Decent system but not all graphics options available

[BadWhippet]

Hello

I have a fairly high-end system but Railworks Settings are giving me a lot of problems. When using 'custom' I can only select the 4th notch on the anti-aliasing bar and keep multi-sampling. Anything higher and multi-sampling is forced OFF. I notice also in other players' screenshots they have other settings (e.g. MLAA + MSAA for example) but my settings don't offer this:



The best (poor best) I can get with any multi-sampling is this:




My system specs:
Intel i7 3820 slightly o'clocked at 4GHz
nVidia GTX 580 with 3Gb RAM
16Gb of DRAM
SSD hard drive etc etc
Windows 7 Pro 64-bit

These specs give me a Windows 7 'experience index' of 7.9 (highest) for every attribute except CPU (this is 7.7). My nVidia driver is the very latest (296.10), yet I cannot get the settings other people are obtaining and I don't know why. As yet, I haven't chosen any override settings in the nVidia control panel.

I don't know what's wrong, why multi-sampling is forced off if I choose any higher setting than MSAAx8 and why I don't see any MLAA etc offered. When I switched to this new PC I copied my Steam games across; is it possible Railworks is still thinking it's running on my old nVidia GTX 260?

I would really appreciate any suggestions other people might have.

[gptech]

Since the last update, which attempted to resolve many graphics issues there hasn't been the option to use MLAA + MSAA --it's either Multi-Sampling or Super-Sampling.

[BadWhippet]

Ah - that explains! Thanks for replying. The super-sampling options don't (for me) make the game look that much better given the frame-rate trade-off. I just wish I could have something a bit better than all the flickering. Aside from the lighting and rain enhancements (which are superb) the game seems to render more poorly than Railworks 2 ever did, and that's a pity.

Are there any recommended settings since this change was made to Railworks? Given that the SSAA settings all seem to achieve very little for MUCH performance loss (and a lot more flicker), I'm wondering whether to have nVidia settings override the RW settings.

[gptech]

I'm runing a 550 at SSAA 2x1 which looks a lot better than using MSAA, no shimmering on track side vegetation. Grapics settings all on highest excep particles and Passenger Density which are Low, screen resoluton of 1980x1020 which gives me a FPS of 20-29 (frame rate limited to 30 using command line option in the desktop shortcut)
(Screenshot from Newcastle In Spring freeroam at http://i41.tinypic.com/hv86d2.png)

It's been reportd that the nVidia control panel settings don't over-ride in game settings, but I haven't tested this.

[BadWhippet]

Playing Paddington to Oxford, I have a choice of having smooth overhead wires but flickering scenery, bridges and poorly rendered trees (MSAA x 8 ) or having nicely rendered scenery, but flickering, broken wires (SSAA 2x2 - works a bit better for me than 2x1 at only the loss of a couple of frames). It seems SSAA 2x2 is a nice choice for routes without overhead electrics (and one I'll use), but a huge disappointment for Paddington, New York Modern etc (alas, these are the routes I play most). Flickering wires is even more annoying and distracting than flickering bridges so I might have to drop down to MSAA for electrified routes.

VSync on my nVidia settings certainly kicks in, but I can't see obvious impact of changing any anti-alias or anisotropic settings in nVidia's control panel, so RW does indeed appear to ignore driver settings.

[peterfhayes]

gptech
The nvidia cp settings do override the inbuilt TS2012 settings (try the highest SS rates set nothing in TS2012 and you can see some effects). However, RSC recommend (and I agree with them) that you use only the in-game settings rather than forcing at the driver level. Further if you use nvidia Inspector (which just has more functions than the the nvidia cp but they are using the same driver working set) if you set any SS say to Sparse Grid Supersampling (SGSS) then when you open RW3 you get 4 small screens instead of one, (this only occurs in RW3 and not in FSX, or MS Flight for example) which may mean the nvidia driver settings can override the TS2012 settings.

The best settings I have achieved is by setting everything in NV Inspector and NVidia CP to application controlled but with some of my own settings like pre-rendered frames=0, vsync=off etc, and then in the nvidia cp under 3D settings choose "adjust image settings with preview" and then tick "Let the 3D application decide". But like the OP said I still use the "lower" MSAA settings for flickering OH wires. I also thought since RSC introduced FSAA there was a fix posted somewhere to help with non-MSAA settings, but I can't recall where I saw it? If I remember it it, I'll re-post.

BTW even running stable at 4.8GHz when using SSAA 3x3 like the OP has set gives me a slide show on many routes, so I compromise and use 2x2 and it looks pretty good.
Regards
pH

[gptech]

Thanks for that Peter, that gives me something else to mess about with

Is this the 'fix' you were thinking about?

Invalid File ID [28328]

[peterfhayes]

gptech
Yes that was the fix!
Thank you
PeterH

[gptech]

I'd completely overlooked that I'd applied that patch, even though I was using MSAA at the time I tried it out---could explain why I seem to fare a little better than others.

[BadWhippet]

I'm beginning to wonder if, because mine is SO bad, there's something wrong with my game...

I've set up to use SSAA 2x2 (about the maximum my system can tolerate for Paddington) and the quality I'm getting is just appalling compared to Railworks 2 on my old PC...



The overhead lines flicker SO badly it's unplayable. The shadows are flickering (can't see this in the screenshot of course) and I notice I still have noticeable jagged edges around the windows of passing trains and on platform textures. The external shadows flicker badly on both scenery and the ground and objects like bridges also shimmer. I'm reaching the point of being done with it now. It's a shame because the lighting and rain effects are beautiful. Playing 'country' routes is pleasant enough, but urban scenes are simply awful. This shot is with the FXAA patch added, but it's no different without. No nVidia override settings other than vsync and optimisation for single display are being used.

My graphics in Microsoft FSX are much better, and in 3D-demanding Dirt 3 they're simply phenomenal (all settings ramped up to max and still give a framerate between 60-80fps). Railworks 3 on my old PC was giving this sort of bad quality together with poor framerates. My game is now running very smoothly, but it looks pretty dire. I just don't know what else to do. It's disheartening.

[gptech]

I just don't know what else to do.

You've probably been through it, but Kromaatickse's guide at http://forums.uktrainsim.com/viewtopic. ... 9&t=118677 could be worth a work through. One other thing to consider is how others performance is reported---I'm giving my system a glowing review, but after moving up from the iGPU on the i5 to a dedicated card it's bound to be a big improvement, and as I'm not a 'gamer' as such I've nothing to benchmark RW against.

Having said that, it does seem that the game needs a little more TLC from RSC to iron out graphical flaws, probably not an easy task given the need not to break stuff we already have.

[BadWhippet]

Thanks gptech

Yep, followed Kromaatickse's guide (that's pretty much when I first became confused about the former MLAA settings and made this thread). The tolerance level of my system seems to be SSAA 2x2 (anything greater is too slow on frames), but this mode seems to lack any attempt at anti-aliasing beyond the immediate cab. MSAAx4 MUCH better for the wires, but worse for scenery flicker.

My graphics card is a nVidia GTX 580 with 3Gb DDR RAM on board; it's not the top card and I don't have SLI either, but it's still high-end and a few generations newer than my former card. I don't get any stuttering now so performance is much better, but the trade-off is utterly horrible rendering that has stripped all the enjoyment out (the picture doesn't show how bad and distracting the flickering lines really are, but it IS bad).

In Railworks 2 I had some stutter and the 'rubber-band' effect, but the graphics were nice. It is such a big step backwards (with exception of that wonderful rain rendering) that I had the futile hope that there was some setting I'd overlooked.

[BadWhippet]

Well, a postscript...

I just purchased the Woodhead pack, and it's stunning in SSAA 2x2 with decent framerates around 45fps - and that was in heavy rain with wipers going. The wires render, the scenery doesn't flicker, and it all looks spectacular.

When purchasing Woodhead, I noticed that Steam's advert for the Class 70 shows the same rubbish overhead wire rendering in RSC's own screenshots, so maybe RSC just needs to make their Paddington-Oxford wires a bit thicker - improve a few of their own assets to keep up with the improvements they've made elsewhere.

[gptech]

Good to hear you've worked things out.....I suppose we should have suggested you try another route to see if that was the same, we often miss the obvious
It does show how far the game has come though, Oxford-Paddington being largely unchanged since RS days, so have you had a look at Keiths rework?

Great Western Main Line TS2012 [38751607 bytes] - GWML for TS2012.zip File ID: 27592 Date: 10 Nov 2011 - 1600 Downloads