3 days ago September 9, Trainsim World 3 launched on Steam and also Xbox series X|S.

English, American, or German route editions. Any one of three is $39.

Standard Edition with all 3: $49

Deluxe Edition with all 3 plus a UK steam train era route: $59

TSW is better graphics than Trainsimulator by the same company Dovetail Games, but not as complex under the hood, so to speak. 

https://www.thexboxhub.com/train-sim-world-3-review/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MW6V4s3hDrQ&ab_channel=TheXboxHub

 

Yup. Got it (my 5y/o loves trains) and like it alot as a form of escapism. Would love more depth in it though as I also used to use RUN8. 

11 minutes ago, Fielder said:

 

TSW is better graphics than Trainsimulator by the same company Dovetail Games, but not as complex under the hood, so to speak.

Oh, I didn't know that Trainsimulator is more in depth than TSW!

I saw this was coming a few weeks ago, but I swear I can't see any real difference from TSW 2 or even 1!

Of course, since I have gamepass, I get access to the standard edition for free, so I might eventually end up trying it, when I'm bored enough....

 

3 hours ago, HiFlyer said:

I saw this was coming a few weeks ago, but I swear I can't see any real difference from TSW 2 or even 1!

Of course, since I have gamepass, I get access to the standard edition for free, so I might eventually end up trying it, when I'm bored enough....

 

Ditto - along with MS2020 and a few of the newer games e.g. Sniper 5 when the weather is too bad for flying

Their graphic does not change much and is outdated in my opinion, apart of that this sim is a bag of lags and poor optimisation. Lack of fluidity is present in all versions of TS. 

Edited September 10, 20223 yr by Beardyman

5 minutes ago, Beardyman said:

Their graphic does not change much and is outdated in my opinion, apart of that this sim is a bag of lags and poor optimisation. Lack of fluidity is present in all versions of TS. 

I've noticed that in nearly all of the trainsim and other dovetail projects.

They appear to be surprisingly pedestrian programmers.

I would be interested in a decent train simulator, but it would need to provide me with the entire UK rail network from day one. A single route is nowhere near good enough.

Trainsimulator from Dovetail games has UK routes galore. It is an older franchise than TSW. The Workshops on Steam probably has over 500 free addons created by individual users. Huge, but not so much as flightsim.to for MSFS.

The addons might be challenge scenarios. You have to get trainloads of passengers somewhere under conditions of heavy traffic from other trains. You have to set signals, or throw switches to stop other trains  to avoid blockages and make decisions and drive carefully under the speed limits but fast enough to keep to the schedule.

Their are freight assignments. You need your train of cars with the freight in the right order front to back to drop the rear most off at the next scheduled stop. You have to unhook cars temporarily, then couple up a different car, and then couple the unhooked cars at the back of the train.

There's more than one scheme that will get your train in proper order and some sidetracks are small and can only hold one car temporarily. It's like a chess problem of 'mate in 3 moves'. You need to deduce the most efficient scheme.

But some things in the Steam trainsimulator workshop require cars you don't own and therefore need to buy. Once again, like flightsim.to. To see what's in the workshop, just go there in Steam and look at the creations for download there.

TSW is not so rich and deep a sim as Trainsimulator. But it has better graphics, sound, weather, animation.

Trainsimulator is probably 20 years old, but the annual update has always been free. The major routes, but also small gauge Cornwal Lands End narrow gauge tourist routes, short coal routes thru the Welsh mountains. The Flying Scotsman, Settle to Carlisle... routes in the Highlands. That sort of thing.

Can anyone confirmed if a custom controller (eg. flight sim Throttle Quadrant ) could work? Lack of this is is almost solely reason I refund TWS2 and select Zusi3

I used a CH Flight Stick and throttle for Dovetail train simulator back in the Windows 7 days. Because all CH HOTAS sticks, throttles, quads, yokes, and even pedals can optionally export keyboard letters to the sim instead of DX commands. But CH controllers got buggy with later versions of Windows after 7.

Train Sim World (unlike Dovetail Train Simulator) works natively with RailDriver controllers. Dovetail Train Simulator has to use special drivers conversion apps to run RailDriver. It sort of works.

But Raildriver is plug and play perfect with TSW, so they say. And I only have the Xbox|S TrainSimWorld so I can't check if it will run with Direct X commands (which is what FSX and  MSFS uses of course).

https://www.amazon.com/RailDriver-Desktop-Train-Controller-TS2019/dp/B016YLK15W

http://raildriver.com/

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dovetail Games are a disappointing group of developers. There are very few new features to justify a purchase of TSW2 over TSW, certainly not enough to buy TSW3 over TSW2, let alone to hike the price as much as they have for the standard version, IMO.

Numerous bugs, re-used assets and routes, semingly a lack of desire to repond to their customers' comments/suggestions, plus the sandboxed nature of their platform (no third party products nor workshop freeware mods) mean their sim has ever less appeal after each paid update.

A sad state of affairs, really... I loved MSTS, Railworks, Trainsimulator as much as MSFS. Until i stumbled over the freeware virtual railway work of one brilliant man by the name of Mackoy. He called it Boso View Express or BVE (always found that a pretty funny name ;-). But finally a trainsim that got the physics of a moving train right. And not only the visual part, the sounds were something to behold as well.

Like in all other *payware* trainsims, when you're in the cab you are suspended in the air, i.e. you miraculously hang there inside the cab while the locomotive is moving and shaking *around* you ! Why ?... Because you should be standing on the footplate or sitting in the driver seat and so it's the *outside world* that moves and shakes around you and the train, not the train itself ! And that's probabely too much to ask for graphicswise.

But that's exactly what Mackoy managed to  implement in his trainsim ( Ok, 'cabsim' because no external view..), and, IMHO, that's what Dovetail should've picked up on and implement in their TSW. Then it could've been the start of something really beautiful and worthwhile in the trainsim world. 

I just saw the video of TSW3 and it's still all the boring same as before: the train hurdles along the rails, gently shaking and swaying about on its bogie suspention while you as the driver has nothing to do with that because you are still suspended up in the air of the cab, just hanging there like a stuffed baloney. 🙃

Personally i'd be embarrassed to, again, sell a trainsim that can't even manage the correct train movement physics. (you should've experienced hurdling over a big street of switches and crossings at top speed in the BVE cab ! Pure Magic !  😎 )

TSW3 DeLuxe Edition: Yep.  Correct moving train physics ( or correct Head Latency) : Nope

Edited September 15, 20223 yr by Javiz
yep

This really bugs me about Dovetail the way they market 'upgrades' to the next full version and makes me appreciate Asobo/MS MSFS that much more because we have only bought one version, and have had a ton of meaningful updates since release.   Dovetail puts a little bit of lipstick and some marginal improvements and you have to rebuy all over again.    Lots of greed going on there with a lot of micro managing of purchases every step of the way.  TSW2 will have to do. 

I really like TSW 2. As DTG are Kent based a lot of the routes are surrounding London and the South East so it has special interest to me, and I really like the immersiveness you get from being able to step off the trains and walk around, change ends in real time etc.

That said, not sure I fancy paying again for TSW 3. I might take advantage of Game Pass and try it on the Xbox this time.

 

Edited September 15, 20223 yr by Tom Wright