PC Auto Exposure Is Out Of Control

Discussion in 'TSW General Discussion' started by facundo.dim, May 21, 2023.

  1. facundo.dim

    facundo.dim Active Member

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    I don't remember having this graphical issue in the previous games. Auto exposure is bad, really bad in this game.

    From inside the cab, everything outside looks overexposed, specially the sky. But from the outside view (cam 3), it looks good. It's even worse in some situations (different locos/lighting).

    Just to clarify: images taken without ini settings modifications or autoexposure mods.

    I tried a few autoexposure mods but didn't solve the problem. Any tip here?

    TSW3_Nimrod_1684668942_00.jpg TSW3_Nimrod_1684668957_00.jpg
     
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  2. Princess Entrapta

    Princess Entrapta Well-Known Member

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    It happens to interact particularly bad with the cab view, yes. Both in the aggressive lightening of the exterior view (I believe it interacts quite poorly with the translucent materials of the glass here too, as while the view through open windows is bad, the closed ones it looks far worse through on many locos) and in how it really hammers home the problems of the interiors and their lack of strong AO.
     
  3. facundo.dim

    facundo.dim Active Member

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    Adding more examples. I can't even see the ground near the loco, no detail.
    TSW3_Nimrod_1684695865_00.jpg TSW3_Nimrod_1684695872_00.jpg
     
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  4. March Hare

    March Hare Well-Known Member

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    It's an issue that many of us keep highlighting across various threads, but DTG are giving it no attention whatsoever – not publicly, at least.

    I still find it hard to believe that they collectively thought this looked good during development. Did nobody on the dev team say, no, this looks wrong? Have they not seen other games? Have they not seen real life?

    TSW 3 is supposed to be an improvement over 2. This really isn't, and it needs to be made good, even if it means updating every affected route.
     
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  5. OldVern

    OldVern Well-Known Member

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    I still have my suspicions this was to indulge the quirk of someone on the team who thought it looked “Kewl” and no one has plucked up the courage to decide to remove the feature. But it is quite horrible and in the wrong conditions makes it look like a poorly made Unity game.
     
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  6. owenroser19

    owenroser19 Well-Known Member

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    This is one the biggest reasons I’m turned off by newer routes, although Niddertalbahn didn’t look quite as bad.

    I agree that it’s worse than TSW2 lighting. I know it’s better at night but let’s be honest, I would say most people drive in the daytime.

    it needs looking into.
     
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  7. max#2873

    max#2873 Well-Known Member

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    I stopped buying new TOD4 dlc's from Birmingham on, due to this issue.
     
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  8. JetWash

    JetWash Well-Known Member

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    I’ve been relentlessly critical over the lighting in both TSW2 and 3 but have managed to get it relatively under control with a combination of a couple of reshade changes, engine.ini changes and Bescot’s brilliant mod. Happy to share if anyone’s interested in trying it.
     
    Last edited: May 22, 2023
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  9. Crosstie

    Crosstie Well-Known Member

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    Yes, those screenshots do illustrate the problem pretty well. When you combine the general lighting issue with the awful ( in some cases ) eye adaptation feature it does detract from the gameplay.
    That eye adaptation thing causes me to look away from the screen sometimes.
    Totally unnecessary feature in my opinion. And poorly implemented, particularly on very short tunnels and underpasses.
     
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  10. peterchambers

    peterchambers Active Member

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    Yes, do share, please. I have Bescots mod in and have tiddled with gamma panel. Anything else that can help improve things would be most welcome.
     
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  11. JetWash

    JetWash Well-Known Member

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    These work pretty well for me and my monitor. You may need to play around with the values slightly, but you may find it works fine anyway.

    1) As we said, use this mod TSW3 Auto Exposure (Eye adaption) Compensation Mod - Train Sim Community. My personal recommendation is to use Level1a
    2) Use these engine.ini tweaks. The ones in bold refer directly to eye adaption and auto-exposure, specifically speeding up the transitions going in and out of tunnels. It is way better than the stock setting and much more realistic. Adding Lens Flare also adds to the effect. The combination of these settings is the best I've ever managed to get the game to look but it does require a decent GPU.

    [SystemSettings]
    ts2.dbg.JourneyChapterLockOverride=1
    ts2.save.CheckpointsEnabled=0
    TimeOfDaySystem.AutoExposure.SpeedUp=10
    TimeOfDaySystem.AutoExposure.SpeedDown=1

    r.TextureStreaming=0
    r.DefaultFeature.LensFlare=1
    r.LensFlareQuality=3
    r.LightMaxDrawDistanceScale=50.0
    r.MinScreenRadiusForLights=0.00
    r.AllowLandscapeShadows=1
    r.DistanceFieldShadowing=1
    r.DFDistanceScale=10
    r.DFFullResolution=1
    r.CreateShadersOnLoad=1
    r.AmbientOcclusionLevels=3
    r.Shadow.FilterMethod=0
    r.Shadow.DistanceScale=2
    r.ShadowQuality=3
    r.Shadow.CSM.MaxCascades=5
    r.Shadow.MaxResolution=6144
    r.Shadow.MaxCSMResolution=6144
    r.Shadow.SpotLightTransitionScale=4096
    r.Shadow.RadiusThreshold=0.03
    r.Shadow.CSM.TransitionScale=2
    foliage.DitheredLOD=1
    foliage.LODDistanceScale=4
    r.StaticMeshLODDistanceScale=0.25

    3) Install reshade to TSW3. Install the following shaders;

    0.jpg

    Once Installed select the following shaders and settings. Note, most of these are the stock settings with only minor variations. The TAA I have selected as it helps with the shimmering that has blighted TSW since Day 1

    3.jpg
    4.jpg

    4) Setup Nvidia Control Panel as follows (assuming you're using an Nvidia card)

    1.jpg
    2.jpg

    5) Finally, my in-game settings are below. I play in 4K and sacrifice 5% screen percentage and Skies set to 'Very High' instead of Ultra as it makes no difference to the look of the game but helps the performance with the better shadows generated by the .ini tweaks
     
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  12. JetWash

    JetWash Well-Known Member

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    5.jpg
     
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  13. peterchambers

    peterchambers Active Member

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    WOW ! Thanks for that, Jetwash. Will try all this out when I am more awake.
     
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  14. JetWash

    JetWash Well-Known Member

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    See what you think. The end result should be less bright, less washed out and more realistic. That’s what I’m seeing anyway ;)
     
  15. tallboy7648

    tallboy7648 Well-Known Member

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    If only DTG could bother to do the same
     
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  16. Princess Entrapta

    Princess Entrapta Well-Known Member

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    There's the rub, lots of us play on console, and the community on PC have shown DTG how to do it. It's very much something that is needed and doable, but no official DTG update to fix this in sight..
     
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  17. peterchambers

    peterchambers Active Member

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    Have applied most of your settings but only the two highlighted ones in engine.ini. I use Shodancat's engine.ini as it gives me a stutter free and shimmer free environment. Some of the nvidea options offered differ to yours. I am on RTX2070 which might explain it. Have not managed to get to the page you show in Reshade yet for some reason but i can see it might well be helpful.

    I am now getting more colour saturation and more contrast but best of all is the reduction in in trackbed glare. The tunnel eye adaption is now brilliant. Fields of grass are still reflecting too much light. All this really does show there is something fundamentally wrong with the DTG lighting if it is this difficult to sort. I am using MML leaving Derby in Jubilee at 0700 hours in both full sun and light clouds as the trackbed there is very glary. When using Gamma Panel I could reduce track glare but it darkened everything else too much so have abannoned it.
     
  18. JetWash

    JetWash Well-Known Member

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    The fields reflecting light is DTG adding this to their materials.

    Bescot has made even more wonderful mods that remove that from a number of routes. Have a look at these and compare the before and after. That reflectivity is a conscious decision by DTG and them using it baffles me. it looks awful.

    UK Material Mods - Train Sim Community

    Persevere with reshade. It is that that is killing the over-brightness and removing a bit saturation from the colours.
     
    Last edited: May 23, 2023
  19. peterchambers

    peterchambers Active Member

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    Yep re reshade. it looked as if it would do what you say and i will learn how to do it.
     
  20. JetWash

    JetWash Well-Known Member

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    It’s quite straightforward. Download it and run the .exe, point it to your TSW3 executable (let me know if you don’t know where that is), then select DX11/12, then skip until you see the screen where you can select the shaders. Set it up as I have shown and that should be it.

    Remember that there is performance mode which is what it should be in unless you’re editing the shaders. It has a quick tutorial built in which will show you the basics.
     
  21. coursetim

    coursetim Well-Known Member

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    Would be nice if DTG could comment on this issue as its been seen by so many people now. The evenings look beautiful but during the day everything looks so washed out and over exposed. Especially on PFR.
     
  22. Pipe

    Pipe Well-Known Member

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    I have driven a morning ride on BRO, against the sun. Simply unbearable, nauseating. And this is 4k/60 & HDR+ from a PS5.
    It´s from journey mode, so I wasn´t able to adjust the clouds to ´overcast´ as I normally do to avoid such views. Good thing there´re no tunnels on this route...

    This just can´t be right. It must be addressed. At least give the players some sliders for adjustments. Not every monitor / TV set processes the video signal equally. There´re lots of differences to be equalized. And again the console player (was that 66% of DTG´s player base?) draws the shortest straw for not having a chance to apply the mods mentioned above.

    Train Sim World 3_20230522185600.jpg
     
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  23. Princess Entrapta

    Princess Entrapta Well-Known Member

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    I still swear that someone saw the material properties for "Grass" and thought it said "Glass" so set the specularity appropriately.
     
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  24. JetWash

    JetWash Well-Known Member

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    We can’t rely on bescot to personally fix all these routes. I’ve just started dabbling in the tools needed to figure it out and hopefully help with some of it. Of course, it goes without saying that this simply shouldn’t need doing.

    I might be wrong but there is a definite pattern developing. Any ‘new’ features get put in to the game once a year in the Summer. Once out in the wild they get left alone, for better or worse, until the following year. At that point, and not before, will they be tweaked, added to or removed. Most of the additions to TSW3 are a bit cack-handed but have just been left ‘as is’;

    - The kicking snow effect is welcome but looks like a first try much of the time.
    - The lighting is no better than TSW2 and a lot of the time it’s worse. The new skybox / TOD system is a vast improvement however. It is easy to confuse the two.
    - The auto-exposure and eye adaption is very rough around the edges and needs work to make it work properly. I find it beyond ridiculous that we have to wait for a year (maybe more) for this to be done. Even tuning it to the values in that engine.ini across the board would be a vast improvement as far as going in and out of tunnels is concerned.
    - The reflectiveness of materials, particularly in the rain, is beyond stupid. It is not realistic, and even though wet surfaces do cause a sheen they do not look like they’ve been wrapped in Bacofoil then placed under a floodlight.
    - The sparking catenary and third rails need a lot more work. They catenary sparks look much worse than their counterparts in TSC and the third rail sparks achieve nothing other than causes the player cab to randomly illuminate. I’ve never seen AI with sparking shoes.
    - The jury’s out on the new UI. I’d say on balance it is better but by ‘eck it needs a lot more work. Some of the flows etc are so totally illogical it’s hard to fathom how they ended up like that in the first place.
    - Finally, the things that have been introduced since (ambient light lighting up time, GSM-R etc) are sporadic in features, often not there at all and frankly could and should be better and there all the time, no exceptions.

    If there’s one thing that DTG could do in the Summer release this year to vastly improve this game it is sort out this lighting once and for all. Please.
     
    Last edited: May 23, 2023
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  25. peterchambers

    peterchambers Active Member

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    Reshade seems to be the star of the show. There is now homogenious light over the landscape and the track. The latter has excellent texture and saturation level. The overall picture is a little on the dark side as yet but it looks , as you say, much more natural now. Reshade was a bugger to fathom out but OK once I got to the right page. The effort has been well worth it. Many thanks, Jetwash.
     
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  26. OldVern

    OldVern Well-Known Member

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    It would be nice if someone from DTG could come in and comment on this but, as usual, silence.
     
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  27. coursetim

    coursetim Well-Known Member

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    Not sure if something else is going on what with the DTL outages, game crashings or something else but it does seem like the feedback threads and other stuff are very quiet at the moment as far as comments/replys to issues from dtg.
     
  28. londonmidland

    londonmidland Well-Known Member

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    Imo a lot of these settings and programs are redundant. One single change changed it all for me, although its only suitable for day time use - set r.EyeAdaptation.LensAttenuation 0.1 or 0
     
  29. peterchambers

    peterchambers Active Member

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    If that works it will make life easier for a lot of people. Will try it as soon as time allows.

    Also if it is that easy why cannot DTG do it and then consol persons can benefit ?
     
  30. dudders

    dudders Well-Known Member

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    I think a few people are on holiday at dtg that's my only guess as to why there not saying anything. Definitely a lack of updates for any routes this last few weeks
     
  31. londonmidland

    londonmidland Well-Known Member

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    It doesn’t work well for night scenarios as it makes everything look way too dark.

    I think the main issue here is that the eye adaption is working OTT and is forcing everything to be unnaturally bright during the day. It doesn’t allow for dark areas to stay dark - it’ll always force these areas to brighten up.
     
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  32. JetWash

    JetWash Well-Known Member

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    Here's some comparison shots. I don't know how well it will come across here, and it'll be almost impossible to appreciate on a mobile device. When flicking through the 3 pictures in a picture viewer the difference is noticeably substantial. I'd recommend downloading them to the desktop then flicking back and forth in a viewer.

    1) Vanilla game | no mods, no ReShade
    1.jpg

    2) With r.EyeAdaptation.LensAttenuation=0.1 as the only .ini change, no ReShade, no mod
    2.jpg

    3) Finally, with my setup as described (Bescot's mod, my .ini changes, ReShade on)
    3.jpg

    1)
    4.jpg

    2)
    5.jpg
     
    Last edited: May 24, 2023
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  33. JetWash

    JetWash Well-Known Member

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    3)
    6.jpg

    1)
    9.jpg

    2)
    8.jpg

    3)
    7.jpg
     
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  34. Monder

    Monder Well-Known Member

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    Why only day time? Does it make night unplayable?
     
  35. londonmidland

    londonmidland Well-Known Member

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    Pretty much, yeah. Everything goes pitch black and the emissive (lights) go really dim.
     
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  36. JetWash

    JetWash Well-Known Member

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    Here's a night-time comparison, same parameters as above;

    1)
    1.jpg

    2)
    2.jpg

    3)
    3.jpg
     
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  37. pinxtonpaws

    pinxtonpaws Well-Known Member

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    There's little point arguing for consoles because even though this issue has been raised many times in the past it has remained an enforced 'feature' since the early 4k days of TSW2. Personally I loathe it to the point where on the odd occasion I play the game (I still have a bunch of 'backup' easy-ish achievements for my daily reward point fix) I do so with no blue sky present....and that I'm afraid will be the only option you will ever get to minimise this effect.
    Be thankful for small mercies though because I'm currently playing RiMS (which uses the woeful KT Engine) and not only is the 'shiny surface' effect present on every single track regardless of weather, there is no option whatsoever to remove it.
     
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  38. Xander1986

    Xander1986 Well-Known Member

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    Okay i have test it some settings and i have create a standard where all routes looks the best.... Its a middle solution where all the routes works well! There always negative sides and positive ones....

    Use this settings in the ini:
    [SystemSettings]
    r.EyeAdaptation.LensAttenuation=0.5
    foliage.LODDistanceScale=4
    r.CreateShadersOnLoad=1
    r.GTSyncType=1
    r.OneFrameThreadLag=1
    r.TonemapperGamma=2.4
    r.ToneMapper.Sharpen=1
    r.TextureStreaming=0
    r.BloomQuality=0
    r.ViewDistanceScale=6
    r.TemporalAA.Upsampling=1
    r.Upscale.Quality=5
    r.LightMaxDrawDistanceScale=50.0
    r.MinScreenRadiusForLights=0.00
    r.Shadow.WholeSceneShadowCacheMb=2000

    Due to the middle way i have setup a little more brighter nights... If you dind't like this... Its easy to reduce this to add some clouds...

    I hope i can help others with this... I didn't show pictures... The thing is... every monitor is diffrent and settings like this are not showing much... Nevermind i have 1 picture to share and its the lighting at Finnentrop! How do it looks? Stuning right?
    e1d5f7ea-6b57-4196-a7a0-950f45e29d6d.jpeg
     
  39. theorganist

    theorganist Well-Known Member

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    There are some useful tips on this thread, thanks all. I shall have a play about myself later. It is indeed a shame that some of these settings are not easily set up in the sims menu.
     
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  40. Xander1986

    Xander1986 Well-Known Member

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    In my opinion the thing is DTG has only activate the TOD4 without any improvement on the lights Futher on.... You can see what is possible in this engine but DTG dindt use the advantages.... Strange I think! It's so easy to setup and brings way more fun to play. A good example is the Left Rhine route.... If you travel in direction of the sun.... In the morning east evening to the west ut looks like broke and way over done...
     
  41. Xander1986

    Xander1986 Well-Known Member

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  42. Pipe

    Pipe Well-Known Member

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    Of course we can´t compare BRO on TSW2 vs. TSW3. But, while far from perfect, I still prefer TSW2 lighting. It sometimes looks bad enough but not to the point of "unbearable". My pic above is static, but driving this route under those conditions and observing the shadows drawing / undrawing is just ......... fugly.
    I really wonder what was the key for the decision to release TSW3 with that kind of lighting?!
     
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  43. theorganist

    theorganist Well-Known Member

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    My problem with TSW2 lighting is that it often looks too dark, I do prefer TSW3 lighting, on occassions it can be too washed out though. I am sure it also depends on what sort of monitor or TV you are using and how you have that set up.
     
  44. Princess Entrapta

    Princess Entrapta Well-Known Member

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  45. Pipe

    Pipe Well-Known Member

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    Absolutely, literally the dark side of TSW2 is that it is sometimes too ...... well, dark.
    Why is it that DTG always swings the pendulum to the opposite extrem?
    Why can´t they find some adjustments in the middle?

    Lighting too dark ............... lighting too bright
    No dynamic weather ............. too dynamic weather
    No passengers ........... too many passengers.

    And so it goes on. The entire sim is full of extremes: Some things are really, really, REALLY well done. And some things are built so ..... lousy, so poor.
     
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  46. Monder

    Monder Well-Known Member

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    Does it still handle the day well with these settings?
     
  47. Xander1986

    Xander1986 Well-Known Member

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    Very simple answer yes! But let me explain a little futher... The way that i used this settings is to reduce the sunlight but it doesn't breaking the night... so the night light is very good and you can see very good in to the dark.... If you think it's to light in the dark moments its quite easy... add some clouds or reduce the r.EyeAdaptation.LensAttenuation to 0.4 or 0.3.... Do not change the TonemapperGama is my experience....
     
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  48. DarkWolf

    DarkWolf Active Member

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    Very much agree with the OP and others about this, hope DTG will tweak this effect. The SD70ACe seems particuarly bad, the color of the textures get so washed out.

    DW
     
  49. Princess Entrapta

    Princess Entrapta Well-Known Member

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    Attenuation and gamma sliders in the ingame menu so we can modify them on console when, DTG?
     
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  50. I think the lighting is very realistic as I am a real locomotive train driver.
    Some things like headlights missing centre beams and cabs needing more light can be tweaked.
    But overall DTG has this perfect!!!
     
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