It’s been almost a year since the first “Community Edition” release and 6 months since the official release of TANE, but we are fast approaching a new landmark in the history of Trainz development. “Service Pack 1” will deliver the final elements of our original Kickstarter campaign goals.
"SP1" is an enormous update and the team have been working on various elements since even before the May release of TANE. As we near the end of this development cycle, we currently have over 300 Beta testers helping us identify whether previous issues have been resolved and if any new issues have been created. We are making steady progress and we expect that the next round of testing (which will begin next week) will show that we are very close to our goals.
Performance and stability have been our key areas of focus and we've made some great improvements. The mysterious database repairs that some users have been experiencing appear to have been eliminated and a range of crash bugs have been squashed.
We've also added new features such as the new Interlocking Towers signalling/pathing system and made some significant enhancements to existing features. For example, in the Advanced Track tab there are new options that greatly enhance using the “Track Condition” feature (which is one component of the train motion system). Now you can lay new track at any "condition" setting you choose and also update existing track segments with a single click.
There’s also a new “bulk scenery update” option in Surveyor to:
Through the first two rounds of Service Pack 1 beta testing, users have been completing a series of performance benchmarking tests. The results show that framerates and "smoothness" in performance have demonstrably improved.
As the chart below shows, 85% of users indicate that are Satisified or Extremely Satisifed with SP1 performance versus just over 50% providing the same rating for HF2.
User “thebrewer01” summed it up his beta testing of the SP1 with these few comments:
Frame rate 7-10fps increase over build 78667
Far less "jerkiness"
So far no crashes in operation
Distance views looking clearer and more defined
Additional tools very welcome
Our next goal is to deliver the next beta version to testers on or close to Nov 17. If you would like to be part of this beta testing, simply register your interest here and we will invite additional testers in time for next weeks testing. We would especially like to invite people who have been having problems with their current build to become part of the testing so that we can ensure their problems have been resolved.
We have certainly come a long way in the past year and it would be wonderful if we had arrived at this point a little earlier. Instead of looking back and wondering what might have been, we hope you will all enjoy the journey as we move forward.