PC [update 13 July] This Time I Am Really Annoyed

I still think it would be a better idea to introduce a slider in the settings for low/med/high AI traffic and people can adjust this for there own m/c specs.

 

Phew, any time y'all talk about games from your childhood it makes me feel like a child, myself. 9 times out of 10 it's a game made a decade before I even existed. My childhood PC struggles (nice to know we had the same problems, though) were with running games like Grand Theft Auto IV, Fallout 3, FSX, and Euro Truck Sim 2 (...and Minecraft. It's been around for much longer than I realize sometimes).

I'm not too upset personally about this particular issue as I didn't have too much into SEHS but I do find it troubling that DTG are still having to think about/compensate for decade-old hardware. This is very ironic considering I play on a GTX 1060 but even then it's reaching it's limits on most games now, with no exception being TSW. Unfortunately, though, for as long as Gen 8 significantly helps keep the lights on, TSW will still support it. We can only hope that the most of the Gen 8 playerbase decides to upgrade by this time next year.

 

Probably not gonna happen as Microsoft released a new version of the Xbox Series S a few weeks ago. The timetable is also meant for those consoles

 

That's nonsense. DTG have already stated that there's a significant amount of customers using gen8 consoles, so it makes perfect (economical) sense to support these platforms.

Having fewer (paying) customers supporting the game we love benefits no-one, no matter how powerful your machine is.

 

Gen 8 can definitely be supported by having lowered settings, and reduced AI/Assets in missions. That's fine, noone is going to complain about that. We already see similar things with other games where Gen8 gets a lower spec version of the game to Gen9.
But people on more powerful hardware should NOT be penalized because people refuse to upgrade from outdated hardware.

 

Its a bit frustrating I haven't even bought the 700 on series S and I still got the reduced timetable. Even though it always ran fine for me and I never had issues.

As people have said a layers toggle would've be a smarter idea especially for this.

 

Nonsense to you, not to me! And perfectly fine if you don´t agree.

I´m on PS5 only for some months now and had 95% of all DLCs for PS4 on TSW2 installed. And that enables me to state clearly: That hardware was on its knees trying to handle the more complex routes. BML even an unplayable slide show. And still, on reasonably playable routes the PS4 sounded like a 747 on take off. With power consumption sky rocketing.

The only reason to continue is, as you point out, out of comercial interest. But then, with sound morals, you have to dedicate proper development to those target consoles and not shoot a random patch into the ventilator just to see where the sh..*beep*.... lands. Instead of trying to apply downsized and ill-conceived derivates of the main stream development, you´ll have to have a dedicated dev stream (OMG, the costs, the costs ....!). Otherwise patch disasters like yesterday´s will repeat themselves.

Right, and then there was something called .... optimization ..... naaaaahhh, forget it, let´s not open that can of worms.

 

There’s also the ongoing concern if they do this once to SEHS, they might do it again on another route where it might matter more. SEHS is not one of my most played routes, but imagine losing progress on NTP or Dresden to Riesa to squeeze in an extra layer.

Sigh.

There’s times when DTG and TSW can deliver greatness, then there’s times when I just wish TSC had a proper timetable mode.

 

Personally I feel they should be trying to attract many new players to the game by making the game better in all regards and utilising what is there in terms of Gen9 and PC. Most young boys (and I’d guess many young girls) would list train driver as a coveted career and I don’t believe for one second this game is as ‘niche’ as many would like to think. I do, however, think gamers are more discerning than many give them credit for and are put off by buggy content that is limited in features.

This game needs to move forward in strides, not potter about clinging on to decade old hardware well past it’s best. I would also suggest that if the game ran to the limits of new gen hardware and was truly ground-breaking (a bit like MSFS) those Gen 8 players in a financial position to do so would upgrade in a heart beat.

 

[QUOTE="Pipe, post: 678426, member:
But you didn´t touch the notorious and complaint for ages BR 143 Introduction Bug??? The *real* game breaker!
[/QUOTE]

I would also like a response to this question. DTG JD DTG Alex

 

We've heard recently from Matt on the 8th gen thread that the main constraint that holds the game back is time to make stuff. Not the gap between 8th gen and other platforms. We know that 8th gen and to some degree the series S have issues with memory. But calling for it to be dropped when its still such a high percentage of dlc sales doesn't make sense and wouldn't accelerate the game in terms of updates and would set them back in terms of income. We shouldn't be calling for the end of 8th gen as its pointless. We should be calling for differential layers between platforms based upon memory like we used to have to some extent between consoles and PC.

For any interested Matt lists a very good few posts on this thread regarding 8th gen and other aspects.
https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/generation-8-consoles.71353/

 

Thanks Matt, glad to hear this is getting resolved but this shouldn't have happened in the first place but I know discussions will be had about how to prevent such an issue happening again in the future

 

They can keep Gen 8 around as long as it doesn't impact people on more powerful hardware. They just need to do the Sport game model, where PC/Gen9 get a more demanding release, and Gen 8, Series S get a reduced fidelity option to match their hardware constraints.

I don't think anyone would have an issue with that.

 

Thank you Matt and DTG team. I sincerely do hope that the new solution does not take away AI trains and static stock. They are the stuff that makes a route interesting (personal opinion).

 

I haven't checked the new update yet, but reading this it really sucks.

I wish there was a better way than duplicated timetable and mandatory reduced timetable in journey mode... A setting to cull extra traffic on demand for example, or adding a "priority" score for services... those with a lower number would not drive withthe reduced setting.

I swear, TSW3 started so promisingly and in 2023, it's been one disappointment after another.

Edit - I don't mean to speak ill of Gen8 users, but this really shows the "older consoles don't hold TSW back" as yet another Dovetail lie...

 

What about the other issues being raised in the main thread Matt, particularly sound levels and clipping please.

 

The reduced timetable only removes a) static stock at Hoo Junction and b) the TGV services on HS1

What's the point in removing 4 services from the full timetable? Only to solve memory issues by any chance? I thought the reduced timetable would remove more layers than just the TGV, come on DTG...

 

To put everyone at ease. The issues around services not showing as complete in the "full" timetable has been confirmed as an unintended bug.

 

Journey mode still shouldn't be on the reduced timetable for Gen 9 and PC though by default.

 

Matt, can you please elaborate on the fix and predicted time of deployment?
I was looking forward to playing the 700, ROG 73 and RHTT over the weekend, but I'm concerned about the fix rolling back in-game progress.

Thank you

 

Thanks for the explanation Matt, thought it was just the TGV and static stock (which the 385 at Ashford counts as anyway) and glad to hear you are working on a fix to rectify the scoring between the two timetables

 

I, and I'm sure everyone else, really appreciate you jumping on this so quickly Matt, thank you.

 

Thanks again Matt and it must be a pain for you having to fix something of this level but as long as you can fix it, that's all that counts

 

Doesn't matter. The patch affects you too, whether you have the 700 or not.

 

You still have your progress only in "Journey Mode" Lite- the Journey has been shifted to the bogus timetable instead of the real one.

 

This would be very unnecessary. The whole timetable with all layers runs fine on Gen8, seriously. I guess they just introduced the reduced version because the Class 700 pushed it over the limit.

 

It's worth considering that when GTA 6 releases in the next six months or so, owners of Gen 8 consoles will be dropping them like bad habits and upgrading in order to play the new megagame.

 

A bit confused, does this mean PC is getting the full timetable back for Journey Mode?
If so, thank you. If not, why not? Many like me use Journey Mode almost exclusively, and the additional immersion we had before has just been wiped out. We have been told each platform has its own build so it should be possible.

 

I spend most of my time playing through Journey mode, it’s the showcase of a route, why would you want to make the showcase a lesser version?

I play on PS5 and shouldn’t be being held back by Microsoft’s decision to release a Gen 9 console that is less capable than even their own Gen 8. I guess this was all a ‘quick win’ to rush the 700 out the door, but a much better solution would have been an AI volume toggle rather than a whole new timetable.

Of course a perfect solution would have been for the game to just know how much memory the machine has and limit accordingly, but maybe that’s pushing the boundaries of Microsoft’s enforced parity between Series X and S, which has already seen Halo Infinite lose split screen for all players and Baldur’s Gate 3 stuck in limbo without an Xbox release because the Series S can’t run the game.

 

It's an option but now since Matt is determined to fix the patch, this wouldn't be needed any longer

 

Fair enough

 

Exactly! Making my way through the 130+ comments right now and very pleased to hear a fix is in the works!

 

Ain't it funny how good intentions seem to find a way to come back and bite you in the backside. In all walks of life.
Thanks for the updates Matt. Much appreciated.

 

Nice to see we have been listened to, and thanks for your work being put into this to rectify it. Glad to see the journey mode timetable being reinstated.

 

Thank you Matt. As a Series S player, I will say that I support this decision. To my thinking, even if there is some instability in regards to the full timetable, all I need to do is manually remove some layers to make everything work. This I don't mind doing, and when I bought Series S in the first place of course I realized that it would not be able to do everything that Series X does. To some degree I have been fine-tuning DLC and liveries ever since Rush Hour. Although, for sure I can't speak for every Series S player on this.

 

Thanks to you and the team for addressing this so quickly. I appreciate all you do to keep us immersed!

 

Thank you for the response, Matt sounds promising.

 

Just leaves the sounds to sort out… (Amongst others).

 

Thank you for working on this fix so rapidly.

 

As the Thread-Starter yeah this Update was very annoying, but if we see there is a hard work on it to fix it, i must say Thank You to DTG (especially to Matt) to try to fix this "Error" that comes with this Update. Thank You!!!

But one little Question:
I thought the Addon Manager was build exact for the Reason that a Console can't handle the Game well and disable some DLC's to run smoother? Why all PC Players have/has the reduced Timetable in their Game?

 

The add ons manager was initially to get around the PS dlc limit of like 64gb or something causing routes not to show up even when downloaded.

It does this by only loading routes and dlc when you select a certain add on as before the managet the game just loaded everything regardless of whether it was needed for layers or not.

Matt said in a different thread that add ons manager does help to free up some memory but certain routes still have to load a lot of dlc I'd guess they still to load a lot so it still is a bit of a strain on memory

 

Ok, thank you to both of you. Then i was wrong (on PC i dont have the Addon Manager). I thought it was able to deactivate some layers with it. Ok Question answered...

 

Thank you Matt!I think some folks can be harsh ( and sometimes rightly so) but that just shows that people are passionate and really want to see y’all and the sim do well.