Discussion for the TSW4 specific version here; https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/enhancement-tod4-lighting-overhaul.71901/page-3#post-720133 TSW3 Version | DOWNLOAD HERE TSW3 Lighting Overhaul - Train Sim Community PREVIEW HERE (a WIP version) I'm not sure why but my cookie settings seem to be blocking links to YouTube. If you can't see the video that's why. Coming at the lighting in this game from a completely different angle here are a series of settings for the engine.ini file that significantly improve (in my opinion) the lighting in TSW3. The aim was to create a more realistic, hybrid look that was based more around Armstrong Powerhouse lighting in Train Sim Classic but utilising the extra benefits that TOD4 and UE4 bring. Designed for all PC's these settings will; Improve draw distance Unlock Journey Mode so you can play it in the order YOU want to Help with stuttering Speed up the way eye-adaption works so entering and exiting tunnels is much more realistic Most importantly overhaul the lighting to be more realistic, less washed out, less over-exposed and more detailed What does that mean? First and foremost I have decreased the brightness of the sun to half it's default value. This was the starting point, and key to reducing how over-blown the lighting in the game was Added detail to the clouds; more vertical extent, reduced the low quality (and exceptionally low resolution) second layer of 2D cloud and added light pollution to them at night. Cloud shadows are greatly improved too. Decreased the brightness of the stars to realistic levels and added a touch of light pollution to the sky itself at night The higher end settings (Medium through Mega-Ultra) will also vastly improve shadows and shadow draw distance, with the changes becoming more noticeable the higher you go. When teamed with the UK Vegetation & Grass EP (linked below) grass pop-in is eliminated entirely God Mode | PLEASE READ Although I can't recommend this enough there will be people who don't want, or can't use it. As such, after testing by others I chose to hard code the Skylight Intensity to 0.4. If you have God Mode installed (and you should!) it overwrites that figure to 1.0 and you can set the skylight intensity to suit the conditions you're driving in on the fly which is how I recommend you do it. I designed these settings such that the only thing you would need to do yourself would be adjust that slider to suit but please note, if God Mode is installed it will always revert that number to 1.0. I recommend using a figure between 0.2 and 0.5 depending on conditions as it is this that adds the finishing touches to the reduction in TSW3's tendency to be massively over-exposed. Again, if you don't have God Mode installed this is pre-set for you at a compromise figure of 0.4 and that is something I had to make a call on. If you find things a bit too dark you can edit the file yourself, and all you need to do is locate the last entry for skylightintensity and increase that number in 0.1 increments until you’re happy. Default is 1.0. Download here; TSW: God Mode - Alpha 0.3.0 - Train Sim Community Nvidia Image Scaling | Read This too! If you use an Nvidia card it is frustrating that inexplicably TSW3 still doesn't support DLSS. We are, however, able to use Nvidia Image Scaling (NIS) with the game. This was the pre-cursor to DLSS and in a nutshell allows you to select a lower resolution as your game resolution (with the associated performance benefit) which NIS then upscales to your native screen resolution with virtually zero loss in quality. I use it in 4K and it has many benefits, not least keeping the noise and heat chucked out by my GPU to much reduced levels. It allows me to push the game harder and enjoy a much better experience. It's use is optional, but I would give it due consideration if you're using anything less than a 40 series card (I have a 3090 for comparison)! More information here on how to use it; https://www.gamingpcbuilder.com/nvidia-image-scaling-tested/#foogallery-16565/i:16567 Game Settings The lighting changes will work irrespective of your game settings and I have tested this through the range. Even using the 'Low' option with Medium pre-set in game looks vastly better than default. I use The Ultra settings with Ultra set in-game. Recommendation time - I strongly suggest that whatever settings you use, you never set 'Sky Quality' to anything higher than than ‘Very High’. Ultra has a significant performance hit and doesn't look good enough to justify it. I have altered the way clouds look through these settings (giving them a more realistic vertical extent) so would suggest you use Very High or below. Other Important Things to Note You must remove Bescot's eye-adaption mod if you have it installed. Bescot himself has kindly tested these settings and is using them without that mod Any external programs (such as ReShade) that alter the lighting in the game should not be used with these changes. However, I still recommend the use of ReShade with the TAA shader which vastly reduces the shimmering when stationary that TSW is known for. You must use version 5.8 as the latest update (5.9) crashes the game for some reason. This works perfectly fine with legacy (TSW2) content Finally, and most importantly, I now think the game looks awesome. I commit to hereon-in stop moaning about the lighting. IMHO this is what Ultra should look like. Some Examples - Across different times of day and different seasons
Very interesting. I'll be giving this a try next time I play. Seems like a lot of thought and effort was put into this. It's appreciated I do have one question. I run TSW forced into DX12. What do you think? Keep DX12 or go back to default?
I forgot to mention that. I went back to DX11 a while back as when developing these I found at that point they were really pushing my GPU hard and there was too much noise, heat and power draw going on. As you know, DX12 loads the GPU more so going to DX11 took the heat off so to speak. The settings now are much more gentle on the GPU (my 3090 is barely ticking over much of the time which is a first) so really it’s personal preference and I guess depends on how strong your CPU is. One thing worth noting (I found at least) is that the game, even with zero mods, stutters more in 11 than 12. Have a play and go with what works best for you
Thanks for all the hard work Jetwash - Installed and ready to try it out. Just a few hours of work in the way first
Yeah I also find that the stuttering is way less in DX12. For reference I have a 3080Ti and a Ryzen 5600X CPU. My monitor resolution is 3840x1600. I'll play around with it and report back
Couldn't wait until work was finished, so had a quick 15 minute play at the start of my lunch break. Playing at 1440p, DX12 with the Ultra preset, Foilage_EP and God Mode installed and it's quite a transformation. My pop in issues are virtually gone. I see a little bit in the distance but that is all. Stutters are virtually non existent on MML. The lighting in general is looking much better and a great deal more natural that the standard lighting. My only issue at the moment is that the signals seem a little too bright and as I get close to them they start to flicker with yellow patches on them, but that is a minor issue, from a distance they are very visible. No time to do a full run, but will do that this evening. Really happy so far. PC is reasonably good spec. I9 10k, 32gig, 3080, TSW installed to separate SSD.
Are you using LM’s signal flare reduction mod out of interest? Really pleased you’re seeing the same improvement as me though! ps Just wait until the MML EP comes out (I believe it should be today). It’s like a different game with the two together!
No I don’t have the Flare Reduction mod. Going to look for that now. Thanks - still very new to TSW mods and didn’t see that one. If MML EP comes out today my evening plans will be ruined (in a good way!)
I’d seen some very minor temporary flickering but assumed it was that mod. Would you mind letting me know? If you’re seeing it without I’ll try and get to the bottom of it, although there’s nothing in these edits that should be causing that. ps I’m not just saying it, but it is honestly like having a new route. Particularly if you have Peak Forest and the Vegetation mod.
The previews look very interesting indeed. I don't have time for testing at the moment, so I just slapped the mod in and hoped for the best. Looks like I will have to go through the settings and ini as upon loading a saved service, the distant terrain looks very weird. (LRS, raining)
I don’t have that route but I don’t think there is anything in these changes that could cause that. They are reducing the brightness etc rather than upping it.
I quickly loaded some different routes (Birmingham, ECW, SoS) and it seems illumination increases with distance from the camera - nearby tracks look ok, but they get brighter the further they are from the camera. This was much more noticeable on the two ToD4 routes.
Oh yeah, I'm a mo*on. I cleared my ini but forgot to add the new one. Is this how TSW3 looks with default settings? Sheesh
Thank heavens for that!! You had me worried there. ps Yeah, unbelievably it is in certain conditions.
This looks so good. Unfortunately I'm on PS5 . It's time to implement an official ingame ModHub like other games have (Farming Simulator for example) to make Mods available for everybody. It could be a part of creators club.
Absolutely perfect JetWash It makes TSW3 look a bit like TSC in places with the better lighting and shadows and I genuinely mean that in a good way!
Hello, Really like the work you've put into this, it definitely takes TSW to another level. I've given this a go however I'm finding it's having a performance hit and I'm not sure if I could further optimise my settings. I've applied a high graphics preset in TSW and the NIS setting you recommend. I also have V-Sync on. I've tried the medium ini file however I'm finding theres quite a lot of stuttering, especially in exterior view. For the record, I've been playing TSC for the last few months however your mod wanted me to dip back into TSW therefore these issues might have been there before but I could've forgotten about them! My specs are a GTX 3060 Laptop GPU with AMD Ryzen 5600H CPU and 16GB RAM. Any advice on TSW settings that might help this run a bit smoother would be great! Thanks
Take the ini settings out and get your settings in game to a place where performance is acceptable. Then add the ini settings starting from the bottom up until you find the sweet spot. It is possible that the stuttering is being caused by your CPU but let me know how you get on. Cheers
Ignore the obvious troll. Ultra works beautifully on my 3060. Been testing these settings for the last week, and it's running smoothly at 2K, and looks incredible.
Mega Ultra is working fine with me, made some additions myself based on my old settings, but looks really good. Thank you so much.
Not at all. What is your setup if you don’t mind me asking? Depending on resolution it should be feasible for sure. 4K 60fps would likely be pushing it unless you were on a 40 series.
This helped immensely, thank you! I have not liked the view distance line much, and these settings improve that greatly. Using the MegaUltra settings and Reshade. TAA isn't doing much if anything in my eyes. I use these filters: HDR@FakeHDR.fx Clarity@Clarity.fx Colourfulness@Colourfulness.fx TAA@Temporal_AA.fx AdaptiveSharpen@AdaptiveSharpen.fx Curves@Curves.fx
DTG Matt you need to get JetWash on your team so everyone can enjoy some proper lighting! it looks as thought it transforms the game entirely, and i’m sure everyone would welcome that change
I'm absolutely certain Matt is able to do all this and more, but there are many more balls to juggle than simply making settings for the PC. I would like to see Ultra mean Ultra at some point, but this will do for now / instead.
Sorry everyone, I meant to share these this morning and forgot. Been a busy day! These are the Nvidia Image Scaling settings I use... ...and this is the ReShade shader set to pick if you want the extra TAA Cheers.
I'm running 1080P locked to 60FPS, but got it upscaled to 150% in the TSW 3 options to help out with the aliasing. 7800x3D, 64GB 3200MHz DDR5 ram, 3080TI 12GB and have it installed on an NVME drive.
I've tested the High version and wow, it really makes the lighting much better. The main differences compared to my previous settings are much better LOD transition and better shadows, although at places I felt like they were too dark for the time of day (early afternoon on ECW with clouds and light rain). Overall, I'm very happy with the end result. Huge thanks to you and the whole modding community!
I haven't tried it yet, but based on the screenshots posted the daytime shadows are a bit too inky black, like moonlight shadows.
If you’d read the instructions or tried it you’d see that that is something you can adjust to suit your taste through God Mode. It was specifically designed that way. As we don’t have access to the actual editor these things always have to be a compromise of workarounds. The aim was to make the lighting in the game better & I think I’ve achieved that. Is it 100% perfect in every given situation? No. Is it consistently better than the default lighting? In my opinion yes it is. The shadows are far from inky black however, and sometimes at certain times of day and certain times of the year, shadows actually are that dark.
Hi, glad you’re enjoying it. Do you have the God Mode app? If so start with the sky intensity at 1.0 and see how you get on. If you don’t use it you can edit that value in the ini, going up in 0.1 increments to a maximum of 1. Remember on TOD3/TSW2 content the shadows were darker anyway so finding a balance between the darkness of TSW2 and the washed out, over-exposed lighting of TSW3 isn’t easy.
That's the second topic I see where I don't understand why the modder is not hired or the mods bought by DTG. This is really an area where Colossal Order excels over many game studios. Community generated content will find its way to Cities Skylines on consoles.
This mod make everything look beautiful ! P.S Am I the only that can't acces the Train Sim Community website ?
No you are not alone, I just checked and couldn’t access it either. EDIT: It came back online at around 9:00 CET
