Trainz Plus Beta PC & Mac -122861 & 122865 (TLR Beta Release)

[n3v_laurence]

We have the next Trainz Living Railroad (TLR) Phase 1 Beta release to try. Thank you to all our Beta testers. This update has includes several recent UI & MPS fixes as well as game controller support for Mac.

To test out TLR follow these steps:

• Select a session which meets the requirements for Living Railroad.
• As an example, built-in session <kuid:661281:110095> 03 Dispatchin' the Action - can be used
• From the Windows Menu click on Select Session Options
• Click on “Living Railroad Dispatch” and select "Enabled"
• Close the Session Option Window
• Open the Driver List (the icon is found bottom left of the screen)
• The currently selected Driver will be highlighted grey
• To enable a Driver to be used by TLR Dispatch, click on the dropdown list and assign to Automatic Scheduler

Further information about Trainz Living Railroad can be found here: https://docs.trainzsimulator.com/docs/trainz-living-railroad

Change Log 122777 to 122861:

• Several UI improvements
• Several MPS improvements including fix to Toggling Effect Layers leading to client stalls
• DBR status will not show progress after update, but will show progress when starting Trainz
• Clutter 2 (WIP) - Density and Scaling options with Clutter Effect Layers
• Fix - Eyedropper correctly selecting asset even if older version used
• Fix - Rare Crash when placing Track Splines
• Fix - Main Menu music playing while disabled

Mac specific (122865):

• MPS Syncing improvements
• Option to enable game controller support

Key Features:

• Trainz Living Railroad is enabled
• GPU Clutter enabled for Mac

Known issues:

• This build lacks precache shaders. Stuttering and small freezes during first loads of routes is to be expected as well as longer initial load times.
• Assertion Errors are enabled for this build. Trainz will pause until Assertion Errors are closed. Users can select Continue and Ignore Errors. (Reporting when these occur with bugs will help with troubleshooting)
• Performance is currently not optimised. Trainz will perform at lower than expected frame rate
• Content Packages - mulitplayersurveyor missing
• MPS support is currently limited for this build
• Some AMD GPUs may encounter minor flickering shadows
• Some Nvidia GPUs may encounter RenderServerManagerDirectX11::CreateSwapChain Assertion Error if Trainz window is resized which will result in Trainz freezing.
  • ** If encounter this error please submit a bug report listing your system hardware**
• DBR Window is not displayed immediately after update.

REMINDER:
** Please ensure you have a backup of your local data folder before using it with Trainz Plus Beta **

INSTALLING & PATCHING:

For Trainz Plus Beta via the Trainz Plus Beta Stream
PC & Mac Trainz Store Only:

PC: Requires Trainz Plus 122777 (PC). This is a small patch 35 MiB for build 122861

Mac: Requires Trainz Plus 122776 (Mac). This is a small patch 55 MiB for build 122865

Please report any bugs using this link: https://n3vgames.typeform.com/to/xRdryu

 

[pware]

Download and install was finished before I even noticed. Thank God the annoying menu music has stopped!!

 

[pware]

Just tried my first TLR working. Selected the Switcher SW1500 with Driver Dennis in the session 03 Dispatchin' the Action. It was automatically assigned driver commands and set off - backwards - down the mainline to the first location. Not good railroading practice. Guess there are still some bugs to be worked out - as was expected.
.

 

[wreeder]

Boy, you aren't kidding about degraded performance. Almost slideshow like. Normally, I get about 30 fps to 50 fps in KSC 2. More like 5 fps with this build.

 

[1611mac]

Just tried my first TLR working. Selected the Switcher SW1500 with Driver Dennis in the session 03 Dispatchin' the Action. It was automatically assigned driver commands and set off - backwards - down the mainline to the first location. Not good railroading practice. Guess there are still some bugs to be worked out - as was expected.
.

Have you checked out the posts in the TLR forum? Crazy things happen! I'd say TLR is more like Alpha than Beta....

 

[martinvk]

Slow is not the word, downright glacial at time i.e. changing screens, etc takes a long time, loading sub menus:, listing of objects in the Navigate to menu, etc. Got this at the start:

Continue and Ignore Errors
Still waiting for a selected route/session to start.

hmm, the pop up became hidden behind the Trainz windows, waiting for me to click on it. Once clicked, the route opened.

 

[wreeder]

I either turn off anything that could be turned off or dropped it to the lowest level and I'm getting enough fps to at least test TLR. It ain't pretty though.

 

[pware]

Boy, you aren't kidding about degraded performance. Almost slideshow like. Normally, I get about 30 fps to 50 fps in KSC 2. More like 5 fps with this build.

Slow is not the word, downright glacial at time i.e. changing screens, etc takes a long time, loading sub menus:, listing of objects in the Navigate to menu, etc.

Strangely. I am not seeing any slow down or poor fps issues in this build.

 

[PC_Ace]

~35MB download and patch installation was very quick. No issues. Ran prebuild (TrainzUtil.exe) and manual DBR. Both also completed quickly.
Relief to hear nothing again as the Menus displayed.
Quick tests of my own routes/ sessions ran smoothly (albeit with the expected initial compiling of the shaders, etc.)
No major impact on FPS observed so far once pre-caching completed.
@n3v_laurence - Can you please be more specific about what changes/ improvements were made to the UI? (Not seen - yet...)
Will keep testing. Thanks and cheers, PC

 

[G.M.]

TY Laurence

A few things I noticed:
-Mainmenu loads extreme slow (why not make it much lighter?) better in windowed mode
-Mainmenu constant defaults to "Purchased" while I set(and want) it at "installed"
-A session saved in km/h, goes to mps, even if in settings its on "session default"
-Switching between trains on a medium size route (over 1000 baseboards) results in very slow spline and trains loading
only after pressing P (pause) it all loads.
-Surveyor 2 now is thrown in TRS22PE while the interfaces are still simply not good (not just polish, it is design)
beside that its far from complete.
-smooth spline has no setting for the width of the effect
-digholes are minimum 10x10meter
-how much resoures an effect layer uses is unclear and runs out too fast (hardlimited)
-the max 16 limit groundtextures, makes work with transdem impossible when converted to HD
-active layer no longer shows in layer window header
-Removing windows from a side bar leaves an ugly grey empty sidebar, make it transparent or complete gone

-Driver Control center does not fit the 200 pixel sidebar, and if you put it there the choice between, automatic/user is unreadable
and still "THE HEADS ARE TOO BIG" oopsy sorry i seem to start screaming after 5 years.

-TLR seems to have no connection to the session goals (test in KS2 session 03)
-TLR seems not to know the "runaround" command, too many drive backwards
-TLR controlled trains stop ON junctions, then have to backup, to allow others to pass
-GM set time scaling from 0x to 1x, "yes indeed I unpaused ty mr. Data"

-Testing an hour of TLR non of the goals were achieved
-The last 2 builds, frame rates are lower (even when not on HD), not sure what the cause is
-At start of a session a huge load of script errors on standard passengers stations
reason: the station and their scripts are not loaded yet, do not error check something that is not there yet please!

TLR will be fun, but needs much more work
have fun greetings GM

 

[1611mac]

After some time running and watching TLR I think it has absoluely noting to do with any session rules. My guess is that once TLR "dispatching" (which is not dispatching at all) is enabled, all session rules are completely ignored. A "session" in the "TLR" world would only be the initial setup of loco's, trains, and consists for it to use. Any hope of any TLR "success" depends on that initial setup. Train length, which direction train faces, railcar commodity setup, industry setup and levels, etc. depend on that setup.

 

[martinvk]

Until we know what TLR uses for rules and if we can influence them, any talk its short comings is rather moot unless it is to warn "if this continues ... something bad will happen." On the surface, it looks to become a great way to have some background animation, to give the user something to look at while doing a task. If it is not strictly scripted then some randomness will add an element of surprise that is missing from those places where everything is totally preordained and determined.

 

[pware]

As a creator who enjoys building sessions I can see the advantages of using the TLR.

But I don't see it as a replacement for using manually entered Session Rules and driver commands. They will always have options and controls that the TLR lacks - unless something like ChatGPT gets involved in TLR (but even then I would not want just an "operating railroad look-alike").

I will follow the progress of the betas with interest.

 

[JCitron]

Bulk asset update tool hangs the program completely requiring Task Manager to kill the process when processing on large routes. Upon checking the retail build, I had the same issue there as well. I'm not sure if this is a known problem and reported this anyway.

Before killing the program this time, I saw an option to analyze the wait chain.

The reason for the hang:

One or more threads of TRS22.exe are waiting to finish network I/O.

Before ending the task, I checked the performance and sure enough, there is a periodic check on the network but there is no disk activity which is normally present during the bulk update. After ending the task, I ran a DBR and reverted my changes so not to corrupt the route.

In addition to hanging, the utility takes a very long time to update the assets with a minimum time being about 5 or 6 minutes when it does complete the task.

 

[pware]

In addition to hanging, the utility takes a very long time to update the assets with a minimum time being about 5 or 6 minutes when it does complete the task.

That could be related to the line in the original post that "Performance is currently not optimised"

 

[JCitron]

That could be related to the line in the original post that "Performance is currently not optimized"

In Build 122411 as well? I don't think so.

 

[pware]

Sorry, I read this thread as being about the latest beta builds - 112861 and 112865.

I had not noticed any performance issues in build 122411 either.

 

[Fineas10]

When I start the game and try a database repair it flashes and closes. Any idea?

 

[JCitron]

When I start the game and try a database repair it flashes and closes. Any idea?

This is a known issue. The DBR is running in the background. You can see this by using Show Logs found under the Developer menu.

 

[wreeder]

Given how poorly this build runs for me, I decided to reach back to a favorite route from the past and downloaded Wadalbavale to Karrah Bay from the DLS. After using ftp to get three missing assets from the DLS that CM refused to see, I launched it in Driver and enabled TLR and added a loco and some cars and off it went. Lovely route to test on as all the industries produce and consume lots of different commodities.