Trainz: A New Era - Service Pack 1 “Early Access”

Our Christmas present to our loyal customers has arrived - TANE Service Pack 1 "Early Access". Happy Holidays!

Santa’s little helpers have been very busy working late into the night to gift wrap the biggest ever update for Trainz A New Era. It’s new, it’s improved and it is without doubt our best version of Trainz ever. After extensive external Beta Testing, and with two weeks until we can replicate the "SP1" DVDs, we've prepared a special "SP1 Early Access" Christmas treat accessible by all our TANE customers. 

This “Service Pack 1” update delivers more reliability, smoother performance and has more features than ever before - so, ‘Tis the season for every Trainz owner to upgrade to “TANE".

While it has has taken longer than expected to reach this point in the evolution of Trainz, with hundreds of new fixes and updates we are now proud to say we have reached our original goals for TANE:

• Full world dynamic shadows to add realism
• Per-vertex lighting for bringing out the details
• Post-processing effects to add “mood” to every scene
• Backwards compatibility (with the vast majority of older Trainz content)
• Loads of great new features
• Lots of updates to existing features

For this “SP1” update, there are almost too many individual updates to list, so we’ve narrowed down the improvements to the following highlights:

• Improved Performance and Stability across the board
• Smoother graphics with new Vsync options
• New Interlocking Towers feature
• New Bulk Asset Replace feature in Surveyor
• New Performance Presets on the MenuBar
• Updates and optimisations for dozens of systems
• New Patcher technology introduced
• Over 500 Bug and Crash fixes in total

And to add a little more detail, here are just a few of those “pet problems” we have fixed:

• You can now Overwrite or Save As correctly
• Auto-save now makes only one copy
• Database rebuilds are required far less frequently
• Screenshots include everything you’d like to see
• New cabin sway internal view option added (on/off)
• Content Manager hotkeys added
• Large “square shadow maps” eliminated
• Merge route and replace asset functions more robust

Work will continue on additional fixes for TANE and we will be utlizing our new patching technology to deliver updates throughout the year.

Insider Tip of the Day:

Of the many many changes made for SP1, one of the "coolest" new options is the Shift "+" or Shift "-" key. Use this key combo in either Surveyor or Driver to instantly change your draw distance. You will be amazed at the difference this will make trading visuals for performance "on the fly" or vice versa.

Testimonials:

Here is a little of what our Beta Testers have been saying in their latest round of testing the latest "Release Candidate" for SP1.

Required no intervention, patched to 80129 perfectly.
Lookin' real good! Socks totally blown off.

Tallyken

The Sim is running well. My favorite gripe about the freezes in the Flying Scotsman session (with PhysX on) seems to have been overcome. (...) So far so good, will continue testing.

Chris (nawlins)

so far this patch gets a BIG thumbs up from me! Well done - and thanks to - Tony and the Team!

PC_Ace

Options to Order or Upgrade to TANE SP1:

[NOTE: These links have been superceded by newer versions]. 

The new “SP1 - Early Access” build will be available for free download by all our existing TANE customers as well as any new customers ordering the digital version from our Simulator Central store, or pre-ordering the DVD Edition. 

1. All TANE Customers - the simplest way to update is to log in to your MyTrainz account, click on the Download TANE menu then select either the Online or Offline full installer option
2. New customers - Order TANE Deluxe Digital (PC) for immediate download from SimulatorCentral.com and/or MyTrainz 
3. New customers - Pre-order TANE Deluxe Box Edition from SimulatorCentral.com for delivery commencing Jan 15 
4. Existing customers with builds 78660/78667 - Download the Patch Installer from this link* (to install the patch ~7GB) (See note below for update - to update now, select )
5. Existing customers with builds lower than 78660/78667 - we recommend you download the full version from your MyTrainz account. If you want to patch, it will be a multi-step process to patch up to 78660/78667 then follow step 3 above.
6. Existing customers with builds SP1 beta builds 79199 and above - Either run your in-game and select "Check for Updates" option in the Launcher or Download the Patch Installer from this link. See ** details below for more information on patch options
7. Existing customers Offline options - Pre-order the SP1 DRM-Free DVD "full installer replacement disks" version for delivery commencing January 15th (Standard Edition owners click here) (Deluxe Edition Owners click here)

Note: All these options are currently DRM versions. You will be able to patch to DRM-free digitally in mid-Jan when SP1 is officially released.

* Link Update: This patch is now live but "untested" due to Christmas Day family commitments.
** Patch options for SP1 updates (choose you build and patch from on to the next. You may choose instead to download the full version).
TANE_sp1_beta_79199 to TANE_sp1_beta_79947 (3.1GB)
TANE_sp1_beta_79985 to TANE_sp1_beta_79995 (51MB)
TANE_sp1_beta_79995 to TANE_sp1_RC_80129 (1GB)
TANE_sp1_RC_80129 to TANE_sp1_RC_80165 (43MB)

DRM-Free options:

All existing customers are able to register to receive a DRM-Free version of TANE using this online form  which also explains more about "DRM" choices for TANE. (This option is for existing customers only).

All new customers ordering the Boxed Edition will automatically receive a Product Key (DRM-Free) version, and digital orders receiev the DRM version.

DRM-Free options will be made available early January for digital and Jan 15 for DVD versions (PC only). Progress shown at this thread.