Best Realistic settings LOOKS?

[BNSF650]

What do you guys say the best real looking settings are? and please show up what to change?

[peterhayes]

BNSF650
Are these the settings set within the sim and/or those set outside the sim eg for nvidia cards 0 the nvidia control panel and nvidia Inspector?
IMHO both can have a major impact on "looks"
Regards
pH

[Haystack]

I would also like to know what the best settings for both inside and outside game settings. I know alot depends on your graphics card, but it would be nice to have something to go off of.

cvo2010's screenshots are so realistic I would love to know his systems specs and also his settings that he uses. Here is a example of one of his screenshots. Looks awesome

[peterhayes]

These are my settings that I use (TSX off gives a much sharper/clearer picture), but the GTX 670 is a fantastic card for TSX ON.
I posted these settings previously on UKTS.

I use Nvidia Inspector to set some settings and post them here - fps locked at 30 fps via nvidia inspector:
Note: The NVI settings override the nVidia Control Panel settings as they are applied last.

nvidia Control Panel settings TS 2103
i7 2600K TSX on GTX670
Type of Setting Setting in TS 2013
Ambient Occlusion n/a
Anisotropic Filtering 16x
Anti-aliasing FXAA Off
Anti-Aliasing Gamma Correction On
Anti-Aliasing Mode Enhance the Application
Anti-Aliasing Setting 4x
Anti-Aliasing Transparency Custom see NVI
CUDA - GPUs All
Maximum pre-rendered frames 3
Multidisplay/mixed GPU acceleration Single Display performance
Power Management Mode Prefer Maximum Performance
Texture Filtering- Anisotropic sample optimization On
Texture Filtering- Negative LOD Bias Allow
Texture Filtering- Quality High Quality
Texture Filtering- Trilinear optimisation On
Threaded Optimisation Auto
Triple Buffering N/A
Texture Filter Optimisation On
Vertical Sync Adaptive half the refesh rate

nVidia Inspector Settings i7 2600K TSX ON
Compatibility No Settings all standard
Antialiasing
Antialiasing Behaviour Flags None
Antialiasing Gamma Correction Off
Antialiasing Line Gamma Default
Anti-Aliasing Mode Enhance the Application
Anti-Aliasing Setting 4 x Multi Sampling
Anti-Aliasing Transparency MultiSampling Disabled
Anti-Aliasing Transparency SuperSampling 2 x SGSS
NVIDIA predefined FXAA usage Disallowed
Toggle FXAA indicator ON/OFF Off
Toggle FXAA ON/OFF Off

Texture Filtering
Anisotropic Filtering Mode User Defined/Off
Anisotropic Filtering Setting 16
Texture Filtering - Anisotropic Filter Optimisation On
Texture Filtering - Anisotropic Sample Optimisation On
Texture Filtering - Driver Controlled LOD Bias On
Texture Filtering LOD Bias -0.500
Texture Filtering- Negative LOD Bias Allow
Texture Filtering- Quality High Quality
Texture Filtering- Trilinear optimisation (On ignored if High Quality used)

Common
Ambient Occlusion setting High Quality
Ambient Occlusion Usage Disabled
Extension Limit Off
Frame Rate Limiter 30
Maximum pre-rendered frames 3
Multidisplay/mixed GPU acceleration Single Display performance
Power Management Mode Prefer Maximum Performance
Show PhysX Visual indicator Off
Threaded optimisation Auto
Triple Buffering Off
Vertical Sync Smooth AFR Behaviour On
Vertical Sync Tear Control Adaptive
Vertical Sync Adaptive half the refesh rate


TS2013 Settings i7 2600K TSX ON
Graphical Options
Master Detail Level Custom
Screen Resoloution 1920 x 1200
Full Screen Full Screen
Screen Brightness 34
TSX Mode Enabled
Skin HUD Textures

Advanced
Master Detail Level Custom
Anti-Aliasing FXAA + 8 x MSAA
Texture Filtering Anisotropic x 8
Scenery Quality Highest Detail
View Distance Highest Detail
Shadow Quality Medium Detail
Water Quality Medium Detail
Procedural Flora On
Adaptive Bloom Off
Depth of Field Off


These are a work in progress and I make minor changes dependent on route etc
pH

[peterhayes]

These are my settings for an i7 860 with a GTX 560 TI. TSX is OFF. This gives a very clear picture and most routes will be stutter free and smooth at 30 fps

nvidia Control Panel settings TS 2103
i7 860 NO TSX
Type of Setting Setting in TS 2013
Ambient Occlusion n/a
Anisotropic Filtering 16x
Anti-aliasing FXAA Off
Anti-Aliasing Gamma Correction On
Anti-Aliasing Mode Enhance the Application
Anti-Aliasing Setting Custom see NVI
Anti-Aliasing Transparency Custom see NVI
CUDA - GPUs All
Maximum pre-rendered frames 3
Multidisplay/mixed GPU acceleration Single Display performance
Power Management Mode Prefer Maximum Performance
Texture Filtering- Anisotropic sample optimization Off
Texture Filtering- Negative LOD Bias Clamp
Texture Filtering- Quality High Quality
Texture Filtering- Trilinear optimisation Auto
Threaded Optimisation Auto
Triple Buffering Off
Texture Filter Optimisation N/A
Vertical Sync Adaptive half the refesh rate

nVidia Inspector Settings
Compatibility No Settings all standard
Antialiasing
Antialiasing Behaviour Flags None
Antialiasing Gamma Correction Off
Antialiasing Line Gamma Default
Anti-Aliasing Mode Enhance the Application
Anti-Aliasing Setting 8xSQ (2x2 SS + 2xMS)
Anti-Aliasing Transparency MultiSampling Enabled
Anti-Aliasing Transparency SuperSampling 4 x SGSS
NVIDIA predefined FXAA usage Disallowed
Toggle FXAA indicator ON/OFF Off
Toggle FXAA ON/OFF Off

Texture Filtering
Anisotropic Filtering Mode User Defined/Off
Anisotropic Filtering Setting 16
Texture Filtering - Anisotropic Filter Optimisation Off
Texture Filtering - Anisotropic Sample Optimisation Off
Texture Filtering - Driver Controlled LOD Bias On
Texture Filtering LOD Bias -1.000
Texture Filtering- Negative LOD Bias Allow
Texture Filtering- Quality High Quality
Texture Filtering- Trilinear optimisation (On ignored if High Quality used)

Common
Ambient Occlusion setting Off
Ambient Occlusion Usage Disabled
Extension Limit Off
Frame Rate Limiter 30
Maximum pre-rendered frames 3
Multidisplay/mixed GPU acceleration Single Display performance
Power Management Mode Prefer Maximum Performance
Show PhysX Visual indicator Off
Threaded optimisation Auto
Triple Buffering Off
Vertical Sync Smooth AFR Behaviour Off
Vertical Sync Tear Control Adaptive
Vertical Sync Adaptive half the refesh rate


Use Filter for NVI on top

TS2013 Settings
Graphical Options
Master Detail Level Custom
Screen Resoloution 1920 x 1200
Full Screen Full Screen
Screen Brightness 34
TSX Mode Disabled
Skin HUD Textures

Advanced
Master Detail Level Custom
Anti-Aliasing FXAA + 8 x MSAA
Texture Filtering Anisotropic x 8
Scenery Quality Highest Detail
View Distance Highest Detail
Shadow Quality Medium Detail
Water Quality Medium Detail
Procedural Flora On
Adaptive Bloom Off
Depth of Field Off
A work in progress
pH

[mrennie]

With FSX on (which I prefer for the maximum detail shadows), I found I get a much sharper image and higher FPS (45 to 60) if I turn off depth of field in the in-game graphics settings. I have everything else On, at maximum settings, and FXAA+8xMSAA.

That's on a 64-bit gaming laptop with an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 675M, Intel i7-3720QM CPU @2.6GHz and 12GB of RAM.

[Toripony]

I've wondered if DoF and ABloom are "compensatory" options, meaning for use on certain systems to compensate for some other deficiency??? They blur the mountains on my system, but add realism on some things; I can never decide if I like them on or off. Does anyone have some insight to share on these two options?

[mrennie]

I've wondered if DoF and ABloom are "compensatory" options, meaning for use on certain systems to compensate for some other deficiency??? They blur the mountains on my system, but add realism on some things; I can never decide if I like them on or off. Does anyone have some insight to share on these two options?

I have the same feeling as you ... sometimes I enable them and then later try them off again. DoF is simply meant to do what the name says, give the impression of focussing on nearby things and letting further away items go fuzzy (like the mountains), but there are two things I don't like about that: one is that it assumes you're always looking at things closer to you, which isn't how the human eye works, and the other is that it makes even the closer items a bit fuzzy. Everything is much sharper with it off.

As for bloom, sometimes it makes a nice difference to scenes with lights (signals especially) or sunlight.

Both of them cause an FPS hit, especially DoF. I used to have it on most of the time, but now I'm tending to turn it off and increase from FXAA+4xMSAA to FXAA+8xMSAA.

[BNSF650]

I would also like to know what the best settings for both inside and outside game settings. I know alot depends on your graphics card, but it would be nice to have something to go off of.

cvo2010's screenshots are so realistic I would love to know his systems specs and also his settings that he uses. Here is a example of one of his screenshots. Looks awesome

Yes what are these settings on..that looks so real

[Toripony]

Does bloom enhance sunsets?