am aware, that's all issues with the way the game is cut back on the old hardware, which should all disappear on the native new gen versions.
     
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  20. Princess Entrapta

    Princess Entrapta Well-Known Member

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    257 SJ to SF is a good example for it.

    After departing San Jose in the CT97,1.8 miles short of Santa Clara the stuttering kicks in for a noticeable stretch of track.
     
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  21. DB628

    DB628 Well-Known Member

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    But the texture glitches and trees flickering all the time, are probably a core problem.
    The textures are on Preserved Routes Peninsula Corridor, Rhein Ruhr Osten and Hauptstrecke Rhein Ruhr and the trees on all routes even Hamburg Lübeck

    Matt is this your thing to fixed or Adams?
    Its not happen on Köln Aachen when I Test the 6F7A28EC-943C-4212-B568-4C2DED0E3FF0.png MP36PH from the Baby Bullet.
     
    Last edited: Aug 11, 2021
  22. pinxtonpaws

    pinxtonpaws Guest

    Also the 14.12 (CT97) to San Francisco. It starts to pulse as you pass the waiting train then continues thru the yard and onto Santa Clara.

    There's also an issue with the 465 cab view struggling with framerates on multiple SEHS timetable routes. It's fine on X1X but quite obvious on Series X
     
  23. DTG Matt

    DTG Matt Executive Producer Staff Member

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    Again if you can give me a specific one to test I am happy to give it a run. If you don't give me a specific one, there's every chance I happen to pick one that's fine and not actually see a problem that might be there, is the reason i'm looking for specific things to test.
     
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  24. Princess Entrapta

    Princess Entrapta Well-Known Member

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    Yeah, pretty much literally ANY service that passes by this point on the map will do it in either direction, but the ones we specified previously should be useful examples to specifically test as they're ones we've definitely confirmed it happening on.
    If you like I can record footage of it and upload for you to check out and directly compare to performance you're getting on the new gen version. From the service selection screen to it happening is only a few minutes so XBox GameDVR should catch it all in a single recording session.
     
    Last edited: Aug 11, 2021
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  25. Princess Entrapta

    Princess Entrapta Well-Known Member

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    The aforementioned 257 San Jose Diridon - San Francisco 14:24 service running the current backcompat version on Series S.

    Framerate issues kick in pretty consistently on *any* service running past here but this one highlights it fairly easily as it's only about a minute out from the station. On Series X the stuttering is less pronounced but still there. So, how do the new versions hold up on this particular stress test?
    Stuttering begins around the 30 second mark and lasts around 25s overall until getting past that section of track.
    https://1drv.ms/v/s!AmUam9bd9z-NvEHNSlsozftZXi4Y?e=UEUcFP
     
  26. Crosstie

    Crosstie Well-Known Member

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    This prompted me to look up the actual specs for the Series X and they are really eye-catching. Apart from the amount of RAM, it looks to be more powerful than my slightly aging gaming PC. I would be sorely tempted if it weren't for the $1,100+ price tag (and I would want top of the line), and, at my age, having to learn a whole new bag of tricks (controller).
    Still, I play on high settings and I get a consistent 50-60 fps on my 4k display, similar to the best consoles, so I shouldn't complain. As far as I can tell, there isn't much difference between high and ultra settings, at least for PC, so you're not missing much with the Series X.
     
    Last edited: Aug 11, 2021
  27. DTG Matt

    DTG Matt Executive Producer Staff Member

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    Not sure where you're looking but the Series X (the top of the line one) has an RRP in the states of $499. Probably what you're seeing is scalpers who are making it difficult and expensive to pick one up currently, but over the next year or so that will change and things will normalise :)
     
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  28. Princess Entrapta

    Princess Entrapta Well-Known Member

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    Yeah, my gaming laptop with a top end AM4 socketed desktop processor and a solid discrete graphics card was top of the line in 2017, and cost £1500, my Series X has the next generation of all that hardware and cost me £450. A comparable graphics card upgrade for my desktop, which currently has the same hardware as my laptop, would run to about £750, and I'd probably also want to upgrade my board and CPU while I was at it to get the most out of it.
     
  29. Mattty May

    Mattty May Guest

    Console machines are definitely superb value for money. And such an advancement since the gold old SNES days.
     
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  30. Crosstie

    Crosstie Well-Known Member

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    Over here, you'd be very fortunate to see one available at that price. At major retailers they are usually listed at over $800. The $499 listings are always "Sold Out" or simply not listed at all.
    When the market recovers its senses, I'll seriously consider it as an alternative to a new PC, just for TSW2, and keep my current PC which will be more than adequate for managing the rest of my life needs.
     
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  31. Princess Entrapta

    Princess Entrapta Well-Known Member

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    Keep an eye on Microsoft's own site, I see them pop up as being back in stock in the XBox store on my console at the basic RRP every now and again, usually for a day or two each time now. With the bonus that buying them through it will earn you a TON of store credit via MS rewards, which in my case I used to buy a Series S as well.
     
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  32. Willowrpe

    Willowrpe Well-Known Member

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    Some excellent points are made in this thread, I don't have an issue with using dynamic res if the frame rate goes a bit wobbly. I have TSW2 on PC as well as consoles so know full well how much better it looks on PC so if its closer to that it will be amazing. Been playing so much TSW 2020 on PS5 and that runs at a low res because it was never optimised for anything but base consoles, countless hours on that and TSW2 will look stunning on next gen versions!

    I will say I am glad DTG have done Xbox Series X/S and PS5 versions of the title I was concerned we would have to wait another year yet so that's good.

    I have a 4K tv plus also a 1440p monitor with VRR which does work on my series X as I have tested it
     
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  33. DTG Matt

    DTG Matt Executive Producer Staff Member

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    Princess Entrapta so i did some unscientific tests using both Series S and Series X on that service at 14:24 you mentioned above. Honestly I couldn't see any judder at all. If it was, it was maybe one frame once. I will qualify that with - i'm quite tired atm and will take another look another time but there was nothing there making me go "ugh!" and it was 59-60 fps flapping around the entire time. This is with Series S in HD 60fps mode of course.
     
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  34. Princess Entrapta

    Princess Entrapta Well-Known Member

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    Excellent to hear! Of all the routes I've played, that one, at that spot, was always the biggest hit. So if anywhere was gonna cause issues with the framerate, that was probably it!
     
  35. BBIAJ

    BBIAJ Well-Known Member

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    Well, they did cover Microsoft Flight Simulator on Xbox Series X|S, so maybe if we lobby them hard enough on Twitter, you never know!
     
  36. DTG Matt

    DTG Matt Executive Producer Staff Member

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    In the mean time if there are any UE4 settings you want me to pull out to see what they are, just let me know what the console command is to pull it out (i'm sure you'll find them on google, they are things like "r.ViewDistanceScale") - happy to get anything out you want to see.
     
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  37. Redbus

    Redbus Well-Known Member

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    I’m in a similar situation Matt. I have a pretty good PC, but strangely I just enjoy playing it on the XBSX more because of the convenience - the way everything just works (no drivers, antivirus etc), and the fact that I admire that little black box for its superb design (inside and out), and crazy value for money.
     
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  38. dreampage

    dreampage Well-Known Member

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    In the current version, in 4K mode, I experience regular stutters on SEHS, especially on the forested areas and any time another train passes me in the other direction. Also, Clinchfield visibly stutters as well in external view, I think both might be because of the dense foliage.
     
  39. bakedpotatos.jm

    bakedpotatos.jm Well-Known Member

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    Thats odd I have not seen any stutters at all since I've had the series X. And its been 2 months.
     
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  40. davebadger#4587

    davebadger#4587 Member

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    I'm getting stutters on gwe, hamburg lubeck, rapid transit all on series x. Is it possible having a lot of the dlcs installed is causing this, as has only appeared since installing more.
     
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  41. bakedpotatos.jm

    bakedpotatos.jm Well-Known Member

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    Good question I'm only at 63% used on my hard drive, and other than TSW I only have FS2020 and MLB The Show installed.

    Never have had any stutter issues.

    I have almost all the routes just not 4. TVL, WSR, CRR and Cane creek as I don't really have interest in them. Just not too much of a fan of freight and WSR just never peaked my interest.

    For locos I have Baby Bullet, DB101, 465, M3, BR Heavy Freight, DB 155, DB 363, DB 182, DB 204, and the MP15DC.

    So it is a pretty large collection, and no stutter issues and smooth 60FPS l.
     
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  42. box215

    box215 Active Member

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    I have every DLC except the DB BR 204
    I dont have stuttering issues, maybe a hitch here or there. Much less than when I played on the One X
    Unless I place the exterior cam in the exhaust smoke of a diesel loco
    And sometimes at San Francisco station on Peninsula Corridor when it's full of trains (exterior cam only)
     
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  43. drdavewatford

    drdavewatford Active Member

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    I've had no stuttering issues on Series X. I'm wondering whether any of the people having issues have installed the game and all DLC on the SDD (Internal Drive)? Maybe installation on an external HDD might be causing performance issues for some?
     
  44. Redbus

    Redbus Well-Known Member

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    Stuttering is not unusual in this game, and does not necessarily mean your Xbox is on the blink. On my PC (which is a pretty decent spec) I get occasional stuttering, even when running at 100 fps on an ultrawide monitor. It’s just the nature of the beast - TSW relies upon UE 4. Perhaps v4.26 will be smoother with its more efficient draw distance processing, though I suspect that tile loading is the culprit, so there will probably always be a hit, at least with v4 (let’s wait and see with v5 ;) ).
     
  45. DB628

    DB628 Well-Known Member

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    I have this Shuttering in TSW and Forza Horizon 4 as well sometimes for few seconds.
    And I play on Series X
     
  46. appledates#4945

    appledates#4945 Well-Known Member

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    For TSW2 and a Series X version, that slide actually excites and impresses me, I’ll take the 60 FPS with possible slow down with all of those added graphical settings.
     
  47. Princess Entrapta

    Princess Entrapta Well-Known Member

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    I run it off the PCIe4 internal SSD. The stuttering is 100% a thing just outside San Jose on Peninsula Corridor. It's several times worse on Series S than on X. On my XBox One (Running off my Samsung QVO external SSD) it's even worse. It's definitely not a matter of read speed bottlenecks, it's entirely down to that stretch of track and how powerful the hardware trying to load it is. Less CPU and memory, more stuttering.
     
  48. Princess Entrapta

    Princess Entrapta Well-Known Member

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    This is actually why they disabled additional layers on XBox which are present on PC, as having too many additional locos from DLCs showing up ingame at once would cause this problem. It's not going to be the cause here, since those layers are disabled currently, though they will be getting turned on for the upcoming release as the Series X can handle them.
    Otherwise, just having more DLCs installed should not contribute to any issues like this as it only loads them as needed.
     
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  49. dreampage

    dreampage Well-Known Member

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    All of my content is installed on the internal SSD, and I think this all comes down to perception in the end. I am extremely sensitive to stutters which is a blessing and a curse at the same time. I can't stand it when games cannot keep to their target framerates. Sadly, as it was clear in the Series X stream this week, the updated game has stutters as well, severe ones in some places. Overall it's good but I wouldn't call it stable. I'd still love to see a lower resolution mode to mitigate this.
     

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