New version for PC?

[Approach_Medium]

It's been a couple of years since the release of TS12, and with the 'other guys' releasing a new product in a few weeks, I'm beginning to wonder what the future holds for Trainz.
Whether or not I actually purchase a new version of Trainz, or even jump ship and try out the 'other' product remains to be seen. I will want to first try it for at least a couple weeks before I decide to purchase.
I only hope that any new version of Trainz has some drastic improvements. I think we all know where these improvements need to be made. If N3V is reading the Suggestion Boxcar, they will know.

FW

 

[PWeiser]

The Elephant in the Room

This thread mentions "PC" so it's a more appropriate place to address the elephant in the room than the Suggestion Boxcar (which, in theory, applies to all platforms). The elephant is, of course, security compliance.

Not the holes inherent in subsystems like TADDaemon and DRM, which are all-platform (when all platforms are brought to TS12 SPx level). I mean specifically the PC (Windows(tm)) version, which has not complied with Windows(tm) security requirements since XP SP3. It should not be necessary to run any part of Trainz in Administrator mode: Trainz should be either assignable to a user or assignable as shared over all or a subset of users. That's the way Windows(tm) security is designed to work in Win7 and 8, and ignoring this causes all manner of problems which are sometimes difficult to diagnose, sometimes destructive to the database (not to mention hostile interactions with TADDaemon and DRM).

True, this is difficult; it may even require going to Microsoft(tm) for the inside scoop on how to make the game cooperate with MS products - which would not only be annoying but could even cost money. The alternative - and this is suggested not as a joke but as a real option - would be to admit Trainz is a game and write it to "take over" the machine as many straight video games do. There are, after all, legitimate rootkits and alternate boots - perhaps Unix is the key.

Just my opinion, of course.

 

[wholbr]

Hi everybody.
As the opening poster wished the thread topic to be a debate regarding a new version or upgrade of trainz for PC, I am not sure why the question of security has been brought into the topic.

However, the sales of PCs has been falling over the last few years with the last 12 months being almost catastrophic with sales dropping over 30% worldwide. Companies that have heavily invested in the production hardware, firmware and software for the PC are all reporting reduced sales and therefore reduce profits.

Much of the work that has been traditionally done on laptops and PCs can now be carried out on tablets and even smart phone especially with major developments in speech to text and text to speech software. Therefore investment is now prioritised onto these platforms along with the emerging platform of smart TVs with many of them now having full Internet access on top of the development of specialised software applications for the major manufacturers of these. The development of the foregoing I believe is yet another major change to the way people will interact with computers and the online world. Therefore perhaps we will see the development of a trainz version for smart TVs in much the same way as N3V have developed versions of trainz for the iOS systems of tablets.

As for the new version or upgrade for PC and laptops, then that will depend on whether those who hold the purse strings at N3V feel that there is a reasonable profit to be made from further development in the PC version. It has to be remembered that N3V is a commercial business which has to produce a return for its owners or investors. Therefore with falling sales of PCs the outlook may not be good for a major new version.

An alternative train simulator has announced a new version to be released in September I believe. However, there is much debate on their major forums as to whether this is an actual new version or just a limited upgrade of what is on the market now.

Bill

 

[PWeiser]

Trainz as RailDriver

Hi everybody.
As the opening poster wished the thread topic to be a debate regarding a new version or upgrade of trainz for PC, I am not sure why the question of security has been brought into the topic.

However, the sales of PCs has been falling over the last few years with the last 12 months being almost catastrophic with sales dropping over 30% worldwide. Companies that have heavily invested in the production hardware, firmware and software for the PC are all reporting reduced sales and therefore reduce profits.
(snip)

Bill

Very good points. TS12 (more properly TS10, i.e. TS12 ex SP and hotfixes) may be the last PC version; if TS12 shows anything, it seems to be that the difficulty of going any further on the PC platform - even without addressing security incompatibility with Win7/8 - is simply too great or too expensive. Comprehensive testing, for example, did not have the necessary resources committed to it before release.

So what is the ideal platform as the PC loses its coherence as a hardware category? Could we ultimately have something like a RailDriver to which Trainz itself (the software and database) is a memory/processing module between the RailDriver and a generic HDTV? I'd buy that, if it had a way to get content (all, not a restricted subset) from DLS, store it, back up work to an external stick, and all that technical stuff.

 

[kd7eirjim]

SALES of pc's may have dropped off, but there is NO WAY that tablets and smart phones are REPLACING pc's for naught other than basic functions. The tablet and smartphone will not replace the pc as a true gaming or working platform at any time in the foreseeable future do to the inability to provide the same level of graphics performance, raw processing power, and local storage as the pc has whilst maintaining the necessary size/power consumption/heat constraints to be considered a tablet or smart phone.

The failure of TS 12 to operate properly on the pc has EVERYTHING to do with inadequate programming and NOTHING to do with the capability of the pc as a hardware platform. There are hundreds of applications that place a far tougher demand on the pc platform in regards to graphics and physics than TS12 does, and they are all doing just fine. Admittedly, 3D programming with a healthy dose of physics thrown in is not for the faint of heart, but it's nothing that the current state of pc hardware is limiting. I am certain that N3V WANTS TS to be successful on the pc, but I think they may just be in a bit over their heads in regards to development talent for the direction that they want TS to grow - that's not a bad thing to have high aspirations for your product, but it does require the commitment of sufficient resources to harness the necessary talent.

PC losing it's coherence as a hardware category? I'm sure that real video producers (not YouTube jockies), CAD/CAM developers, music producers, 3D compositors, data analysts, etc are all just laughing their collective arses off over that statement! Sales of pc's to the data-consuming general public that want to listen to music, post to Facebook and Twitter, and send email are slipping. Sales of pc's to people that actually need to get WORK done are still happening. Many enterprises are already moving away from encouraging employees to BYOD because that is resulting in too many unsupportable, inadequate devices such as smartphones and tablets cluttering the enterprise infrastructure while leaving the employee unable to perform their basic job responsibilities. Not to mention the security nightmare that BYOD brought along with it.

N3V could easily take the train simulation market over and make their competitors nothing but bit players if they would just invest in the necessary development talent to keep pushing the envelope.

 

[wholbr]

Hi
And N3V they will put all this investment in in the face of 30% year on year falling sales (lol). If that is the case i do not think they will be around to much longer.

Join the real world
Bill

 

[JCitron]

SALES of pc's may have dropped off, but there is NO WAY that tablets and smart phones are REPLACING pc's for naught other than basic functions. The tablet and smartphone will not replace the pc as a true gaming or working platform at any time in the foreseeable future do to the inability to provide the same level of graphics performance, raw processing power, and local storage as the pc has whilst maintaining the necessary size/power consumption/heat constraints to be considered a tablet or smart phone.

The failure of TS 12 to operate properly on the pc has EVERYTHING to do with inadequate programming and NOTHING to do with the capability of the pc as a hardware platform. There are hundreds of applications that place a far tougher demand on the pc platform in regards to graphics and physics than TS12 does, and they are all doing just fine. Admittedly, 3D programming with a healthy dose of physics thrown in is not for the faint of heart, but it's nothing that the current state of pc hardware is limiting. I am certain that N3V WANTS TS to be successful on the pc, but I think they may just be in a bit over their heads in regards to development talent for the direction that they want TS to grow - that's not a bad thing to have high aspirations for your product, but it does require the commitment of sufficient resources to harness the necessary talent.

PC losing it's coherence as a hardware category? I'm sure that real video producers (not YouTube jockies), CAD/CAM developers, music producers, 3D compositors, data analysts, etc are all just laughing their collective arses off over that statement! Sales of pc's to the data-consuming general public that want to listen to music, post to Facebook and Twitter, and send email are slipping. Sales of pc's to people that actually need to get WORK done are still happening. Many enterprises are already moving away from encouraging employees to BYOD because that is resulting in too many unsupportable, inadequate devices such as smartphones and tablets cluttering the enterprise infrastructure while leaving the employee unable to perform their basic job responsibilities. Not to mention the security nightmare that BYOD brought along with it.

N3V could easily take the train simulation market over and make their competitors nothing but bit players if they would just invest in the necessary development talent to keep pushing the envelope.

I couldn't have said it any better.

I agree that the BYOD is a horrible idea in the corporate environment. I dealt with that on a daily basis and every instance was a nightmare due to various versions of the installed OS, other applications, etc.

Running intensive programs such as Trainz on a tablet is difficult. I know because I have the 'droid version installed on my Transformer. The idea is great, but the interface is horrible and this is true even with the keyboard docking station. This wasn't the only problem. The performance just wasn't there. Talk about pauses and stutters. The Android tablet, has this issue with many applications and not just Trainz. It's very annoying working with the device and is pretty much suited to light browsing (hotel and travel), use as an ebook reader, and light gaming for such things as free card games and puzzles games.

John

 

[nathanmallard]

In the real world, tablets will never replace PC's. Gamers and programmers will always choose a PC over a tablet, so PC sales will probably stabilise at some point. It would not make any sense for N3V to bin 13 years of game development due to empty statistics, plus if N3V abandoned PC users 95% of customers will be lost to them. Anyway, I don't think we need to worry, as N3V has not issued any updates to the mobile versions for ages, which implies N3V is concentrating on PC Trainz for now. Trainz Mobile is rubbish anyway, it's a huge step backwards, it's more like Trainz pre-SP3 than TS12. It's not a 'proper' version of Trainz, I've always considered it more of a demo for the PC version. Face it, Trainz Mobile is a fad that will soon disappear once sales go down.

 

[wholbr]

Hi John and everybody.
I would agree with you that at present tablet and smartphone trainz version does not match up in any way to the PC version. Tablets are now matching up to laptops for general duties such as emails, office reports and not to mention easily finding where you are in a strange city. Anyone who has ever lugged a heavy laptop through the London Underground or any mainline terminal station in Britain will thank the powers that be for producing tablets. With cloud storage and all trains in Britain now equipped with Wi-Fi you no longer need large amounts of storage on the tablet you are carrying. Also developments in speech to text software are largely doing away with the need for any sort of keyboard on higher spec tablets.

However, as I stated in my earlier posting I do believe that smart TVs will take over from PCs when it comes to heavier duties such as gaming. Samsung, LG and Sony already produce apps that can control their smart TVs from your tablet or smart phone. These are available from such places as Google play free of charge. Therefore if a smart TV version of trainz or any other simulator game came about, I feel that smart TVs now (or certanly will have in the very near future) the graphic and memory capabilities to handle such an application along with the tablet and smartphone apps to control the simulator.

Arguably, that I feel will be the way forward for computing and gaming into the future. The price of smart TVs is rapidly falling although the highest spec versions can cost up to £6000 here in the UK. However, as long as you do not wish to have 3D etc, multicore versions are available at much lower cost and as stated that cost is falling.

It may be that in 10 years time we will be commiserating over the demise of Microsoft and the PC. But it is an ever-changing world and one that belongs to those who can embrace those changes and make them to their advantage.

Microsoft out, Samsung and LG in ?

Bill

 

[kd7eirjim]

The decline in pc sales has NOTHING to do with pc game sales. People buy new games far more often than they replace the hardware on which they play the games. If there were any correlation between the two, ALL of the big game developers for the pc market would be having fire sales just to keep the lights on. Nothing of the sort is happening because one entity (new pc sales year over year) has no direct correlation with the other entity (new pc video game sales year over year.) Game CONSOLE sales are slipping, albeit nowhere near 30% year over year. That is linked to several factors, one being that if a person needs a new computer to actually do WORK on, AND a new game console that is essentially a one trick pony, current economic situations generally dictate that the person purchases a pc because it can both work and play games, whereas the game console is worthless for getting actual work done.

Equating a tablet used for reading email and telling you that you are at the 12th street tube station as you stand beneath the sign that says "12th st station" to a notebook that actually lets you accomplish WORK is like saying that cab mode and DCC mode are the same thing. For every person that LOOKS at a spreadsheet on a tablet, there is at least one other person that CREATED that spreadsheet through data analysis on an actual computer. You don't store CAD/CAM files for instance in the cloud - you would spend half your day transferring the file between the cloud and your device, and regardless of where you STORE the files, your system must have the built-in storage capacity to actually LOAD that file to work on it.

If the tablet was the end of the pc then Apple certainly would not be releasing NEW portable computers and the NEW Mac Pro workstation.

 

[nicky9499]

Would it not be wise for them to first fix all the things they've broken in TS12?

 

[RRSignal]

The demise of the PC seems to be based in part on the wishful thinking of futurists and probably even more so by the media types who hype and play with numbers.

For most of the last 30 or so years, really until recently, PC sales had nowhere to go but down, since pretty much everybody who wanted in on the computer scene had to have a PC. Of course, if you break it down further, the desktop was the dominant platform until the mid-2000s, give or take a little. As laptops made inroads, The DEATH of the DESKTOP was NIGH! :hehe: Those of us who've been around the block awhile have been hearing that since 1984.

As others have pointed out, PCs, and even desktops to a large extent, aren't going anywhere. Tablets and smartphones are good for the consumption of media, but are next to useless for the production or editing of it. And when I say "production", I mean even something as simple and lowly as a Word document. Furthermore, they've long since exceeded the limited of human usability. Most smartphones offer "suggestions" for typing a mere 160-character text. Why? Because the touchscreen keys are too small for much if not a majority of the population. Samsung's giant Galaxy phones are on top of the market, because a 4" screen just doesn't cut it. Text-to-speech conversion has made improvements, but it's still nowhere near reliable enough.

That's not to say that mobile devices haven't made a dent - they have, a very big one. But, as others have pointed out, those who crave high-end graphics and good performance will default to the PC. The only real alternative is the console market...though that itself is in a significant state of flux right now and can often find itself limited by hardware as well.

Ultimately, we're seeing a stratification or even a fragmentation of the computing industry. At the top end are desktop users. These offer the most power and are good for gaming, production of content and intensive software. Next are laptops: On the whole, these aren't presently very good for gaming (unless one goes rather high-end) but can be used for content production (remember, by content-production, I'm not necessarily talking about AutoCAD or 3DS, but even something as basic and ordinary as a Word document). Next is the tablet. Last is the smartphone, which is useless for content production, but is very portable and adequate for the basic communication needs that many require. Between Google Glasses and smartwatches, we're probably only going to see even more stratification.

And then there's the hot mess that is BYOD...

 

[wkwood]

Would it not be wise for them to first fix all the things they've broken in TS12?

You'll probably see those in TS14 or SP2.

If you look at the N3V staff credits for TS12 there's only three developers which is a tall order. Yes I'd probably prefer to see SP2 before TS14 myself but with the "other kids on the block" releasing 2014 releases I'm sure we'll see TS14 maybe before Christmas...

 

[nicky9499]

Fair point. However this then makes TS14 something of a payware patch; essentially making the customers pay to have the stuff which was broken in TS12 fixed. Unless something properly major like a revamped engine with dynamic shadows or something is done, I doubt people will be rushing to throw $50 on a TS12 SP2.

 

[wkwood]

T
And then there's the hot mess that is BYOD...

hot mess? It's been tried and done before. Unless Enterprises and Employees can agree on platforms and terms I don't think BYOD will go very far. All it will take is one Employee to leave a Cellphone or tablet in a bar with confidential E-Mails or data on it, along with not reporting it lost/stolen to corporate and boom BYOD will stop being a buzzword!

 

[RRSignal]

hot mess? It's been tried and done before. Unless Enterprises and Employees can agree on platforms and terms I don't think BYOD will go very far. All it will take is one Employee to leave a Cellphone or tablet in a bar with confidential E-Mails or data on it, along with not reporting it lost/stolen to corporate and boom BYOD will stop being a buzzword!

Oh, I don't disagree with any of your statements, and would like to point out that the variety of different devices and apps offer even more malware vectors. That, plus the absence of any real perimeter security and even weak A/V, make mobile devices a sketchy fit. But, you know as well as I do that the tech press and the manufacturers are going to pitch mobile like it's the most revolutionary thing since the internet, since the internet, since the IBM PC, since the desktop, since the first CPU, since the first transistor, yada yada yada...

As with many new technologies, one shouldn't follow the hype: rather, they need to step back, take a deep breath, and look at things pragmatically. One would think the dot-bomb burst would have taught people that, though it's pretty obvious it didn't.

 

[AntonyVW]

Hi everybody.
As the opening poster wished the thread topic to be a debate regarding a new version or upgrade of trainz for PC, I am not sure why the question of security has been brought into the topic.

However, the sales of PCs has been falling over the last few years with the last 12 months being almost catastrophic with sales dropping over 30% worldwide. Companies that have heavily invested in the production hardware, firmware and software for the PC are all reporting reduced sales and therefore reduce profits.


Bill

This needs to be put in its proper context. The drop in computer sales has nothing to do with people not buying them to update an old machine but an awful lot to do with he fact that we have been in a recession and they are not selling with Win 8 on them. Add to this the fact that most games are being aimed at consuls and not the pc and you have a recipe for falling sales. When I first got involved with computers in the early 80's, it was games that drove the development of the pc. With games moving to almost to consul development only, then the development of the pc has also slowed. The tablet version of Trainz has proven how basic the game needs to be to be able to run it. Only on the pc (or mac) can the game really develop - and despite what hype we might receive in calling it a simulator - it is just that - hype - it is just a game. But a game with a huge potential if it can get beyond its current restrictions.
Like everyone else I would like to see a new version come out, and tbh I dont understand why N3V wont tell us if one is in development, but it has to make some serious changes to stay ahead of the other games in this field. In other games there is usually some advance notice that one is in development even if the game itself does not appear for 12 months. so yes it would be nice to have an answer from N3V to the question asked.

 

[Ernest2d6]

I would rather wait for TS15 MMOG :udrool:

 

[obirek]

OpenTrainz

I believe the best future for Trainz would be to make it an open source, controlled and developed not by a profit-driven software company, but by world-wide community of virtual rail enthusiasts. Everyone could contribute, according to their abilities. With thousands of Trainz assets available for download for free, it is time to ask ourselves the question - What is more important, the canvas made by an artist or the wall on which to hang it?

As Microsoft puts more constraints on application developers with each new Windows release, the obvious choice of the operating system and working environment should be Linux. It could be possible to even optimize the kernel, just to allow best performance. Asset development could involve strict compilation and version control system, like git or similar, configuration file could be done in XML, etc.

 

[kamran]

well that 30% reduction in sales of pc is just for branded pc or companies who sell full pc but wait how many gamers use branded pc's?
there are many people who prefer custom built pc which they build buy buying parts from different sources some parts from shops some from online shops etc i myself built custom pc by buying different parts from different shops as well as online store so i think these pc arent included in that survey in which they said 30% decrease but in fact that 30% reduction in branded pc adds into custom pc's and amount of custom pcs increase
its my personal experience as i saw people with good branded pc's but when they saw others custom built pc they sold their branded pc and made a custom one and they never go to branded pc again thats why they complain 30% reduction bcz its adding into custom pcs bcz the shiny gaming hardware is way better then branded pcs