[xreightaa]

Hi, new to this forum from Sydney, Australia.

I've been experimenting with Open Rails and was wondering how exactly the graphics are enhanced by Open Rails. I may be wrong, but some screenshots look much more realistic.

Thanks.

[Genma Saotome]

Open Rails uses DirectX 11 9. MSTS used DirectX5 or 6 (I don't recall which) 7. The difference is most visible in the color depth and shadowing... and if you have a good display, higher screen resolution, including wide screen.

Edits: corrected versions
:lol2:

[James Ross]

 xreightaa, on 15 October 2012 - 10:08 PM, said:

I've been experimenting with Open Rails and was wondering how exactly the graphics are enhanced by Open Rails. I may be wrong, but some screenshots look much more realistic.

We don't do any explicit enhancements on the MSTS content but there are a few items that will usually result in better looking visuals in Open Rails:

• We load and display textures (.ace files) at their full 32bit colour depth, if available. MSTS would only ever use 16bit.
  
• We have our own versions of the shaders which draw materials on the screen (e.g. for items that must light up at night, or be shiny, etc.) and these may (or may not!) look better than those in MSTS.
  
• We do fully dynamic shadows on all objects that have shadows. MSTS would only do such things on locomotives and wagons (and maybe selected scenery?), typically it used generic circular and rectangular shadows.