Trainz Update Announcement (SP4)

[sureshot28]

I have tested a lot of the beta versions and have submitted errors. I stated before this is terrible I would not of released this.

 

[wreeder]

Yes, I take your point but that was been the case before Trainz Plus came along. I recall answering one users complaints (in T:ANE if I can recall correctly) about these strange message windows popping up at odd times when he was using the program. The messages were Assertions and I had to explain what they were, why they appeared and why they were important. He did not realise that he had installed a beta version and did not know what a beta version was.

I agree. That is one of the major selling points of Trainz Plus. Getting to peek behind the curtain at the new toys.

 

[pware]

I would not of released this.

Then you would have restricted yourself to only testing on your available hardware/software systems and using common methodologies, not on the far wider range that exists "out in the wild".

There have been numerous examples of beta testers from the "wider Trainz community" discovering new bugs, or their causes, that only surfaced when using specific combinations of hardware, system drivers, obscure sequences of Trainz operations, installed assets, etc.

I found and reported one in T:ANE that only occurred when you performed a complex sequence of separate Surveyor operations in a set order - it was a bug with a very unlikely cause. How long would it take a small team of programmers to perform all the possible combinations of operations in all possible sequences in a system that is as complex as Trainz?

The initial retail release of T:ANE, as you would recall, was riddled with bugs and issues, far worse that any subsequent release including any of the betas.

I can understand users complaining about bugs in a retail release of a program. I do not understand users complaining about bugs in a beta software release - report it, post about it to inform other users, don't just complain about it! Retail or beta, bugs are inevitable and impossible to "fully eliminate" given the nature and complexity of modern software.

 

[sultan1966]

You all are making me envious. Hey N3V.. When is the next beta for Mac coming out?

 

[philskene]

I can't believe how bad this layout runs in this release:

Perhaps some of you guys would like to try it -- it's on the Download Station. Try Session 1.

There is a litany of errors, including (but not limited to):

The way scenic objects, particularly the trees, pop in and out.​

The bouncing of the locomotive and freight cars on the trestles.​

The very restricted level of detail distance cut-off for the vegetation.​

We can do much better?

Phil

 

[wreeder]

Which build are you referring to? Sadly, someone chose to comment on the old thread from July which was the release of Trainz Plus 126280 which I have and runs your route without any problems when they meant to comment on the most recent beta release of Trainz Plus from last week. After that everyone just jumped on this thread instead of the correct thread. The most recent release of 127058 had warnings about the issues with graphic performance and I assume was meant as test of TLR Phase 2 more than anything else.

Trainz Plus Beta TLR Phase 2 - 127058

Hello Everyone, We have our next Trainz Plus Beta for you to try, which focuses on Trainz Living Railroad Phase 2. This update includes several new features for the Trainz Living Railroad (TLR), the main focus of which is the Dispatch Manager. To give you a jump start into the new changes...

forums.auran.com

 

[wreeder]

Has anybody used the latest beta 127058 it is horrible on performance everything takes for ever to populate nothing behind the camera stays has to repopulate. Even with sliders turned down makes no difference. Guess should of stayed with the last update lol.

This was the post that was posted by mistake on the wrong thread.

 

[pware]

Perhaps some of you guys would like to try it -- it's on the Download Station. Try Session 1.

There is a litany of errors, including (but not limited to):
The way scenic objects, particularly the trees, pop in and out
The bouncing of the locomotive and freight cars on the trestles.
The very restricted level of detail distance cut-off for the vegetation.

I just ran session 1 (that is "Session 1" not "Session 0") of the Woodland Route and I did not see any of those issues.

"The way scenic objects, particularly the trees, pop in and out" - My Video Draw Setting in the Main Menu Settings option is set at 10000m.

Before I tested I thought that the "bouncing" may be a "Track Condition" issue but I saw no "bouncing", the ride was smooth.

I did not notice any obvious level of detail cut-off for the vegetation but I have noticed in my "Trainz travels" that some Clutter Effect layers do have a low LOD cut-off but others do not. I suspect that this may be a property of the individual assets used in those Clutter Effect Layers.

A great little route (as they all are) and an excellent demonstration of HDT.

 

[JCitron]

I noticed that with the trees at first but it was better the second time I tried the Coal Country session. I chocked this up to lack of precaching objects and draw distance. I adjusted my graphic levels up and the problem was reduced and was better with a longer draw distance.

 

[Paul_Bert]

My test results with build 127058 so far.

My computer has an NVIDIA RTX 4090 CPU and 64 GB of RAM. It is an Alienware Auroa R15. I am running the program with all sliders maxed out except for Post Processing which is set for minimum. My draw distance is 22000m.

I first downloaded the beta build on 9/12/2024. The database rebuild took about 15 hours and resulted in over 1000 faults, many of which were built in assets. I reloaded the program from scratch and did another database rebuild. This time it took 13 hours, but had far fewer faulty assets, all of them "packaged" assets from the content store. I reported this as a bug. We have had several go arounds on this issue, but no resolution yet.

All my routes and sessions are available from build 126280. My testing so far is to assure that all my current routes still work, and that several known bugs have been fixed: schedule library and the altitude problem relating to clutter.

So far, all my routes run very well subject to the "know issues" stated in the introductory fact sheet which accompanied the beta build. The schedule library and clutter issues have been fixed.

The good news, for me at least, is that there does not seem to be any performance degradation on any of the routes and the CPU and GPU usage stats are about the same as in build 126280. This build so far seems to be very stable for my routes and several that I have downloaded from the DLS and content store. One route from the content store that I particularly enjoy is "Harvard Sub". Lots of detailed scenery and extensive use of boats' controller system. This is also one of the programs affected by the altitude program with clutter which is now fixed.

The "living railroad" seems interesting enough, but at present of little interest to me. My primary interest is making sure that all the existing stuff works correctly. So far it does. Thats the good news. Now if I could only get some of the packaged assets to work correctly that would be great. One of the biggest offenders seem to be packaged assets from the various TUME routes available on the content store.

 

[HPL]

Three months since SP4 broke Yellowstone DLC route and a few others. When can we expect this to be fixed?

 

[pepperref]

It's been a few months since I posted about how the height adjustment lag is ridiculous. Is anyone aware of an improvement, or update, that fixes this?

 

[pware]

Is anyone aware of an improvement, or update, that fixes this?

Update from what? What is your current Trainz build number.

Several months later and I still have not experienced the action delay that you have reported.

Does the same delay occur when you are not using HD terrain?

 

[pepperref]

Update from what? What is your current Trainz build number.

Several months later and I still have not experienced the action delay that you have reported.

Does the same delay occur when you are not using HD terrain?

Thank you for responding.

Here's my original complaint -

The height adjustment is so slow, even at 100% Sensitivity, that it literally takes 2-3 seconds after brushing to see the impact of the height change. This was not the case pre-update.

Please watch the video in my Aug. 30 post. It shows the lag very clearly.

 

[jaur1]

Thank you for responding.

Here's my original complaint -

The height adjustment is so slow, even at 100% Sensitivity, that it literally takes 2-3 seconds after brushing to see the impact of the height change. This was not the case pre-update.

Please watch the video in my Aug. 30 post. It shows the lag very clearly.

You are right, i experienced this same problem in all my HD routes, and had to go back to previous build. hopefully, this bug will be fixed in next update.
HD terrain was a game changer for trainz users more interested in building routes than driving trains. Unfortunately there are important tools like smooth ground under selected or dig holes which need to be polished. tasks like lying track in embankments or cuts, take an enormous amount of time if you want to do a fine Job using alternative tools like grade. But n3v seems to be more interested in mps or tlr, so as far as i know there is not a time line for all this .

 

[pware]

Please watch the video in my Aug. 30 post. It shows the lag very clearly.

I saw the video in your original post before I responded on Sept 1.

I have build 126280 and have not experienced this bug.

As a test I converted my largest 10m Grid route to HD Grid. That task took several minutes. EDIT: The CM reports that the HD route is now 1693.4MB in size. The original was 284.8MB

I added a new blank baseboard at HD Grid resolution. I set the brush size to 0.5m and the sensitivity to 1% and started raising the ground height.

The response was what I would expect for a 1% sensitivity setting - there was an immediate change in the ground height but at a very low level (i.e. in how much the height increased). Increasing the sensitivity setting improved the level of response but in no case was there a noticeable time delay.

If there is a bug then its cause is not simply just the new update.

..and, I will repeat, that was on a very large HD route. I am not claiming that there is no bug but, if it exists, very few users (yourself included) have so far posted about it. Other explanations may be possible such as changes made in the update combined with hardware, OS, and/or other external issues.

My thoughts.

 

[pepperref]

I saw the video in your original post before I responded on Sept 1.



..and, I will repeat, that was on a very large HD route. I am not claiming that there is no bug but, if it exists, very few users (yourself included) have so far posted about it. Other explanations may be possible such as changes made in the update combined with hardware, OS, and/or other external issues.

My thoughts.

Thanks again for responding.

I'm sorry but I never answered your question. It only occurs when working with HD terrain. I don't know if that rules out your thoughts on hardware, OS or other issues, but I was so happy editing HD terrain in S2.0 before the update only to have this lag issue appear and affect the experience so negatively. Even so, I don't plan on going backwards to 5m and 10m grids.

 

[pware]

It only occurs when working with HD terrain. I don't know if that rules out your thoughts on hardware, OS or other issues

It is strange. I suspect that something else is going on here. Whether or not it is related to the latest update I do not know but as I have mentioned I have not experienced any delay when working with HD terrain in a very large route. Now that may be because the route was converted to HD from 10m terrain and did not start from scratch with the HD terrain.

I am not yet prepared to switch over to HD and I continue to work with the "old standard" 10m terrain. HD terrain is impressive but, for me at least, its biggest drawback is the size of the route files it creates. My routes tend to be large which are not currently suited to HD. N3V are looking at ways of increasing the file compression for HD to reduce this problem but that may take some time before it appears.

In the meantime, according to a recent N3V newsletter, there is a new beta Trainz Plus version about to be released and hopefully that may solve the issue (or it may not).

Regards.

 

[wreeder]

The latest beta appears to have dropped as I'm being offered an update this morning. I do see a slight delay in build 127542 but nothing as bad as you see. I'll install the update and look at it.

 

[wreeder]

But it is worth remembering that none of the beta builds are fully optimized so performance might not be as good as that of a stable build release. Beta builds are meant for testing and bug reporting. Don't expect them to be fully polished versions of the game.