Frankfurt S-bahn Discussion

The airport long distance station loop will.

 

I'm sure there'll be playable freight (in the full timetable). The only train the article actually mentions is AI only is the 628, but because they put it in the middle of the layer list it looks like everything after it is AI only too.

 

Thanks for confirming that I am not the only one who has the feeling that the article is quite misleading in this regard… makes me hopeful!

 

Indeed and as I just said in the "Live" section thread this has gone from a possible Day One to a wait and see. If they can't guarantee performance on a PS5 then older PC's are going to struggle as well. I really don't want another route with electric traction where running a train is constantly accompanied by sound squelching.

If they don't know how to fix the core or can't get programmers who can do so, then they need to start making the DLC more optimised so it runs satisfactorily within the current and likely future state of the game engine.

 

Next year comes the Next Xbox or 2027

 

Yes, DTG could (and should) work on optimization, but honestly, the other side is that 16GB of combined memory (so ram + vram in PC terms) is not a lot in 2025, especially if disk swapping is not an option.

For a game where a lots of stuff just have to be kept in memory (all trains on route, whole route scheme, signalling systems, dispatching...etc). Coupled with complex scenes, like the Frankfurt hauptbahnhof, with trains like the ICE where each wagon is a separate detailed model (so no instancing), it is a tough nut to crack.

DTG, as a dev, are also quite limited by the tools they have available..i.e. they cannot just make the Frankfurt Station rail network less complex as it is in reality to save on memory... or have less wagons in the ICE consist.

DTG is also a quite a small studio, and I doubt they have the level of connection that i.e. EA have when trying to optimize their AAA titles for PS 5/Xbox (and tbh, they can also fail quite spectacularly)

 

I dont know what you are trying to say here. My exaggerated TSW release schedule would fit into your console release guess anyway. All I am saying is that Dovetail is struggling with their releases of late and will continue until new hardware comes out.

 

Is that 16gb RAM on the Gen 9s? Maybe my intention to get 128gb worth of VRAM on my next PC is overkill. 64gb doesn't seem enough for MSFS 24 on PC yet you can play it fine on consoles.

Maybe I've reached that age where every day things start to not make sense.

 

I would really like a mannheim to Frankfurt or Wiesbaden Railay because I live in ludwigshafen and it would be nice if it would be 2025 with the Tracks Construcion to see construcion workers or sum working or yeah I would like a railway to go from mannheim to Frankfurt or Wiesbaden via Mainz would be pretty awsone

 

Assuming DTG went out and recorded authentic sounds for the 430 it’s a shame they didn’t also take the opportunity to get new sounds for the 423, the current GTO sounds we have aren’t bad but in my opinion they aren’t that accurate and we’re still missing the IGBT variant

 

I was considering buying the PS5 version only to learn that the 9 -gen owners are getting a reduced time-table only with only 600 plus services unlike PC steam owners who are getting a Full & Reduced timetable .
I think that they should reduce the price for the 9th-Gen version less services less work should be sold at a less of price 24.99 gbp as oppose 29.99gbp

 

The total Ram of the PS5 IS 16GB but 8GB is Audio the other 8GB is Video Ram

 

No. It is 16GB of unified memory, of which some 12.6GB is usable to the game. How the game uses it is free for the devs... They can fill it up with graphic stuff, like textures, or they can fill it up with game logic data...

It is not split, as it is on PC.... but it is very little when you're trying to achieve parity with PC. Yes, OS overhead is much bigger on PC + people generally have other apps open, like browsers, but currently the minimum for gaming PC is 16GB of just RAM, which is used for stuff used by CPU... 32GB is really becoming the norm.

Then PC has dedicated memory (VRAM) just for graphical stuff (textures, framebuffers, shaders..etc) on the GPU itself. Where, if you want anything more that 1080p, then 12GB is mimum just for VRAM (so the mimum on PC just for graphical stuff is almost as much as PS5 has available for the whole game).

And then there is the issues of what happens if you're out of memory. Consoles will terminate the game... This will not happen on PC, in default windows configuration (outside of extreme cases, like trying to run a game in 4k + full raytracing on a 8GB VRAM GPU). If you run out of vram, then data will get shuffled between ram and vram. Yes, performance and quality will suffer, but the game should not crash. If you run out of ram, windows will dupm least used data from the memory on the disk... degrading performance while the ram is cleared.. but once again, the game should not crash.

 

I hope this means a smooth performance on consoles. If the reduced timetable still has stutters I'm not interested.

 

Will Soon find out

 

So does console players get freight?

 

Wouldn't think so.

 

Nope, our powerful, modern machines only get a small percentage of our libraries at our disposal

 

That's crappie then and we a reduced timetable and thats gonna cost us £30 what flaming planet are DTG on.

 

Your guess is as good as mine. Unfortunately this feels like the beginning of the end for tsw on console, only time will tell but I can’t see it getting better before it gets worse

 

The only way im buying that is at a reduced price seeing as they reduced everything else about this route for consoles.

 

This would have been day one purchase if it was not reduced. Console timetable has 600 playable jobs still quite a few. We get BR430, Br423 and BR143 plus dostos and you have to have other routes for the ICE jobs. If I read it right no freight jobs.

 

That DTG is struggling is a joke.

 

Reduced timetable =no buy

 

the reduced timetable that the 9th Gen is getting is only 400 short of the full timetable which is Estimated at 1.000 services

9th Gen Timetable (reduced) 600+
PC & Steam Timetable ( Full) 1000+
Either way i think o will wait till they reduce the price i am waiting for the Manchester Commuter that's not far off from being released much prefer a Uk route over a German one

 

I think talk of TSW becoming a PC-only title is probably a little premature. The market reach on consoles is too large to walk away from surely. If anything they're more likely to be looking at a ground-up optimisation fix for a future annual version, similar to the superb job they did stabilising TSC.

I seem to read an article every year predicting the end of the Home PC but, like record turntables and vinyl LPs, seemed to have found their niche in the marketplace and continue to be a good investment for gamers. Not least because unlike everything else in life these days, you can take them apart and upgrade core components without needing to buy a complete replacement every 3 years.

 

To be fair now that I think about it there’s always been a bit of discrepancy between console and PC back to the launch of TSW 2020 when Sandpatch Grade was a PC only route. Of course eventually they figured it out and brought it to console by TSW2.

PCs are more powerful (at least they can be, plenty of people do have PCs that are lower spec than PS5/XSX) so at the end of the day if the PC gets exclusive content I can’t fault them but the issue I have is that I think they are doing a very poor job of using the power of the 9th gen.

 

Yeah, I think that's an elephant in the room here - PCs can be very powerful, but the range is huge, and performance is a lot more complex, with bloatware, background tasks etc. I used to be a PC gamer, and moved to Playstation, partly for cost and space, but because I know that the performance will be reliably high. I've seldom had that with a PC, there are so many variables.

Ultimately the latest consoles should be able to play any current game to a satisfactory level, offline at least.

 

Well, 400 services less and no freight, ICE1 and 3 on PS5. Hard pass for me this time

 

Console players get shafted again.

 

Everyone gets "shafted", it will be a slideshow on PC like FTF..

 

Yet, you aren't paying full price for half a product...

 

Lol

 

Who’s paying the same for less? Who gets the most frequent sales with the highest discounts? Who gets a working version of the game while everyone else is left to make do with the mess that’s not getting solved? PC players don’t exactly have the rough end of the stick. Play tsw only on Xbox for 6 months and you’ll be sick of said differences

 

As posted in the live article thread, I think DTG learned all the wrong lessons from Frankfurt - Fulda and HMA before. Instead of chosing routes properly, the design philosophy seems to be to shaft consoles when in doubt.

Very worrying that the core is now officially broken beyond DTGs’ control. If this is TSW’s future, I’m certainly not excited for it.

 

I've played TSW form the beginning of the franchise on 3 versions of the xbone and haven't been bothered at all by the said difference, I just think people need to have more practice at putting their undercrackers on since a bucket load of them seem to have them twisted in the crack of their arses........

 

We have just seen how fickle DTG can be by the sudden ditching of CTS plus the locking down of its forum. Rather than grasping the issues and helping the developer to make the product better, they threw it in the bin. A few years ago they did likewise with Flight Sim World. They got in over their heads and shafted those of us who bought the early access version in good faith. While TSW hopefully still has some legs, we can see faint signs of a possible abandonment down the road. Cutting back on the console experience is just the start. If they can’t fix the core or bring in people who can, what’s to say despite all the hype and talk it won’t be shovelled off in the same way as all their other games. They already pretty much reduced TSC to keeping the pilot light on and Catan looks abandoned along with the fishing games.

 

The criticism of the reduced timetable for consoles is understandable. I also prefer playing TSW on console rather than on PC (it's much more relaxing). Sure, the argument about smooth gameplay and the risk of crashes due to a lack of RAM is always valid (especially the long ICE1 is a RAM hog), but the fact that this route is only available for 9th-gen consoles still makes it a disadvantage.

It would be fair to further optimize TSW in the future so that full timetables are possible on consoles and PC. Otherwise, a two-tiered player base will emerge again, which could deter console players from buying new routes on day one or waiting for the next discount.

Besides, there's far too much DB red again. But that's the fault of the real DB, which is too lazy to change the color of its trains.

 

I thought the whole idea of make this a gen9 only route was so that we could have full advantage of it. Like full timetable all the layers and the freight.

 

Oh no, everything isn't about you
I paid significantly more than you did for your box, and still get unplayable performance on routes like FTF. It's almost like this game is poorly optimised, on all platforms, and that it affects most gamers to some degree, so I'm not sure why you are so offended lol. Me personally, I'm not buying anything even for single digits if it doesn't run properly on my PC.

 

Never made that claim. Whilst your PC is more expensive than what I’ve got, I’ve still spend £500 on an Xbox and even more than that on tsw dlc. So I think I’ve contributed my fair share to be entitled to a full experience, also bearing in mind we rarely get sales on Xbox

 

A bit off topic (sorry), but I am genuinely interested… Is it common praxis for other games to reduce the content on consoles? And if so, do they actually charge less in this case?

I seem to remember that with MSFS some functions are not available on consoles either (on those that it is available on)?!

 

Personally don't think is common to reduce contents specially on current gen consoles and no, we console players pay full price even if we have much less, this is why we are so upset

 

In all the time I've been playing on consoles, I don't remember any game content being restricted. The only restrictions were FPS or graphics settings.

 

Thats exactly what you are insinuating, directly or indirectly.

Yes, and they are still losing money on the hardware, hence higher prices on games, subscription fees for multiplayer and less sales. You aren't "entitled" to anything. You can either settle for less and buy said DLC, or simply not buy it, these are the options you are given.

 

Why should I have to ‘settle for less’? My Xbox is more than capable of running games such as forza horizon, Microsoft flight simulator etc, but can’t run train sim world? There’s clearly an issue with the game and not the consoles. And even if I had to settle for less, does that justify the same price tag for a 40% smaller timetable?

 

Well said mate.

 

Switch games have to be scaled down compared to the PC, PS, and XB versions, but still sell for $59.99.

 

Fair points about DTGs' fire-and-forget approach with other games. The real danger I see here is that even assuming DTG have no intention of abandoning TSW, if the core is mangled up enough that even they can't see any ways to fix its issues anymore, then what will become of the core? The yearly iterations (but especially TSW 5) have generally made the core less stable and introduced new bugs. If they try to add even more stuff with TSW 6, 7, etc. on the already broken-beyond-repair (it would seem) core, it all might come crashing down at some point.

As I've frequently talked about with Frankfurt - Fulda, a route releasing in a barely playable state is totally unacceptable. So, just to be clear, it was a good idea to provide a reduced timetable in my mind.

I think the need for a reduced timetable just shouldn't have arrived in the first place, either by fixing the core and console issues, or by choosing a more reasonable route. Frankfurt Hbf is just not reasonable as Frankfurt - Fulda has demonstrated. I think both Matt and Lukas, before TSW 5, have said as much on stream - Frankfurt Hbf is too busy for TSW. Somehow, it still got the go-ahead though.

It genrally isn't. Graphics, performance - yes; content - no. Console games used to cost a little more than PC games even, but I'm not sure if that's still the case.

 

I have got one example only: Assetto Corsa (the original game)... on PC (beyond the modding obv.) you can run races with pretty much unlimited cars while on PS, regardless of the number of pit boxes available, you can only run 16 AI cars. That's it though...