Flashing objects

[T163RN3TW0RK]

Hi

On almost every route I play on in TS12, I get flashing objects: fences and zones directly under fences, bushes and some bigger scenery objects tend to "flash" about 100% of the time. When I say 'flash', I mean some zones on these objects become white and/or covered with stripes, and this alternates with their normal state, thus making the objects alternate between the two states, resulting in a flashing/blinking effect.
Also, trees seem to glitter when I move (mainly snow-covered trees and tress without leaves), and they do this a lot: it gets kinda annoying !

What can I do to avoid these problems ?

Here I my PC specs:

IntelCore i7-2600 processor @ 3.4 GHz
8GB RAM
Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX550Ti

These are the TS12 settings I set when I play:

TSX On, Anisotropic x8, anti-aliasing at the third or fourth setting starting from the right of the slider.

Thanks for helping.

J.

[Irishrailguy]

What brand of gfx card have you got? Artifacting is usually caused by an overheating gfx card, some versions have poor fans on them and this might cause an issue. Mostly it's because your pc is badly ventilated, or there is dust inside the case insulating the heat buildup. I suggest you get a good component benchmarking/monitoring program, I don't know any off by heart, maybe someone here can suggest a good one.

For now try and reduce the load on your system by lowering the graphics settings, if your happy with doing that it may be a solution if you get any changes.

Kev

[firetrap1]

My settings aren't even that high and I use a GTX650!?!

[PaulH2]

It doesn't sound like overheating artifacts to me, I think what you are seeing is the phenomenon referred to as Z-fighting. To the best of my knowledge, this is a result of the RW graphics engine itself and there is little you can do about it with for example driver settings.

For the flickering trees, I think the issue is the primitive anti-aliasing RW uses. I'm not sure what the term is for nVidia graphics cards, but a setting called "adaptive anti-aliasing" I think on ATi cards can help with this (by default, anti-aliasing doesn't work on objects with transparency, such as tree branches), though that setting caused other problems pre-TS2012 that were never fixed. You best bet with that issue is the try different anti-aliasing settings in the RW launcher and decide which one you like best.

Paul

[Irishrailguy]

Well it can happen with any card really, I own a 580 and I've needed to better the ventilation of my system on an occasion as it was overheating. I would agree with Paul about the Z fighting also, and yes there is little that can be done about it, many of the older RW assets have this problem, especially houses, I wasn't sure as to what your'e problem was, this sort of thing needs to have a screenshot accompanied since it's just plain hard to describe graphical issues.

Kev

[Esefkay]

Hi there,
For anyone wanting to stress test their Graphics card, you can use Furmark. http://majorgeeks.com/FurMark_d4183.html
It is a quick, small and straight forward program to use.

You can use Realtemp for your temps if you like.

To the OP - check your PSU is sufficient for your system if temps are ruled out. Flickering and flashing textures as well as graphical slowdowns are typical of a GPU with not enough voltage.
Also, I used to get flickering textures with some older GPU drivers, so experimenting with drivers maybe in order too.

Regards,
Steve

[PaulH2]

Hi there,
For anyone wanting to stress test their Graphics card, you can use Furmark. http://majorgeeks.com/FurMark_d4183.html
It is a quick, small and straight forward program to use.

You can use Realtemp for your temps if you like.

To the OP - check your PSU is sufficient for your system if temps are ruled out. Flickering and flashing textures as well as graphical slowdowns are typical of a GPU with not enough voltage.
Also, I used to get flickering textures with some older GPU drivers, so experimenting with drivers maybe in order too.

Regards,
Steve

A word of warning - Furmark will REALLY stress your video card, if it isn't being cooled properly, using Furmark excessively CAN PHYSICALLY DAMAGE your GPU! If you suspect your video card may be overheating, stress testing it is really not a very good idea (if your car was overheating, you wouln't take it for a good thrash up the motorway to make sure, would you?) Personally, I'd strongly advise not using it.

The first think I would do it try to take a screenshot or short video of the effect so we can advise if it is looks like an overheating problem. IF it is checking that all the fans in your computer are running properly, that they aren't blocked with fluff for example, is the place to start. There was a thread here a year or two ago about how to safely and effectively clean your PC, but I can't find the link to it at the moment...

[T163RN3TW0RK]

Yes it really looks like a Z-Fighting problem.
Thanks for your advices guys.

Also I forgot, shadows, and that's the most visible problem, are the things that flash the most.

[markpullinger]

Hi, shadows seem to flash at any setings apart from off and highest detail - I run mine at highest and ignore the slow downs unless it's really jerky and then I turn them off.

[T163RN3TW0RK]

Well...as well as the settings I indicated above, I run TS12 with High or Highest settings and I have average 45 fps on most routes.

[msmith4000]

Try setting the 30 fps lock tickbox in the Railworks launcher -> Settings tab and see if that helps.

[T163RN3TW0RK]

But that means I will not get more than 30 fps, no ?

[ttjph]

But that means I will not get more than 30 fps, no ?

Correct - but also, the difference when it drops to, say, 20 fps for a few seconds will be much less noticeable. Also your graphics card won't be working as hard at 30 fps as it would at 45, so will draw less power and stay cooler.

Do you need more than 30 fps to drive a train? Films are 24 and TV is 25...

[msmith4000]

Hi T163RN3TW0RK,

Yes this will limit your frame rate to 30 fps. This is plenty fps for very smooth gameplay, the eye does not really discern the difference between 30 and 45 but as ttjph has advised, the eye can detect the changes in framerate from 45 to 30 or less and this makes the simulation look jerky. If you limit fps to 30 then the simulation runs more smoothly as far as your eyes are concerned due to less changes in framerates.

The fps lock should have the added bonus of reducing the load on your computers CPU and GPU whilst also making everything perceivably smoother overall. My suggestion may make no difference to the "flashing" problem but my thinking is if either your CPU or GPU being overworked this may help reduce the flashing/flickering if not remove it all together, so worth a try.

Other things to try is update graphics drivers or if you have the latest drivers, install the previous version of the drivers (available from NVIDIA's web site) Go into the nvidia control panel and reset everything to defaults. Lastly try forcing v-sync off then try forcing it on in the graphics driver and see if that helps.

Another thing to try is check what refresh rate you have set your monitor to in the graphics driver, try reducing it to 60Hz instead of 75 or 85hz.

Test other games, if they do not exhibit the flashing problem then it is fairly certain you do not have a hardware problem. Unfortunately there could be a number of reasons for causing this problem and its a process of elimination to try solve it. If there is no hard set answer available to a problem with a computer you just have to keep trying various things to see if it helps alleviate / remove the issue hence my recommendation to toggle on the 30 fps lock.

Good luck hope you get it sorted, let us know how you get on.

[T163RN3TW0RK]

Thanks for the advices !
My graphics card doesn't overload: it only has two months. And I checked, it stays very cool.