NOOB HELP

hello there,
I owned the original trainz many years ago but due to kids etc I stopped using it. Now my kids are grown up! I want to climb back aboard but am so confused as to what I need to do? do I need a steam account ? if so why?...do I just buy trainz online and download it? how do you add new routes and locos from outside the game? any help or links to relevant tutorials would be great! just finding it all a bit overwhelming. many thanks in advance guys ;-]

I being a n00b myself, I have come to the following conclusions:

1) If you have a very low end PC, it will never run ANY version of Trainz with quality performance

2) A laptop will eventually clog with dust, overheat, and fry itself (unless you live in a "Clean Room" environment)

3) A desktop PC needs to cost in excess of $1000, with high end quality parts inside it (some have built their own desktop for much less)

4) Integrated Graphics on motherboard chips are insufficient to run Trainz at all

5) Things like a quality Video Card are an absolute must, and preferred are an I7 CPU with speeds near to 4Ghz speed, 16Gb RAM, a 1TB hard drive, an 850 watt power supply, etc, etc, etc

6) Buying a Trainz installation is best by ordering physical disc, digital download, direct from the official N3V store, and totally avoid "Steam" (lots of people do use Steam)

7) If you do not have a Windows 64Bit OS, TS19 will not run, especially on a low end PC

8) Apple Mac is not really a good choice of a PC (you can use one, lots of people do, lots of luck to you)

9) As to adding locos, railcars, and routes to Trainz is the easy part, a billion words could not encompass all the advice on how to do so

Answers depend on what version Trainz you obtain and use. I am seven months into trains using a PC I built just for that. I'm a Mac guy but the Mac hardware just isn't a gaming computer so I moved gaming over to PC for gaming (and a few specialized apps). No, you don't need Steam. You can buy the games outright from the Trainz Store or you can get a Gold membership and "lease" the games with your monthly membership. (Game is gone when you quit membership.) The newest version (TRS19) requires more PC power than does the Tane and earlier versions and I understand that TRS19 works a bit differently than the older versions. One of the best things is all the free content (Routes, sessions, assets). With TRS19 you can download these from Content Manager within the game. I believe that with earlier versions you download from DLS (Download Station.)

If you read through the Trainz and TRS19 posts in the forums you will see there are those who suggest migrating to TRS19 and not looking back, but there are still many who think TRS19 flawed in various was and they still suggest Tane and such. You'll have to decide that.... read thru the forums and watch N3V tutorials and other youtube videos and such to see some of the new rendering and capabilities of TRS19.

I purchased TRS19 outright and my PC build was not too expensive (around $500 - I bought a used 1060 gpu, everything else new) and I can run TRS19 on relatively high settings with good graphics. I've not regretting a single think I did...

Let me add... I still have TRS19 installed on my iMac but once you run Trainz on a gaming computer that's configured just for that, it's awfully hard to go back to serious Trainz'ing on a "stock" iMac. Ditto on my MacBook Pro.

thanks man...all I have is my Mac book pro which has a ssd and good memory as it was custom made. I just want to run the game and add few locos and routes that I've visited in use. will the Mac run it without ridiculous lag and crashes? im thinking of going for the latest edition trainz new era 19.

thanks so much for this information and helping me out man

thanks so much man ;-]

MP242 said:

I being a n00b myself, I have come to the following conclusions:

1) If you have a very low end PC, it will never run ANY version of Trainz with quality performance

2) A laptop will eventually clog with dust, overheat, and fry itself (unless you live in a "Clean Room" environment)

3) A desktop PC needs to cost in excess of $1000, with high end quality parts inside it (some have built their own desktop for much less)

4) Integrated Graphics on motherboard chips are insufficient to run Trainz at all

5) Things like a quality Video Card are an absolute must, and preferred are an I7 CPU with speeds near to 4Ghz speed, 16Gb RAM, a 1TB hard drive, an 850 watt power supply, etc, etc, etc

6) Buying a Trainz installation is best by ordering physical disc, digital download, direct from the official N3V store, and totally avoid "Steam" (lots of people do use Steam)

7) If you do not have a Windows 64Bit OS, TS19 will not run, especially on a low end PC

8) Apple Mac is not really a good choice of a PC (you can use one, lots of people do, lots of luck to you)

9) As to adding locos, railcars, and routes to Trainz is the easy part, a billion words could not encompass all the advice on how to do so

Click to expand...

Welcome back.

Most of your answers can be found at this link: http://trs19.trainzportal.com/ or here https://support.trainzportal.com/in.../List/Index/20/trainz-railroad-simulator-2019 and the spec requirements are here: https://support.trainzportal.com/in...ifications-for-trainz-railroad-simulator-2019

Trainz changed quite a lot from TS12 to Trainz A New Era (TANE), and even more for TRS19. The graphics engine was rebuilt and its taken a while to get it sorted. TRS19 introduced Physically Based Rendering (PBR) and models made with that technology look way better than the older plain coloured versions. These new versions are quite demanding for graphics and that means expensive video cards. However, you can dial back the requirements so TANE/TRS19 will run on quite modest machines.

You don't need Steam although you can buy that option. TANE and TRS19 do want to "phone home" to detect authorisation. That's quite common for software these days.

You can download an awful lot of models and routes from the Download Station (DLS) although a First Class Ticket ($$) will get you past the 100Mb daily limit and is theoretically faster. The DLS does hold a lot of old assets and assets that have become faulty because of more stringent requirements for TS12, TANE and TRS19.

Tutorials for running sessions are embedded in the game itself. TANE has a manual hidden down in a folder called extras and I don't think TRS19 has one but it does have embedded help. N3V are moving much of their tutorials onto the Trainz WiKi.

It runs OK on my MBP if you run it with it's lower graphics settings and if you selectively pick the Routes to run on it. Low board count routes are best (obviously) so routes like The Lilliput Logger and such work best. You'll likely see stutter if you go though yards and such with multiple tracks. "zooming" and map navigation will be slow. The best thing about running Trainz on a Mac is not knowing what it "could" be doing on a gaming machine. ie: You don't know what you don't know.....