Sneak Peek at Trainz Simulator 2009 front page...

[Tony_Hilliam]

Trainz™ Simulator 2009

More realism, more rail lines, more features, more flexibility, more community.

Drive... Steam, Diesel or Electric trains (and even trams, boats and cars)
Operate... a complete working rail line with interactive industries
Build... and customize your own living railroad
Share... your creations and your passion with other rail fans

·Drive using full in-cab realistic controls or simple “speed” controller.
·Issue Driver Commands to control multiple trains.
·Keep to a passenger schedule, deliver freight, decouple wagons and much more.
·Add additional Session Rules to customize your living railroad.
·Download 1,000’s of routes, locos and more from the Trainz Download Station
·Send goods and trains to your friends and chat online.
·Even create your own 3D models or powerful TrainzScripts for unlimited flexibility.

New features in Trainz™ Simulator 2009:

- The largest ever collection of quality routes, locos, rolling stock and scenery.
- Twice the detail - trains, terrain and textures in higher resolution.
- Optimisations allow twice the scenery detail as well.
- New ground clutter and decals add gritty realism to your world.
- More tools in Surveyor to allow easier terrain deformation and track laying.
- Improved physics and easier re-configuration of locos and rolling stock.
- New user interface and Help system putting Trainz power into the hands of everyone.
- Improvements to Content Manager Plus to make organizing your content even easier.
- Embedded web browser allows more interaction, more information, more immersion.
- Trainz Exchange Community Portal for online chat, blogs, wikis and “scrapbooks”.
- Screenshot and video capture functions to help capture and share your experience.
- Enormous content update to ensure maximum compatibility between versions.

Trainz™ Simulator 2009 Mission Statement:

TS2009 continues the tradition of providing the most flexible and powerful rail simulation tools ever created. In this latest edition we are not only adding to that power, but also making sure that power is easier to find and use. TS2009 also takes advantage of a 10 or 20 times hardware performance improvement over the past 8 years. By doubling the terrain tessellation and further optimising the Jet engine, users will be able to dramatically increase detail in the world and maintain good frame rates. Of course the actual route performance is still ultimately in the hands of the creators who can keep adding more and more detail forever and bring even a supercomputer to its knees.

The other big new feature is the addition of an in-game web browser and the creation of Trainz Exchange. Trainz Exchange is a Community Portal that will allow users to write their own blogs, find and chat with other users, add screesnshots and movies to their own gallery and share their experience through Trainz Journeys (stories written by Trainz fans about their experiences). Top 10 lists will showcase the best screenshots, movies, routes, downloads, and Journeys. Users can vote on Daily, Weekly and All-time lists and filter by Region to find the best content from their favourite part of the world.

Once again, TS2009 will be a collaboration between Auran and the content creation community. This combined effort ensures that we can continue to focus on adding the features users are asking for and to continue improving the platform for generations to come. We look forward to sharing the journey with even more content creators and to help that process work smoothly, we have also opened a TrainzDev wiki which will be the hub of communication and information about making this the biggest and best ever version of Trainz.

Tony Hilliam, CEO, Auran Games.

[CasyJ]

This line kinda scares me: "Twice the detail - trains, terrain and textures in higher resolution." Now I have one of last remaining low-end computer this side of a museum. What will be the Minimum System Requirements for running T09?

[collinsl]

Originally Posted by CasyJ

This line kinda scares me: "Twice the detail - trains, terrain and textures in higher resolution." Now I have one of last remaining low-end computer this side of a museum. What will be the Minimum System Requirements for running T09?

OS: Windows Vista ultimate SP10
Processor: 32-core 12000 bit Intel CPU or equivalent
RAM: 20GB
HDD: 1PB (petabyte, 1 step up from terabyte)
GPU: 8-core graphics card with 20,000 pixel/shader pipelines and 2GB GDDR20 GRAM (graphics RAM)
Internet connection: 200Mb/s broadband connection
Other: DVD-RAM drive

Only kidding!
I bet it won't be that bad, I've never seen a game yet that would tax a £400 computer.

[CasyJ]

Originally Posted by collinsl

OS: Windows Vista ultimate SP10
Processor: 32-core 12000 bit Intel CPU or equivalent
RAM: 20GB
HDD: 1PB (petabyte, 1 step up from terabyte)
GPU: 8-core graphics card with 20,000 pixel/shader pipelines and 2GB GDDR20 GRAM (graphics RAM)
Internet connection: 200Mb/s broadband connection
Other: DVD-RAM drive

Only kidding!
I bet it won't be that bad, I've never seen a game yet that would tax a £400 computer.

Thanks, I'll just have to wait and see.

[Heaton]

Only kidding!
I bet it won't be that bad, I've never seen a game yet that would tax a £400 computer.

Elder Scrolls Oblivion? Bioshock?

[titaniclover]

Sounds cool. This version of Trainz I'm looking forward too. User freindly is what I'm getting out of this.

Will be watching.

Cheers,
Adam

[seeseeme]

mmmmm ....... TRS2009 sounds interesting. Wonder when it will be out 2010 , hopefully we have a constantly working DLS by then

Sounds like some great features there, especially if they have improved CMP as this is one of the reasons I mainly still use TRS2004.

Craig

[mikemike]

still seems to me that this is a game for old people -- at least older than 40 -- and not an arcade game where i'd want to share trainz at more than forum talk level with anyone else. i really, really, like the way people have invented this game for you -- really made the content extraordinary and workable, and i admire that you're repackaging all that content into your trainz box -- but, i do think that all i'm really reading about is a service pack update -- of the kind i've gotten for free sometimes -- though no more -- "barbarian invasions" indeed -- and that you're working the internet thing as though that were going to allow a new game experience. that's pretty steve jobs -- packaging what's already been out there as the new trainzX 10.

there's more of us over 40 than ever, and we don't live in houses with attics anymore and i had to give my O gauge layout away. i'll bet people like me, people who have and want to spend the, really, not very much money that this kind of activity allows, would like to spend it on a friendly little layout builder which would do more than run choo-choos -- would subscribe to the app, in the way we do with DLS, and pay dues. and, really would look for something which would remind them of how excited they were with the first version of Trainz, and watching the development of the app, the first industries and all the things being worked on. i'm looking at some of the third party developers, and these people i remember from how many years has it been? and it seems to me that they've just been dropped by auran in some way -- that something awkward happened at some point when auran realized it had mis-marketed or underconceptualized their product and couldn't anymore identify what that product actually was.

i'd rather be wrong and mistaken about this. please help me out here.

[AJ_Fox]

I would say that we have many younger people here but then many older people also and a few in the middle like me.

Cheers

AJ

[builder300544]

Maybe to get the young ones interested Auran should programme the game so the drivers could have machine guns and gun down the passengers as the train enters the station, or maybe the train could run over people on the track cutting them in half (obviously with plenty of blood and gore)

Regards, John

[Alan_Yeomans]

Great news, i hope the 06 assets that were removed for TC are returned, so everyone can properly use the 1,000's of quality layouts on the DLS.

Originally Posted by Tony_Hilliam

- Screenshot and video capture functions to help capture and share your experience.

Special, this is really cool. A lot of people struggled to take screenies or video's.

Originally Posted by Tony_Hilliam

The other big new feature is the addition of an in-game web browser and ...

WOW, sounds awesome, any more info on this?

[collinsl]

Originally Posted by Heaton

Elder Scrolls Oblivion? Bioshock?

I apologise.

[wreeder]

Thanks for the heads up Tony. I would like to suggest that you consider an beta program similar to the one that Stardock runs. Users can pre-purchase the program and take part in the beta testing with the normal NDA of course.

William

[Smileyman]

Sounds great, but anyone that's been around here long enough will remember Greg Lane's future of Trainz post, and how great that sounded.

I wish Auran luck with it, and hope it does happen, but I refuse to get excited by this news of things to come.
Been there, done that.

Smiley.

[sfrr]

Originally Posted by Smileyman

Sounds great, but anyone that's been around here long enough will remember Greg Lane's future of Trainz post, and how great that sounded.

I wish Auran luck with it, and hope it does happen, but I refuse to get excited by this news of things to come.
Been there, done that.

Smiley.

smiley, i love your sig