I was off today and playing a bunch of TSW, and was reminded of why sometimes I hate this game, as much as I love it. This was on PS5 Service 1: First time playing Cajon Pass in ages, picked a service running the oil train from San Bernardino to Victorville, 9:47am service. Start it up, get the train setup and moving. Roll through San Bernardino yard, take a screenshot by the San Bernardino station. Decide I want to switch to rear camera to double check that my pushers were running properly. Game freezes. This is an issue with long freight trains on Playstation that has been around since at least TSW2. Switching from front to back camera can freeze the game. I've reported it multiple times. Game crash. Service 2: This time I picked a grain train from Barstow to Victorville, and plan to continue it after that to San Bernardino. Start up, everything good. This time I avoid switching to rear camera at all since now I know this issue is still unreliable. Service is uneventful until about halfway through. I am blasting my horn realistically at crossings when all of the sudden the horn starts emitting weird tones, and then going off on its own making weird noises every mile or so. I pause the game to google the issue and see sure enough its existed since at least September 2022 and apparently never fixed as reported: PlayStation - Cajon Pass - A Serious Horn Bug | Dovetail Games Forums . I make it to Victorville after hearing the horn blaring off and on randomly for miles. I give up on continuing part 2 of the service, no way I am planning to listen to a broken horn for 2 hours or so. Done with Cajon Pass for the day. Service 3: On to ECML Doncaster-Peterborough. Service 1A92 which runs from Doncaster to Grantham in the 801/1. Start up, get going no issue. Station stop at Retford no issue. As I am approaching Grantham, I start to notice the low res/low ram issue with the cab labels going blurry has started. As reported many times and supposedly fixed in the last big patch, its back again. As soon as this starts happening I get so annoyed/distracted by it that I just quit the service. Back when this was widespread I stopped playing the game entirely. Issue discussed here: XBX/XBS - Blurred Textures Still There | Dovetail Games Forums Done with ECML for the day. Service 4: Long Island Railroad 2 - haven't played this one in a while. Pick the M9 and Train 27, 6:54 in game from Lynbrook to Atlantic Terminal. Start up, no issues. Pass through Jamaica with some pretty low FPS (15-25) but not game breaking. Then as soon as I hit the tunnel to Atlantic Terminal, game completely crashes to error screen. So there you have it, better part of a day, 4 services attempted, only 1 did I actually get finished (with an annoying horn blowing the entire time). QC is still an issue here. There are some routes (mostly German ones or Preston-Blackpool) where I can play all day without issue but today I remembered why I rarely step outside of that sandbox. I don't think theres any more point in bug reports for TSW4 but I am hoping TSW5 moves away from this beta tester feel I get in a lot of prior TSW content.
Wow I had no idea how bad the game was on PS5. I feel sorry for you. With so many crashes, what keeps you playing? If I had a 75% chance of crashing the game, I would move on.
That is pretty eye-opening, hearing just how different the experience is between platforms. I have always played on PC and have played every version of the game without issue. In fact for the life of TSW4 I have only encountered a single occurance of the game fully crashing, and that was caused by a faulty mod, then not a single crash since removing the mod. I was thinking of getting the free version of TSW5 for my XSX when it becomes available, but I think I will just stick to my PC after hearing that!
I've over 220 hours playing TSW4 on my PS5 over various routes and I can count on one hand how many crashes I've had out of the blue. For me it's very stable. I've had double digit figures of random crashes on XSX with around half the hours played and about half as much DLC installed.
Computer programs are supposed to very much be 'do as you're told'. How come so many people have such different experiences on the same console? It just doesn't make sense. Can someone explain this to me please?
I've had a couple crashes on PS5 over the years but not massively since TSW4. I will say though that the game freezing and crashing when switching to rear camera on US freight is something I have encountered many times, so often in fact that it probably played a hand in why I started to drop off of US freight and explore German content which I previously cared very little for. As OP says this has been a thing since I was playing TSW2 on my PS4 back in the day, and as someone who likes to frequently switch to the external cameras and do passing shots, it's almost a game breaker. Then again, pretty much any bug that crashes you to desktop by its very nature is a game breaker.
Hardware isn’t black & white so you’ll always have tolerances there. With regards to crashing on PS5, I too haven’t experienced an issue there in a long, long time. I haven’t played US freight so can’t comment on that issue, same with LIRR. In any case though it’s not a 75% crash rate & if it was that bad, you’d certainly see more than the odd thread. DTG does have a ways to go with optimising TSW though, the raw power increase of Gen9 was much needed breathing room for them, but it means nothing in the long run if things aren’t done to make TSW’s hardware usage more economical.
PS5 is good enough for TSW in its current state. After properly reviewing the PS5 Pro it’s safe to say Sony will not be getting my money. Console, Vertical stand and the disc drive will cost me £810 UK pounds, add £300-£400 to that and you could buy yourself a pretty substantial PC with moderate specs. From what Sony showcased on their steam hasn’t really inspired confidence. I’ll be more interested in seeing digital foundry’s strip down of the console. Most importantly if it optimises backwards compatibility games? As it stands it seems to be a game by game basis. Hopefully one of the ambassadors will showcase TSW gameplay on the Pro to further my interest in the future.
