[Lindsayts]

I was running the Bernina Bahn route coming up from Tirano on my 2560x1600 30inch monitor when a friend of mine dropped by (not really a railway person) and he made the comment "god that looks real". Mind you OR __does__ do a good job on this route.

The set up is, dynamic shadows not enabled, viewing distance 3000 metres, Distant mountains enabled at max, GPU was a Radeon 2Gb 7870 set to default conditions (ie nothing enabled). Minumum frame rate around 65 fps, varies up to around 200 fps, normally for this route fps would average 100 to 130. The 7870 __is__ a fast card, on OR certainly.

Verion of OR was x1558.

Lindsay

[James Ross]

Out of interest, why no dynamic shadows?

[Csantucci]

Thanks for the pat, Lindsay! In fact the Bernina route owes much to ORTS, as this reproduces photographic terrain textures much better than MSTS (and there are also other reasons of course).

[Lindsayts]

 James Ross, on 18 April 2013 - 10:02 AM, said:

Out of interest, why no dynamic shadows?

Mainly because the results are not consistent, some items cast shadows some do not.This does __not__ look correct. It looks more realistic with no shadows, as one could be under an overcast sky.

Another point is the shadows take to much power to create, if the CPU/GPU had plenty of steam to spare it would be OK. At this stage though from my point of view there are better things to do with what power is availible. Note, this of course is a personal preference doubtlessly some would have a different point of view.

On realism in fantasy or created worlds its worthwhile reading Tolkiens essay "On fairy stories". He goes to great lengths to explain the created world has to be consistent in the readers/viewers eye's for him or her to maintain belief in the world, some items not castimg shadows does not cut it for me.

Lindsay

[gpz]

 Lindsayts, on 18 April 2013 - 01:35 PM, said:

shadows take to much power to create, if the CPU/GPU had plenty of steam to spare it would be OK. At this stage though from my point of view there are better things to do with what power is availible.

There is not much sense running the game with more than 60 fps, it isn't noticeable anyway. And you can switch on ShadowAllShapes in registry for all items to cast shadows.

[James Ross]

 Lindsayts, on 18 April 2013 - 01:35 PM, said:

Mainly because the results are not consistent, some items cast shadows some do not.This does __not__ look correct. It looks more realistic with no shadows, as one could be under an overcast sky.

This is something inherited from MSTS; as gpz noted, you can override it to make everything cast shadows.

The performance of it with your GPU is another thing though. :mellow:

[Lindsayts]

 gpz, on 18 April 2013 - 01:49 PM, said:

There is not much sense running the game with more than 60 fps, it isn't noticeable anyway.

This is correct, but even I who does not judge routes by the amount of detail have a good number of routes that even on a fast system struggle to produce a minumum frame rate much above 60fps.

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And you can switch on ShadowAllShapes in registry for all items to cast shadows.

A couple of points here.....

I find constantly changing configurations to suit different conditions something of a pain.

Second as previously mentioned I class certain items more important than shadows. Some of which take as much or more "grunt" than shadows to create, items such as increased viewing distance and increased loading distance of objects.
The latter item from my experiments does require anything like as much "grunt" as everyone else appears to think it should.

Lindsay

[Lindsayts]

An example of changing config to suit conditions would be the differnce between the SOB and the Bernina Bahn to most Australian routes. Australia is a large dry country with a relatively low population density outside the capitol cities and therefore relatively few man made objects. The country for the large part being low rolling hills. For this OR looks _____WAY______ better set up with as long a viewing distance as possible with long loading distance of objects. Most Aus routes have no difficulty with this due to there low object counts and shadows would be no problems

The SOB and Bernina Bahn are set in a country with a high population density in amongst high and sometimes steep mountain ranges. Both routes being crammed with detail. The detail is so high even on a fast system one cannot set the viewing distance over 3000 metres (and in lot of instances one cannot see that far anyway). Both viewing distance and shadows need to be turned down considerably.

Lindsay

[ChrisD]

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I find constantly changing configurations to suit different conditions something of a pain.

Yes, and wouldn´t it be nice if OR . . . .

I think we are being a little carried away here, myself included, due to the fantastic development OR has gone through. :oldstry:

We are at a Pre Release 0. 8. something. Still we are starting to see OR as a fully fledged, high quality TrainSim.

Sure, we would want OR to "remember" our preferred settings for each route.

We can, but having chosen to run the latest beta at all times, we render our saves invalid. (That is part of the deal, remember) :sign_thanks:

I think it is fair to the OR Team, that we save this request ´till later, don´t You think? :pardon:

ChrisD