This may be a basic question, but perhaps there could be some good discussion here. I was playing Rhein-Rurh Osten on TSW2 last night and yes, although it is a very old route, it looks really good and performs top notch. Not even a drop in frames when other trains are passing. I compare it to newer routes that get the occasional frame drop (mostly with other passing trains), but in terms of scenery quality they all look about the same. I won't mention TSW3 here since many of you know my well documented rants about the state of that game's performance. I guess the question is (if anybody can answer this), why were the earlier routes performing so well vs. later ones? Is the scenery now perhaps denser? More polygons used in background scenery? Perhaps the trains used on newer routes are more complex? Or maybe I just answered my own question and it's a combination of all of the above. I don't know, maybe I'm thinking simpler was somehow better.
It really depends on the route. Sometimes routes are real smooth without any performance issues other than those caused by tile loading. Some have much more performance losses such as with tsw3 and some routes in tsw2. Don't know which ones. I think it's a combination of lots of things. The routes in tsw3 have a new lighting system which may or may not have an impact on performance, idk. Dynamic weather for example seems to result in lower fps such as in skw. There's also lots of ai traffic and layers in certain routes which decreases performance like on bro, bml, etc. The much older routes in tsw2020 do show their age and generally run with higher fps and smoother. As routes got more detailed and stuff got better, more traffic, etc, performance started to drop a little bit and stutters more often. I get lower fps and performance fluctuations cuz I run on low end hardware and too lazy to connect my external gpu up which gives me much more consistent fps and higher fps, making routes such as Boston and London Victoria much smoother
Generally all the routes no matter how old perform quite well for me! As an example I had a glorious run of Cross City line the other day where the game ran as smooth as a nut! The new Scottish route has been very smooth as well! Along with this just today I had another glorious run in the peak on ntp where the game was just as smooth as it is on the new routes! From what I have observed TSW3 seems to run both the new and old routes very smoothly without issues which is obviously a big plus!
That's another thing I don't quite understand. The inconsistent experience from person to person. I can understand different PC hardware, but on consoles? They're all the same yet it seems there are 2 completely different camps of people like 50/50 "mine runs perfectly" and "mine runs so-so to awful". In terms of "newer" routes on TSW2, I've seen slight lags on Harlem, Chemenitz, and oddly only sometimes on London Commuter. I was actually shocked the other day when I was sitting in a packed London Victoria station and was panning around at a solid 60fps. Then when pulling out it dropped a bit before smoothing out again (rather quickly). Anyhow, good conversation.
Yes it is strange as I am on a series S so by no means the most powerful console but London Commuter causes no issues whatsoever but then I hear of people who say that they have crashes on it and their on series x! The only route where I get fairly noticeable stuttering is SEHS extended but by no means as bad as what others have had! As you say it is strange how there is so much variation in performance within consoles and it does make me wonder really!
It will likely vary with the service being run, even for the same route on the same hardware. According to my (albeit limited) experience in TSW3, some routes are very smooth (US freight), while others have lots of stuttering (city commuters). As for the latter, it is not happening all the time, so I can't say for sure what's causing it. I'm re-playing Sand Patch Grade now in TSW3, and it's a great experience so far.
Just thinking, could an external storage device cause performance issues? I heard they were testing this on last roadmap stream for the Add-Ons manager.
In my case I'm using the internal Xbox SSD which helps load things pretty fast. I also make sure I keep a good amount of open hard drive space just in case.
The only route that gives me issues is SEHS on series S but in some places its worse than others. Although I stay away from it with the awful xbox sound issues at the moment or am forced to play without safety systems which sucks
None of the core 3 routes I have tried on TSW3 run well. And I've noticed the same performance issues on every DTG stream / any other video / stream I saw out there using a TSW3 branded route. Hence I'm in the same boat as you and sticking on TSW2 for now.
