Tracks flickering and some other problems in Open Rails

[advut]

Why some tracks in OR flickers so much? For example their demo model 1 route has this flickering problem. You can even see it in their youtube video.

Also, as most of the routes are made for MSTS when they are used in OR it seems to bring out the ugly look of their textures. This is most noticeable in trees. In MSTS the outdated game engine slightly hides this because obviously it cant bring out all the texture details. The always kind of foggy environment also helps. But OR uses more up to date rendering and shows texture artifacts more than MSTS. Anyone that played low quality video on a HD tv will understand what I am talking about.

So please help in this.

[uli2]

Flickering of certain textures in MSTS and in Open Rails very much depends on your video card settings. Modern video cards offer a lot of opportunities for adjustment of their settings (for example anisotropic filtering and antialiasing). It depends on the type (brand) of card you are using how you can access those settings. Finding the optimum video card settings for ORTS on your system is a matter of trial and error, but it is definitely worth the effort.

[baldwin]

The flickering track is caused by how the track is made, specifically UK finescale track, but not all track sections are affected.. It is caused by z buffering and each texture trying to claim the top position. You can see the same effect in MSTS where two transfers are placed too close together, same cause and same effect. There is no solution either, except for a rebuild of the affected sections, and I don't think that will happen any time soon.

I have actually removed all of those affected routes from my Open Rails profiles, good as they may be in other respects, flickering track just does not appeal to me.

[uli2]

I have now looked at the Youtube video of the ORTS demo route and I agree that it looks terrible. As pointed out by baldwin this is caused by the track shapes used on that route. There is no way to amend this annoying effect via your video card settings as far as I know.

[geepster775]

Which begs the question as to why anyone would use a route afflicted with such features as the basis for a demo. Not exactly a good tool for convincing others.

[advut]

Thanks people for assuring me I am not the only one with this flickering problem. Yes its very strange that they used this in the demo. Is there no easy track replacement tool that can swap out flickering tracks with non flickering ones??

Do you guys noticed the texture issue yet? Tree textures in most MSTS routes in OR are too sharp which does not quite fit in. I tried bilinear filtering. It didn't help.

[markus1996]

Thanks people for assuring me I am not the only one with this flickering problem. Yes its very strange that they used this in the demo. Is there no easy track replacement tool that can swap out flickering tracks with non flickering ones??

Do you guys noticed the texture issue yet? Tree textures in most MSTS routes in OR are too sharp which does not quite fit in. I tried bilinear filtering. It didn't help.

There are tools to swap out track, and it´s quite easy as well, actually - provided that the track system originally used and the one to replace the original are compatible. IDK if UK finescale is so easily exchangeable for something else, due to compatibility issues like trakc spacing etc.

I can´t tell, why a route with graphics problems was chosen as a demo by the team - I didn´t take part in the selection process myself, so I can´t tell.

What I know, though, that there has been some discussion about this issue at ET as well, and there was also talk about possible solutions. IDK if anything was implemented, but if it was, it obviously doesn´t work anymore. So, I think, it´d be safe to file a bug report at launchpad (if a fix was ever implemented, it doesn´t work anymore, and if none was implemented, doing so should be reconsidered). The worst thing that could happen is that the reported is classified "won´t fix" or "not bug".

Cheers, Markus

[OTTODAD]

I have eliminated much of that flickering, Moire, in tracks by Re-Mipping their ACE textures and have used Anisotropic 16x first in ATI OpenGL and now using nVidia GTX 560Ti graphics cards, the latter best used for Railworks !

As has been mentioned in this thread, much can be achieved with trial and error settings, taking into account the capabilities of what your hardware can produce.

My pal, Mike Sinclair, who I hope is still alive and kicking, also having had serious health problems, has achieved amazing results in improving the looks of trees, still looking good in ORTS, as can be seen in my DB-Tracks Gold-Spike-X route below !


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[OTTODAD]

There are tools to swap out track.

To be more explicit, like my MSTS Tracks changer for X-Tracks from my web site:

http://www.otto-wipfel.co.uk/downloads-various/msts-tracks-changer.zip
.

[roeter]

It's not possible to swap out UK finescale tracks. The definitions are very specific and do not match other track systems. The distance between the tracks is less than for the standard MSTS tracks, and the switches and crossings are also all very specific, in particular the curved switches.

Regards,
Rob Roeterdink

[Vince]

................................snip.............. ..................
I can´t tell, why a route with graphics problems was chosen as a demo by the team -
I didn´t take part in the selection process myself, ..............................snip................ ......................Cheers, Markus

Possibly the problem didn't show on the machine the OR Team used to pick the demo?

I'm using: Operating System: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4430 CPU @ 3.00GHz (4 CPUs), ~3.0GHz
Memory: 8192MB RAM
Card name: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650
Manufacturer: NVIDIA
Chip type: GeForce GTX 650
And I have never seen a 'flickering' problem with the track.

So I'm thinking of the possibility that this may be machine specific.

best,
vince

[R. Steele]

[COLOR=#000000]My pal, Mike Sinclair, who I hope is still alive and kicking, also having had serious health problems, has achieved amazing results in improving the looks of trees, still looking good in ORTS, as can be seen in my DB-Tracks Gold-Spike-X route below !

Yes sir, really excellent work from Mike Sinclair, all the route upgrades he has generously provided to the community (with his team of talented people) sure add to the overall route appearance, fine stuff! People should search for these fine additions.

[markus1996]

To be more explicit, like my MSTS Tracks changer for X-Tracks from my web site:
[...]

That one only swaps textures, AFAICT. That can help a lot as well, but what I actually meant is, that it is indeed possible to swap the 3D-files of the track.

However, as I suspected, and as Rob confirmed:

It's not possible to swap out UK finescale tracks. The definitions are very specific and do not match other track systems. The distance between the tracks is less than for the standard MSTS tracks, and the switches and crossings are also all very specific, in particular the curved switches.
[...]

Possibly the problem didn't show on the machine the OR Team used to pick the demo?
[...]
So I'm thinking of the possibility that this may be machine specific.

best,
vince

As has been said, the flickering is caused by two faces very close to one another fighting each other for the top position closer to the camera, that is, the position not hidden by the other face ("z-fighting"). If a better GPU can reduce that problem, IDK, but I suspect it could help with better calculation precision. Can anybody more knowledgeable on that please comment?

Cheers, Markus

[OTTODAD]

Yes sir, really excellent work from Mike Sinclair, all the route upgrades he has generously provided to the community (with his team of talented people) sure add to the overall route appearance, fine stuff! People should search for these fine additions.

His creations are in the File Library and trees in routes which need improving simply replace them with his renamed to existing in them trees Shapes file names, making sure that his used in the renamed Shape file *.ACE file is in the route's Textures folder and all such replaced trees will show stand-alone, in groups and in forests !

But make sure that their physical sizes are compatible to avoid those close to tracks hitting passing trains with their branches !


.

[baldwin]

Possibly the problem didn't show on the machine the OR Team used to pick the demo?

I'm using: Operating System: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4430 CPU @ 3.00GHz (4 CPUs), ~3.0GHz
Memory: 8192MB RAM
Card name: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650
Manufacturer: NVIDIA
Chip type: GeForce GTX 650
And I have never seen a 'flickering' problem with the track.

So I'm thinking of the possibility that this may be machine specific.

best,
vince

My machine is very similar to yours Vince, except my i5 is overclocked and the video is a 750Ti, previously was a 650Ti. The UK Finescale tracks flickering only happens on a small number of track shapes, and is exactly the same as when you get two transfers fighting for
display on terrain. Not something that can be cured easily.