Open Rails Appearance

[releismetrain]

Hi,
On my PC Open Rails seems to be slightly out of focus or not as sharpe as compared to Msts.
Any ideas as how to improve this?

My PC specifications.

Windows Vista home premium
Nec Powermate
Intel Pentium D 3.2GHZ
2GB Ram
Nvidia Geforce 9500GT

Regards Geoff.

[twpol]

Do you have any customisations in the NVidia Control Panel under 3D Settings > Manage 3D settings > Global Settings, or an entry for Open Rails in the next tab, Program Settings? I have found that the "Antialiasing - FXAA" option causes all the text in OR to go very blury, for example.

[seagoon]

I don't use anti-aliasing and have found the graphics to be acceptable.

Bruce

[dforrestja]

James, what would you recommend for the graphics settings for running OR, also Nvidia in my case?

David

[twpol]

I don't really have any recommendations; I've found that all the settings - except FXAA - work pretty well with Open Rails, so would recommend you turn up as many as your machine is happy with to make things as pretty as possible. Of course, some may be tailored by personal preference.

[conrail1]

Hi,
On my PC Open Rails seems to be slightly out of focus or not as sharpe as compared to Msts.
Any ideas as how to improve this?

You can try FXAA (fast approximate anti-aliasing) which is a post-processing AA and is very efficient but without combining it with MSAA the results leave a lot to be desired.

Keep in mind that even though you're running OpenRails the content you're looking at was still created for a 10+ year old game (MSTS).

The best image quality you're going to get is by running OpenRails at the highest resolution your monitor is capable of along with super sampling AA.

The following screen shots were taken at 1920x1080 resolution using 8xAA/8xSupersampling, 16xAF and Nvidia's 306.63 drivers.


Settings in Nvidia control panel -





Super-sampling AA does a good job at almost completely eliminating texture shimmer and sharpens image quality dramatically -

[dforrestja]

Thanks conrail1, very interesting and useful. Unfortunately the last three settings of your Nvidea Control Panel screenshot are missing.

David

[releismetrain]

Hi conrail1,
Not sure what you mean by MSAA.

Close up the loco or wagons look rather good.

Thanks for the replies by all so far.

Regards Geoff.

[conrail1]

Thanks conrail1, very interesting and useful. Unfortunately the last three settings of your Nvidea Control Panel screenshot are missing.

David

The last settings are for triple buffering (which only effects OpenGL applications) and v-sync, which if you can maintain a frame-rate that matches the refresh rate of your monitor I recommend it if you desire smooth/fluid game play.

Also Nvidia released the new 306.97 WHQL drivers today if you like to stay up to date.

[conrail1]

Hi conrail1,
Not sure what you mean by MSAA.

Multi-sample AA, which if FXAA isn't enough you can enable both.

[releismetrain]

Hi,
I have tried the suggested settings and I think there is improvement in the appearance.

Thanks again for the advice.

Regards Geoff.

[releismetrain]

Hi,
Since I started this thread I am reporting back on Open Rails.
There has been a lot of advancement with the project.
I find the improved frame rate is great.
I like how shadows are displayed.
I have a Russian route folder with 38 Routes.
A lot of those routes run.
My Russian trains folder has 8,000 consists and Open Rails handles that OK.
I know it is a bit of OverKill.

In MSTS on my PC running Vista there is a regular stutter every 20 seconds but not in Open Rails.

Looking forward to the next Official release.

Regards Geoff.