First impressions of RW3

[artimrj]

Is it only me as I have not seen anyone else mention it yet. But on my route and every other one, the ground is white and the sky is black. That is in the new TSX mode. But when I turn it off everything is fine.

Anyway, in Legacy mode, which is where we will be for a while I think, the sounds are crisper, the graphics are crisper, the cab sway is there regardless of the engine you use. The sky looks great. The FPS seem to be a little higher. Not sure if the 2 core usage is automatic or if there is a setting. I didnt find one anywhere, but didnt look that hard.

Block assets, yeah they are cool. But you only get to use 1 flippin tree. So it is the same tree over the whole area you are working on. I tried using a cluster of trees but it can not conform them to the terrain very well. If you dont mind the same flippin tree, block assets are fast laying a bunch down and they do conform to the terrain awesomely.

Some of my repaints now also looked washed out, especially my SD40-2s. The blue is so faded and strange looking. Going to take some getting used to now all over again.

I also discovered to not load a saved game or use continue if the game was from RW2. It spits out the error and you crash.

I only got to play for about 2 hours last night then I had to go to bed. Will see more of this weekend.

[SoloTwo]

Personally not having any problems running on TSX mode, currently I have the AA set to 8x and it seems to be running smoothly, and everything else on very high. Only thing I'm noticing is some AA issues from certain angles. Look one way and everything is extremely crisp and look another way you can hardly read the text on anything.

[Bananarama]

Hi Bob,

For the benefit of others, this is a copy of my reply to your post at TS.com:

Block assets, yeah they are cool. But you only get to use 1 flippin tree. So it is the same tree over the whole area you are working on. I tried using a cluster of trees but it can not conform them to the terrain very well. If you dont mind the same flippin tree, block assets are fast laying a bunch down and they do conform to the terrain awesomely.

By default, the asset block ("AB") will populate to whatever's first in the properties list, and this list will contain both "large foliage" and "clutter" assets (I'm currently re-exporting all my source files so they're correctly categorized).

In order to change the contents of the AB, you double left-click to bring up the Properties Menu, then select another asset from the dropdown menu. You can also change the number of items contained within a 1000m x 1000m area, and by default the value is 10k (4k is what I've set them to). You can also change the random scale of the objects - '0' is full scale, '0.25' scales the height of the objects +/-25%, '0.50' = +/- 50%, '1' = +/- 100% (a 15m tree will render between 7.5m and 30m), etc.

Copy and paste the AB and repopulate with a different tree, and then slide the AB so that it overlaps the first. Continue on and you'll have a nice series of trees of different sizes and shapes. No need for groups any more, unless you want a quick mix of what's in the object. The AB is a great time saver, and gives better results than spending time plunking-down tree after tree.

BTW, if you populate the AB with assets containing shadows, there will be some rendering conflicts in the shadow and the AB. I'm not sure if RSC is aware of this, but to fix you can set the height of the AB within the scenery XML (set the height to +5m above its current value).

Some of my repaints now also looked washed out, especially my SD40-2s. The blue is so faded and strange looking. Going to take some getting used to now all over again.

RW3 colors are closer to WYSIWYG than RW2, so things might appear washed-out on Cajon (the whole route looks washed-out to me). Check your original against one of the other default European routes or get Horseshoe Curve when available (the route has a terrific environment color pallet).

[artimrj]

Thanks Marc for that info. What I dont like is only 1 asset can be used per block. I havent played enough yet though. I was hoping to be able to put a bunch of different assets in one block.

Also the white ground and black sky in TSX mode on any route I have. This was unexpected.

I also saw a few posts about a tick box for multi core use. I havent found that yet either.

[eyein12]

why not just put 1 asset block down and then apply another ontop with a different tree and so on. its still using way less assets than before and still giving the variety. I think trees should be able to have different types per 1 block. but certainly you cant expect to form a town with 1. Seems like theres a way around it for now.

[Abco]

Also the white ground and black sky in TSX mode on any route I have. This was unexpected.

I had the same trouble than you. For me that came from the graphic card settings, so I went in the Catalyst Control Center (I have a Radeon HD Graphic Card), and I checked all the options in "3D Application Settings", now it's fixed.

I hope that help you.

[Bananarama]

I believe the funky sky/terrain is due to the ATI card you have. Folks using these cards will need to wait for an update.

[EliteMarksman]

Which card do you have thats giving the problem? I'm using a 4850 with CCC 11.2 and no issues.

[artimrj]

I have the ATI Radeon 5750 HD with 1 gig on it. I havent played with the Catalyst settings yet though as I am still at work. Be going home in a few minutes though and will be digging in and trying out all the suggestions I have seen so far. I love when a community shares it's ideas and solutions.

[EliteMarksman]

When you get a chance, try setting all the settings in CCC to "Use Application Settings." Sometimes you get weird results if you let CCC or NVIDIA's equivalent force certain settings on a game, especially if the game wasn't designed for those settings.

[thisurlnotfound]

Is it only me as I have not seen anyone else mention it yet. But on my route and every other one, the ground is white and the sky is black. That is in the new TSX mode. But when I turn it off everything is fine.

Had same issue and RW Support emailed me back and said to turn everything in ATI control panel to "Application Settings" and that fixed my issues. Still having some FPS issues, but I can live with that.

[gwgardner]

why not just put 1 asset block down and then apply another ontop with a different tree and so on. its still using way less assets than before and still giving the variety. I think trees should be able to have different types per 1 block. but certainly you cant expect to form a town with 1. Seems like theres a way around it for now.

This works very well. A nice feature of the asset tool is that you can copy a selected block and then paste it all over the place.

[artimrj]

Thanks guys, using Application control in the control center of my ATI card gave me normal skies and colored terrain. Now I too am fooling around with settings to get better FPS.