Cool Things in Trainz 2010 Thread

[novastorm2000]

Please Post your cool things to try and or do in Trainz 2010 here! Whether it be some off the beaten track thing to see, (driving or flying around in a particular route), seeing some strange visual effect, cool unique feature of a train, ect.. thats what I am hoping we can all have fun with in this thread!

Thanks!
E

 

[Yskonyn]

I expected you to kick off, though. Oh well, I'll start.
Granted that I have been away from Trainz for quite a while I am very much satisfied with the improved graphics of 2010 so far.

I have fooled around a bit in the Harbor Master and the highspeed English intercity line.
Performance is great, I can play at full max settings at 1680x1050 with OpenGL on a Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400, 8GB RAM, Nvidia 285GTX, SB X-Fi and Windows 7 64-bit, which is a cool fact by itself as previous Trainz versions didn't run without choppyness (I had an older computer as well, but I mean I am not used to a fluid Trainz experience).

 

[novastorm2000]

Performance Looks Great

I ended up starting off installing on my Laptop (Mac Book Pro [Core Duo 2.8Ghz, 4MB, Nvidia T9600 with 512MB] running Windows 7 32bit) and it seems to run 2010 way better than it ran 2009. Graphics are smooth, detailed and very fluid, much more polished so Kudos to the Dev team, especially since I am running it with 32Bit Windows and only 2.7GB available Ram. The machine rates 5.3 for Windows Expereince in case you want to use that as a reference and I am running Windows in a Boot Camp partition. Macs are great, but Windows is essential for stuff like this!

I have a whale of a machine I'll try it on maybe tonight after the gym, ( Dual Quad Core Zeons at 2.6Ghz, 8GB Ram and 9600 RPM Drives with a Killer Nvidia 512 Card) running Windows 7 64Bit. I think this will answer my questions about how a better machine and 64 bit vs 32 bit fairs.

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[novastorm2000]

Oddities?

In 2009 I noticed it snowed in tunnels, the wheels on vehicles didn't move, quirks like that are part of what I am looking for here in this thread. Some may call them bugs or limits, I think they are fun to point out.

Other examples might be Cars, people, Objects in odd places.

Another might be an Oasis in the middle of nowhere that you only see in free camera mode and off the tracks!

Maybe there is an accident and an abulence that gets loaded up?

Maybe there is a cave hidden somewhere, ect. ect..

Hoping that people find some stuff like that.. sometimes developers create things like this out of boredom or fun!

E

 

[chefbyte]

In 2009 I noticed it snowed in tunnels, the wheels on vehicles didn't move, quirks like that are part of what I am looking for here in this thread. Some may call them bugs or limits, I think they are fun to point out.

Other examples might be Cars, people, Objects in odd places.

Another might be an Oasis in the middle of nowhere that you only see in free camera mode and off the tracks!

Maybe there is an accident and an abulence that gets loaded up?

Maybe there is a cave hidden somewhere, ect. ect..

Hoping that people find some stuff like that.. sometimes developers create things like this out of boredom or fun!

E

There is quite a few in the ECML route, Happy hunting....

 

[Spruce]

Seasonal Trees

At this time of year you may find lots of bare trees in the landscape. If you want lots of leaves then change your environment date to the summer time.

 

[Yskonyn]

At this time of year you may find lots of bare trees in the landscape. If you want lots of leaves then change your environment date to the summer time.

The time always starts at 10am in any session I play. I assume the date and season are based on your system date, from your remark? That's cool.

 

[novastorm2000]

I have a whale of a machine I'll try it on maybe tonight after the gym, ( Dual Quad Core Zeons at 2.6Ghz, 8GB Ram and 9600 RPM Drives with a Killer Nvidia 512 Card) running Windows 7 64Bit. I think this will answer my questions about how a better machine and 64 bit vs 32 bit fairs.
E

Well, I guess these forms have issues sometimes, just lost a long post so I guess that gives me opportunity to make it shorter huh? :'(

I tried the Whale Machine last night and was a little underwhelmed.. guess I need to tweak it more. The graphics still stuttered a tiny bit so some thoughts come to mind to try tonight. I can not swear on it, need to compare side by side, but my unscientific impression was that the graphics looked richer on the Mac Book Pro while they were definitely smoother on the Whale.

Thoughts:

Try to switch to Direct X verses Open GL? Any feedback on what I might see in the way of differences on these?

The machine has dual displays, thinking I'll deactivate the second since its not used and see if that helps as well. Anyone have comments on this?

I am guessing that Trainz 2010 will not leverage dual CPU's? This machine would have 8 cores (2x4).

Other notes:

Are people seeing differences between upgrading 2009 verses a clean install of 2010? The Mac was an upgrade while the Whale was a clean install, again the graphics on the upgrade and Mac SEEMED better, just wondering if there is any relation to that.

Builder mode on Mac Book Pro is unuseable for the most part, guessing that is due to the limited RAM available.. I will probably change the Windows install to 64bit, not sure what my thinking was on 32bit when I installed it.

I have not tried the builder mode on the Whale yet, assuming things will work better there.

Any other tweaks from other Whale like machine owners would be appreciated...

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[novastorm2000]

Switching Trains

Since I was just playing around last night, I actually clicked on another training running in the SIM and just took a ride so to speak on it. I am sure this is old hat for vetrans, but newbies like me might find this a fun way to see the routes.

I actually plan to do this more and see if there are things I can learn as far as the behavoir of these trains.

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[Spruce]

The time always starts at 10am in any session I play. I assume the date and season are based on your system date, from your remark? That's cool.

You can change the environmantal date in suveyor. Load the route and edit it. Open the environment tab. Here is February

Here is April

Here is October

So as your system date changes during the year the trees vary.

 

[novastorm2000]

Performance Update

Direct X seemed to work better on the whale, as well as deactivating the second display, graphics were much more fluid. I noticed though that Open GL graphics blow away the Direct X, so I will default to Open GL.

There is a night and day difference in builder mode between the lighter machine 32 bit and the Whale 64 bit, really no comparison, it is fast and fun on the Whale and pretty much unesable on the Mac Book Pro.

I did expereince a nasty crash when switching to the driver of another train, the screen blanked out and I could not recover with a three fingered salute, with a Alt Tab or even hitting the power button to get the machine to gracefully power down. This machine has never hung like that before so that was a disturbing incident and why I reported it.

Turns out that I only have 4GB RAM in the Whale, not the 8 I thought I had.

Still wonder if 2010 suports the dual CPUs, think I have a way to see that maybe later tonight if I have time.

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[novastorm2000]

Got a bus? Highway Driving!

Perhaps this belongs in the stupidest things done thread rather than here, but I dropped a engine and passenger car on a highway in Drexel Avery, saved my own route and let the train run on the highway!

Highway exits have junctions switches, there were no signals to worry about! lol

Someone could invent a Bus Engine and from what I can see you could turn Trainz into a whole different SIM.

I imagine someone could create a Train as a Bus, and create a scenario where perhaps you have to bus your passengers from one train to another and have some cool Highway scenery on the route..

Ok, so this is lame, I know but I thought it kind of fun to share!

E

 

[chefbyte]

Perhaps this belongs in the stupidest things done thread rather than here, but I dropped a engine and passenger car on a highway in Drexel Avery, saved my own route and let the train run on the highway!

Highway exits have junctions switches, there were no signals to worry about! lol

Someone could invent a Bus Engine and from what I can see you could turn Trainz into a whole different SIM.

I imagine someone could create a Train as a Bus, and create a scenario where perhaps you have to bus your passengers from one train to another and have some cool Highway scenery on the route..

Ok, so this is lame, I know but I thought it kind of fun to share!

E

Try this one then

http://www.auran.com/TRS2004/DLS_viewasset.php?AssetID=74813

Daimler CW single decker bus of 1940s vintage. The vehicle is drivable and includes support for 1 Australian and 11 UK operators (see texture libraries for details). Apart from livery switching features include prototypical (front wheel only) steering and tracking, selectable advertising, working wipers brake lights and indicators, and destinations which can be selected from a list or entered manually