Can I Ask A Favour From Auran Please?

[bsnteng]

Hmmm !

Quote:
Originally Posted by johnwhelan
The issue is we don't yet know exactly which assets will be available with TRS2009 yet and until we do the uncertainty creates problems.

Cheerio John

So essentially the message to content creators is don't rely on built in content in any latest version of Trainz wait until the following version is released to see which bits are still available.

I had assumed that Auran's business plan is to sell more copies of the latest version which to me means encouraging content creators to make use of the newer features. However based on your statement it would appear the only safe option open to content creators is to stick to TRS2006 level content.

Thank you for letting me essentially waste my time creating assets for an orphaned version of Trainz. I can think of more productive uses for it.

Cheerio John

Well John, it seems that you have a major point to make here (amoung others). With Tony's quote from above:
"
TC3 was not designed to be anywhere near as backwards compatible as TS2009.
"
It does seem that Auran has been developing two seperate branch product lines; TRS & Classic and they are not, or at least not easily, cross compatible. Now I wonder if buyers were made aware of this before they invested their bucks in the Classic line ?

As an example, are we US of A buyers expected to upgrade to TC3 just to get the Steam improvements and then TRS2009 to get it's improvements and then run two different systems ?

As others have stated in this thread, I'm going to stay with my TRS2004 Deluxe release for now; I'm enjoying it and do not have any limitations yet (thanks to your recommendations on hardware upgrades). I would, however, like to hear more about building and running routes, sessions and trains with TRS2009. I might be able to generate some interest in it if I could, say, install it over my TRS2004 or import my routes, sessions and creations to it.

From this quote:
"
Surely Auran's smart enough to come up with a way to get the TC3 stuff (and all the other built in stuff) to work in '09 with out all this carry on.

How about making a disk with all the built in stuff from all flavors of Trainz on it, readied for TRS2009. Sell it as an add-on for five bucks plus postage? That way you wont need to fix the DLS.

I know I'd buy it.

Just a thought.
nawlins
"
Now this man has a REAL good idea ! I'd buy it too !

Good health and Cheers

 

[johnwhelan]

Well John, it seems that you have a major point to make here (amoung others). With Tony's quote from above:
"
TC3 was not designed to be anywhere near as backwards compatible as TS2009.
"
It does seem that Auran has been developing two seperate branch product lines; TRS & Classic and they are not, or at least not easily, cross compatible. Now I wonder if buyers were made aware of this before they invested their bucks in the Classic line ?

As an example, are we US of A buyers expected to upgrade to TC3 just to get the Steam improvements and then TRS2009 to get it's improvements and then run two different systems ?

As others have stated in this thread, I'm going to stay with my TRS2004 Deluxe release for now; I'm enjoying it and do not have any limitations yet (thanks to your recommendations on hardware upgrades). I would, however, like to hear more about building and running routes, sessions and trains with TRS2009. I might be able to generate some interest in it if I could, say, install it over my TRS2004 or import my routes, sessions and creations to it.

From this quote:
"
Surely Auran's smart enough to come up with a way to get the TC3 stuff (and all the other built in stuff) to work in '09 with out all this carry on.

How about making a disk with all the built in stuff from all flavors of Trainz on it, readied for TRS2009. Sell it as an add-on for five bucks plus postage? That way you wont need to fix the DLS.

I know I'd buy it.

Just a thought.
nawlins
"
Now this man has a REAL good idea ! I'd buy it too !

Good health and Cheers

I think there is some confusion here. TRS2009 makes use of texture compression currently DXT3 in Beta 1 but hopefully DXT5 in the final release but not much mention has been made about it. This is a major reason that TRS2004 Trainz performance FPS is behind many other current sims.

The link is here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S3_Texture_Compression this is a major difference as all textures are compression 4:1 by CM2 or CMP and this means smaller files to get read from the hard drive, passed to the video card etc and you get major improvements in performance. There are some other performance enhancements as well but making better use of the video card is the general direction and better use of dual cores if you have them as well.

What is not clear to me is what was included in TC3 but may not be included in TRS2009. According to the feature comparison here

http://www.ts2009.com/feature.php

the improved steam loco physics etc are in both game engines, but what seems to be missing from TRS2009 are the kuids that perform the magic in TC3.

Also what would make enormous sense would be some way to point to .cdp files on the machine before CMP goes off to the DLS. I'm not certain what the impact would be if you just preloaded every .cdp file on your system into CMP / CM2 when you first loaded TRS2009.

I think Auran's hopes were very high that new content would be created that makes the most of TRS2009 new features and show it off to advantage. Unfortunately it takes time for content creators to learn the new techiques required and extra time to create to those standards. I'm not certain that users are clamoring for better quality content. For example:

http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?t=33339

Yes its my content that is described as superb but I think the quality isn't bad. If I look at the download figures some of my worse quality texture files have the highest downloads.

Cheerio John

 

[sterrett]

Crikey - Didn't I Open A Can of Worms?

Well, when I started this thread, it was just to ask a favour for some of the TRS2006 built-in content to be made available on the DLS. I had no idea it was going to throw up such a can of worms! I gad wondered why routes built for TRS2006 didn't work in TC3, but then some kind sould described how to get the TRS2006 .ja files transferred across and I thought no more about it!

Whilst I really did enjoy TRS2004, once the sound issues had been dealt with in TRS2006, it was clear there were frame rate improvements. Getting my hands on TC3 was, IMHO, a wise move because the improvements were, once again, quite noticeable, although the only way my poor steam locomotives ran with the improved physics John talks about, was to edit every config.txt file to point to the sound and enginespec file of the built in 9F! Not very realistic to hear the Bulleid Light Pacifics using another loco's exhaust beat, when their own sound was quite unique!

TRS2009 will undoubtedly be an improvement. The trouble is, not only as John rightly says about Content Creators needing to acquire the new techniques to take advantage of the new file compression, Route Builders will select items in Surveyor according to how it looks and feels on the route rather than how fast the scenery will be rendered!

I'm trying now to "Undo" my route. I will reload TRS2006 and will attempt to knock out the Blue Sky content and other built-in stuff that won't transfer to TC3 and TRS2009. With luck, I might be able to offer two versions and then plan future updates to the route in TRS2009.

 

[ess1]

sterret,
Your long-term (!) efforts are truly appreciated. Hang on in there.
We await your masterpiece:udrool:

 

[Paulsw2]

Surely the answer to all of this is to allow TC3 content to be merged into TS09? That may be a bit unfair on those of us who have purchased TC3 - though the S&C route could be kept as a stand alone - but to release a new version of Trainz without steam loco functionality (as Paul H suggests) seems barmy!