Dissapointed & confused with 2010

[Kevin_Beresford]

:'( Hi all.
I have downloaded three sessions from the download station. One gave me a map with nothing else, the other two didn't even show up.
For me Trainz 2010 is a waste of my time and money. The download content is hard to figure out, and most things I try to download don't work. Too many missing assets and other items. 2004 was the best system, the download station worked a lot better, most maps downloaded and worked with fewer problems, as they say "if it isn't broken don't fix it" I would like to see 2010 work as well as 2004, but if it doesn't improve soon, I will consider removing 2010 from my PC and stick with 2004, at least 2004 works better with fewer problems than 2010. Will there be any more service pack updates for 2010 it seems there needs to be. I have been a Trainz fan for many years, it appears it has gone from good to worse.
kevin_beresford

 

[gremlin1812]

G'Day Kevin, This is one of the very reasons apart from the fact it was a bargain I purchased Trainz Collection, I have been monitoring the forums and see so many people having trouble with 2010 and to a lesser degree 2009, add to that the fact that a lot of people including content creators have stayed with 2004 and 2006 that no way was I going to jump into shark infested waters.
I'm having fun and there are, as you say, loads of content.
Regards
Barrie

 

[sterrett]

Kevin - you say that two routes don't show up. Have you unchecked the favourites "Yellow Star" (which is checked by default).

After Starting Trainz, in the top ledt corner of the screen (the main screen, NOT the Launchpad Box) , you will see "Main Menu". Select that and you will see five sub-headings.

Choose "Options"

From the panel which appears, choose "Surveyor Options"

Scroll down the list of items you can change and, near the bottom (it might even be at the bottom) is an innocent looking entry "Display Only List of Favourites".

This is checked by default (why?????) - UNCHECK IT and a whole raft of new things will become visible next time you run Trainz!

...............Oh, and by default, TRS2010 runs in "Native" mode - a lot of older content pre-2010 needs you to run TRS2010 in "Compatibility" mode, but, as the Frame Rates are a tad slower in Compatibility mode, this is your choice! (I don't have the best gaming computer on the planet, because my pc is needed for a whole lot of other things besides Trainz, but compatibility mode runs quite acceptably for me.)

To toggle "Compatibility Mode", this is accessed again from that "Main Menu" and "Options" selection, but under the "General" tab. If you change the setting, you need to fully exit Trainz and re-start it before the change is effective.

I have had ever version of Trainz since the very beginning and really enjoy TRS2010. In my humble opinion, it is the best of the train simulators on the market and it is unfair to say that most users are unhappy with it. For sure, there are one or two minor glitches, such as the restricted traffic flow, but these are in the process of being sorted!

Hope this helps you enjoy Trainz, Kevin.

 

[baz66]

Kevin. Don't read to much into the dissatisfied 2010 users. In nearly all cases, it is their computer that is not up to the task OR they have failed to read up on all the material available.I too have had 2004, 2006, 2009 and 2010 is by far the best. But in saying that, it is also (in my opinion) more complicated than the others. Fear not. Plough on and you will be rewarded.
baz

 

[johnwhelan]

G'Day Kevin, This is one of the very reasons apart from the fact it was a bargain I purchased Trainz Collection, I have been monitoring the forums and see so many people having trouble with 2010 and to a lesser degree 2009, add to that the fact that a lot of people including content creators have stayed with 2004 and 2006 that no way was I going to jump into shark infested waters.
I'm having fun and there are, as you say, loads of content.
Regards
Barrie

Don't confuse the version number with the version used to create the asset. TS2009/10 has a number of advantages for content creators even if they set the version at 2.4 or earlier as I do sometimes.

Cheerio John

 

[gremlin1812]

G'Day John, you say that you create things in 2009-2010 but set the version at 2.4 or earlier, Does this mean it will work in those versions? Or is this the reason we often download something for an earlier version and it doesn't work because it is in reality for a later version?
Regards
Barrie

 

[jankvis]

Hello to you Kevin.

I'm sad to hear your disappointment. I was experience some issues on my old system. But after I bought me a new PC I must say I'm very pleased with Ts2010.

There are small issues but I hope these will be solved in upcoming patches, but not enough to take the pleasure away.

I test out heavy 3D content and I'm pleased with the performance so far. I am running in Win7 64 and are using Nvidia 280 GTX. The graphics are clear and detailed and I do recomment the 200 series from Nvidia running fine with DX10.

Anyway good luck to you and I hope things will get better.....:wave:

cheerio, Jan

 

[Sek_Hakuna]

I'll chime in once again here

Running Win7 64 bit with an nVidia 9800gt w/1 gig of ram. I recently switched to DX10 mode in Trainz and am very pleased. Draw distances have increased dramatically.

As for content.........I currently have about 120,000 assets of which 7 have minor errors but still function in Trainz 2010EE. I have quite a bit of 3rd party assets obtained from private sites like Jankvis and his trees n stuff.

I've downloaded several routes from the DLS and have had no issues with them showing up in Trainz. Some of them have missing assets and there are some blank spots on the route because of that.

Currently, I'm building a fictitious route that is about 20 boards so far. The route has industry starting with Slugsmashers ClearLake V2 map that was successfully converted to the 5m grid. From there the lake was completed and a Narrow Guage line run to the small town a couple miles away. There are bridges, rivers, cliffs and lots of mountains. Speedtrees are everywhere! Also used trees from TNM, (they have shadows!), and Jankvis.

Additional Industry includes a cabinet factory that takes lumber from the ClearLake lumber mill.

A fruit farm that produces oranges. Two catlle farms that supply cattle to the meat packing plant. A silver mine that supplies a smelter/processing plant.

An open pit coal mine with a huge dragline shovel that supplies coal to two power supply companies. There is more.

All the industries work! Commodities are delivered and consumed and I have a working railroad industry. How cool is that?

I really hate to see all the complaints about 2010EE. Especially when I see how great it works for me.

Back to building a RailRoad,
Randy

 

[boleyd]

Noticed a comment about "switching to DX10". I am running Windows7 32bit. It allows use of DX10 in the FSX flight sim. Wonder how you specify DX10 in Trainz 2010?

 

[Sek_Hakuna]

Launch Trainz and pick "options" in the launcher GUI.

 

[VinnyBarb]

G'Day John, you say that you create things in 2009-2010 but set the version at 2.4 or earlier, Does this mean it will work in those versions? Or is this the reason we often download something for an earlier version and it doesn't work because it is in reality for a later version?
Regards
Barrie

I can't answer for John but in my case if I create something in TS09/10 (and it works there in native mode) and I make it as a TRS04 version number item, I sure as hell make certain this WILL work in TRS04 (and subsequent versions) by testing it in TRS04 and later versions, after my created item is working alright in TS09/10.

As well as saying so in the description of the item created which anyone can read trying to d/load it. As any other content creator worth his/her salt should be doing too.

Or upload 2 versions of the same item, one as a TRS04 version, the other as a TS09/10 version. So it will show up in whatever version one is looking for on the DLS.

Cheers

VinnyBarb

 

[johnwhelan]

G'Day John, you say that you create things in 2009-2010 but set the version at 2.4 or earlier, Does this mean it will work in those versions? Or is this the reason we often download something for an earlier version and it doesn't work because it is in reality for a later version?
Regards
Barrie

In general you can assume that anything I create that has 2.4 on the version number will work with TRS2004. This is why I have very patient beta testers who test against different versions. I say in general because some items use scripts and in TRS2004 you cannot be certain that two specific scripts will not clash and cause a crash. Also occasionally something will work on two out of three beta machines but not show on the third. In which case I have been known to upload it to the DLS anyway.

Many of the earlier items I created actually had errors in them according to the fine print in the TRS2004 CCG and they were not picked up in beta testing either. They were picked up in TS2009/10 and have been corrected so they still work in TRS2004 but also work in TS2009/10.

My recommendation to you if my TRS2004 items do not appear to work on your machine would be to update to TS2010.

Also be aware that traditionally TRS2004 items have a large number of errors. Trainz Objectz used to pick out a fair few and I recall fixing a fair number of other content creators config.txt files to get things to run in TRS2004. Things have moved a long way in error checking.

Cheerio John

 

[johnwhelan]

I can't answer for John but in my case if I create something in TS09/10 (and it works there in native mode) and I make it as a TRS04 version number item, I sure as hell make certain this WILL work in TRS04 (and subsequent versions) by testing it in TRS04 and later versions, after my created item is working alright in TS09/10.

As well as saying so in the description of the item created which anyone can read trying to d/load it. As any other content creator worth his/her salt should be doing too.

Or upload 2 versions of the same item, one as a TRS04 version, the other as a TS09/10 version. So it will show up in whatever version one is looking for on the DLS.

Cheers

VinnyBarb

At the moment on rolling stock I tend to create two versions, one at TC3 level or above which I test then I often create a TRS2004 version as one of the people I work with prefers TRS2004. I don't test the TRS2004 version in TRS2004 but I have a couple of beta testers who give it the once over. I have hopes that he'll move to TC3 or TS2010 some time shortly and then I may stop creating the TRS2004 versions. The rolling stock items are often designed for TS2009/10 texture compression and higher poly counts etc but will run in TRS2004 if some one wishes to spend the money on the extra hardware required.

Scenery objects tend to get done at TRS2004 version level, again the texture fires and poly counts maybe higher than TRS2004 is comfortable with.

Cheerio John

 

[gremlin1812]

G'Day John & VinnyBarb, Thanks for the reply It is encouraging to see some are still supporting the lower end user. I have run MSTS for many years with great success but thought I would give TRS a go I plan to progress to trs2010 eventually but if I don't succeed with trs2004 & 2006 I will call it a day and concentrate fully on MSTS again.
Regards
Barrie

 

[johnwhelan]

G'Day John & VinnyBarb, Thanks for the reply It is encouraging to see some are still supporting the lower end user. I have run MSTS for many years with great success but thought I would give TRS a go I plan to progress to trs2010 eventually but if I don't succeed with trs2004 & 2006 I will call it a day and concentrate fully on MSTS again.
Regards
Barrie

Scenery or simple items don't use many features and since TS2009/10 can use older content it makes sense to use a version number that can be used by as many versions as possible.

Also many layouts can take years to create so their creators haven't yet moved onto the later versions.

Rolling Stock and steam engines are a bit different. The later versions provide more robust scripting and have at long last linked the wheels to the engine noise and steam puffs. Also the later versions do things a bit differently such as dumping more work onto the graphics card and finally making use of the DXT compression that most modern graphics cards provide these days.

What has happened on layouts is that layout builders have been using more powerful machines so the built in layouts that come with TS2010 and things like S&C add on require similar hardware. If you run the older simpler layouts on TS2010 in native mode you'll get at least the same performance as earlier versions and normally better frame rates.

Cheerio John

 

[Kevin_Beresford]

Hello Sterrett & everyone else who responded to my post.
I followed Sterrett's suggestions, and it did improve things quiet a bit.
I was running in open GL and changed to DX10 and it made a lot of difference with the scenery Etc. I have yet to try the DLS to see if that also works better. My computer is a Pentium dual core, E6500 @2.93GHz. 2.00 GB running windows 7 32bit. Video Card is ATI Radeon HD 4600 series with 1GIG. Again thanks to all who responded.
kevin_beresford

 

[MountE]

Keep in mind that sometimes CM2 doesn't always do a good job of finding depedences when you download a item. Always check for the dependecies of the item after the download is complete. Often you can find items that need to be downloaded that CM2 didn't fine the first time.

Rob

 

[djt]

Wonder how you specify DX10 in Trainz 2010?

I was wondering how you can “specify” DirectX 10 in any game that wasn’t written to take advantage of DirectX 10?

A little hint, you can’t.

I was running in open GL and changed to DX10 and it made a lot of difference with the scenery Etc.

How would “changing to DX10” make a lot of difference with the scenery with a game that isn’t even a DirectX 10 application (game)?

Just like with DirectX 11, unless you are running an application/game that was written to use DirectX 10, have a DirectX 10 compatible GPU and run Vista or Windows 7 you are not running DirectX 10.




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Asus/ATI 5870 (Catalyst 10.2)
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LIAN LI PC-A70B

ASUS Rampage Extreme (BIOS 1202) Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650 w/Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme
Mushkin XP3-12800 Ascent 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1600
EVGA GTX 285 FTW (196.34)
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty
WD VelociRaptor 150GB – Windows Vista Ultimate 64/SP2
WD VelociRaptor 300GB – Games/Programs
SILVERSTONE 1500Watt SST
SILVERSTONE TJ09-B

 

[johnwhelan]

I was wondering how you can “specify” DirectX 10 in any game that wasn’t written to take advantage of DirectX 10?

A little hint, you can’t.




How would “changing to DX10” make a lot of difference with the scenery with a game that isn’t even a DirectX 10 application (game)?

Just like with DirectX 11, unless you are running an application/game that was written to use DirectX 10, have a DirectX 10 compatible GPU and run Vista or Windows 7 you are not running DirectX 10.




ASUS Rampage II Extreme (1802 BIOS)
Intel Core i7-975 Extreme Edition w/Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme 1366 RT
Mushkin Redline Ascent 6GB (3 x 2GB) DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) (6-7-6-18-1N)
Asus/ATI 5870 (Catalyst 10.2)
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty
WD VelociRaptor 150GB – Windows 7 Ultimate 64
WD VelociRaptor 300GB – Games/Programs
WD VelociRaptor 150GB - XP Pro 64 Bit Edition/SP2
WD VelociRaptor 300GB – Games/Programs
PC Power & Cooling T1KWSR 1000W
LIAN LI PC-A70B

ASUS Rampage Extreme (BIOS 1202) Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650 w/Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme
Mushkin XP3-12800 Ascent 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1600
EVGA GTX 285 FTW (196.34)
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty
WD VelociRaptor 150GB – Windows Vista Ultimate 64/SP2
WD VelociRaptor 300GB – Games/Programs
SILVERSTONE 1500Watt SST
SILVERSTONE TJ09-B

I hate to say this but you are using logic. They are probably getting Directx 9 performance and are quite happy with that.

Cheerio John

 

[djt]

I hate to say this but you are using logic. They are probably getting Directx 9 performance and are quite happy with that.

Cheerio John

Bingo,
DirectX is backward compatible and whether you have a DirectX 10 or 11 compatible graphics card, are running Windows 7 or Vista as far as Trainz 2010 is concerned, it’s still DirectX 9.