is it worth the money

josephlaban

Trainz Player
Hi There-

I've played T:ANE for a bit of time and I'm really fond of it. with TS19 out, I was wondering how much of an upgrade it is and is it worth the money to switch over? The Improved lighting and graphics from screenshots of TS19 really catches my eye and looks intriguing. So is it worth it?

-Thanks, Joe :)
 
Tough question to answer. A lot of folks are going back to T:ANE because of ongoing issues with TRS2019. I have not run into many problems personally, but I never got the great graphics either. I think there are some non-default settings that improve the graphics of both T:ANE and TRS2019. I have seen very lifelike screenshots of both versions, but I never felt I was able to figure out how to get them with either version. My TRS2019 looks pretty much like T:ANE to me, with the possible exception of more annoying fog and mist sometimes. And I have an Alienware system with plenty of cpu and memory and a GTX 1080 card, so I don't think it is lack of system.
 
I have moved to TRS19 PE and now to Trainz Plus and will not be going back. In fact I have uninstalled my copy of T:ANE with no regrets. But it does come down to personal opinion, preferences, etc. For me the UDS interface in TRS19 was the clincher, it has saved me hours of time and endless frustration.

Statements such as "a lot of folks are going back to T:ANE" are very subjective and can be misleading. I think I have seen 3 or 4 posters in these forums who have said that - I would not count that as being "a lot". Some users seem to have genuine problems with TRS19, just as some have genuine problems with T:ANE.

My opinions.
 
TRS19 is a bit like T:ANE with some bells and whistles. If you have the graphic power to take advantage of these additions, or are willing to sacrifice a little performance to enable some of them, I think you will enjoy the realism and experience they can offer. TRS19 is not perfect but some are still having issues with T:ANE suggesting that perhaps there is not a great deal to pick between them in respect of reliability. With T:ANE however you have what you have, its probably going no further than what the community achieves itself, however TRS19 is the building blocks of future Trainz whatever that may be. Like you I questioned the value of upgrading and purchased a regional edition but with hindsight I think subject to your interests all the editions of TRS19 are reasonable value for money, and even more so when purchased in one of the frequent sales. Peter
 
"Real Soon Now" Windows/MacOS/Linux/Chrome/Photoshop/Boeing 737MAX/<insert product name here> will be perfect. If a product was perfect why would anyone ever need to upgrade or why would manufacturers bring out newer "better" versions? Why is Microsoft bringing out a new version of Windows (due 2nd half of 2022)?

Perfect "bug free" software does not exist. Strangely, this fact was known back in 1946 when the British mathematician Alan Turing described the operation of a hypothetical digital computer, what is now known as a "Turing Machine", and the inherent flaw in its operation. This was the computer programming version of Godel's famous "Incompleteness Theorem" published a few decades earlier where he, paradoxically, proved that there are principles or axioms in mathematics that can never be proven.

In the past some users here have posted that N3V should never release a new version of Trainz until the current version has been "fixed" (whatever that means). If that was the case then we would all still be using Trainz v1.0.

Each new version of Trainz has brought new features (often those demanded by the users such as the UDS in TRS19) and it has brought new problems. That is the nature of software.

I have always accepted the problems (and have reported them through the bug reporting system) as a price to pay for the new features.

My opinions/rant (strike out whichever).
 
I am now pretty much exclusively running TRS19 and once I've finished making my own route and asset transfers from earlier versions I'll be archiving them away and not using them anymore. That said I will also say that there are things I don't like in TRS19 and there are things that I do, - it's just that on balance I consider the good to outweigh the less than best.

Some folk like the UDS, I don't as I find it too confusing to use and it's too easy to lose any work you've done due not saving in the right place at the right time according to some non intuitive esoteric formula. I strongly dislike the popup message boxes that warn against connecting incompatible splines since they always seem to popup whether I was doing that or not and cancel whatever it was I was doing. To get past them I now have to employ workarounds that I've never had to do before in other versions. The charcoal grey letters on a black background in menus might be very modern and cutting edge, but it's terrible for anyone who has eyesight problems as I do due to having narcolepsy. Hiding tool options in menus instead of having them on the toolbar has been done to death before, but I'll still mention it. And then there's the environmental lighting which no matter how carefully it's adjusted will never completely lose the supernova effect from at least one direction. There's a few recent fun bugs too, but apparently they are going to be fixed in the next patch/update all going well.

On the good side TRS19 mostly does what it says on the tin and runs faster and more smoothly than TANE and doesn't crash. Surveyor runs smoothly as well and doesn't pause, glitch or hang up. TRS19 is the future and for all its faults it is where Trainz is going and the older versions are going to get increasingly left behind unfortunately. My general purpose Trainz computer has a very average spec and is nothing startling which makes it a good test bench. I own a much more powerful computer as well which can run TRS19 with everything on ultra, but where's the fun in that? - and besides if I'm doing content creation it's best to do it on an average machine rather than something that can crunch through anything without a flicker.

So really in the end you pay your money and you take your choice. TRS19 isn't perfect and most probably will never be perfect, - then no software ever is.
 
No, it's alweays more than you can afford. It's always full of bugs and always crashing out.

That's what life is like. However, my advice is thus.


ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS move forward.

I have been signed up since 2010. and have lived through the growing pains since then. It has not been easy.

Bugs will mostly get fixed (Eventually) and there is always the dangling bait of something new around the bend.

I am quite excited about Surveyor2 which makes it all the better as I am intersted in Surveying more than driving trains.

I can't now remember what I used to do in TANE compared what I can do now - its just light years ahead and simply, different
 
Joe --

I'm with Graham's comments above.

Is TRS19 an upgrade of T:ANE? Nope. TRS19 is the great leap forward. Infinitely better. You could never, for example, achieve this in T:ANE:


Phil
 
Sorry Phil, the lighting looks overpowered and the trees have a weird unnatural shine. Nothing wrong with the work you do, - it's TRS19's faulty environmental lighting that's letting you down
 
Sorry Phil, the lighting looks overpowered and the trees have a weird unnatural shine. Nothing wrong with the work you do, - it's TRS19's faulty environmental lighting that's letting you down


I think the "overpowering" lighting looks great. Just like a model RR with artificial light. After all, these are not real railroads, are they:cool:
 
I kept TANE. Play 19, get frustrated and go back to TANE. Then after I forget, try again 19, and the game keeps me going back and forth. Being in the position of comparing both, I can tell you that in TANE I can run more saved sessions with minimal trouble, at least 2-3 times, but in 19 things may go weird after the first save. Comparing A and B, TANE has quite a bit less bugs than 19; too many for this reduced space so don't worry, I'll not make a list...
 
I skipped Tane from trainz 12 went to trs19. However i use trainz 12 for editing the config file etc, as trs19 does not have that feature. Don't know if Tane has that feature or not. i tend to skip ever other version. had the original version and 04 version.
 
Having worked in software development the feedback from end users always seemed to be OK the new system has these great features which we haven't learnt to use but what happened to XYZ that we used all the time.

The unspoken rule was you never took away something that the end user used in the new version. Remember Microsoft and I think it was win 8, no start menu, they simply parted company with the guy who thought end users didn't need one.

Cheerio John
 
It's worth it if:
you can still get a version before any ServicePack or we get the SP3 fix

agree with John , never remove good working features users are used to
so...I just script them back in my Set-Driver-Conditions-Rule :)
 
I'll stick with Trainz2019 SP3 and above as that is the versions that are Mac Metal and ASi optimized, thus bringing great performance to the Mac.
 
One thing for sure, the next version of trainz has to be something bigger than the upgrade form T:ANE to TRS19 for me to even consider buying it. If I remember correctly, TRS19 was just $11, so I would definitely buy it at that price.
 
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