ATS 1.40 Speculation Thread

[flight50]

For the people that have potato pc's, you are about to be put another notch down. Time to start upgrading. There is a good possibility that as SCs moves forward continuously, the performance of your pc will matter. It would kinda sucks to have to dump down all settings just to play ATS/ETS2 beyond 1.40. If the pc spec requirements change, its to be expected imo.

[Quark]

It also looks as if they finally addressed the AA issues as well? I am still excited to see what rolls out on 1.39, seeing as the blog post says big things are still coming.

Temporal Aliasing, the issue that many describe as "flickering/shimmering", occurs when the scene is in motion. So you can not really tell from pictures
whether they have actually improved anything in this regard.
Now i have a question, maybe one of the experts here can answer it. To what extent is the temporal aliasing issue in ATS/ETS2 related to the current HDR lighting? As far as i know, temporal aliasing can have multiple causes including the so called specular aliasing. What exactly is specular aliasing and to what
extent is it to blame for the aliasing artifacts in ATS when in motion? Could the improved HDR lighting for 1.40 alone (and corresponding overhauls of all assets) reduce specular, or in general, temporal aliasing at least a little?

[SirVirgoTheMess]

@flight50 yes it would suck to drop down graphical settings.But when someone like me who doesn't/can't have a job(and is paid less than someone who has a job),it is harder to upgrade the pc.
Wish i could upgrade my GPU,but money is an issue most of the time.

Sorry to sound like that,but that's the reality.

[NoDe31]

The lighting system looks fantastic. Finally HDR won't make everything look washed out. It also looks as if they finally addressed the AA issues as well? I am still excited to see what rolls out on 1.39, seeing as the blog post says big things are still coming.

they did solve that problem with supersampling (200% is 2xSSAA, 300% is 3xSSAA, and 400% is 4xSSAA) that forces your GPU to render game in higher resolution than your monitor supports... Its one way to solve aliasing problem, but really expensive from performance point of view...

[angrybirdseller]

When 1.40 rolls around get 3070 gpu at $499 to $599 price range without scalpers markup right now to enjoy enhanced visual with the new lighting. Like the lighting feature, but cargo variety would be nice along with AI improvements and economy more realistic in terms of cargo. I hope to see Wyoming in 1.40, but I betting on 1.41 in June to drive on it.

Can buy used gpu on craigslist or ebay for $50 to $100 that easily get close to 60fps at 1080p with 300% scaling

[flight50]

I'd rather see Wyoming with 1.41. Idaho just released in July and I'd hope the next one goes to at least June. Wyoming is not exactly a small state as it road layout can be time consuming perhaps. It would feel rushed if it came for 1.40. If Pavel says Jan. I am sure he is referring to open beta. This could be a lengthy open beta if lots of issues are to be worked out with community pc. So maybe 1.40 goes live for March or April if ob goest that distance. Idaho came already with a few misses and I'm hoping that the Utah/Idaho team can piece together a great dlc with more time. If Wyoming can be great and not good, I think that would be another winning dlc.

With this new lighting system Pavel just announced, imagine Wyoming using it for Yellowstone. I hate to hype Yellowstone but I really like the chances to get it in the game considering what we have gotten so far with California and Colorado.

[hangman005]

Not to get too off topic, but to me Yellowstone is one of those things that you put in the game, regardless of whether it makes sense from a hauling perspective. It's one of those places you make fit.

That said, the lighting changes look pretty damn good, Such a great time to be an ATS player.

[Travismods]

There are a couple of things that have always bothered me with the keep catering to "potato PC" argument that is parroted around.

First off, a game developer should never consciously look backwards when it comes to performance of their product, but the exact opposite. You are not going to make progress being stuck in the past. Moreover it is detrimental to the development and enhancement of their product. They should instead always be looking forwards towards better and more advanced technologies, as all others developers do, no matter the performance cost and before you disagree, hear me out. Changes or new features that are introduced that may shut out low end PC players can always be made optional. Most other games do it like this. They could make any new changes optional in the menu and expand the graphics settings menu for the players allowing for both low end and high end players. I can't tell you how many times I have heard that SCS shouldn't focus on graphics because "my PC can't run it", it's such a selfish, flawed argument and sends the wrong message to SCS. They already will cater to older PCs, they have for some time already. But we also must let this game finally progress technologically. I mean the game is still in this day and age running non-PBR and just now added SSAO even though SSAO is obsolete technology. The game is already so far behind so we should only welcome any technological progress SCS tries to make and not be scared of it.

Secondly, there is a tipping point where technology advances to such an extent that you can't cater to everybody anymore. For example, do you expect new games coming out today to cater to people on Windows 98 machines with 450 Mhz? You probably don't, even if you would have a part of your fanbase playing on said machines. That's an exaggeration obviously but it is the same principal argument. As time progresses, SCS should always look forward, especially seeing that ATS and ETS2 are still in a 10 year old graphic state. I feel people are a little out of touch if they run a 15 old PC and then expect developers to cater to their needs. They will never be able to cater to everybody, but their main focus should never be to look backwards to old technology, it should be to look forward, and whatever performance heavy improvements are made made optional to the player.

I think it is time for this fanbase to understand that there comes a time where some options can't be made optional and SCS have to leave some players behind. If you are expecting a 2005 computer to run a 2020 game and you expect that game to be running on technology compatible with 2005 hardware, yeah that's a your PC is too old problem, not a developer problem. You can't expect a game being updated in 2020-2021 to cater to someone who bought a new PC in 2005, that is just common sense. PCs are made to be upgraded, look how far technology has come the past 10 years only. Developers have, will and should always follow that trend. I have to say I was slightly concerned today with their otherwise great blog post on the lighting that they still had to mention "It's an incredible amount of changes to the art, and man-years of work of our programmers to change the graphics pipeline, shaders, and tools, using all the tricks in the book so that we do not drastically increase the games' technical requirements." At this point, they should inevitably be looking at increasing the technical requirements drastically. It's sad they still express this and I really hope they still realize that as time passes they can't please everyone. As a sidenote, Scaling can always be set below 100%, which so far has worked very well for low end PCs. You can even run the game as low as 25%.

Finally, let changes be made optional but for the love of god realize that you sooner or later have to upgrade your PC, just like everyone else. Right now it still looks as if SCS feel they are "bullied" for lack of a better word to keep looking in the rear view mirror towards low end PC players or they otherwise become vocal. It's wrong and no other developer is doing it that way. It is not SCS responsibility to cater to technology so old that it isn't even meant to be able to run a modern game. It only hinders progress of their game.

[xXCARL1992Xx]

one look on Steam Hardware Statistics and you can see what you can cut off and where to set the new min. system requirements, i believe Scandinavia already did it back in the day, now is a good time to increase them again with 1.40

[killingjoke28336]

If your PC can't handle the update than don't update and stay on 1.39. Easy as that.