I'm posting 2 screenshots just to show you the difference in quality between 60Hz and 165Hz. No need to tell you which is which.
What AA settings are you on? They look different, aside from the higher contrast in the crispy pic #1. (Which could also be the moment of weather pattern transition in "2. Cloudy" that flips between darker and brighter ambient light in 5 to 15 minute intervals to simulate partial cloud cover.) For me, shot #1 is a tad too crispy and shows dithering already.
Original shaders or RWE? Any special GFX driver settings? There should be no visual difference at all. Here's my comparison. RailWorks64.exe, default shaders, FXAA + 2x2 SSAA (don't like 3x - too crispy and exposes bad textures), Borderless. Default global Nvidia 3D settings, no override. No in game effects (SSAO, DoF or Motion Blur) used. Capped 75 FPS / Uncapped 216 FPS
It's especially confusing as it's not a TSC issue, but due to the way the RWE2 shaders (which are little programs themselves) work.
Just to explain the reason for the screenshots. I have just replaced my about 10-year-old LED 24" monitor which only had a refresh rate of 60Hz. My new one has a range of refresh rates that you can choose from 50Hz to 165Hz. Having it at 165Hz makes everything look sharper games, Facebook, and even just the text in this forum even photos look a lot sharper. The top screenshot is the one done at 165Hz and the bottom one is 60Hz. There is a difference the shingle on the side of the track looks sharper and the footplates on the loco look sharper too in the top screenshot. If anyone is interested the monitor I just got is a ViewSonic VX2728 Gaming Monitor. This is a budget monitor and has a top resolution of 1080p. It does lower resolutions if you are into playing retro games. This monitor is good at what it does. ViewSonic VX2728 27” 165Hz Fast IPS Gaming Monitor - ViewSonic New Zealand In the advertising blurb it shows you a screenshot between 60Hz and 165Hz resolution. I thought that I would just post this here just to let you know how having a monitor with a higher refresh rate improves the look of your game and also not to forget a higher resolution can also. Which is the best way to go I don't really know.
Understand that, but the image your monitor outputs and screenshots are a different thing. Without RWE2, each frame will look exactly the same no matter what framerate. The rest is depending on your monitor setup. (Many have a sharpness adjustment)
I beg to differ. You can see a difference between those two screenshots. The shingle in the top one is a lot sharper which is the 165Hz one. Maybe you cannot see the difference. I posted this on another forum and the people who responded said that one was better than the other. I don't know what kind of monitor you have and what your refresh rate is set to. I thought the same as you that you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the 2 screenshots until I posted them on another forum and yes you can which surprised me.
You're mixing things up. A screenshot has nothing to do with your monitor. It's just a copy of your graphics card's framebuffer. You could plug a B/W TV to your PC, still the screenshot would look the same. You are only demonstrating the effect the framerate has on the RWE shaders. To compare your monitor's output, you must take a photo of the screen itself using your mobile or a camera. I am not doubting you have a fine monitor, but what you are showing here is a correlation not a causality. Disable RWE and make the same test again, it should look like the test I made - no difference.
I'm afraid I disagree with you. Those 2 screenshots of mine do look different and both are using RWE 2.
You also need to take into account the fps rate to see if there is any significant difference in visual quality between a 60 Hz monitor compared to a 165 Hz one. At 40 fps you are still ending the images to the GPU and either monitor at the same rate ie 40 fps, and whilst they may be smoother on a 165Hz monitor it doesn't mean to say the visual quality would be any better. IMO TSC would need to run at a constant 80+Hz to see a significant difference in image quality between 165 and 60 Hz monitors. The resolution of the monitor will also play a major part in visual quality, ie 1440 is better than say 1080, and so on, and ensuring the monitor is set to its default resolution. The cable can also affect visual quality, Display Port, USB-C, and HDMI 1.4 or 2.0 or 2.1. The age of the monitor will also be a factor. Spikee I am also intrigued why you restrict GSync/FreeSync monitor to 75 fps - IMO it's counterintuitive and not needed. These monitors unlike "ordinary" monitors display each image as it is generated by the CPU to GPU and do not require an fps limit to function correctly. However, you could set the fps limit to the default monitor's refresh rate, and IMO that would be a better option ((or no fps limit at all). With an "ordinary" monitor the fps you see displayed are the fps sent by the CPU to the GPU and not the actual fps the monitor displays. Whereas with a GSync/FreeSync monitor the fps displayed by the display counter is the fps that the monitor displays (no lag, no buffer clashes).
A screenshot simply cannot display monitor differences - that's all I'm trying to point out. Your differences come because of RWE2 outputting a different result at different framerates. A screenshot happens in your PC not in your monitor.
That's simple, because I do not need more FPS. For my eyes, I stop noticing a difference above those 75 FPS. If I uncap them, my graphic cards renders 200 frames in TSC which I don't need. It's a waste of processing power and energy, chips get hotter, cooling fans faster, lifetime shorter and electricity has become expensive here - and I simply do not let my machine do work that's wasted. Simple rule, cap your FPS where you feel it's the smoothest without overshooting and wasting frames. The optimum is always in between the minimum and the maximum. My monitor's refresh rate is 75 Hz. I think not capping your FPS is a waste of energy, especially with todays powerful graphics hardware. You need to limit it or it runs away..... Do it via VSync in Fullscreen, or Limit in Borderless. So why should I let my hardware do more work than I need or my monitor can display discretely? I've set RailWorks64.exe to run at 20 FPS when in the background via NVIDIA settings, because whenever it was minimised my fans ran at full speed. Do you buy three loaves of bread a day and only eat one, throwing the rest into the bin - just because you can? Back on topic, The two screenshots are purely a result of RWE2 shaders running at highly different framerates (if all other settings are the same) - NOT because a different monitor is connected. You will not be able to capture monitor output differences in a screenshot, only by using an actual camera and taking a photo of your display. A screenshot is not a shot of your screen but your framebuffer which is data, not light. You are showing the result of using RWE2 in different framerates. Nothing to do with monitor, as your GPU can render more frames your monitor is able to display anyway. So if you make the same test using the same monitor, just like my test above, what's the result? You have unwantedly only shown how RWE2 works. You cannot show monitor quality with screenshots. That's my point. Else if you'd lower brightness completely on your monitor, your screenshots would be black.
I don't get this post. The screenshots will be identical regardless of refresh rate. The refresh rate just determines how often the screen is redrawn. The screenshots will look no different no matter what the refresh rate is, as a screenshot if just a static image I think the OP is a little confused
That's why I was thinking it could be RWE2 (I don't have that, I have the freeware shaders pack before it got commercial). As I assume trev was using the exact same configuration or else he would've told us. I am totally confused. It looks more as if trev has increased contrast and ambient light in the options menu. But well, he's happy with his new monitor and so be it.
So which is which? The screenshots may look different with higher refresh rates if TAA or some time (and not frame) based shaders are used, which I don't think are present in TSC (can't check at the moment). This may indeed look different with RWE/RWE2.
ON the subject of refresh rates, (I may have posted a while back) I"m running a 144hz monitor, but feel like such a frame rate is a waste for a sim - what's the best rate to avoid screen tearing. Also, my GPU seems to throttle as I have my graphics settings up pretty high and also use reshade. What can I do to avoid GPU bottlenecking? Also planning to upgrade the PC soon too - Currently running an overclocked i5 9600K, 16GB DDR4 RAM, 8GB RTX 2070 Super, and TS takes up about 350 odd gig of my 500GB SSD, with windows taking up the rest, leaving me with less than 1GB of free space - I also have a 1TB 7200rpm HDD - I'm guessing this would increase loading times / stuttering, and decrease frame rate?
72 Hz (or every second v blank in the vsync settings). The tearing will happen when refresh isn't a divisor of 144.
Perhaps not a change for framerate although that is technically possible, but loading time and stutters would definitely increase.
For the purpose of explaining, the refresh rate is like your framerate, in the same way we could not tell the difference of your framerate from a screenshot, we can not tell the difference of your refresh rate from a screenshot. I dont think Pookeyhead was implying you were confused about TSC but more about how refresh rates work and how screenshot data is collected. Lets not get lost in the technical aspect of this though as from where you sit it will be night and day difference, its just we cant see that from screenshots. Congrats on the new monitor though, it is a good feeling when you get a new piece of kit to enhance your virtual trains hobby
View attachment 145910 I have been following this thread and Like trevkiwi have updated my monitor. I understand that a screenshot comes from the GPU. I am using a DP cable and set it to freesync. The monitor is an improvement in the sense it allows me to view more of my discrete GPU's capabilities. As a side note, I have my second monitor running on the IGPU, rationalizing that it takes some of the load of my RTX 3060 12GB GPU when running TSC or any other games. I have just about have the the settings where I like them to get a display that I like.
"A screenshot is an export of data that already exists in RAM being used by a video card or eventually destined for a display device. Typically this data is in the format a PC graphics card or other display device expects. When it's captured, it has to be converted from this format to a well-known image format." Essentially it is saying that the screenshot is in a digital format that is taken from and stored on your GPU before it gets to your monitor. By upgrading your monitor you are better able to take advantage of the quality that has always been available from your GPU. From another source: "Capturing the Output: When a screenshot is taken, it captures the output of the GPU, which represents the current state of the visual content being displayed on the screen. Saving as an Image File: The captured output is then saved as an image file, such as a PNG or JPEG, which can be easily shared, stored, or printed." Gaming quality has always been limited by the weakest link in the chain. Whether CPU, memory, storage, video devices, or internet access the underlying common denominator has always been speed. The faster the better. Top
