Open Rails - yet another slave to 'realism'

[conrail1]

Until we have chairs that bounce and sway along with screen movements as well as the correct odors and sounds, we can not have a fully immersive 100% railroading simulator.

GaryG

You don't need chairs that bounce and sway along with screen movements as well as the correct odors and sounds to have a fully immersive train simulator.

I've been on actual locomotive engineer training simulators without motion and they have still been immersive.

Another example can be found with today’s racing sims which even without motion are very immersive and are very good at simulating the sense of speed.

[Bananarama]

Another example can be found with today’s racing seems which even without motion are very immersive and are very good at simulating the sense of speed.

Nonsense! I always place a stone under one leg of a chair for motion, set a desk fan in front of me on "Hurricane" setting, have my kid flick Jello pudding at my face shield (so I can use the handy helmet tear-offs), and finally I unlace my shoes so that when I wiggle my feet, my cats come to play and help simulate a pit crew!

The worst part is when simulating an engine fire. It involves a blow torch and Top Ramen noodles...

[muskokaandtahoe]

Actually there is one thing that occurs in these sims that has an very interesting, realistic effect: what you do when there is something like a pole rapidly approaching the camera then "striking" it. If you have any sense of wanting to dodge it, that's realism at work.

[conrail1]

Nonsense! I always place a stone under one leg of a chair for motion, set a desk fan in front of me on "Hurricane" setting, have my kid flick Jello pudding at my face shield (so I can use the handy helmet tear-offs), and finally I unlace my shoes so that when I wiggle my feet, my cats come to play and help simulate a pit crew!

The worst part is when simulating an engine fire. It involves a blow torch and Top Ramen noodles...

Sounds like you’re going all out Marc; and to think I was just satisfied with using the Logitech G25 with a good subwoofer, lol.

Actually there is one thing that occurs in these sims that has an very interesting, realistic effect: what you do when there is something like a pole rapidly approaching the camera then "striking" it. If you have any sense of wanting to dodge it, that's realism at work.

One thing that has helped dramatically with the level of immersion in all of the sims I run is using a 32” 1080p HDTV.

[muskokaandtahoe]

One thing that has helped dramatically with the level of immersion in all of the sims I run is using a 32” 1080p HDTV.

Yes, I know... I have a 60" plasma. Amazing effect.

[conrail1]

Yes, I know... I have a 60" plasma. Amazing effect.

Once you get some good peripheral vision going on it completely changes experience. The only issue is the relatively low resolution (1920x1080) for the area that you are limited to with 32” and up 1080p HDTV’s.

[longiron]

With all this 3D stuff coming on the market, maybe that's the future of sims?

[muskokaandtahoe]

A slightly different take on big screens, I would like to play around sometime w/ multiple monitors. ATI cards make it trivially easy to do. As for usage w/ OR, I suppose with the in-cab view it might be nice if the second monitor was the side view but that doesn't really have much appeal. I think what I'd like best is the ability to shove all pop up windows over to a second, probably cheap monitor, and just leave them there. When I'm looking at the world, all I what in front of me is the world. Having the pop up displays over on another monitor side suits that end nicely.

[lindsayts]

Once you get some good peripheral vision going on it completely changes experience. The only issue is the relatively low resolution (1920x1080) for the area that you are limited to with 32” and up 1080p HDTV’s.

Yes good peripheral vision adds a lot. I have a Samsung 305T (30 inch) running at 2560x1600 I have found on the mountain routes one gets more than a touch of vertigo on occasions. One of the problems (apart from the expense) though of such large high resolution screens is the cab views need a bit more thought and work put into them.

Lindsay

[conrail1]

A slightly different take on big screens, I would like to play around sometime w/ multiple monitors. ATI cards make it trivially easy to do.

I thought about going down that path also with three 24” LCD’s but you have to put up with the separation of the panels (frame) that takes a little getting used to. In addition obviously if you go with an Eye Infinity setup you also have to put up with ATI’s poor image quality (or instead poor performance) that I’ve seen with the majority of the sims/games I run including OR.

Yes good peripheral vision adds a lot. I have a Samsung 305T (30 inch) running at 2560x1600 I have found on the mountain routes one gets more than a touch of vertigo on occasions. One of the problems (apart from the expense) though of such large high resolution screens is the cab views need a bit more thought and work put into them.
Lindsay

With some of 30” IPS panels (2560x1600) that have just come out I’m actually thinking of going with one of them next. With the image quality settings I like to use I don’t think one video card is going to cut it though with any sim/game that already puts some demand on the GPU. A second GTX 580 in SLI is probably the only way I’ll see satisfactory performance.

[lindsayts]

I thought about going down that path also with three 24” LCD’s but you have to put up with the separation of the panels (frame) that takes a little getting used to. In addition obviously if you go with an Eye Infinity setup you also have to put up with ATI’s poor image quality (or instead poor performance) that I’ve seen with the majority of the sims/games I run including OR.







With some of 30” IPS panels (2560x1600) that have just come out I’m actually thinking of going with one of them next. With the image quality settings I like to use I don’t think one video card is going to cut it though with any sim/game that already puts some demand on the GPU. A second GTX 580 in SLI is probably the only way I’ll see satisfactory performance.

The system with the Samsung is,
MB ASUS P7P55DE Deluxe, CPU i5 750, 4 gig ram, Graphics is a Gigabyte Nvidia GTX 260 super overclocked, Samsung 305T at 2560x1600.

I think the graphics are set at 4 X antialising etc. I have found with the samsung there appears to be no advantage in going any higher. The system has no trouble in maintaining decent frames rates. Can get down a bit around 30 to 40 frames per second on high object count routes like the "Sudostbahn" (Swiss SE railways) in the large station areas but even then I have found OR to be smooth.

The 2560x1600 30" monitors have noticeably finer pitch for the pixels than any smaller monitors so does not require (in my opinion any way) savage settings to get a decent image.

I have found with current rendition of OR (V646) I have NO difficulty in siting the signal lights from a distance or around 1 mile using the samsung. So it may be worthwhile to give one card a chance.

Another point worth mentioning is the system has an input power (case only) of somewhat over 700 watts so one will have to watch the power supply and system cooling with an SLI setup.
The case by the way is a Thermaltake Xaser 6 with no cooling mods (not even an extra intake fan) Temperature is not an issue with the case.

I apologise if I may be a bit vague on the exact details for the settings as I am writing this on another machine thats not running windows. But as usual any questions please ask.

Lindsay

[conrail1]

The 2560x1600 30" monitors have noticeably finer pitch for the pixels than any smaller monitors so does not require (in my opinion any way) savage settings to get a decent image.
Lindsay

I’ve gotten used to the shimmer-less image quality that you get with using super sampling AA. The problem is that only the highest end GPU’s have enough grunt to allow you to use that level of AA and at 2560x1600 resolution multiple GPU’s might be the only way to maintain 60 fps at those image quality settings.

Another point worth mentioning is the system has an input power (case only) of somewhat over 700 watts so one will have to watch the power supply and system cooling with an SLI setup.
The case by the way is a Thermaltake Xaser 6 with no cooling mods (not even an extra intake fan) Temperature is not an issue with the case.

I’ve got a 1500Watt power supply in one of my i7 builds and a 1200Watt in another so running two GTX 580’s shouldn’t be an issue.

Both cases (a Corsair 800D and SilverStone TJ09) also have plenty of air flow so high temps aren’t an issue.

[zarker99]

On the whole - it depends on how you interpret the meaning of "Simulator".

A friend of mine once criticised a computer golf game for calling itself a simulator. His idea was it couldn't be a true simulator unless you were holding a golf-club in your hand - but surely then that is REALLY playing golf - or at least part of what makes up playing golf.

The purpose of a simulator is to artificially recreate some particular element of a real situation or phenomena.

NASA use a huge water tank to simulate low to zero gravity conditions for astronaughts. THIS IS NOT REALISTIC. But it works to recreate desired conditions to an acceptable level.

What do we all want from a train simulator?
Is it a perfectly accurate and realistic representation of perspective from a loco cab, and what is trying to be simulated by doing this?

,,,well - what I want is a sense of speed as the scenery approaches and passes while driving an expres train at express speeds. Others may want something different - like maybe experiencing the true and authentic perspective on the world as seen from a loco cab, at the expense of any kind of emotional fulfilment (LOL - sorry about that last bit )

i just wanted to make my desires known at a unique pont in time that could possibly influence development. That's all

[snappy]

I think what we really have today are rail emulators as they all try to be like having the train experience but they are all far from really being simulators. I think a simulator would be a full immersion experience like having a 3D virtual reality helmet on would be a lot closer than to a simulator than what we are playing with. I have no complaints with the emulators today as long as they keep making the gradual ongoing improvements in graphics, sounds and pshysics.

[ChrisS68]

Don't know what to tell you... Reality ain't a John Woo movie.