What Would You Trade In For Performance Gain?

We have seen TSW in action. I liked what I saw but I can't ignore the obvious and that is performance. Looking at the addition of volumetric fog made me wonder why they even tried adding this. The game can't handle more load.

Isn't it time to look at optionally stripping stuff in favour of performance instead of adding stuff that decreases performance? But what would you trade in to achieve this?

For me personally (and I no it's a big no no for lots of people) I would trade in on how well the trains look. for me there has always been this big difference between the quality of how the trains look and the scenery. Graphics ain't everything so the trains good look a bit less good if that would give me better performance.

Other suggestions?

 

No idea why these spring to mind, definitely has nothing to do with new ‘features’ in TSW4:
-points in general
-awards
-53 different overlays on the hud (if it ain’t broke don’t fix it)
-trains with wrong sounds

Honestly I’d trade anything for better performance. I’m on a high-end PC and still get stutters dropping to 10fps sometimes.
Can’t imagine what it’s like on console or god forbid a laptop. DTG are doing literally everything except core optimisation and it’s perhaps the most frustrating part of TSW4.

 

To me the performance on the stream looked like the performance I had with the latest TSW 3 routes on PS5 so if this did not look like what you are used to on PC it is rather worrying.

 

Less dense lineside foliage, certainly grass and weeds. I know it’s an important part of creating a realistic appearance but maybe reduce by 25%?

 

I certainly wouldn’t want the trains to look less good. If the tiles loading in are causing the stutters, will smaller tiles work better? I don’t know if that can even be a thing.

Either that, or when in the cab (where we are most of the time), find a way not to load distant scenery we can’t see from the cab, such as buildings and trees obscured by other buildings and trees. There’s no point a building loading that we can only see from the external camera up high. When switching to the camera, the game could load those assets then. Again, I don’t know if that’s possible.

 

Why on earth would you want to strip stuff away? The game is below par graphically as it is already, the last thing we need is it making worse!

The game desperately needs native DX12 and DLSS/FSR support. Put your energy into asking for that rather than giving them an excuse to make the game look worse!

Also, I haven’t seen what prompted this thread, I’m guessing it was a stream. If so DTG really need to invest in a decent PC to show the game off at its best. Stop demoing your product on a potato. Please!

 

How would DX12 make the game perform better for me? I'm on PS5

I edited my OP adding the word 'optionally' to make it clear it would be a setting like volumetric fog that would increase performance instead of decrease

 

It wouldn’t, but then there’s a reason MSFS isn’t available on the PS5. If DTG need to strip things out to improve performance on the PS5 then so be it, but the last thing the PC needs is graphical fidelity being reduced. It’s already bad enough as it is. Unfortunately for consoles you are always going to bump into issues with hardware limitations, it’s the nature of the beast. Consoles are always a compromise between performance and cost.

Anyway, I thought volumetric fog was optional on consoles? FWIW VF is built in to UE4 and is literally a tick box to implement. I can’t believe the performance hit will be that big to be honest but the proof will be in the pudding.

 

Sorry for my bad English because that is what I'm trying to say. Yes, the fog is optional on consoles. if you toggle it off then the performance I expect would be like TSW3. So I would like a toggle in TSW5 that strips away stuff that just makes performance smooth as butter. Not one stutter. Smoother than what PC has to offer today and without losing all the traffic

 

Smaller tiles is an interesting idea. I would much rather run at 4-50fps consistently that 70 to 10 every minute.

 

The stutter, I believe, is a UE4 thing. I agree that consoles should have sliders like the PC does though so it can be adjusted to taste.

I’m just making the point that the last thing we collectively need is DTG stripping out graphically fidelity. Graphics matter, they are fundamental to the immersion of a sim. If they weren’t then everyone would be off playing Run8.

 

Out of interest what are they demoing this on? Judging by the mouse pointer it looks like a PC. Why the heck is VSYNC not turned on? The screen tearing is terrible.

The lighting is still completely blown out as well. Doesn’t it look suspiciously identical to TSW3? It can’t be though, obviously, because it’s a new game. Silly me.

 

Yes but we are talking different stuff here. Probably failing to express in correct English. I don't know Run 8. Just had a look at it but I don't think the graphics is why not everyone is on Run8. The graphics don't look bad from the images on the website but the content looks very meh to me. Looks like only the routes I never buy in TSW are present.

 

I’m pretty sure they started the stream and then they realised VSYNC wasn’t on, so they then put it on. It was fairly early into the route. Slightly worrying if it was on and still looked average, at best.

 

I don’t know anything about it other than it’s a very faithful simulation. The graphics are terrible though, which I suspect is why it hasn’t gained any real traction.

Just watching this stream now. The graphics look just as bad in places as they did in TSW3. The OHLE looks absolutely no different, it still disappears into the ether quickly. Sigh. Still loads of flickering and shimmering on fences, lampposts and so on. The cab still doesn’t go dark as you pass under bridges. The scenery pop-in is still absolutely terrible. The lighting is totally over-exposed. It’s almost like it’s the same game.

To be fair, the terrain mesh is definitely better but it’s a shame it’s got blocks of 2D trees appearing at once all over it though. Also, the Alps don’t have snow caps on them in the summer.

 

Stripping the forums would be a good thing The most other things will not help at all.

To suggest something to trip out, you first need to know why it stutters and what assets really can gain performance when being removed. I would throw in trains as a suggestion. Stripping the trains would increase performance massively. Or tracks. Without tracks it gains lots of performance. Maybe foliage at all. Also a thing that gains massive performance. One more thing to suggest: Audio, we don't need any audio, for performance reasons and its all wrong anyways. So why to bother with audio. Get it away.

What's then left is a walking simulator with nice, but dumb scenery. No movement of things at all. No real time ToD. Pre-baked environment (looks stunning but is not dynamic at all).

But again, the forums would help the most when disappearing.

 

So intrigued by this I was wondering if there are any race games I play made in UE. I can't so seem find one. Maybe I'm getting the wrong search results but I only see racing games I never heard about. Makes me wonder if UE is the right fit for a train simulator?

Don't really know if it would help. Without the forum we wouldn't have passengers with smartphones and suitcases. We at least made one improvement to this game.

EDIT: why do I have the feeling all of a sudden the smartphones bring more stutter to the game?

 

Dovetail are great content creators but terrible game designers. I don't have much faith in them improving performance. In a perfect world they would just be creating the content for someones much more polished train simulator, but such a simulator is not yet available.

There have been suggestions to add AI upscaling and frame generation for a while and I feel those could improve performance they wouldn't fix stuttering. A solution to that would likely have to come from Epic, and TSW is such a small part of their revenue it doesn't even matter to them.

 

On PC at least the game runs almost stutter free in DX12. On DX11 it’s not good at all. The ini settings I have on TSC help immensely though.

The problem as it stands is twofold. One, DX12 is not native to the game so gives some people some funky effects, particularly those with cards with low VRAM. Two, DX12 adds load to the GPU, and with ini settings that make the game look something approaching like a late 2023 release, it can push even high-end hardware hard. DX12 and DLSS is the answer, but DTG seem to not want to do it for some reason.

I appreciate none of this helps people on the PS5 though.

Maik Goltz Are you suggesting the silencing of dissenting voices? Not a good look.

 

Run 8 is good but graphically on a par with early MSTS. Even then it struggles and I had to cap my frame rate at 30 FPS to eliminate twitching and shuddering. Apart from the dubious pleasures of multiplayer the main appeal of Run 8 is the huge mega routes, notably SoCal which extends from LA and Fresno through to Seligman, plus the industry service side of things. But graphically as I say it is not pretty to look at, very little distant scenery, 2D billboard trees even on the latest Horseshoe Curve route.

 

Just wait until you have access to over 3 times the number of layers in livery designer.

Can anyone on the team speak to that? Has performance improved over 3 fold for custom liveries? Even on PS4? I guess this is a question for the livery designer stream...

 

Without the forums I wouldn't know how to navigate the bugs!
They're essential to the enjoyment of this game.

 

I don't think anything should be traded for better performance. I do wonder why some of the ini settings are settable in the graphics settings, I do not know how easy that would be to implement.

I certainly don't want to see lesser quality rolling stock and I am not sure stripping back lineside vegetation is a good way to go.

I don't think the stuttering seems as bad as it was however there are certainly some routes where it seems worse, MML for one. I do know my graphics card is getting on though.

I would hope that DTG are looking into what they can do to alleviate it.

 

It is turned on.

 

memc83 Well, it sure doesn’t look like that on my PC with VSYNC on.

The volumetric fog looks good. It’s a shame it’s taken this long to be put in the game but it’s a good thing it’s finally there.

 

My performance is great, the newer routes have some specific locations with a little drop.

My pc is 14 years old, back then a ultra powermachine. Only upgraded ram & graphic card, made an own service + changed to ssd.

My "power on" button broke 5 years ago and i need to turn on my pc on the mainboard directly. Yeah win 7 stops working apparently by the end of the year. Beside that everything is running well.

I guess i would go trade nothing on the sim, just go for a new rig.

 

See! TSW4 brings improvements for everyone

 

Yeah. The issue I had was never about TSW4 being worthwhile or not, it was about this pretence that it was a new game and the locking of certain content (including patches) behind a paywall. I don’t believe this release goes anything like far enough, and is fixing niff-naff and trivia rather than addressing the bigger things that have plagued this game since the day it was released. It’s a question of priorities and I’m fairly confident that DLSS/FSR could have been implemented in the time it took to develop a way of taking fancier screenshots.

There’s no denying though that what is there is worthwhile.

 

I have very few problems with stutter on PC. It is more noticeable on some routes though. London - Brighton and Bremen - Oldenburg being the most noticeable to me.

 

TSW3



I'm being facetious..

 

Definitely wouldn’t want to see things stripped but I would like to see some more graphic setting sliders for the most taxing gpu features such as reflections and maybe a slider option for the quality of the models too.

 

I would strip nothing, quite the opposite I want more added. They just need to turn it down/offer options for consoles I guess.
Game runs fine for me, do not make the game look worse, and have less stuff in it.

 

Run8s terrible UI and world interaction and the need to use 3rd party sites to figure out where stuff is going is what stops me from playing, it looks good enough. Decent lighting goes a long way, It just that it can be a chore to figure it out better UI and way to figure out where what goes where would make it so much better.

 

I usually turn off or scale down Anti-Aliasing and anything related to shadows and reflections to get a fps boost. In my experience those are things that can have quite an impact on performance but visually only have minor effects.

 

I don't know if it would improve performance but I could happily lose all the frilly things that have nothing to do with driving trains - points, medals, achievements, mastery ( whatever that is ), donkeys, cats and the various barnyard animals in stations ( they're fine in fields and farms), cuddly dinosaurs and all collectables. Losing a few trees would be OK too.

I could also do without some of the bizarre lighting effects, especially the weird eye adaptation feature. Also get rid of that unnatural " snow blow " effect on passing AI trains. And do we need volumetric fog? Turning that off might add a few frames. Let's lose a few umbrellas too; in my experience only about a third of people use them, not close to 100% as in the game.

Getting rid of all that superfluous piffle would leave ample room for more actual people walking around and more traffic on those empty expressways we keep seeing as well as a few pooing pigeons which are strangely missing from stations.

 

I believe that volumetric fog can be turned on and off on all platforms.

 

I'd rip out the new lighting, clouds, effects, fog, etc. whichever one is the big culprit in decreased performance over TSW2.

 

I’m going to say I wouldn’t sacrifice anything, I like the features and the performance on XSX isn’t something I would personally complain about, the stutter I usually pick up on some of them and think “hmm there’s that” it just doesn’t last long enough for me to be mad at it.

 

Nothing. What this game needs is optimalization, not stripping away of features.

 

The "stutter" we all experience is in the game core; it happens on every graphical setting. While there is some mitigation for PC with engine.ini tweaks, this does not help people on consoles. However, I see car racing games for console that use Unreal 4 and there is little or no stuttering. Whatever THOSE games sacrifice for better performance is what we all need for the core of TSW.

 

We shouldn’t have to trade in anything, dtg should optimise the game to perform properly at all times

 

But you have to trad in for that. That's the problem/fact behind it.

 

Respectfully, I disagree. Are you suggesting that what we have now is the most optimal possible version of this game? There is absolutely nothing DTG can do, bar stripping out scenery, to make this game run better?

We all know that’s not the case.

For what it’s worth though, I do agree this phrase ‘XYZ games company need to optimise this game better’ is used too much and is almost always completely misunderstood by the person saying it. In that context optimising often does mean reducing texture quality, removing objects, reducing complexity etc. In my opinion that isn’t what this game needs.

 

Start to make precise suggestions what to change (technically precisely) to make it better working, to DTG for sure, not to me, i can't change anything in that respect. I will stop defending the game now. Makes no fun.

 

I appreciate I’m beating the same drum but DX12 and DLSS/FSR. Other than ‘we’d like it in the game at some point’ there’s been nothing further. Another iteration of the game passes us by and nothing.

There are loads of ini files out there with the requisite settings needed to help stuttering (on PC at least).

I promise I’m not having a go at you, and I totally understand what you’re saying, but we all know there’s a lot can be done to improve the situation before stripping out scenery is even considered.

 

The game needs DLSS/FSR/XeSS implemented is what it needs.
DX12 will not make a difference, for the vast majority of people.

 

Of course it will make a difference. Look at almost every other game that has DLSS, it will also run under DX12. The two things generally come hand in hand.

DX12 as an API reduces load on the CPU by offloading calculations to the GPU. It also utilises multi-threaded CPU’s better than DX11 does. DLSS/FSR reduces load on the GPU. Can you not see how those two things are mutually beneficial?

Ordinarily, in sim games, when they grind to a halt it’s because the CPU is overloaded running all the calculations. We already know that in TSW, assuming your PC is reasonable by today’s standards, when it’s running under DX12 it is a much much smoother and higher fps experience than it is running under DX11. Where it sometimes falls down is that a persons GPU isn’t meaty enough to take the extra load. Those are the people that tried it, said it was rubbish and forgot about it. Well, here enters DLSS, which not only buys you more GPU headroom but offers an improved AA solution to boot.

It’s all about balancing your system so that neither the CPU or GPU are doing all the heavy lifting on their own, so to have DLSS or DX12 without the other is daft. As a lot of the slow downs in TSW are CPU related, adding DLSS on its own (which makes the GPU work less hard) is only going to exacerbate this problem, not rectify it. This is less the case if you have a high end CPU, but we have no idea how many people are in that position.

On a related point I’m absolutely certain that this, amongst other things, is the primary reason why Asobo are moving to FS24. They’ve said that they’ve hit a brick wall with the current engine, and I’d put money on that brick wall being that they can’t get it working under DX12 properly, so even though that sim has DLSS it is still massively reliant on the CPU and performs poorly as a result. Their forums are full of people with old or slow CPU’s who have been out and bought a 4090 and are complaining like hell that nothing at all has changed. The truth is that there still isn’t a CPU that exists that can run FS2020 satisfactorily as it stands.

 

I have yet to play a single game that gives me better performance in DX12, unless it was built from the get go with DX12 in mind.
I have a 3080TI, 7800x3D, 64 GB of 6400MHz DDR5 Ram, and everything installed on NVMes. Every single game I've tried runs worse in DX12, than in DX11. This is using internal benchmarks, MSI Afterburner as well as the Nvidia performance monitor. All show the same.
MSFS for example stutters a tiny bit less on the ground, but framerates are lower on average. That's not even talking about the graphical issues it causes with runway/taxiway textures.

 

DX12 on its own maybe. DX12 and DLSS together then I’d argue not. You would get far better performance with that than you would with DX11 and DLSS. Being the exception that proves the rule, TSW runs better on DX12 without DLSS than it does on DX11. As I already said, it’s more a case of which hardware component the game leans on hardest. Sim games tend to push CPU’s to their limits whereas your average AAA title is likely to push the GPU harder. It doesn’t matter one jot how good your GPU is, if your CPU is the bottleneck all that fancy GPU hardware will just sit there doing nothing.

That is very much the case with FS2020. I’ve already given my opinion on MSFS above, but I believe that the engine as is and the problems with DX12 and getting it working anything like properly are why they’ve re-written large parts of the engine and moved on to FS2024. TSW isn’t the same case at all however, as UE4 supports DX12 natively. In that instance TSW has had DX12 in mind from the start.

 

On my PC TSW runs better with the -DX12 flag even if it isn't officially supported. For TSC (single thread limited) I use DXVK to improve performance.