Any news on the release or progress of Trainz Simulator X

tonyvdb

Long time train lover
As the Title states is there any new news on the progress of the release of Trainz™ Simulator X?
I have not upgraded from '06 as I am simply going to wait for this release.
 
Ts-x was proposed back when the first announcement was made about 009. However it does seem to have gone rather quiet - with the emphasis now being on persuading people to buy content separately that should have been included in 009 in the first place (decent trees, S&C etc.).

Whinging aside, I hope TS-x still happens but it does need to be a radical departure and essentially new sim from what has gone before. Indeed rather than all this agonising over making Native mode stuff for TS2009 and effectively creating a two tier app, Auran would be better drawing a line under TS2009 as the last "legacy" Trainz, then making TS-x the platform for all the new and advanced stuff. TS2009 would still be retained and sold as the accessible, user-friendly easy to build for sim that Trainz has always been renowned and respected for, whereas TS-x will move forward and, unfortunately, probably leave the less skilled creators behind.

Personally, I'm still building in TRS2006. Muppet. :confused: :confused: :confused:
 
Just to clear things up, Trainz X refers to a version of Trainz designed to run under DirectX10 and higher. There are many performance advantages to going this route and therefore it is certain to happen sometime. Auran, like most companies does not make the details of their business plan public. So you just have to wait and see.

William
 
Unless TRSX is a drastic improvement over the previous TRSs rather than just the same game repackaged with a few minor tweeks that could have just been added in a patch, I am wary of getting it. Let's just hope that Auran finally drops the dated jet engine. It is a shame that MSTS 2 went belly up because I am sure that that would have lit a fire under Auran's ass.

But anyway, Engineer's edition isn't out, so I doubt that there has been any progress on X. Oh, and I am pretty sure that the X wasn't for DirectX10.
 
Sorry, there is nothing wrong with the Jet engine. It lacks a few state of the art features like HDR but in all it still does a very good job compared to its age. The problem is the demand by so many that any new version of Trainz support every obsolete asset every created no matter how badly it affects in game performance. This has been said dozens of times by Chris (Windwalkr) and he should know since he is lead programmer and a damn good game programmer IMHO so I hope you don't mind if I take his word over yours.

William
 
I don't think TS-x was intrinsically linked to DX10 (or 11) either, more likely x as in 10 as in 2010 for release.
 
This post made June 6th 2008 explains it clearly

"Trainz down the line.

Trainz Simulator 2009 is the next major step in the evolution of the most flexible rail simulation ever created, but it is merely a stepping stone to bigger and better things. As with every previous release, it is only once people have the new tools in their hands that the amazing improvements in quality can be made. Therefore whilst TS2009 will be a big step up from previous releases, we are even more excited about celebrating the 10th anniversary of the beginning of Trainz with the release of Trainz™ Simulator X. This release is scheduled for the end of 2009 and we can’t wait to talk about the big new features we have planned.
"

I do hope it comes to pass and that it does make some magour changes to how the entire program works as well as make it run optimised for Vista and Windows 7,64bit
Trainz X would simply be TRS 2010
 
Sorry, there is nothing wrong with the Jet engine. It lacks a few state of the art features like HDR but in all it still does a very good job compared to its age. The problem is the demand by so many that any new version of Trainz support every obsolete asset every created no matter how badly it affects in game performance. This has been said dozens of times by Chris (Windwalkr) and he should know since he is lead programmer and a damn good game programmer IMHO so I hope you don't mind if I take his word over yours.

William

The jet engine is dated and needs a serious facelift. Yes, it is good for its age, but it is stilll a severely outdated engine.
 
The jet engine is dated and needs a serious facelift. Yes, it is good for its age, but it is stilll a severely outdated engine.
And you say this because of your deep knowledge of the Jet engine....or are you just parroting what you've read before from others..? :cool:
 
And you say this because of your deep knowledge of the Jet engine....or are you just parroting what you've read before from others..? :cool:

No because he can use his eyes to judge how trainz looks compared to other games. Granted, most other games don't use miles and miles and miles and miles long and wide game area's but the lighting and the lack of shadows, the alpha channel issues ARE getting a bit long in the tooth now. Compare this to Rail Simulator and Trainz looses on the graphical front bigtime. Other than that I don't like RS (but own a copy, so i'm not repeating what others say about it).

I suckered into every trainz release accept UTC, classics 1 and 2. Ii want change! I hope Trainz X will FINALLY have moving frogs.
 
I agree that Jet looks dated compared to some recent non railway related titles or even stuff like World of Subways. However...there is a big caveat - if you radically change the graphics engine, e.g. Auran licenced the one that TML are using for WOS that might reduce the accessibility for third party content creation or even remove the sandbox capability altogether.

While it would be nice to see train(z) running in an Oblivion or Crysis style environment, I still want to be able to create content for it and not having to spend £thousands on high end graphics, modelling or physics apps to do so.

Think this is an issue common to alot of sandbox games, look at RS/RW - the trees may have leaves on them (but then so do JVC's) but despite being a 2006 train sim overall it doesn't look much better than TRS.
 
I wonder how the new wonder engine is going to be financed?

There must be an affordable licencing model, e.g. I can't image TML had £1000's up front to licence the graphics for WOS, WOBD etc. Presumably something based on sales of the final product with maybe a relatively modest down payment up front?
 
If replacing Jet with another game engine was possible, worthwhile, and cost effective do you not think they would have done it by now?

I'd say some, or probably all, of those three things aren't true.

Mike.
 
How is it that this thread turned into a bash the Jet engine? Can we keep this on topic please.

I think you will find it about equal, actually - with even me defending it, to a point. However it is on topic in the sense that if Auran go ahead with the promised TS-x, do they stick with the existing game engine or look for a more modern alternative?
 
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