Open Letter to OR Team - AI/MP/Signals

[conrail1]

FWIW Open Rails is being built w/ the .XNA framework. That means w/ a few changes it would run on the XBox. AFAIK nobody on the team has expressed an interest in providing for that so don't hold your breath.

I’m not but it’s not hard to imagine something like BVE running on XBOX 360.

For myself, I'm going to try out one of the newer Radeon video cards... I understand it will cable into a big screen TV... and as I happen to own a big screen TV I'm going to be sure to see how OR's looks on it.

Been there done that, I’m using the ATI 5870 in one of my i7 setups along with a 32” 1080p HDTV. The 5870 performs well but when it comes to image quality and transparency textures Nvidia does a better job. The Nvidia GTX 480 trounces the 5870 in performance and image quality when it comes to OpenRails and RailWorks.

I’ll be posting some screen shots of the results of using the 5870 and OpenRails shortly.

[muskokaandtahoe]

I'd be very interested in seeing side-by side images comparing Radeon and nVidia chipsets.

[muskokaandtahoe]

Now THAT would be awesome! Multimonitor support, like in FS would be good, too, imagine being able to view multiple cameras simutaneously. I've done it with three monitors in MSFS and I've seen it done with up to 9.
Robert

Sounds really cool... but as my big screen TV is 60" I kinda doubt the wife will let me install 2 more, much less another 8!

Me:

Her: ...

Me: ...

[conrail1]

I'd be very interested in seeing side-by side images comparing Radeon and nVidia chipsets.

I’ll be putting up some screens that show the image quality difference between the Nvidia GTX 480 and the ATI 5870.

The results so far are the same as what I’ve seen running RailWorks, Nvidia does a better job at getting rid of the “shimmering” transparency textures.

Enabling SuperSampling AA with the ATI 5870 does get rid of the shimmering issue but with a major performance hit. With the Nvidia GTX 480 SuperSampling AA can be enabled with very little impact on performance with OpenRails or RailWorks.

Sounds really cool... but as my big screen TV is 60" I kinda doubt the wife will let me install 2 more, much less another 8!

Me:

Her: ...

Me: ...

Keep in mind that the highest resolution any HDTV is going to do is 1080p (1920x1080) so the larger the LCD panel size the more image quality is going to suffer. 60” is a lot of area for a measly 1920x1080 resolution to cover.

[conrail1]

I'd be very interested in seeing side-by side images comparing Radeon and nVidia chipsets.

Here are some screens taken with the ATI 5870, Intel i7 975x, 6GB of 1600MHz RAM on Windows XP/SP2 64-bit Edition with the Catalyst 10.6 drivers.


1920x1200, 8xAA/16xAF (210 FPS) -




1920x1200, 8xAA/16xAF (161 FPS) -




1920x1200, 8xAA/16xAF (226 FPS) -





1920x1200, 8xAA/16xAF (266 FPS) -





1920x1200, 8xAA/16xAF (196 FPS) -




1920x1200, 8xAA/16xAF (200 FPS) -





1920x1200, 8xAA/16xAF (196 FPS) -

[n1hf]

You can't blame them for that. As much as has been said about Kuju's programmers, etc, Microsoft also wanted the game built on time and under budget. And of course, we bought it. And still use it 10 years later.

I challenge ANYONE to find a game that came out the same year as MSTS that still enjoys such a following today...

So, we had to fix a bunch of stuff ourselves, around the world. Isn't that part of the genius of the game? That we could?

Seriously...

Robert

Might not be the same year but Sim City 4 from 2003 has a similar if not larger following, also kept alive by a thriving community that provides players with mods and additional content.

I'm blessed to be a fan of simulation based games, nowhere else can i find better communities. I'm thoroughly impressed with what the OR team has done.

[wwhall]

Though I'm not a programmer, I had an idea long ago about how to make AI dispatching work in the simulator. It is somewhat based on how some real world dispatching works.

My idea:

Each train, player or AI would have as part of its train ID number a digit assigned by the activity designer that would designate its priority--a integer between 1 and 9. As is the case with real world train numbering in the old days, odd numbers would be generally used for timetable westbound trains and even numbers for timetable eastbound trains. 1 would be the highest priority, with 9 the lowest.

As the various trains, player or AI, negotiated its path, the "dispatcher" could simply mathmatecially compare the priority numbers when making a decision of which train gets priority. For example, let's say the player train is an eastbound low priority manifest drag. It could be given a priority number of 8, with all other AI trains given priority numbers that are less. That would put the player train in the hole to meet every opposing train and would put it in the hole to be overtaken by higher priority trains coming from behind.

If the activity designer used the "odd number west" and "even number east" convention, there never would be standoffs, because two opposing trains would never meet that had the same priority.

This system would not solve all dispatching issues but it could solve many. It could even be used as sort of a Track Warrant system on routes with no signalling.

Just some thoughts. As a said, I'm not a programmer, but the system would rely on simple mathmatical logic to function.

[Redcoat_1812]

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