A pensioner's point of view

[rjhowie]

Unfortunately for some folk we l do iive in a very practical world and society cannot suit every single personality even though we wil have sympathy. I took early retirement due to ill-health but now have two pensions and I save well at the same time. Having been a life long railway and trams fany finding trainz by chance years ago was a sure delight and with more variety than what was elsewhere. We will all decide individually what we want to spend money on and with erratic health from time to time, Trainz is my personal joy and the more physical pastimes of earlier years I use some sense on so it is a great investment hobby and gives me much to look forward to.

As for NV3 to keep supporting earlier versions although that might seem fine for those happy with the one they have it is equally a good argument to concentrate on progress and use time and efforts more in a concentrated view. My present project is on TRS2012 but I have got T:ANE as well now. So we cannot all be the same in life unless we choose a dictatorship mind and able to spend on what I want, enjoy and keeps the grey cells functioning!

ps. Don't drink or smoke but occasionally enjoy the kiss of a charming lady :hehe:

 

[RRSignal]

But seriously now, do you really think that it's better than TS12

The 12,000m draw distance I use makes a huge difference, versus the 2,000 or so on TS12. On an ancient GTX550TI, I get between 50-60fps on my scenery-dense route, either in cab mode or with 5 JR EMDs in view. With an entire 60+ car train in view (and 12km of scenery), it drops to about 33fps in the worst spots, but that's still not too shabby, especially considering my card is well-below spec. This is without shadows, of course, and I'd sure like them. And, scenery objects in T:ANE often pop in much closer than 12,000m. But 6 times the overall draw distance of TS12 makes T:ANE worth it for me.

 

[H222]

Continue not caring then, I wish them luck in their future endeavors.

Support lasts 4 or 5 years on a $50 game. That's between $10-12 for a year playing the game while supported. For so little return, caring is not really worth it

 

[nicky9499]

That's perfectly fine. Some people like to keep saying that, right, "vote with your wallet"? Since there isn't a competent successor product it just means they've lost me as a paying customer.

They're lucky though, not everyone gets to con $200k out of their fans before screwing them over.

 

[Enzo1]

The 12,000m draw distance I use makes a huge difference, versus the 2,000 or so on TS12. On an ancient GTX550TI, I get between 50-60fps on my scenery-dense route, either in cab mode or with 5 JR EMDs in view. With an entire 60+ car train in view (and 12km of scenery), it drops to about 33fps in the worst spots, but that's still not too shabby, especially considering my card is well-below spec. This is without shadows, of course, and I'd sure like them. And, scenery objects in T:ANE often pop in much closer than 12,000m. But 6 times the overall draw distance of TS12 makes T:ANE worth it for me.

While I agree, I love extreme draw distances, TANE does not utilize how powerful the feature could be. I'm sorry, but 12,000m draws that look like utter garbage do not win me over in any category. SP1 is an improvement I'm quite impressed with, but I'm still disappointed at the same time, and I know many others are too. There is still no utilization of TANE's full power and prowess, and what's worse, is most of what we're asking for is more than realistically reachable with the new program. However, the lack of competency continues to kill any advancement of this train simulator and this will eventually fade off into the sunset just like MSTS did in it's time.

It's not their priority to care. People buying the latest versions to allow for revenue flow that pays the bills is what matters from their perspective, however I recall Tony suggesting it's the mobile versions of Trainz that actually bring in that revenue. I'm fine with this because I have no choice, that's life.

Sadly, this is why we don't have any change. Too many people think this way, and this allows poor management to flourish uncontested, ruining civilization.

You're arguing with the wrong person. I never said I'm happy with T:ANE being released in an unfinished state, but from my perspective beyond these bugs which are being fixed based on SP1 tests, T:ANE is just better than anything before it. It actually runs well on higher end hardware for once... Meanwhile I recall you suggesting 16FPS is fine from 2006, which is pathetic performance wise. You keep using it though, nobody is telling you to stop. Telling others to go back 10 years to validate your opinions however is nonsensical, because TRS2006 isn't very good compared to what we have now.

As somebody who has experience with a varitey of train sims, and other simulators, I think they serve as incredible examples of what can be done with nothing. MSTS has physics and operational standards that are on par with some of the train sims being produced right now today. If I am not mistaken, you could run TRS2006 at 30FPS, which was a landmark at the time, though I most of the time only saw 20FPS when playing. I would like to see you prove to me where other than doppler effect, and speed trees, TRS2010, or TRS2012 is not the same platform that TRS2006 was built on. These two programs utilize features never even dreamed of in TRS2004 or 2006's days. Computers weren't even as powerful as today's computer, but they still use the same game engine and platform that TRS2004 and 2006 was built on.
Perhaps you should go back 10 years and look at what was, you'd be surprised how powerful some programs really were and still are. There are still servers out there using Windows XP server as the main OS. It's more secure than any of the OS's we're using right now. Sometimes, older is better.

 

[LNERlover5]

Oh, it's not a company's priority to care about how many people still use which version of the game? Seems pretty important to me from a financial standpoint, Jack.

It really isn't. People who aren't using T:ANE or buying DLC aren't contributing financially. Incentivising you to buy the latest version is important however. I might sound cold, but then again, business actually is (cold).

Yet people are buying the latest game not knowing it isn't complete. A game should NOT take a full Service Pack to be a complete game. A game should be released when it is complete, but these companies still insist on psuhing out these unfinished games just to make a profit or to meet a strict deadline. If i could use a video game analogy, look at the game Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric, a buggy, unpolished mess with no value to the customers whatsoever, all because it was rushed to meet a deadline. If T:ANE was worked on for a few months longer, maybe the customers would have gotten a complete and, more importantly, a better game.

There are few games produced now that work perfectly out of the box due to the patching culture that developed from the availability of high speed broadband. Trainz isn't special in this regard. I don't agree with it, but there you go.

That's sad how Tony is relying on these mobile games that look like TS04 for financial backup. Trainz has always been a computer game, and making it mobile at the cost of better graphics seems like a shameless cash grab to me.

The general public are buying ARM based mobile devices at a rate that completely stomps that of x86 computers. It makes sense that targeting that huge demographic could be profitable. The reality is how many people are going to buy a train simulator, this isn't a general triple A release, this is targeted, niche software. Branching out makes sense and should't be discouraged if it works because as Tony said, no mobile releases, no Trainz.

I agree with you here. Today, that would be considered horrid, but back in the day, computers were not nearly as powerful as they are today. You need to look at this from the perspective of a person who ran TS06 for 5-6 years with a lower-end computer in general (old CPU, old GFX, low RAM, etc.) and got framerates half that in some areas. Yes, that's unacceptable nowadays, but it's also unacceptable that T:ANE runs like crap when TS12 runs fine for most of us.

TRS2006 was around at the same time roughly as the Intel Core 2 Duos and Core 2 quads, as well as the Geforce 8800 series. The performance was there at the time. In my experience, TS12 runs like crap for me even with an i5 4690K and an R9 270X, T:ANE actually takes advantage of this superior hardware and gives me good framerates above 45 FPS. Besides, it's not N3Vs job to cater to users with low end hardware, and I hope to god they don't tone down future releases just to satisfy the loud minority. This community is the only one I have ever come across where the users complain that their PC's can't run the software, yet they're using something like an R7 240! Any other game and the users actually realise they have insufficient hardware and deal with the fact! I know this thread was regarding the cost of this matter, but such is life...

I will admit though, one of the things I genuinely love about T:ANE is the strict asset validation. Poor quality content that is inefficient cannot sneak through the cracks and I love this. It has made my newer content significantly better because I had to work harder to make something genuinely good. The public release didn't work correctly in this regard, but it does now.

Jack (Who was woken up by a halls fire alarm and is a touch irate)

 

[Enzo1]

It really isn't. People who aren't using T:ANE or buying DLC aren't contributing financially. Incentivising you to buy the latest version is important however. I might sound cold, but then again, business actually is (cold).



There are few games produced now that work perfectly out of the box due to the patching culture that developed from the availability of high speed broadband. Trainz isn't special in this regard. I don't agree with it, but there you go.



The general public are buying ARM based mobile devices at a rate that completely stomps that of x86 computers. It makes sense that targeting that huge demographic could be profitable. The reality is how many people are going to buy a train simulator, this isn't a general triple A release, this is targeted, niche software. Branching out makes sense and should't be discouraged if it works because as Tony said, no mobile releases, no Trainz.



TRS2006 was around at the same time roughly as the Intel Core 2 Duos and Core 2 quads, as well as the Geforce 8800 series. The performance was there at the time. In my experience, TS12 runs like crap for me even with an i5 4690K and an R9 270X, T:ANE actually takes advantage of this superior hardware and gives me good framerates above 45 FPS. Besides, it's not N3Vs job to cater to users with low end hardware, and I hope to god they don't tone down future releases just to satisfy the loud minority. This community is the only one I have ever come across where the users complain that their PC's can't run the software, yet they're using something like an R7 240! Any other game and the users actually realise they have insufficient hardware and deal with the fact! I know this thread was regarding the cost of this matter, but such is life...

I will admit though, one of the things I genuinely love about T:ANE is the strict asset validation. Poor quality content that is inefficient cannot sneak through the cracks and I love this. It has made my newer content significantly better because I had to work harder to make something genuinely good. The public release didn't work correctly in this regard, but it does now.

Jack (Who was woken up by a halls fire alarm and is a touch irate)

You make me laugh. Performance was there with Geforce 8800 series. (I played the latter with lesser stuff than that, and then a Core 2 duo and 9600GT played TS12 with 25 FPS, splendid for a 5 year old machine with outdated stuff) Do you really think you could run modern games with a 8800 series and get FPS? You're an idiot to think so. Graphics have come ridiculous distances from the 8800 series days. That's why I updated, but I had the money to do so. Not everybody does, and you have to be real, and look at the market base, and what they have. You'd be surprised what the numbers would look like if they did a real study of the entire base.

People who aren't using T:ANE or buying DLC aren't contributing financially

And this is why N3V will fail using that philosophy. Seen other game makers do this, and go broke. Yet, continuously, they listen to lousy fools like yourself, and get themselves screwed. I figure with the variety of examples we have, they'd learn by now, but then again, poor management, teaching, coaching, and thinking never fail to amaze me.

 

[LNERlover5]

Do you really think you could run modern games with a 8800 series and get FPS? You're an idiot to think so.

Good thing I'm not an idiot then, because I don't. I merely suggested that TRS2006 was more than doable with that range of hardware from that time period, which is correct. You've only proven me right in saying you could get close to playable framerates in TS12 with even lesser hardware...

And this is why N3V will fail using that philosophy. Seen other game makers do this, and go broke. Yet, continuously, they listen to lousy fools like yourself, and get themselves screwed. I figure with the variety of examples we have, they'd learn by now, but then again, poor management, teaching, coaching, and thinking never fail to amaze me.

Either explain your point or don't call me a fool. What do you contribute that sustains the current business model if you aren't buying newer software or building content for said software. I like to think I've given as much as I could back to this community with the later if you look up my DLS results. I have tried...

 

[nicky9499]

Jack, the point is that revenue is not to be taken for granted, and that it's not the customer's obligation to throw money at the company. If you do not produce a desirable product then you won't get the sales.

 

[boleyd]

Ah, a typical internet forum. The original poster has a legitimate issue. However, the discussion turns to support of older products, love of customers, and some more pet grievances that people "must" always bring up in the vain hope they will be corrected. Sticking to the author's point eludes some as they are desperate to site their pet peeve one more time.

People who council continually to buy the 900 series video cards are ok if you want everything at a max setting - remember you paid Tony for those features!! However, I have had a 600 series video card and it worked very well with TS2012. T:ane need some more oomph. So I bought a 750 nVidia card and I am rational enough to accept that I can't have max settings despite "paying for them".

An i5 2500 series CPU, a 750 GPU, 8gb memory and Windows 10 provides a very satisfying product. I always stay behind the "latest and greatest" stuff. You pay a premium that is usually not proportional to the gain.

I also use the Lockheed Martin P3D flight simulator (yep a simulator). A very demanding product that again cannot work at max settings on this PC. BUT the settings that do work offer me a very good visual experience and a flight profile that is accurate. If you could see the ORBX airports, they put T:ANE to shame.

So, stick to the topic and post a specific message if you have your own issues.

 

[johnwhelan]

You make me laugh. Performance was there with Geforce 8800 series. (I played the latter with lesser stuff than that, and then a Core 2 duo and 9600GT played TS12 with 25 FPS, splendid for a 5 year old machine with outdated stuff) Do you really think you could run modern games with a 8800 series and get FPS? You're an idiot to think so. Graphics have come ridiculous distances from the 8800 series days. That's why I updated, but I had the money to do so. Not everybody does, and you have to be real, and look at the market base, and what they have. You'd be surprised what the numbers would look like if they did a real study of the entire base.


And this is why N3V will fail using that philosophy. Seen other game makers do this, and go broke. Yet, continuously, they listen to lousy fools like yourself, and get themselves screwed. I figure with the variety of examples we have, they'd learn by now, but then again, poor management, teaching, coaching, and thinking never fail to amaze me.

When TANE moved to 64 bit instead of 32 bit in simple terms that meant that each program instruction became twice the length. That means more stuff to move round from the hard disk to the CPU etc More processing was moved onto the GPU so the GPU became more critical.

I don't think N3V did a survey about what hardware people had but assumed that computers would improve over time. Which leads us to the OP's point and unfortunately he was probably always going to get some sort of upgrade. The other part of Trainz is user content, we are very dependent on content made by users and LNERlover5 is one of the very good ones. Calling him a fool is not tactful to say the least, calling any one a fool usually means I don't have any solid augments to present so I'll fall back on a personal attack.

Please try to support our content creators and to some extent N3V identify issues and concerns, if I look through the forum you'll see I have done that a number of times. Expecting N3V to fail? Have you thought about taking up basket weaving?

Cheerio John
.

 

[Vern]

Coming back to the OP, he isn't honestly missing out on very much by not being able to run TANE. As discussed before, the programme requires far more hardware oomph to run graphics that are not in all honesty that different to its predecessors. We are still looking at the same soft focus cross between a cartoon and water painting effect, not a radically new photo realistic environment. Okay it's down to individual perception and the Defenders Of The Faith will attempt to belittle such views, but even if SP1 puts everything working reliably as it should have been in the first place - it still looks like (at best) 2006 level graphics.

 

[martinvk]

The belittling comments aside, it is as you say a matter of individual perception. Whereas the old versions were reaching the limits of hardware technology, the promise of the new Engine running T:ANE is that it can go much further. Of course the objects themselves have to be made to use that capability, it cannot work miracles. And since object creation is getting harder with more stringent requirements, it will take longer than in the past to get new models into the game.

 

[JCitron]

Back to the original pinkmundi's original post...

I too am also a pensioner, and a young one at that as I found myself suddenly unable to work at 52 years old! This comes to a shock in many aspects of ones life including entertainment. Gone are my extensive travel holidays paid for by tax refunds and accrued vacation time, gone are other things like going out to eat and treating friends and family because I can. Instead my life is spent on more simple things, things I can enjoy though not overboard.

Now even as a pensioner, who is still facing high expenses such as automobile payments, a mortgage, and now additional medical expenses, I still have hobbies. I would go absolutely batty without them as they keep me occupied. If I'm not tuning and playing my clavichord, or practicing something on the piano though my playing ability is far below what it ever was, I'm using Trainz and working on various projects.

Trainz like any hobby requires an investment, whether it's in the program its self, the FCT, or computer hardware. This is no different than if it were a car racing program, or even an actual model railroad, which with the latter being even more expensive than what we would be paying to enjoy our virtual hobby. Being a pensioner now means I can no longer plunk down the credit card and buy what I want. If I see a Trainz upgrade, I save for it whether it's a few dollars here, or another few bucks there. I did this recently too when I needed to replace my computer hardware. In this case I used my PayPal credit line which I had paid down completely a few years ago. This is pretty much all I use it for anyway. The point is though, it's not as easy as it was, and now it takes longer to get the things I want to enjoy.

Computer hardware sadly does not have value no matter how much money you pay for it, and the same goes with the software. You pay hundreds of dollars for the initial buy and a year later you find it all in the bargain bin at closeout prices. This is the same for other consumer and professional electronics as well. A Roland digital piano for example, a professional digital grand at that, will start at $7500. When the new model comes out next year, or six months from now, the price of this instrument will drop to half that. Sure we can now get an awesome instrument, but the newer model will have better sound capabilities and other things which make it far better than what we can afford. This is the price of technology. This is no different with CPUs, video cards, LCD displays, mobile phones, and so on.

Software is no different. Over the years, we probably have spent thousands of dollars in operating systems, graphics software, office suites, and other packages, which today will not run on our machines as they don't have the code to handle the new hardware, or can run with the new operating system. I have boxes and boxes of floppy disks and CDs of programs I just can't part with yet because it's a waste to do so. On the business side, it can get worse. We spent $57,000 for an image setter to output film. A few years ago, we switched to plain paper because film processing chemistry was too expensive, though the quality is higher. The $57,000 image setter was worth $2000 in scrap value and $500 intact. The machine was about 20 years old but still working, and used a '486 as a RIP, but is now outdated and needed to be replaced.

We don't seem to complain about that too loudly, however, when it comes to Trainz we piss and moan loudly. Why? N3V is no different than Adobe, Microsoft, and so many other companies out there that sell their software. We'll plunk down $60 or more for GTA5 or the latest racing game with a locked environment; one that can't be altered, and requires strictly payware to play, but complain about N3V selling T:ANE. Sure T:ANE right now doesn't seem to have much going for it. However, work with it and it will surprise you. I have been quite amazed as has boyled and rrsignal. Even with my GTX780Ti, I don't set my draw distances out, however, I do set the shadows to high along with higher settings for the other slides except for post processing and A/A. This gives me enough shadows and bouncy lighting to bring the scenery to life. These are similar settings I also use in other graphically intensive games such as Armor3 which has lots of post-processing in it. Even with my high-end video card, well high-end at the time I bought it 2 years ago, I can't run that one either at full stops.

In the beginning, I truly thought we were given crap. The earliest alpha versions, were pure crap, and then the beta versions weren't much better. Like all Trainz versions, it seems as though it took a couple of hot fixes and now a service pack to give us something to work with. I will be honest, I really though we were stuck with nothing and as much as I kept quiet and put on the smiley face while being positive in the forums, I continued to work with what we had, reporting errors, joining the Trainz Dev team, and tried to give us what we have at least today. If it wasn't for the TD team, you probably wouldn't have seen as quick a resolution to many of the issues that have plagued T:ANE right from the beginning. T:ANE right now is still in its infancy and it will only get better as time goes on as people update and replace older assets, create new ones to the stricter asset validation standards. I'm with Jack (LNRLover5). The new asset validation standards really do help with the performance and will do so in the future as they get stricter. Yes, there are going to be more faults found as time goes on. Sadly, though I feel that these standards should have been enforced from the beginning when this process started with TRS2006.

There is much more I can say, however, it's time for my medication and the ensuing nap.

John

 

[KenGreen]

Is it possible to determine how many people use TANE compared to TS12. I have TANE D/L registered to me because of K/S but I have not yet installed it until it is as useable as TS12. I believe that at least TS12 should still be supported as an entry level product rather than support ending in Sept next year.

Ken

 

[JCitron]

Is it possible to determine how many people use TANE compared to TS12. I have TANE D/L registered to me because of K/S but I have not yet installed it until it is as useable as TS12. I believe that at least TS12 should still be supported as an entry level product rather than support ending in Sept next year.

Ken

That would be difficult to tell, Ken. I suppose only N3V would know by which client connects to their servers, and I'm sure they won't give that tidbit of info out.

I agree that TS12 should remain as an alternative, and knowing how Trainz support has gone in the past the cut-off will probably extend a lot longer after September 2016. We have to remember that even though the product is not supported officially, there is still content available that will work with the software and the server it connects to doesn't stop working.

If you've had the opportunity to try the beta for SP1, you'll find that it's coming along and proving to be a worthy program to upgrade to.

John

 

[alexl102]

I'm on the opposite end of the scale; I'm a recent student with all my uni debt shackling me, a first job that I love but that pays relatively nothing (i.e. once i've paid for fuel, a small amount of rent and my overdraft I've very little left to play with) and pre-ordered T:ANE only to discover that my macbook's graphics card can't handle it. Upgrading the graphics card isn't an option so my copy of T:ANE mac will probably never be used. Not everyone has the option to upgrade, especially if they pre-ordered before specs were released. Even if the graphics aren't quite as good as some hoped they are still excellent, the physics model and weather effects are better but more importantly, there is lovely new content being produced that I can't access - so actually I am missing out. It's a shame because those of us who have gone down the mac route for non-Trainz reasons can't simply just upgrade; Macs aren't like that.

 

[LNERlover5]

Not everyone has the option to upgrade, especially if they pre-ordered before specs were released.

Honestly mate, it might have been worth waiting for the recommended specs to be published before placing an order.

I'm just getting started with the usual uni business. I'll continue to party a little bit before the doom and gloom sets in!

Jack

 

[martinvk]

Without a MAC, I never paid much attention to the required specs on that platform but IIRC, the PC specs were published way back when we started down this track. Weren't they also published for the MAC?

 

[johnwhelan]

Without a MAC, I never paid much attention to the required specs on that platform but IIRC, the PC specs were published way back when we started down this track. Weren't they also published for the MAC?

Shall we say they were a trifle optimistic about what TANE would require? A desktop you can upgrade to a certain extent, a lap top is more difficult.

Cheerio John