Improve detail

[hbcdestroyer]

I guess this has been asked many times before but, i notice on, and only on slammer trains, 421's, EPB's, 414's etc the train detail is fine if you zoom close up (about 5 metres away) yet if i zoom out to say 20 metres and over the quality drops, i get windows, bogies disappearing etc. (I do have train detail to the best quality aswell). Does anyone else have this?

My PC:

AMD 4800 64 (dual core)
1 gig ram
2 x Asus 6600GT (SLI Mode)

I know my PC isn't that great by todays standards

It runs fine with a full rake of HST for instance, so i'm a bit baffled. Is there anything i could do or tweak?

P.S Using Trainstore and MSTSBin

Thanks

[jbilton]

Hi
That is controlled by LODs.
Using SFM, you can alter the original model.

http://steam4me.railpage.org.au/trainsi ... m_faq.html

5 Distance Levels
Distance Visibility / Level of Detail(LOD) Adjustment lets you adjust the maximum distance at which objects are visible (modellers should really be doing this, so that small scenery items disappear over 500m) and adjust the level of detail. This will help improve frame rates on routes with a high object density


Cheers
Jon

[hbcdestroyer]

Wicked!! Took your advise and got SFM, made a few tweaks to a 421 connex and hey presto! Details remain high as train passes!

thanks Jon

P.S was fearing me PC was not up to the task

[jbilton]

Glad it worked
Cheers
Jon

[mikesimpson]

I think that some modellers have gone over the top with the LODs in their models, and feel that with the extra power in PCs these days that there is little reason for more than 2 LODs (if that).

When MSTS first came out, my PC had a Riva TNT video card, and struggled along trying to show MSTS at all, so it was reasonable that when you approached an overbridge it suddenly appeared at about 1km. However with modern PCs, there is no real need for this and I find it really unrealistic to suddenly see a forest appear on what had previously been a bare mountainside.

RS is just as bad, in the Cajon Pass, small clumps of bushes suddenly jump out of the ground, whereas other bushes the same size are there all the time, because they apparently do not have all these LOD levels.

I would rather lose a few FPS to have more realistic scenery rather than things bouncing out of the terrain like a lot of rabbits, and just wondered what others thought of this.

[Easilyconfused]

Good points Mike and what memories there - I had a Riva TNT card as well. In fact I only gave it away about 18 months ago when I serviced a very old PC that had built in graphics so I popped the Riva into the machine as a free gift and to avoid having to dispose of it myself.

Now we can't legally throw away electronic waste into our bins disposing of my mountain of redundant PC bits is going to be a problem.

[jbilton]

Hi
I would agree Mike, that most peoples PCs can now stand the extra detail.
In fact in the back of my mind, I recall a thread discussing the possible merit of having less LODs, requiring less processing power.
Perhaps a new button for Route Riter is possible ?
Altering LODs to just 2 , say 500m and 2000m
Cheers
Jon

[CaptainBazza]

If you could upgrade to 2gb of the same ram it wud give your system a nice boot for the price of one 1gb stick.

Cheers Bazza

[GaryG]

Hi Mike and other interested parties

I've been de-LODding shapes in almost all routes for almost two years now and have seen no noticeable impacts on MSTS (actually MSTSbin now). Before MSTSbin became available, I found de-LODding improved the stability here immensely, pretty well getting rid of all the "can't load shape so-in-so" errors I used to see. I do the route's shapes as well as the global shapes (tracks, tunnel, switches, etc).

Mike did hit the nail on the head, current graphics cards and CPU have so much additional power now I also feel additional LODs are no longer necessary in MSTS.

Perhaps some day some person might design an automatic de-LODder. I normally use Archibald for this task which can work out to about 15-20 seconds per shape file to delete the extra LODs and adjust the distance.

GaryG

[alanch]

I'm sure Matt (NeutronIC) had a thread some time ago about a program he had to delod (?) shapes - don't think it ever reached the library, but he was offering it to people to test, I think.