I was trying to make out a number off of an older piece of rolling stock I was modifying today to see if it had its empty weight printed on the side. Textures like this on older stock are largely illegible unless you ramp up the graphic settings, position your camera just right, zoom in a little, and squint. I usually play the 64-bit edition as it's supposed to allow TS to use your computer's full capability to run the game and it is supposed to be more stable than the older 32-bit edition. While 64-bit edition was not meant to be a performance upgrade, some users could expect a slight performance increase depending on their hardware. So for the last year I've been using 64-bit edition, however if you make bigger adjustments to the graphics the game has to restart and when it does it defaults to 32-bit edition. So I ramped up the graphics and restarted the game in 32-bit edition. At this point I usually shut it off again to put it back in 64-bit, but since I just needed a peek at some stock I didn't bother starting it in 64-bit and went straight into my TestRoute where I do tests for my mods (just a 30-some-odd-mile-long piece of straight track in an open field). Upon jumping into a session to check the stock I noticed immediately that even though I was on max graphic settings I was getting a much higher fps in my 32-bit edition than I have ever gotten in the last year or so of playing in 64-bit playing with low-medium graphic settings. So I booted up a QD on the Montana Hi-Line with the longest train I could find. Running on max graphics in 32-bit the session ran smooth as silk compared to any previous session in 64-bit on medium graphic settings. So I checked out a couple of other routes to see if I'd get similar results. So far there has only been one route that crashes at max settings in 32-bit on my current setup: Western Lines of Scotland. Solved that real quick by dropping the graphic settings one notch from "Highest" to "High" and ensuring object density was at max and the route loaded again running smooth as silk hardly dropping a frame if any. Tried the same thing in 64-bit and I was lucky to make 15fps with max settings.
I'm impressed but at the same time confused. I thought the difference between the 2 editions was supposed to be only slightly different with 64-bit being more stable, but I'm seeing so far on my end that 32-bit is completely outclassing the 64-bit edition which doesn't make sense to me because I have a 64-bit system and the 32-bit edition can only use a limited amount of your computer's specs to run TS while 64-bit was made to use all of your computer's specs to run the game, thus making it more stable and slightly better. What gives?
I've been playing 32-bit edition on high-to-highest settings all day on different routes from old to modern and early to more recent locomotives and have been amazed with how much better it's performing than 64-bit and loving every minute of it.
