[Claude350]

I ran into a problem with v2825 and higher in external views. With v2825 and higher I can no longer view the whole train in an external view. I'm able to see 8 to 10 cars and the rest will disappear. If I walk the train in the external views the cars will reappear. If I look back in the opposite direction the cars that I have passed have now disappeared. I didn't have this issue with v2824. I went back to v2824 and can now see all the cars in the train again. I didn't know if this issue has been addressed or not as I didn't see anything posted here yet. The LOD setting was at its highest setting.

[copperpen]

It seems to be caused by the new LOD Bias slider. If it is left at 0% the whole player train can be seen. Move the slider to the right and progressively less of the player train is visible. Move it fully left and the player train is invisible. Moving the slider right has no effect on AI, but if it is moved fully left AI is only visible at one car length.

[captain_bazza]

So, the result of that exercise seems to show that the LOD Bias slider is perhaps more trouble than it's worth? :thumbup3:

CB.

[Claude350]

copperpen, on 10 February 2015 - 12:31 AM, said:

It seems to be caused by the new LOD Bias slider. If it is left at 0% the whole player train can be seen. Move the slider to the right and progressively less of the player train is visible. Move it fully left and the player train is invisible. Moving the slider right has no effect on AI, but if it is moved fully left AI is only visible at one car length.

Yes I did notice that about the AI trains and how they were affected. I went back to v2824. I'm hoping a fix or a return to the old visual affects are forthcoming. I am thankful for all that's been done so far.

[copperpen]

I have tried this LOD slider both with and without the performance tuner in use and the effect on player and AI is exactly the same in both cases. The further to the left or right of 0% the slider is moved the less one sees of the player train in any outside view with moving left being the worst. Moving left also affects how much of the AI can be seen as well.

There are actually two trains in this view, slider set 100% left.

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[Claude350]

I went back to the default setting of 0 and everything is good to go. I will leave it at the defaulting setting from now on.

[James Ross]

copperpen, on 10 February 2015 - 12:31 AM, said:

It seems to be caused by the new LOD Bias slider. If it is left at 0% the whole player train can be seen. Move the slider to the right and progressively less of the player train is visible. Move it fully left and the player train is invisible. Moving the slider right has no effect on AI, but if it is moved fully left AI is only visible at one car length.

The slider scales the viewing range of objects, so moving it to the right increases their viewing range while moving it left decreases it. Each end is a special case: the left end always uses the lowest detail model in addition to scaling down the viewing range, while the right end always uses the highest detail model in addition to scaling up the viewing range.

There was a bug with the right end (+100%) which was fixed in X2881.

[R H Steele]

James Ross, on 19 February 2015 - 01:29 PM, said:

The slider scales the viewing range of objects, so moving it to the right increases their viewing range while moving it left decreases it. Each end is a special case: the left end always uses the lowest detail model in addition to scaling down the viewing range, while the right end always uses the highest detail model in addition to scaling up the viewing range.

There was a bug with the right end (+100%) which was fixed in X2881.

May I bother with a question? As with some of the experimental options that appear I have left the LOD Bias setting at default. Why was it implemented and what would be the reasons for using it?
Everything looks fine in OR, I am always amazed at how good the models and routes look in OR. Always room for improvement, is this the case with LOD bias?
I read the latest manual, nothing in there, probably implement after manual published. I'll search the threads.

[James Ross]

R H Steele, on 19 February 2015 - 03:37 PM, said:

May I bother with a question? As with some of the experimental options that appear I have left the LOD Bias setting at default. Why was it implemented and what would be the reasons for using it?
Everything looks fine in OR, I am always amazed at how good the models and routes look in OR. Always room for improvement, is this the case with LOD bias?
I read the latest manual, nothing in there, probably implement after manual published. I'll search the threads.

The LOD Bias option is an expansion (and replacement) of an earlier experimental option: "Always use highest level of detail". The new option allows you to increase or reduce the level of detail generally shown separately to the viewing distance and world object density. Two particular motivators for this were: a small netbook-like laptop I own, which struggles to draw too much with its integrated Intel graphics, and the shortness of the LOD distances in older MSTS content on my decent desktop.

It's basically just a third knob in the graphics tuning set:

• Viewing distance
  
• World object density
  
• Level of detail bias

They all change things in a different way, and allow you to pick the compromise that best suits you and the routes you run.

Also, I'll add that the level of detail bias is adjusted by the performance tuning at the same time as it adjusting the viewing distance. This is actually quite neat as it means the level of detail you see scales with how far you can see - if you can only see 50% as far as you wanted, the LOD bias is scaled down to -50% to match which means the full range of LOD models get used, just over a shorter (or conversely, longer) distance. It scales it relative to your starting viewing distance and starting LOD bias too, so if you ask for slightly more or less detail than default - you get that as well, also scaled proportionally.

[R H Steele]

James Ross, on 20 February 2015 - 01:17 AM, said:

The LOD Bias option is an expansion (and replacement) of an earlier experimental option: "Always use highest level of detail". The new option allows you to increase or reduce the level of detail generally shown separately to the viewing distance and world object density. Two particular motivators for this were: a small netbook-like laptop I own, which struggles to draw too much with its integrated Intel graphics, and the shortness of the LOD distances in older MSTS content on my decent desktop.

It's basically just a third knob in the graphics tuning set:...

James, thank you for the response. A suggestion, definitely for past V1.0. When the dust has settled on experimental options, perhaps, having the ability to save the graphics tuning on a per route basis would be of benefit for people that have machines that require tuning for different routes.