Trainz Plus Beta update - PC Only 121880

[n3v_laurence]

Thanks again to all those who have tested the Trainz Plus Beta. The team has been busy, and this update has further changes and improvements to HD Terrain. The biggest of all, is new shader settings. These changes will allow for more diverse hardware to perform at expected framerates.


You will be prompted with Trainz Performance Configuration to select a default preset when upgrading from 121380 due to this shader change.
As usual, we encourage you to try things out with a fresh install first and then work towards more extensive testing using your unique installed content.

You can report any bugs using this link: https://n3vgames.typeform.com/to/xRdryu


Key Features:

• New HD Grid resolution
• New Shader Options, Basic, Standard & Extreme
  • Basic is equivalent to old Standard
  • Standard is equivalent to old Ultra
• New Update Route option
• Clutter Effect Layer Rework
  • GPU Clutter
• New Color Tint Effect Layer
• New User Interfaces
• Water Effect Layers changes including options for water color

Change log from 121380 to 121880:

• New Shader settings
  • Basic: Basic (Former Standard settings) - Parallax and Displacement are disabled
  • Standard: (Former Ultra settings) Parallax and Displacement enabled (HD only) - Tessellation runs at reduced resolutions
  • Extreme - Parallax and Displacement enabled (HD only) - Tessellation runs at an enhanced resolution
• Water Effect Layer
  • Option to set Water Effect Layer color can be found in the Advanced Options of the Effect Layer
  • Multiple Water Effect Layers can be used, each with their own assigned colour.
• Performance Palette (debug feature)
  • Tool to view frame rate history over time. Green = Trainz Engine, Red = Overall time per frame
• Implementation of GPU Clutter
• Tweaks to Brush Radius sensitivity for better consistency
• Improvements to HD lossy compression with HD texture and scrapbook edits
• Shadow & Tessellation Improvements (WIP)

HD Grid:

• 30km draw distance
• Tessellation ensuring detail up close, reduced detail in the distance
• Original textures used for mini-map/satellite view (No "Low LOD" textures)
• Maximum 16 textures per baseboard
• Minimum 0.125m Radius brush size
• No baseboard "walls" (extend your terrain indefinitely)
• Rotation and Scale options for HD Textures
• Scrapbook support should be good now (please report bugs with detailed steps)
• Lots of tweaks to parallax and displacement mapping
• "Add New Baseboard" option
• "Convert Existing Baseboard to..." option
• "Upgrade Route" option to automate conversion to HD
  • Converts legacy water to water effect layer (all water will appear 5m below ground surface)
  • Updates all baseboards to HD
  • Checks for the 16 most used textures on each board and replaces other textures with nearby textures (Automatic Handling)

Effect Layers:

• Color Effect Layer type added (S20 & HD Terrain Only)
• Rework and improvement of Clutter Effects
• Implementation of GPU Clutter for smoother performance
• Water Effect Layers now support color changes

User Interface Changes:

• New Driver Properties Window
• New Driver Settings, Driver location, Player Assignment, Dispatch Status, Command status, Activity log
• Vehicle Properties Window updated with new properties as per Driver
• New Driver MiniMap (found in Driver Properties Window)
• New Driver Palette for S20

Important Information:

• HD Terrain is only editable in S20
• HD Terrain does not support seamless joins to legacy terrain (so we recommend converting the entire route)
• HD Terrain is not compatible with Legacy Water
• Converting from HD Terrain to 5m & 10m will cause some loss of detail
• Large Copy & Paste operations do not support HD detail
• Color Effect requires a minimum 5m radius
• Use Sensitivity % to adjust the rate of update when painting/terraforming
• New Detail windows and logs
• Asset naming (previously done via properties) has been moved to Info Palette

Known Issues:

• The current build has had some optimisation, however there are some known slow operations that will be addressed prior to official release.
• High resource usage on HD routes
• Assertion Errors are enabled for this build. Trainz will pause until Assertion Errors are closed. Users can select Continue and Ignore Errors. (Reporting when these occur with bugs will help with troubleshooting)
• DLC packages will report a failure to download precache data. Clicking retry will ignore the error and proceed to complete installation
• DLC Packages will report a precache assertion error during database rebuild. Select Continue and Ignore Errors
• MPS is unsupported for this build
• Water Effect Layer does not work with color from skybox, but instead has its own color options, now allowing for different water colors for each individual Water Effect Layer
• Extreme Shaders has a shimmering shadow while moving the camera on ground with high gradient
• Shadows cast by ground move, based on camera location
• Patches of HD Terrain may render with incorrect ground height
• Upgraded Routes may stall on exit
• Spline points are missing when using Fine Adjustment Tool
• Trainz Performance Configuration lists old configuration settings

REMINDER:
** Please ensure you have a backup of your local data folder before using it with Trainz Plus Beta **

TESTING FEEDBACK
Once you’ve had a good play around with the new systems, please give us your feedback through this form:
https://n3vgames.typeform.com/to/Yau4CVa2

INSTALLING & PATCHING:

For Trainz Plus Beta via the Trainz Plus Beta Stream
PC Trainz Store Only:
Requires build 121380 (PC). This is a small patch 63 MiB for build 121880

Mac will be expected next week & Steam Beta to follow

This build introduces several new key features coming to Trainz Plus in 2023. Please note this is a Beta release and as such, some features are still in the final phase of development.

 

[pware]

Thanks for that. Download and install were both quick.

Reading the change log now and will test shortly.

 

[Paul_Bert]

Update went smoothly. Most of the issues that were present in the previous build seem to be fixed.

I am experimenting with the water effect layer. It will take some experimentation to get the right color with the RGB settings.

Still need to work with the shader settings to see what difference they make with the textures.

I don't see much difference with the clutter effect layer. I guess it will be more efficient using the GPU.

One thing that was mentioned was a 30K draw distance. In settings I can only see where you can adjust it to 22K. Is there someplace else to find the 30K setting?

 

[n3v_laurence]

I don't see much difference with the clutter effect layer. I guess it will be more efficient using the GPU.

One thing that was mentioned was a 30K draw distance. In settings I can only see where you can adjust it to 22K. Is there someplace else to find the 30K setting?

Thanks Paul, I have corrected this, current limit is indeed 22K.

Clutter changes are performance improvements, which will result in smoother gameplay when using clutter effect layers.

 

[Paul_Bert]

I have converted two of my routes. So far so good. I am trying out the extreme shader setting. Performance is better with this build. Both the CPU and GPU utilization is lower by 10 to 15%. Things run very smoothly, as good as things ran in build 119450.

Two things of note. When I first open a session/route the texture is all mixed up. For instance, my ballast under the track shows green grass and the track is floating slightly in the air. After about 10 seconds everything appears as it should.

The second thing is that if I jump to a different location, to select another consist for example, it takes the TurfFX layer several seconds to apply itself. I also get this effect if I am driving a train. Sometimes the TurfFX does not appear for 5 or 6 seconds, and then suddenly it pops into view for a big part of the grid that the consist is on.

Also in several areas the ground is covered with water, which also corrects itself after about 10 to 15 seconds. This issue also existed with build 121380, so it's not something new to this build. The problem does not exist with build 119450.

 

[Fierogt87]

I'm diggin' the latest beta...

Only thing I've noticed so far, is after I change the color of the water, when I move the camera to another point, it moves a little bit then the software locks up. no error message, and it will stay that way for at least the 15 minutes I waited until ending the task.

In addition to changing the color, is it possible to maybe vary the transparency of the water?



On another note, (I've learned to make sure all the TransDEM textures are replaced and positions of things noted before i convert a baseboard...) It's interesting, the different LOD characteristics of the single baseboard that I have converted on the P&LE... I can zoom all the way out, and it still displays that way...

 

[G.M.]

Ty Laurence ,downloaded very fast 63mb


Improved:
-Selected Ultra at start, and both Surveyor and Driver run very smooth (on my mediocre 4 year old PC)
-Smooth under spline is more precise
-Property interface has the name and layers on top
-New water is now transparent
-Coloring of water is possible, both in the effectlayer interface as later as overlay
-Dighole(still 10x10) is more like before, less chamfer edges
-starting a new route defaults to grid region, phewww
-a nice performance graph

Still need work:
-All interfaces
-HD artifacts
-Dighole precision
-route filesize, .cdp maxsize
-the 16 texture limit
-Transdem vs HD
-All effect layers, less nerdy
-map in S2 does not know priority of track (different color) in S1 it does
-missing spline you cant see when zoom in


Posted a lot of pics on Discord the official n3v channel in the beta-testers-trainz-plus section
there is improvement and hope
greetings GM

 

[springtransit]

What would really be nice is if the filters on the asset toolbox in S2 each had sub filters. For example, the train filter would have sub filters for locomotives, rolling stock, and consists. Also, I'd like to be able to add consists to a pick list and select them from the picklist...

 

[pware]

What would really be nice is if the filters on the asset toolbox in S2 each had sub filters. For example, the train filter would have sub filters for locomotives, rolling stock, and consists. Also, I'd like to be able to add consists to a pick list and select them from the picklist...

I agree. Consist assets already have a unique icon in the Assets Filter list so S20 can already distinguish consists from individual rolling stock assets so it *should be* feasible. Likewise locos (of several different types), tenders, passenger cars, freight wagons (again of different types) all have their own distinctive Asset Filter and Context Menu icons.

 

[Paul_Bert]

I have done some more testing of build 121880. I have two computers running this build, one with a Nvidia 1080 TI graphics card and one with a Nvidia 3090TI graphics card. The one with the 3090 card runs very well with the shader setting on extreme. The one with the 1080TI graphics card does not do well on the extreme setting but runs OK on the standard setting. With the 1080 TI card the drawing of the texture is very slow and in some cases the track ends up being buried by at least a meter. The consists run OK, but they are submerged in the texture.

 

[pware]

With the 1080 TI card the drawing of the texture is very slow and in some cases the track ends up being buried by at least a meter. The consists run OK, but they are submerged in the texture.

That could be the issue of PBR and non-PBR textures meeting. Try setting the Shader Quality to Standard and see what happens.

 

[JohnnyC1]

Came about a game freeze when attempting a ground texture all route replacement, no problem if using other replacement options.

John

 

[n3v_laurence]

One thing that was mentioned was a 30K draw distance. In settings I can only see where you can adjust it to 22K. Is there someplace else to find the 30K setting?

Update on this, the 30Km draw distance is for HD baseboards and is a fixed limit.

 

[Paul_Bert]

Update on this, the 30Km draw distance is for HD baseboards and is a fixed limit.

Will this always be a fixed limit, or at some point be adjustable?

 

[Paul_Bert]

I have been trying out the new water layer in HD. Once you get the hang of it you can get some really nice water effects. The range of colors is great once you figure out how to use the RGB color values. I need to figure out a better way of deciding which values give the effect I want rather than hit or miss trial and error approach. Somewhere there has to be a color matrix showing the range of colors and the RGB values associated with the color. All the color charts I find have a range of values from 0-255, not 0-1 as in the layer options. I guess the work around is to find the color you want from the chart and then take the percentage of this value to 255 and enter the percentage. It seems to work.

 

[Tony_Hilliam]

Will this always be a fixed limit, or at some point be adjustable?

With the tessellation and LOD system, there's no need to reduce the draw distance. The vast % of the polys are close to the camera, so the low LOD in the distance is only a small % of the performance overall.

 

[Fierogt87]

Not sure if it would actually be a "bug" or not, as i have yet to determine if it will cause issues, but it seems that when in "Grid View", water will not show on non-HD baseboards, but it seems fine in "Texture View":

121880

The water does still appear in "Transparent View":

 

[Paul_Bert]

With build 121880 i cannot change the name of an asset in the properties window. For example if I add a track mark to the track it is assigned a default value. If I then go into the properties window to try and change the name there appears to be no way to do it. In previous build the name was highlighted in the properties window and you could rename it. In build 121880 there appears to be no way to change the name.

 

[JCitron]

The properties panel is editable in Classic Surveyor but not in S20.

 

[Paul_Bert]

The properties panel is editable in Classic Surveyor but not in S20.

it was editable in S20 build 121380. What good is the properties panel if you cannot edit it? Are we just stuck with name Trainz decides to name things? A track mark with a name of “502945” is not very helpful in trying to organize assets in a route.