PC Tsw 5 Enhancement | Lighting & Graphic Ep V2.2

https://www.trainsimcommunity.com/m...889-tsw-5-lighting-visual-quality-enhancement

 

One thing I wanted to quickly point out that I'll need to change in the manual. At the very end I make mention of the 'Better Shadows' mod and then of flickering on BCC. I was a bit perplexed as to why I was seeing this flickering and had a look at WCMLS and the same flickering was back at Euston. After a bit of investigation I discovered that it is the better shadows mod that is causing it to become apparent again.

So get rid of it right? Well, that's going to come down to personal preference. They say a picture paints a thousand words, well once I had this mod, even with the issues it causes, I can't go back. To me this is what Ultra should look like by default.

This is Mittendwaldbahn with the Beast pre-set and no better shadows mod;



and this is the exact same circumstance with it installed;



Again, personal preference but as frustrating as it is, I will take the lower res cab shadows and the flickering I've discovered in two isolated places over a realistic scene as above.

Another thing to note is that I had alluded in the manual to the fact that I'd set up GWE and ECW to work with Muff's TOD4 enabling mod for non-TOD4 routes. After a request from one of the guys testing this for me yesterday to do a couple more routes I've gone all in and done the lot, over all 5 pre-sets. I never touch these older routes because the TOD3 lighting is just so appalling, and although this methodology means playing outside of daytime isn't possible and some of the signals aren't as bright as they should be it makes long-forgotten routes playable again. My advice is that if you don't wish to do this, and have a real hankering to play old routes at night time (eek!) then simply delete the pre-set from the GodMode ini for the relevant route and you can play with default TOD3 lighting to your hearts content.

If you wish to get Muff's TOD4 enabling mod and haven't already got it it can be download here;

Vlakové simulátory (trainsim.cz)

As will all TSW mods the installation method is exactly the same, drag and drop

It really is like getting some new routes

Sand Patch Grade


Ruhr Sieg Nord


East Coastway

 

No, the existing version that is available to download....... (Version 1.6 or 1.6.1).

 

I'd also noticed flickering after installing the better shadows mod and did initially think about removing it but difference it makes for easily 99% of the time is enough to have the odd location when stood have a little bit of flickering.

 

yes but theres no engine.ini file inside of them only godmode.sav

 

You’re obviously misunderstanding something.

v1.6/v1.61 is the current version with the associated manual.

I have put the v2 manual up ahead of release because it is imperative people read it BEFORE installing that version, when it releases. That is clearly stated at the top of the page, underlined for good measure. There is no engine.ini file in v1.61, nor is there meant to be. The mod and manual versions are appended to the relevant files.

If I’ve not made it obvious enough I apologise, but I don’t really know what else I could have done to make it any clearer.

 

Some more old route / new lighting loveliness

 

You are right mate serves me right for not reading properly. The difference in Mittenwaldbahn with your mod on pc compared to console is not even close! Great work!

 

Evening.

Version 2 is now available on TSC

TSW 5 | Lighting & Visual Quality Enhancement - Train Sim Community

Please read the manual, and please note that a GodMode update is not necessary assuming you have the latest version.

Enjoy

 

I'm not seeing the manual listed to download? Just the various v2 files.

 

Ah I didn't realise it was in the zip files now rather than being it's own download.

 

I’ve edited the page to make it more prominent

 

Another point if I could....... Having read the manual last week I was assuming that the engine.ini text would be the same for all the different presets and that it was just a case of copy and paste it and forget kind of thing and that the routes would then still have the differences in the godmode.sav file? But I notice that there are differences between the different engine.ini settings too?

I'm someone that uses different presets for different routes (So most of mine use High v1.6 files with some earlier routes using Ultra v1.6 and the latest couple I have using Medium v1.6).

Is it now a case of having to switch out the engine.ini files each time I want to go from a route that I would previously have used different settings for? (For example if I went from a route used previously with Ultra v1.6 to a route I used previously with Medium v1.6?)


If that makes sense?

 

The route specific stuff is in the GodMode Sav, the generic stuff is in the engine ini. I had to take this step as it was becoming unmanageable for me, each minor change could take me half an hour to implement and it was becoming unsustainable. The main performance related stuff remains route specific

You can always add things of your own into the GodMode save and it will take precedence over the main file.

To be clear though, for the continued production of the mod this change had to happen. There are 3 or 4 DLC releasing this month alone for example.

 

Don't get me wrong I fully understand the reason behind the change and agree it needed to be done but what I'm saying is that you say the engine.ini stuff is all generic for all routes so to me that means the engine.ini files provided in all the preset zip files would be the same but they aren't..... I've just checked the engine.ini files in the Ultra, High and medium zip files and they are all different to each other so not generic. So what is the outcome / performance hit of these changes in each version? Now if someone only ever uses one single preset this isn't an issue at all but as you say yourself in the manual sometimes it may be necessary to run one or more routes on a lower preset due to the complexity of that/those routes which is where my previous query/question comes in.....


As I said in my previous post what I'm asking is this..... If I run a route that I previously used the Ultra preset for and after that run I decide to have a run on a route that I previously used the High or Medium preset for will I now also need to swap out the Ultra engine.ini for the High or Medium engine.ini?

So basically is it now a case of swapping out the engine.ini file to match the preset used for each route?

 

Do I? Where did I say that? It’s certainly not intentional if I did

 

Right, but where does that say that the engine.ini’s for each different preset are the same?

Unless I literally need to spell it out I’d have thought it was quite obvious. Each preset is very clearly self-contained with 2 files plus the manuals in each, the difference being that now I only have to contend with 5 different main presets if I need to make a change instead of 61 different routes x 5 presets = 305 times. Soon that 61 routes will be 64 routes which means 320 different presets.

I think you’ve inferred something from that text that isn’t there if I’m being honest.

 

Ok I admit I have misinterpreted it but my question still remains (And bearing in mind the manual does say it could be necessary to use a lower preset than the rest for some newer routes)......



If I run a route that I previously used the Ultra preset for and after that run I decide to have a run on a route that I previously used the High or Medium preset for will I now also need to swap out the Ultra engine.ini for the High or Medium engine.ini?

So basically is it now a case of swapping out the engine.ini file to match the preset used for each route?..... Or... Do we choose engine.ini preset we use the most and just stick with that for all routes whether higher or lower than some routes?

I'm really not trying to difficult it's just a relevant question for everyone / anyone that isn't fortunate enough to be able to use just the single preset for all routes. (In my own case the vast majority of my routes use the High preset, Some older less intensive routes use the Ultra preset and I have two of the latest routes that I've had to use Medium to stop a couple of locations dropping fps to low levels)

 

Yes, the latter. I mean, there’s no rules so feel free to do as you wish, but I don’t envisage the need to be swapping engine.ini’s files in and out. It’s certainly not necessary and nor did it come up in testing

I’ve said already, and as it says in the manual section you quoted, the majority of the performance and lighting related elements that need altering on a route-by-route basis remain in the GodMode file. If you wish to make a change then that is where you make it, using the methodology I’ve described.

 

Thanks that's what I wanted to know..... As I say I just wanted to make sure what was or wasn't needed to be done under the new version of the mod when having to use multiple presets in a single install.

 

No, absolutely not. That is, and never was, the intention. I’ve always tried to make this easy for the user (within the confines) of modding these things with ini changes but the had to come where I make it a bit easier on myself as well.


On a separate note, I’m going to have to put out an update shortly for Mildmay as, although it looked fine when I tuned it last night, I believe it is too dark. I’ll work a bit more on making sure it is robust in all conditions then put the update out.

 

v2.01 is now on TSC

v2.01

- Having tested the Mildmay Line further this morning I believe it top be too dark and have retuned the lighting hence this update. Just to re-iterate that you only need to update the GodMode.sav file, you do not need to alter the main engine.ini again assuming you had already applied Version 2
- Squashed some rogueness in the Low preset and removed the line relating to cloudspeed which shouldn't have been left in there. Also adjusted a couple of parameters that had been accidentally missed

 

A demo of beast on my machine with some custom made announcements on Mildmay

TSW5 | London Overground - Mildmay | Lighting v2 (with announcements!)

 

Since this last update using this mod along with the latest Nvidia drivers. This is just one route though

 

New skies and cloud lighting looking the business

 

Working great here, thanks once again for your time and efforts Jetwash.

 

It really does look amazing Jetwash. I originally bought Mildmay on PS5 (for playing short runs after work on the sofa), but it was so disappointing with blurred textures that I bought the PC version as well and with your mod installed it looks completely different. I just enjoyed an evening run in a 66 with some light fog and it looked stunning (beast settings). Thanks again for keeping this updated.

 

To me, one of the strongest things that GodMode can do for you is shift time. You are driving a freight and have been routed into a siding/loop and see you now have to wait 10 minutes before you can leave. Ah, GodMode to the rescue, just go to the local time setting and reset to 1 minute before the departure and all is well.

 

I would generally recommend using the 4x time fast forward as jumping the time can often cause issues with the timetable. I’ve found if I adjust the time in the pause menu it’s less likely to happen though.

 

wait... we can do that?

 

Yeah. In the GodMode menu select Console Commands > Favourites > and at the bottom you’ll see 0.5x to 4x speed changes.

A GodMode Godsend

 

GodMend

 

God, that's so easy

 

I have begun a run on Frankfort/Fruda with 90% clouds and it is a "high sky". Bright, even gray, casting that even, flat light that comes with a high sky. For years I would shoot still and video of trains around my area and preferred this type of sky to shoot in. Well done JetWash

 

Could someone, please, help me?
I set the preset of the mod (High), in accordance with the configuration of my PC-RTX4060ti 8GB, Ryzen 5 5600, 32 GB of RAM, made the appropriate changes to the Engine.ini file and went on the Blackpool Branches route to Preston station and got 10 fps, while fps is acceptable outside this station+on the Niddertalbahn route there are prolonged drawdowns of fps up to 10 in certain places. I tried setting presets for the Medium and Low settings, but nothing changed. And only the Low preset in the Engine.ini and Godmod.sav files gave me normal fps in these places without significant drawdowns. I did not use Lossless Scaling Universal Frame Generation. Is this behavior normal for the game, or is it already in my system?

 

I’ve had a similar experience with this mod for quite a while. I have an RTX 2080 and an Intel Core i7 9th Gen with 32 GB of RAM. I was really surprised to see that I should be able to use the High preset according to the included documentation, because I was running the Medium preset and still running into massive frame drops in specific locations. I even tried lowering the game’s graphics settings down as low as they could go to see if that made a difference, and I was really surprised that even doing that didn’t make a difference. The locations where I was having issues are very specific, such as the area right around the crossing after leaving San Bernardino Downtown station, the ramp going up after you leave Frankfurt (Main) Hbf, and as you mentioned, Preston station. But those are just a few examples out of countless specific places where the frames drop massively. I’m not certain, but it feels like the issue got worse a few updates ago. Unfortunately I’m not sure if it was a few updates of the game ago, or a few updates of this mod ago. But it definitely got worse to the point where I’ve had to use the Low preset, because I can’t play the game when in certain areas I’m getting single digit frame rates.

 

Lowering the graphic settings is having no effect because you’re CPU limited in those scenarios you mention. All those places are places that the game struggles, and Frankfurt was like that even on my 5800x3D (which is a considerably stronger CPU than the Ryzen 5600 or the i7). Changing the graphics won’t do anything and if anything, lowering the settings will make matters worse. This is exactly why DX12 is recommended however, as it reduces the burden on older CPUs, and it’s easy to forget this game can be quite demanding on those older chips.

This video is old, and I made it on TVL in TSW2 but it amply demonstrates the problem when you pass near areas with many tracks. This has always been an issue in this game, and considering how much more demanding the game is generally now it’s no surprise this has only worsened over time;



Additionally, this thread from 5 years ago shows just how long this has been an issue;

https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/engine-ini-tweaks-in-train-sim-world-2.25906/

With that said, the use of DX12 isn’t mandatory. You can always try the mod with DX11 and use whichever is better for you. Without question however, on older and less capable CPU’s and assuming your GPU is half decent, DX12 will likely run better.

Regarding the High preset, perhaps I should have been clearer. I had intended that for the 2080ti or 2080 Super really, as I used to have the ti (overclocked too) and those settings would have been fine with it. Obviously I don’t own every graphics card in existence so can’t test every last variable, and because this is effectively a ‘hack’ rather than in-game sliders we are limited in exactly how much each ‘pre-set’ can do. The fact that you even have extensively curated pre-sets is unique amongst ini mods. I only have my guesswork and the benchmark of the machines of the people that test for me to judge where to pitch this, so please bear that in mind.

Finally, it’s perfectly acceptable to use the medium engine ini setup and the high GodMode preset or visa versa. I can’t hold everyone’s hand with this, my suggestions are only those and some of the burden of figuring this stuff out has to fall on the user I’m afraid.

 

Thank you for pointing this out! I hadn’t thought about mixing the provided engine.ini and GodMode presets. After you mentioned this I decided to give the GodMode medium preset a try with the Low engine.ini preset. Using these settings, my game runs fantastically while still providing two things which are important to me: the improved lighting and the increased foliage draw distance. I’m even able to use the Improved Shadows mod with the shadows at full resolution without an issue! Thank you

 

Previously on my system, (Lenovo Legion Laptop i9-14900HX, 32gb RAM, RTX4070 running at 2560x1440 with all game settings at maximum except sky at High), I used the High preset with WCMLoS and Goblin using Medium and a few older routes using Ultra. I've initially tried the High engine.ini and High godmode and Goblin and WCMLoS have big FPS issues (Down to single figures at Carlisle and 10-15fps at Barking) so have tried them with Medium Godmode instead but still with some FPS issues so until I can find a level they perform well at I've reverted back to v1.6.1.


With this in mind and taking in to account what was said a couple of posts above about users having to find what works best on their setup and with the mod now being split fairly evenly across the engine.ini and Godmode entries is there an explanation anywhere for what each of the entries in both do and how the values can be changed to improve performance or visuals as required?

I'm thinking knowing this will make it easier for users to decide what specific lines to adjust or remove to improve performance and looks on all routes.

If I'm right in thinking the Godmode entry overrules the engine.ini entry this would mean we could include some engine.ini lines in a route's godmode entry so as to overrule what other routes use. This way if we have a route that struggles we will know what each entry does and we could go for as high a engine.ini as possible for most routes on our machine then overrule certain entries via the godmode with lower values for certain routes that are struggling.

 

Just in addition to my previous post what has changed so drastically in the Medium version of the mod between v1.6.1 and v2.0 to give such a massive performance hit? See the following screengrabs both are the 10:30 departure from Carlisle both have the same light clouds weather option and both are taken from a similar viewpoint looking back at my train and a fullish Carlisle station.....

This first one is with the Medium v1.6 mod (42fps)


This second one is with the Medium v2.0 mod (9fps)

 

I have compared the two to confirm that they are, to all intents and purposes, identical. The only difference, literally, is that I intentionally removed my custom shadow resolutions so medium level users can control shadow quality via the in-game sliders. My thinking being that my resolutions might have been too demanding for some. If you are seeing a big difference between the two versions then your in-game shadow quality setting is too high. In other words, previous versions of my mod were overriding your in-game setting, now they're not. To be clear, that only applies to Medium.

All other presets (except Beast) are identical to their v1.6 counterparts from a performance perspective. To re-iterate, that single change to medium and lighting changes aside (which are FPS neutral), v1.6 and v2.0 are identical for High, Medium and Low. The latter is less demanding than the previous version as I tidied things out that shouldn’t have been there. I made significant improvements to Ultra and Beast but they would have no effect on the lower spec pre-sets.

 

It would look to be nothing at all to do with the shadows or shadow quality?

The following two images show the fps using the new v2.0 Medium files with shadows firstly set to high as I always have them and then turned off completely..... Notice they are pretty much the same (slightly lower in fact without shadows at the moment I grabbed the screenshot). Again it is the same 1030 service from Carlisle with weather set to light clouds and taken from that same viewpoint as before. As soon as I go back to the v1.6 Godmode Medium (It's actually Godmode High but with the WCMLoS entries taken from the Medium Godmode file) the fps goes back up to where it was in the image I posted previously.

I also tried copying the v1.6 godmode Medium entry over the v2.0 godmode entry so that it was overruling the shadow entries that are in the v2.0 engine.ini and again that makes no difference to fps. (I forgot to take a screenshot of that though).

 

Try this in your engine.ini overwriting what you already have in it's entirety. Set the VRAM parameters to suit

r.Streaming.PoolSize=
r.Streaming.MaxTempMemoryAllowed=
r.UseAsyncShaderPrecompilation=1
r.UseShaderPredraw=1
r.UseShaderCaching=1
r.Streaming.FullyLoadUsedTextures=1
r.RenderTargetPoolMin=350
r.Streaming.LimitPoolSizeToVRAM=0
r.Streaming.FramesForFullUpdate=2
r.Streaming.Boost=2
r.Streaming.HLODStrategy=2
r.GTSyncType=1
r.OneFrameThreadLag=1
s.ForceGCAfterLevelStreamedOut=0
s.ContinuouslyIncrementalGCWhileLevelsPendingPurge=0
s.LevelStreamingComponentsUnregistrationGranularity=10
s.LevelStreamingComponentsRegistrationGranularity=30
r.Streaming.NumStaticComponentsProcessedPerFrame=200
gc.TimeBetweenPurgingPendingKillObjects=200
ts2.dbg.JourneyChapterLockOverride=1
ts2.save.CheckpointsEnabled=0
ts2.RewardMonitor.ShowLowImpactNotificationsAsFull=0
r.D3D.ForceDXC=1
r.Shaders.FastMath=0
r.StaticMeshLODDistanceScale=0.5
r.SkeletalMeshLODBias=-2
r.Streaming.MipBias=0
r.LightMaxDrawDistanceScale=5
r.MinScreenRadiusForLights=0.02
r.AllowLandscapeShadows=1
r.DistanceFieldShadowing=1
r.DFDistanceScale=10
r.DistanceFieldAO=1
r.BlurGBuffer=0
r.DepthOfFieldQuality=1
r.SceneColorFringeQuality=0
r.FastBlurThreshold=2
r.Tonemapper.GrainQuantization=0
r.Shadow.Virtual.ResolutionLodBiasLocal=1
r.Shadow.DistanceScale=5
r.ShadowQuality=4
r.Shadow.RadiusThreshold=0.01
r.Shadow.CSM.TransitionScale=1.0
r.shadow.CSMDepthBias=4
r.Shadow.PreShadowResolutionFactor=1.0
r.CapsuleShadows=1
r.CreateShadersOnLoad=1
niagara.CreateShadersOnLoad=1
r.AmbientOcclusionLevels=3
r.Upscale.Quality=4
r.TemporalAA.Upsampling=1
r.TemporalAASamples=3
r.TemporalAACurrentFrameWeight=0.1
r.LumenScene.FarField=1
r.LumenScene.FarField.FarFieldDitherScale=100000
r.Lumen.ScreenProbeGather.Temporal=1
ts2.dbg.SteamParticleSpawnMultiplier=2.0
ts2.dbg.SteamParticleSize=0.7
TimeOfDaySystem.VolumetricCloud.GroundContribution=1
r.ToneMapper.Sharpen=0.3
//r.DefaultFeature.LensFlare=1
//r.LensFlareQuality=2

 

Thanks for coming back to me again. I've given this a try with the v2.0 Medium Godmode file and as can be seen there is a slight improvement but it's still less than half the fps that I get with the v1.6 Medium settings.

Interestingly though my setup is quite happily using the v2.0 High files for all the other routes that were using the v1.6.1 High settings previously with fps up at 60fps at locations like a full Brighton on London Commuter so it is only the routes using the medium settings that are seeing massive drops in fps between the v1.6 and v2.0 versions of the mod.

What changes were in the entry you asked me to try? I'm thinking about merging the engine.ini and Godmode entries for each of Medium v1.6, High v2.0 and Medium v2.0 and printing them out to see them all side by side and try and come up with something that will mean I can keep the High engine.ini in place for everything else but with a Godmode entry for these Medium routes that will tone down some things. (Am I right in saying what is entered in the Godmode entry will over rule what is in the engine.ini entry?)

 

I’ve just updated the version on TSC to v2.02 where I’ve altered the Medium pre-set to be identical to v1.6, lighting changes aside. To re-iterate, the lighting changes are FPS neutral.

In addition, I have improved further the clouds on Beast, Ultra and High by reducing the base layer ‘noise’ just slightly. A subtle change that makes a decent difference

TSW 5 | Lighting & Visual Quality Enhancement v2.02 - Train Sim Community

 

Noice! I’ll download it shortly.

 

Hello there!
I am using the "High" preset and have noticed that in the mornings and evenings, when the sun is at a slightly different angle, my images are slightly overexposed. Despite reducing the sun intensity from 100,000 to 25,000, this issue persists. Additionally, when the sun shines directly behind the subject, the signals and signs become unreadable. Is there a way to fix this problem?


Another question concerns the blue haze, which is almost always present in sunny weather, with fog values =0. Is there a way to get rid of it?

 

Altering the sun value won't change the amount of exposure. Do you have an image of it, because the above image looks fine to me

Regarding the signals, use LM's signal mod with Myron's flare reduction mod. DTG's signal colours etc have always been very poor