Graphics problem

[wackyhuman]

> which leads me to believe it may be a video driver issue

Nope, this is not a graphics card issue. The issue need to be resolved by making texture shader changes of the items that show the black boxes.
This is from Alan Thomson who experienced this issue with his rolling stock for the West Highland route:
"I've made texture shader changes to all of these vehicles now to avoid problems with the new 3D clouds in 2015."

[peterhayes]

WH
Not all of us are seeing this phenomenon - I still think it is a video card issue (driver setting, specifications, etc) !

Bob What video card?
How much VRAM?
Driver
Monitor size?
Resolution?

That would help.
pH

[plethaus]

I am seeing it here. Nvidia 780 Ti. Was running the 337s first and now the latest 344s. Both drivers displayed the problem.

[artimrj]

WH
Not all of us are seeing this phenomenon - I still think it is a video card issue (driver setting, specifications, etc) !

Bob What video card?
How much VRAM?
Driver
Monitor size?
Resolution?

That would help.
pH

NVidia GTX 760
2 gig
Latest as of Monday, previous did same ting.
22 inch
1680 x 1050

[GSkid]

While I've not done any extensive runs with the new 3D weather, I've yet to detect this issue while testing with it. My GPU is a 1GB AMD Radeon HD 7670M. I'll let you guys know if I ever do see the issue.

[peterhayes]

Bob
My card is the same and I do not see this effect.
Nice set up!
pH

[Bermúdez]

Me neither (I see everything correctly), and my graphics card is an Nvidia GTS 450 (well below yours).

[DapperDan]

I'm not seeing the issue either and I have a similar card.

Intel Quad Core i7-4770(Haswell) 3.40GHz, 3401MHz, 4 Cores, 8 Logical Processors
MSI GeForce GTX760 OC Twin Frozr IV 1085/1150MHz, 4GB
16GB DDR3
Cheap LG 24" Monitor set at 1920x1080 60Htz

[plethaus]

Only some locos and signals exhibit this, and only with one of the 3D cloud weather themes running. Also, the affected assets have to be viewed with the sky behind them, as it's a blending issue with the new 3D skies. If you're looking at the signals etc. with anything other than sky behind them (mountains/hills, buildings, the ground, etc etc) you won't see it.

What are the testing scenarios you guys are using?

[Bananarama]

Nope, this is not a graphics card issue. The issue need to be resolved by making texture shader changes of the items that show the black boxes.

Yes, please note the first part of my post.

[CrimsonKing]

I don't know if this will help, but I see this on the Stevens Pass signal heads when viewing them from the front. If I move around to the back, the black box disappears just like it does when the signals are viewed with anything other than the 3D sky behind it.

[ozinoz]

560Ti card with latest 344.11 drivers and it does it to me. In fact I mentioned it to Bob this time last week just after the update because I first noticed it on a route I am testing and at that point, thought I was the only one.

Hope what ever it is can be pinned down, cos it is annoying
.

[_o_OOOO_oo-Kanawha]

One step forwards, two steps back ....

Can we conclude this problem is centered round the light emitters in TS2015 with Silver Lining weather enabled?
Do these particular light emitters have a texture around their projection? Like a corona, halo or flaring star, when viewed from close up?
Then the problem might be the transparency of that particular texture not being transparent under Silver Lining conditions when viewed against the 3D cloud background.
Does is happen with all clouds? Against a clear sky as well? How many transparancy planes does TS2015 support?

Silver Lining injects addition DX9 stuff into the display driver chain by those special .dll's, so we can do nothing about that until DTG sorts the matter out with the proprietor of the Silver Lining weather system. There is a comprehensive master settings file in the data\Silver Lining directory. Do its contents shed any insight on the problem?

Like others wrote, it might still be a DX9/VGA driver/videocard issue. Small memory videocards? Number of pipelines? Too many variables and no two computers are alike.

But perhaps the emtter's transparent texture settings can be edited?

[GSkid]

Ok....I purposely set out to find this signal glitch. I cloned scenarios that were near signal bridges. I chose Truckee Yard on Donner Pass, Essex Wye on Marias Pass and Union Station on Pacific Surfliner.

I had all the graphics sliders maxed out. Had set at MSAA x8 and AF x8. I had NONE of the last page items checked on (no bloom lighting, no depth of field, etc). I tried "3D 2. Cloudy" on Donner Pass and Marias Pass. The Pacific Surfliner introduction scenario was surprisingly already set to a 3D setting, but I tested it out ALSO with the route specific "PS 3D Cloudy" as well.

My results? Everything looks fine. NO signal glitches. Even looked at track side signals...NOTHING. I used my 360 controller to sweep around the signals from every angle and height. Far away and close. Front and behind. With nothing but the 3D sky behind the signals as instructed. All is normal.... UNLESS this is somehow specific to certain signal locations on a route. If so, I would need to know which ones to test.

Not sure if this glitch is Nvidia specific, but it's looking that way. We would need other AMD/ATI GPU users to test this out to confirm that. I tested it out with my dedicated 1GB AMD Radeon HD 7670M card....and then I ALSO tested it out with my APU's built-in Radeon HD 7520G that uses system memory instead. Both are DX11 level GPUs. BOTH had the same results....no glitches.

The plot thickens!

[artimrj]

It is not the video board or drivers it is the signals themselves. The lakeside signals textures do not have a transparency layer. The signals I use from Pikehikr do. Lakeside signals have the problem, NERW or Lafayette do not as they use Pike's.