Some thoughts...

[autodctr]

I just got a new PC. It was not cheap, but it was worth it. If you have never seen Trainz running with everything set to the max, you have no idea how great it can be. I was just blown away. Just a step below the max, everything looks good. But go to max on everything and it will blow you away!

I like to make mountainous scenes. So, there is always snow on the route somewhere. But the PBR snow, in max settings, looks so real....ripples and everything in it. Fantastic looking. (I may have to do a route completely in snow!)

Now, I have to make this comment: doing the scenery w/o everything set to max is OK until you go to max settings. Then, you need to redo a bunch of things especially around track where you didn't use PBR items like gravel, ballast, etc. My suggestion is that even though you cannot run Trainz at the max, at least max out everything when you are building a route so that if and when you get a machine that will handle it, you can see the scenery the way it should look.

I have enjoyed Trainz for a few years, but it is so different now!

Ryzen 9 7900, RTX 3080, 32G of 4600 RAM.

 

[philskene]

Your comment about winter and snow. PBR textures, yes. Using seasonal track, trees and vegetation also adds to the overall effect. But it's a pity that the number of season freight cars and structures is so limited. This is from a layout of mine on the Download Station. In the sessions for my layouts I try to include one that is set in winter:

Phil

 

[autodctr]

Very nice!
When I was a WHOLE lot younger (50 years ago), I always made a decent sized layout for Christmas. 3 levels, 142 sq feet of platforms. (We had a large dining room that got everything removed from it Thanksgiving night.) 7 trains running and most of them could be switched from any track to any other track. Back then we didn't have remote control.....everything was hard wired. I used a lot of plastic rail insulators in order to be able to make trains run on different track! Now that we have an 828 sq ft home, even a minuscule layout is impossible. So, that is what got me into Trainz to begin with. My favorite point of view is from the front of a loco.....like the headlight area. So having the PBR stuff look the way it does on ultimate settings really makes it so much better when you are that close to the scenery, especially the ground cover.