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Well ....... ,
that was an exercise in futility to say the least. Installed 178.13 XP drivers, re-did my MSTS NVIDIA profile (PITA) loaded OR v7.0 had the usual beaucup error messages that have started with this version and lo and behold black shadows just the same as before, no change if anything its a tad worse. As I suspected "it ain't the drivers honey chile'".
Overall the release seems to have not improved this problem in the least and as I said when OR loads a route there are normally many error messages that until now have never appeared when loading a route. They occur with default or add-on routes although the program seems to run OK I am not sure if I'm missing something or not but as has been stated it is BETA and as such will not be perfect. Just seems that this version has regressed somehow.
:sweatingbullets:
Black Shadow Issue
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#11
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Posted 17 December 2011 - 03:45 PM
#12 Inactive_mestevet_*
Posted 17 December 2011 - 04:58 PM
captain_bazza, on 17 December 2011 - 03:41 PM, said:
PS The foam insulation was probably added as an alpha texture to either the original - if alpha was used, or as an alpha'd freight animation shape.
This is only conjecture, of course.
Cheers Bazza
This is only conjecture, of course.
Cheers Bazza
Thanks for your suggestions, but conjecture isn't needed in this case, since I was the person who created those cars! (they're available in the TrainSim.com File Library for download, just search simply on "G39a" and both the G38 and G39a models will come up)
The foam insulation texture was created as a separate shape using all "Solid" polygons and "Solid" texture - the "Foam" car had it's own, separate shape from the "non-Foam" version. Yes, the textures for the lettering/numbering graphics were done with "TransNorm" polygons to allow for a crisper, higher resolution lettering texture than just slapping it on the side of the "body texture" would allow. The lettering that is constant from car to car is done in the main .S file using small "decal" like polygons with the "trans" texture applied, while the numbers and some small detail stenciling that changes from car to car is done in a similar manner for those pieces using a Freight Animation. However, the black body texture is applied to "Solid" polygons for the body panels and ribs, and although it's more difficult to see since the color of the body is nearly black, the "black shadow" is affecting those polygons as well. The way I model, I try to make as much use of solid polys and textures as is reasonably possible, because it does help keep frame rates up in MSTS.
So my point here, and particularly why I looked at these cars, since I knew they had a variety of different types of polygons in both main and freight animations shapes, was that the "Black Shadow" cuts straight across all those different surfaces in one line, almost like there was a completely separate, black polygon laid over top at an angle.
I'm actually suspecting that the difference with the appearance of the "Black Shadow on the "Foam" is that the polygons, in order to simulate a "fluffier" car side, were broken into smaller triangular sections and angled to make an irregular surface. So I'm thinking the reason they don't exhibit this effect may be for that reason: because of their angles, it's harder to find a viewing angle that is right to make the "black shadow" show up.
This was also true where I showed the "Black Shadow" effect on my Silverliner II cars, both "TransNorm" and "Solid" polygons were affected - actually, I also noted that the "AlphaNorm" polys that were there (for tinted windows) were the only ones NOT affected!
---------------------
On the GeForce 7800 driver front:
I also found that 178.13 driver and downloaded it, and I'm going to look into that. I found it on this site (nVidia's Windows XP Driver Archive): http://www.nvidia.co...2k_archive.html
I have a few other thoughts as well, but I'm exhausted after a busy Saturday, and I think I'm going to let discretion guide me and I'm going to push back from the computer for the evening (well at least until my insomnia wakes me up sometime in the middle of the night)
Steve
#13
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Posted 17 December 2011 - 09:11 PM
I have found that the TA SD40-2 doesn't exhibit this shadowy behaviour. Also I have evidence that it is son related.
Note the window and the track on the lighter bit of the image. Shot through a lightly alpha'd window in the TA caboose (which does suffer form the black poly issue)
Note the window and the track on the lighter bit of the image. Shot through a lightly alpha'd window in the TA caboose (which does suffer form the black poly issue)
#14
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Posted 18 December 2011 - 06:20 AM
Guy's
Didn't this problem come up before somewhere about the black shadow problem in one of the earlier versions of OR? I faintly remember something about the Nvidia 7000 series vid cards and their inability to render dynamic shadows properly. I tried to hunt up the older post about this but was unable to find it. It may have been at TS.com's forum.
Just a thought.
Allen
Didn't this problem come up before somewhere about the black shadow problem in one of the earlier versions of OR? I faintly remember something about the Nvidia 7000 series vid cards and their inability to render dynamic shadows properly. I tried to hunt up the older post about this but was unable to find it. It may have been at TS.com's forum.
Just a thought.
Allen
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Posted 18 December 2011 - 09:45 AM
B & O GUY, on 18 December 2011 - 06:20 AM, said:
Guy's
Didn't this problem come up before somewhere about the black shadow problem in one of the earlier versions of OR? I faintly remember something about the Nvidia 7000 series vid cards and their inability to render dynamic shadows properly. I tried to hunt up the older post about this but was unable to find it. It may have been at TS.com's forum.
Just a thought.
Allen
Didn't this problem come up before somewhere about the black shadow problem in one of the earlier versions of OR? I faintly remember something about the Nvidia 7000 series vid cards and their inability to render dynamic shadows properly. I tried to hunt up the older post about this but was unable to find it. It may have been at TS.com's forum.
Just a thought.
Allen
Allen,
I had, in an earlier post, noted the black shadows problem and also the problem with diagonal black streaks across the entire screen while using OR at least two versions back. Turning off dynamic shadows cured the streaking problem but not the black shadows problem. With v7.0 the streaking will still show with dynamic shadows turned on so that must be a problem with the 7000 series video card. The shadow problem probably is also related but I know that in the first version of OR I tried the shadows and/or streaking was not a problem but unfortunately I do not remember which version that was. :oldstry: (gettin' old ain't fer sissies!)
:I-Agree:
#16
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Posted 18 December 2011 - 11:40 AM
Quote
Yes, it certainly starts sounding like a GEForce 7xxx issue, doesn't it? I wonder if anyone with the 8xxx or similar GEForce cards has seen these issues.
Steve
I use the MSI Nvidia 8800 GT and 9800 GT cards in my two train simming boxes and have had no problems with the black shadow of death. And no! I'm not some rich kid with wall to wall computers. I was a custom system builder for a few years after I retired and still have stuff to play with laying around. There's also a 7800 GT card around here someplace but I probably won't use it just because of it's problems with display in OR. All are 512 meg card's.
Allen
#17
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Posted 18 December 2011 - 11:45 AM
Quote
Allen,
I had, in an earlier post, noted the black shadows problem and also the problem with diagonal black streaks across the entire screen while using OR at least two versions back. Turning off dynamic shadows cured the streaking problem but not the black shadows problem. With v7.0 the streaking will still show with dynamic shadows turned on so that must be a problem with the 7000 series video card. The shadow problem probably is also related but I know that in the first version of OR I tried the shadows and/or streaking was not a problem but unfortunately I do not remember which version that was. (gettin' old ain't fer sissies!)
I had, in an earlier post, noted the black shadows problem and also the problem with diagonal black streaks across the entire screen while using OR at least two versions back. Turning off dynamic shadows cured the streaking problem but not the black shadows problem. With v7.0 the streaking will still show with dynamic shadows turned on so that must be a problem with the 7000 series video card. The shadow problem probably is also related but I know that in the first version of OR I tried the shadows and/or streaking was not a problem but unfortunately I do not remember which version that was. (gettin' old ain't fer sissies!)
Spud
Yeah! That's probably the one I was thinking of. You were gettin a whole bunch of black nasty from what I remember. And Yeah! your right about the gettin old part too!
Allen
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Posted 18 December 2011 - 12:06 PM
If you turn off ShadowMapBlur in regedit then the ground streaking goes away even with shadows enabled.
#19 Inactive_mestevet_*
Posted 18 December 2011 - 01:13 PM
dantheman, on 18 December 2011 - 12:06 PM, said:
If you turn off ShadowMapBlur in regedit then the ground streaking goes away even with shadows enabled.
I turned on Dynamic Shadows just so I could join the fun and see what you guys were talking about, and sure enough I see the "ground streaking" too.
So when I did a search in Regedit for "ShadowMapBlur" I couldn't find it, where were you finding that entry?
B & O GUY, on 18 December 2011 - 11:40 AM, said:
Steve
I use the MSI Nvidia 8800 GT and 9800 GT cards in my two train simming boxes and have had no problems with the black shadow of death. And no! I'm not some rich kid with wall to wall computers. I was a custom system builder for a few years after I retired and still have stuff to play with laying around. There's also a 7800 GT card around here someplace but I probably won't use it just because of it's problems with display in OR. All are 512 meg card's.
Allen
I use the MSI Nvidia 8800 GT and 9800 GT cards in my two train simming boxes and have had no problems with the black shadow of death. And no! I'm not some rich kid with wall to wall computers. I was a custom system builder for a few years after I retired and still have stuff to play with laying around. There's also a 7800 GT card around here someplace but I probably won't use it just because of it's problems with display in OR. All are 512 meg card's.
Allen
Allen
Well, I AM a rich kid (HAHAHA) and I was considering whether it would be a reasonable thing to upgrade my graphics card. The nVidia 7800 GTX is all right, it was a pretty hot card back in the day, and it still does fine on frame rates in OR, but if I'm going to have headaches like this, maybe it's worth it to make a swap. My concern is finding one that will be compatible with my 6 year old motherboard and PCI bus, and give better performance and not cost an arm and a leg...
Everyone
Having said all of that, I would like to have some sense whether the Open Rails team considers this to be enough of an issue to consider addressing the problem with the nVidia 7xxx series cards. I certainly think we may not yet have exhausted all of the possibilities of "tweaking" the card or software to resolve this issue, but I'm starting to think it may just be a basic incompatibility. While I might have the resources to just get a new card, I suspect there would be a lot of people out there who might not. How many nVidia 7xxx cards are out there? And is it worth the hassle of telling each new person that tries OR that the 7xxx cards aren't up to the task? Or better to fix it? Not my decision to make, but I feel I must ask.
Anyway, this was a "family day" for me so I haven't gotten to do much looking into this today, but I would like to try a few more things before I give up to try to a) understand why some models have the problem in the sim and others don't b ) see if there are any tweaks to DirectX that may help c) see if there is a combination of settings on the nVidia card that will help d) see if there are any other bright ideas
Steve
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Posted 18 December 2011 - 03:55 PM
mestevet, on 18 December 2011 - 01:13 PM, said:
Having said all of that, I would like to have some sense whether the Open Rails team considers this to be enough of an issue to consider addressing the problem with the nVidia 7xxx series cards. I certainly think we may not yet have exhausted all of the possibilities of "tweaking" the card or software to resolve this issue, but I'm starting to think it may just be a basic incompatibility. While I might have the resources to just get a new card, I suspect there would be a lot of people out there who might not. How many nVidia 7xxx cards are out there? And is it worth the hassle of telling each new person that tries OR that the 7xxx cards aren't up to the task? Or better to fix it? Not my decision to make, but I feel I must ask.
Just to let you know that I've been closely following this issue, but have no further suggestions at the current time. If it is only NVIDIA GeForece 7xxx cards that are affected, as appears to be the case so far, I'm afraid we'll probably just leave it. Unfortunately, I don't have a 7000-series card here and without a knowlegable OR graphics person investigating on an actual card, it's probable we won't figure out the actual cause at the code level - which is what we'd need to be able to work around the issue (either generally or with a specific hack).