Trainz Plus Beta update - PC# 121380 & Mac# 121370

We appreciate all your feedback from the previous Alpha releases, we are happy to release the next Trainz Plus Beta build 121380 & 121370 (Mac). This will be initially released to the Trainz Plus Alpha to confirm it is ready for release tomorrow. This has had several optimisations, though there are still improvements in development. This build is set for high-end hardware. Next build will have sliders for lower end hardware running HD Terrain. 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 Update Route option
• Clutter Effect Layer Rework
• New Color Tint Effect Layer
• New User Interfaces

For more details on these changes and how to use them along with our future plans, please visit: https://docs.trainzsimulator.com/docs/hd-terrain
Surveyor 2.0 has undergone significant changes since the first Alpha. Here are some of the highlights of this build including key differences:

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
  • 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

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 colour from skybox but will be addressed prior to official release.
• After conversion, white baseboard grid lines may appear in ground textures. This will be resolved prior to official release.
• Loading a route with HD ground height edits causes deformed terrain. This will be resolved prior to official release.

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 (Now Live) via the Trainz Plus Beta Stream
PC:
Requires build 119450 (PC). This is a large patch 9.7GB, for build 121380

Mac:
Requires build 119458 (PC). This is a large patch 9.7GB, for build 121370


For Trainz Plus Beta (Initial Release) via the Trainz Plus Alpha Stream
PC Only:
Requires build 121097. This is a minor patch of 73MB from 121097 to 121380


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.

Will be up early Friday morning to test it out. I have a separate Trainz Plus install specifically for betas so it will not interfere with my normal working Trainz Plus install.

When can we expect it for steam versions?

n3v_laurence said:

Requires build 119450 (PC). This is a full installer 9.7GB, for build 121380

Click to expand...

Does this mean all built-in routes have been reworked and upgraded to HD terrain?

When can we expect it for steam versions?

Click to expand...

Most likely the next update which will include additional shader options for lower end hardware.

Does this mean all built-in routes have been reworked and upgraded to HD terrain?

Click to expand...

No, this is a technology update. Content usually lags the tech by a generation.

Any feedback on the build yet?

Trainz Plus Beta is now live on the Trainz Plus Beta update streams.

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

Congrats on the new build/ patch.
Now that I have assessed the changes made in the Alpha 2 build that I patched to Build 121380, I will confidently apply the beta patch to my main Trainz+ build 119450.
(71Mb patch from Alpha 2 took only a few seconds to update. After usual DBR, main screen opened faster than previous Alpha builds.)
All appears to be working ok at first glance.

Heh! Found that I can recreate a fairly convincing NZ earthquake scenario showing affected track over a minor surface rupture using this new ultra-terrain feature:


(A simple right-click, 'smooth ground under track' command sorted this unintentional track anomaly created by the earlier Alpha 2 build).

The new detailed terrain allows for much more realistic creation of gullies, streams, cuttings, fills and embankments. Loving it!
Surveyor 2.0 is still a huge learning curve, but is coming together quite nicely.
Thank you! PC.

As far as I remember, the beta was also promised in Steam, but there is nothing. I want to test and try new things

PC_Ace said:

Heh! Found that I can recreate a fairly convincing NZ earthquake scenario showing affected track over a minor surface rupture using this new ultra-terrain feature:

Click to expand...

Wow, I must have one of those

Alas, I have just discovered that my high speed Internet connection will be down for maintenance for the rest of the day and my alternative lower speed emergency backup connection gives a 25hr download time for the patch so I will have to wait until tomorrow for the experience.

PC_Ace said:

Congrats on the new build/ patch.
Now that I have assessed the changes made in the Alpha 2 build that I patched to Build 121380, I will confidently apply the beta patch to my main Trainz+ build 119450.
(71Mb patch from Alpha 2 took only a few seconds to update. After usual DBR, main screen opened faster than previous Alpha builds.)
All appears to be working ok at first glance.

Heh! Found that I can recreate a fairly convincing NZ earthquake scenario showing affected track over a minor surface rupture using this new ultra-terrain feature
(A simple right-click, 'smooth ground under track' command sorted this unintentional track anomaly created by the earlier Alpha 2 build).

The new detailed terrain allows for much more realistic creation of gullies, streams, cuttings, fills and embankments. Loving it!
Surveyor 2.0 is still a huge learning curve, but is coming together quite nicely.
Thank you! PC.

Click to expand...

Sounds like you found our special earthquake mod. This is likely caused from your cached shaders from an earlier Trainz Plus Alpha build.

Please delete your cached shaders (found in your local data folder\cache\Shaders) and let them rebuild on the next run of Trainz.

Sanek17 said:

As far as I remember, the beta was also promised in Steam, but there is nothing. I want to test and try new things

Click to expand...

Patience - Trainz Plus Steam is a small % of our user base, so spending hours preparing every build option is not productive. We'll get a beta build out for Steam once we're ready.

Ok. I have now patched Build 119450 to 121380. The ~9.7Gb patch downloaded from your servers at a quite reasonable 66.7Mibs/sec so took only a few minutes.
Initial DBR took 261 seconds and running TrainzUtil.exe 'prebuild' a whopping 11 minutes and 31 seconds (much longer than last run of less than 5 minutes).

The program opened quickly and ran one of my standard testing sessions in Driver mode without issues or any noticeable artifacts.
Have not attempted to use any of the new ultra-detail terrain building features in this build yet - that is my next task...

n3v_laurence - Not sure from your comments above re. cached shaders whether that will affect this beta patch (as the image I linked above was from my Alpha #2 build...)
But I will delete them anyway and allow them to rebuild before re-launching 121380. (Planning to abandon/ delete the Alpha 2 build as I had nothing saved there that I am particularly proud of, despite being really impressed by its new capabilities:- You did say that it was all considered 'disposable' and temporary).

Will I need to re-run 'prebuild' again after I delete the shaders? It should complete much faster 2nd time around...
Thanks and cheers,
PC

Tony_Hilliam said:

Patience - Trainz Plus Steam is a small % of our user base, so spending hours preparing every build option is not productive.

Click to expand...

Yes, but these are also people and fans who expect something new from the game. And they also paid money, but obviously not for updating once a year. Some kind of discrimination comes out, one is everything, the other is nothing

PC_Ace said:

n3v_laurence - Not sure from your comments above re. cached shaders whether that will affect this beta patch (as the image I linked above was from my Alpha #2 build...)
But I will delete them anyway and allow them to rebuild before re-launching 121380. (Planning to abandon/ delete the Alpha 2 build as I had nothing saved there that I am particularly proud of, despite being really impressed by its new capabilities:- You did say that it was all considered 'disposable' and temporary).

PC

Click to expand...

If you are not using the local data folder from Trainz Plus Alpha build, there should be no need to delete the cached shaders.

I had no trouble downloading the patch. The DBR took longer than I expected, but that could be my computer. I do have a question: Using S2, when I lay several connected pieces of track, the end point disappears. It makes it hard to find the end. Is that a bug or a new feature?

I made a big mistake and installed this update 121380 and my Trainz went from a butter smooth constant 60fps to a fast stutter slide show.
Also the annoying Red Bug errors that I never got before with constant assertions pop errors.
I have to uninstall this update to be able to use the Trainz the way it was before this update.
Sorry to have to report this here, but I do not know how to report this kind of issue as a bug report.
I need to uninstall this recent update and go back to the 119450.
Kind Regards.

Thanks for the info Jeff,

This release was set for high-end hardware, there are known performance issues with clutter in the current build on certain systems. (primarily AMD cards, but has also been identified on some nvidia cards).

Try turning off clutter effects to see if your framerate returns.

There are no performance options for HD in this build, so framerate is expected to drop in some cases. (depends largely on hardware).

If you could complete a https://n3vgames.typeform.com/to/xRdryu and send us info about what Trainz systems & performance setting you were using as well as what hardware you have, it would be helpful.

As Laurence said - providing more detail in a bug report is very helpful.

Also please note that Assertions are expected in a beta test build. It isn't for everyone.

What I get when I start Trainz:



Then:



I can't even access the change stream window (I get the same error).


Before you ask:

I have the same problem as HPL, and submitted a Helpdesk ticket. Additional the MyTrainz page no longer shows any downloadable product.

Peter