I want to improve graphics and level of detail in each route through mods. A question to all the veterans of TSC. What offers the best mods from the two companies listed? I read good things about both them. Thanks.
I have purchased all of the AP product including the enhancement packages. These really are designed to improve UK DLCs. I do not have RW Enhancer so I cannot comment. I have certainly enjoyed the AP quality. Respectfully
The AP Weather EP is a must-have. Unlike RWE it makes changes to Train Simulator itself and I think provides better results. You can combine them but I haven't tried it. The new weather types and dynamic weather in the AP pack mean it's more than just lighting, and the new weather looks brilliant. The cloud pack, while expensive for what it is, does provide a lot of variety. When setting up scenarios I don't set up specific cloud patterns (although you can do that should you want to) because the randomisation makes the skies more interesting. For context, the cloud pack picks random patterns when starting TS and will use them when loading into a scenario with AP Weather enabled but no specific cloud pattern chosen.
Armstrong Powerhouse all day long, I used to use RWE2 but I don't even have it installed anymore since the AP Sky and Weather pack came out, some people swear by a AP + RWE2 + ReShade combination to get TSC looking good, personally that's way to much of a potch for me, I use a combo of AP + 4k Upscaled graphics and that's it, I'm very happy with how my TSC performs and looks.
An example.. Light was quite bad as it was nearing sunset but it shows I've all but defeated the enemy of any PC gaming visual, the dreaded jaggies.
RWE2 for me as it does so much more than the AP stuff. I wouldn’t drive anymore in TSC if it wasn’t for the ability in RWE2 to do quick drive stops and easily manage / create my route specific AI consists. Never once while driving have I thought ‘oh that weather needs improving’ or ‘I don’t like the look of that cloud!’ When I use the live time/ weather function in RWE2 it pretty much replicates what I can see out of my real world window. Will wait and see how long before until this thread get locked once the normal suspects / arguments start and get involved!
Forgot to mention the brilliant editable HUD in RWE2, which you can customise and move around the screen depending which loco you are driving, and also better indicates if you are going up or down hill, plus how steep the gradient is!
Thanks for the response. I’m in two minds right now what mods to buy, just doing some research right now before I make a decision. RW Enhancer 2 is very appealing since it offers an all in one package. I hope not. I’m not trying to cause any controversy, I just wanted some advice
I’m on the side of AP here. I got RWE2 to start with and it clearly makes a difference, but ever since I got AP Weather, Cloud and signals, RWE has been uninstalled. RWE does have some good features like setting up quick drives and it’s own hud, but I personally don’t need either of them. I was only interested in the graphics enhancements and for me that’s where AP wins. I’ve also tried reshade, but even using presets from forum members that have posted excellent screenshots, I couldn’t get it looking how I wanted.
Totally different things. AP offers: - new realistic lighting TimeOfDay files (APSWEP) - no more dark landscapes while sun is still up, or weird blue mountains - a new skydome with realistically sized sun and moon - new shaders including a better AdaptiveBloom (mandatory!) giving a sharper and naturally saturated image - high resolution cloudscapes with randomness, each time you run a scenario a different cloud bitmap according to selected weather will be used (Cloud Pack, awesome!) - replacement for the artificial DTG 3D trees on many routes (Vegetation EP - a game changer imho) - realistic UK signals (Signal EP) - enhanced rolling stock - standalone pro locos and stock - vR-licensed 3D tracks from Konstanz-Villingen for selected routes + track sound / tunnel reverb improvements (Track EP) Shaders that AP changes: RWE offers: - new shaders (RWE was originally a free set of dev\shaders replacements by "OldSnake") - new UI - new consist and QD editor So they're not exactly competing. Only overlap is both provide updated shaders (I'm not using RWE, as I don't need it and am happy with all AP changes.) ReShade is completely different. It redirects the game to its own D3D dll, using postprocessing to filter the rendering output. Can affect framerates.
No - that is up to the route / scenario author. There's routes with announcements though (Japanese have it, Ringbahn Berlin / S25 / Frankfurt U-Bahn have a fully working FIS (passenger announcement system), some scottish routes have auto announcements (and working TMS/DAS). The ATS Flirt (745) has auto announcements, using a trick by using RailDriver.dll so announcement triggers don't need to be set up in a scenario, but are depending on your actual train's GPS position (only RailDriver can get consist coordinates, there's no other way to poll that data ingame.)
RWE will generate its own announcements, but I would not buy it for this feature. It’s a real immersion killer as it gets many pronunciations wrong. Also just my opinion, but RWE’s enhanced audio is in many cases worse especially in Diesel Locos.
My view is that the AP vegetation, track and signal enhancement packs are not game changers. They are a minor improvements. The weather pack is a significant improvement.
I thing vegetation is a game changer because that's what you see when playing. Trees. First looks like a video game, second much more like reality. The term "Tree Simulator" was often used for TS in the past
I guess it may be fair to say that the AP products change the content of the visual graphics whereas RWE will tweak the existing content and is more open to personal opinion whether it is 'better'. I am personally happy with the AP product as once installed I can leave it alone. I do not spend a lot of time outside of the cab and have no reason to desire to tweak the 'eye candy' as I play. I am more of a map geek and am usually tracking where I am on Google Earth as I drive. Everyone has their own personal opinion and desires from using this product. Respectfully
In my view the DTG vegetation in the first screenshot looks better and more realistic. I regret buying the AP vegetation EP. Other's will disagree, but if we're giving advice to others we should explain the range of experiences players have.
I have been playing TSC for quite some time now. Running the actual trains I feel confident. Messing with consists I feel reasonably competent. Modifying Scenarios and graphics I still have much to learn. I guess I am still a noob with several aspects of this vast piece of software and am blissfully happy just to accept that AP know what they are doing and buy everything they throw at me. Respectfully
I have the Vegetation EP but installed it to a dummy installation so it didn't overwrite any of the existing vegetation. I do use the AP vegetation assets separately in my own route, but I still like to vary what types of vegetation I use. DTG's bubble trees are horrible, but the more modern trees (such as the ones that come with the Chatham Main Line) are lovely and I didn't want to lose them. In general, I find the AP trees to look too thin, meaning they're not very good at blocking areas that you don't want the player to see (for this I use the original VP trees). I also think the colours are too dull - it may be realistic, but I quite like the more colourful look TS has overall. I also use JustTrains trees along with UKTS trees in isolation. I have used ATS trees in the past which are nice, and I want to try the 3DTrains trees too, but as it's impossible to get the high-res versions anymore I probably won't use them for serious builds. AP weather applies to plenty of routes by default, but you can set it up for any route manually simply by copying the TimeOfDay folder from AP\WeatherEP into the asset folder of the route you want. This works for most routes, but ones that use a template may have issues.
All routes use a template, it defines the default configuration which is the basis for the route's RouteProperies.xml file. That file references the template that's been used: <iBlueprintLibrary-cAbsoluteBlueprintID> <BlueprintSetID> <iBlueprintLibrary-cBlueprintSetID> <Provider d:type="cDeltaString">DTG</Provider> <Product d:type="cDeltaString">CrossCity</Product> </iBlueprintLibrary-cBlueprintSetID> </BlueprintSetID> <BlueprintID d:type="cDeltaString">TemplateRoutes\CrossCity.xml</BlueprintID> </iBlueprintLibrary-cAbsoluteBlueprintID>
I'd recommend the AP weather pack but beware that the dynamic weather can't be relied on to work correctly in the current release of the game. There's about a 33% chance of it functioning in the 'AP MML London to Bedford APSWEP 2O46' scenario amongst others. DTG have been aware of this for some time but as yet haven't released a version of the game where it works as it used to before the latest game update. The current version of the game also breaks some functionality in DTG's own Class 465/9 but that's a topic for another thread.
Thanks for the heads up about the issues with the AP Weather Pack - will continue to hold off as no point buying something broken (made that mistake with DTG Huddersfield - Leeds) Question then is I guess is ,should AP still be selling it in broken form? (I didn’t think DTG was allocating resources to work on fixes in TSC anymore either)
You seem to have misunderstood what the Sky/Weather EP is. The dynamic weather is only one part of a pack with many other features. The product page lays that out if you are still confused.
The point is that in previous versions of TSC it used to work just fine. AP changed nothing, it was the recent update by DTG that broke it so the onus should be on them to fix it. Note that as I said, the same update also partially broke some of DTG's own DLC. I fear that nothing will happen though, judging by the lack of posts from DTG in the Public Beta forum it looks like any further work has been quietly shelved. Perhaps DTG would care to comment?
Not confused - on the product page on the AP Website it states the following: Due to an update to Train Simulator Classic in May 2024, dynamic weather is now unreliable in how it works. Sometimes it will activate, sometimes it won't. As a result, this part of the pack is now supplied on a 'no support' basis until Dovetail Games release an update to fix this. Bascially - buy this pack at your risk - and 4 months on still no fix! Pretty poor considering AP USP is quality products!
I don't know why quoting AP's disclaimer is relevant to you suggesting that because one feature of the pack is now unreliable in its operation, it now makes the whole pack "broken". Surely you can see that's rather unreasonable? Considering your sarcastic comment of "Pretty poor considering AP USP is quality products!", it's quite evident you aren't reasonable at all and just another AP basher. You are holding against AP a bug they didn't cause. Selling with a disclaimer seems perfectly fine to me, for now at least whilst a fix is still possible, as it allows the customer to make the choice. Even if a fix isn't forthcoming, should AP remove dynamic weather from their pack even though it still works sometimes?
And there we go -as predicted the thread gets personal! So many conclusions about me without any foundations, not worthy of a reply"
As in the case of Steam Sounds Supreme's Stainmore route, I would think the onus would be on third party's to ensure their products remain compatible with the latest version of the core program, rather than vice versa.
As Steve has written, it's the responsibility of the 3rd party developers to keep up with game updates. If we think along the lines of no update should break existing addons we'd end up with a game that never was updated at all. Being specific, the issue is not that the AP pack doesn't work but that it doesn't always work.... that indicates a problem within the addon product not the base software.
Basically true, but the fact that AP have "given up" is a bit unsettling, knowing they have highly skilled scripters that pushed the sim forward like no one else. And that Steve is not communicating anymore, and TSC not being worth a single mention in their DTG Direct stream... I don't think a computer crash led to them losing the source code I mean it's ok if development stopped, but just apply the last fixes, make a final build and tell us. No problem if there's no more performance gain to be made, you've done what was possible. The rest will be done by newer hardware. Just talk to us DTG JD DTG Jamie DTG Alex
Apparently not. I reported it to Richard when I noticed it, as probably did others, and he was able to reproduce it. He investigated and came to the conclusion that it was the most recent update to TSC that had caused the problem. If it were just down to that particular scenario he would no doubt have been able to fix it. The fact that the same update has removed the ability to set a destination for DTG's own 465/9 when creating a scenario suggests to me that the problem is more widespread than just one that affects one third party's addon.
Totally agree but you are assuming there is a way around it. What if the code for activating dynamic weather is just fundamentally broken/unreliable now? There's nothing AP can do about that apart from remove that section of their pack or add the disclaimer on their product page.
If assessing another person's argument and supposing their motivations based on their tone and logical deduction is "getting personal" well then yeah, I suppose it is. The foundations you suggest are not there are stated in the reply. Whether you choose to address them in a logical and reasonable way is up to you.
To play the devil's advocate, while I have no experience with the scenario in question I haven't experienced any issues with the AP Weather EP (well, none that weren't my fault at least).
AP must haves are the sky & weather, cloud, track, signal and vegetation pack. It makes the game a heap better. Also, I use Reshade which is free. I have a preset available too - you can get it from here: https://www.trainsimcommunity.com/m...her/i3946-ph-un-kiro0s-tas-reshade-preset-v70
When DTG pushed out public beta 78.1a they did note in their list of what’s included/changed that the beta would: Revert recent change of float->double precision for simulation time / time of day to address issues with some weather expansions. My reading of that is that it seems specifically aimed at the AP weather enhancement pack so a fix for the problems with some elements of the AP weather pack is\was in the pipeline. As there has been zero information from DTG on what they are planning with any future core development work then if the fix will ever see light of day seems unknown.
DTG have licenced AP sounds, and AP have licenced DTG models, so it isn't completely out of the question.
I bought RWE 2 and like it a lot. I also bought 1 by mistake because i did not know they had 2. I do hope they continue development on though. Would be ashamed to become abandon ware.
Last update from the dev was in April (on their own forum) he hasn't posted anything on the English part of the forum since, I've not checked the French forum though (his native language I believe). He used to post regular updates prior to that, doesn't look particularly hopeful for further development unless of course he's beavering away at some big feature update.
