[JeffBush]

The OpenRails development team is pleased and proud to announce the release of Version 0.645 of OpenRails Train Simulator (ORTS) software, the "railroad simulation platform that’s open for inspection, open for continuous improvement, open to third parties and commercial enterprises, open to the community, and best of all, an open door to the future". OpenRails runs all content originally designed for Microsoft Train Simulator; and even better, is a platform for new community content going forward. New features include:

+ Upgraded dynamic shadows & lighting effects
+ Working Crossing Gates and Car Spawners
+ Full integration with RailDriver®
+ Brand new, extensible special effects system for smoke and steam
+ New keyboard assignments & information under the F1 key
+ Significant improvements in FramesPerSecond performance
+ All new optional Main Menu, switchable and customizable
+ Specular lighting for sunlit highlights
+ 4x more efficient video card memory usage
+ and more features too numerous to mention.....

As the version number indicates, we are not yet to a completed product (a Version 1). We offer this as a product "in development", a "beta" version of the software as it were, with the hope that those downloading and using it will try it, test it, and feed back comments about both what works and what doesn't yet work. To get an idea of where we’re going and the features we are committed to providing in upcoming releases, please check out our newly updated “Roadmap” at http://openrails.org/roadmap.html

Please understand that some expected features may work wonderfully, and others not at all, and that a careful record of experiences conveyed to the community is an important part of contributing to the eventual success of the project. Let's work together on this, and together we’ll make an OpenRails Train Simulator for the future. Please provide feedback either here http://openrails.org/feedback.html or in the forums.

Please note that there are important installation prerequisites necessary before installing and using ORTS. These are described on our Release page, http://openrails.org/release.html with details in the new "ORv645_StartUp_Documentation.pdf" available there as well. Both the "Ready-To-Run" and the "Source Code" versions of the program are also available there.

We're very excited that we've gotten to this waypoint in the road. Let us know what you think!

[James Ross]

I see the release banner (http://www.openrails...EASEinstall.jpg) wasn't fixed, but oh well. Everything says v645 but we released v646 too. :bigboss:

[longiron]

James, the download is v646, but at 11:30PM last night there was just too many mentions of 645 to change them all in time. We decided to keep v645 in the communications.

[James Ross]

longiron, on 09 March 2011 - 05:38 AM, said:

James, the download is v646, but at 11:30PM last night there was just too many mentions of 645 to change them all in time. We decided to keep v645 in the communications.

I wonder how long it'll be before you have to explain that in a public forum.

[JeffBush]

James Ross, on 09 March 2011 - 05:47 AM, said:

I wonder how long it'll be before you have to explain that in a public forum.

Lol... I thought that too. But it's probably the least of things to worry about.

Guys, what about having future releases numbered with a more generic system? Most software would call this Version 06, within which any sequence of updated builds could still appropriately be applied. As Chris says, there's a huge amount of text associated with the version number which is entirely separate from the actual software updating process. A simple and effective way of relating the code development process and the PR development process would probably be a good idea to implement.


Jeff..........................

[James Ross]

JeffBush, on 09 March 2011 - 06:58 AM, said:

Guys, what about having future releases numbered with a more generic system? Most software would call this Version 06, within which any sequence of updated builds could still appropriately be applied. As Chris says, there's a huge amount of text associated with the version number which is entirely separate from the actual software updating process.

Sounds good; do you mean 06 or 0.6 though? Leading zeros seem a bit odd. In any case, we can add this to the code (so it displays our chosen version) pretty easily.