White flicker of trees at hi-res/lo-res transition distance

Hi All
Copying this from my reply to another thread:

Our team have been investigating this issue, and for the majority of graphics cards this issue is resolved by installing the latest drivers for your graphics card. The graphics card is what is used to create what is displayed on your screen, with the drivers being the link between the software (Trainz) and your graphics card; as such bugs/changes in the driver can affect what is displayed. In this case a change was made in newer drivers, which recent updates for Trainz have made use of, and as such older drivers are exhibiting this issue.

We are aware of some very old graphics cards (ie NVidia GT 430 and similar) still showing this issue with the latest drivers, and our team are currently investigating this, however for newer/higher spec graphics cards the solution is to install the latest drivers.

Regards
 
ZecMurphy said:
In this case a change was made in newer drivers, which recent updates for Trainz have made use of, and as such older drivers are exhibiting this issue.

We are aware of some very old graphics cards (ie NVidia GT 430 and similar) still showing this issue with the latest drivers, and our team are currently investigating this, however for newer/higher spec graphics cards the solution is to install the latest drivers.

Regards
Click to expand...
So undo the change you made that caused this problem for so many users or is the new answer going to be to tell users to go out and spend hundreds or thousands of dollars for a new high spec graphic card? You sold TRS22 with the specs of working with Win 7 and GT 430 cards but you are slowly changing the program so that neither of those requirements are true any more. TRS22 is not Trainz Plus where you can willy nilly make changes to the program because it is always in a state of constant development. People have a right under the law to have access to what they paid for unless they know in advance they you are going to deny them that right because what they paid for is in a constant beta software mode as is Trainz Plus. Now I can use my retail copy of TRS22 PE and not update it to SP3 and avoid the issue but users on Steam don't have that option as you force updates on to Steam installs of TRS22 and TRS22 PE. What is even worse, is you pushed out SP3 without a release candidate build and then went on walkabout for weeks.
 
I agree with the above message. Changes made to capture a graphics market, with little to no regard to consequences are, well - not very nice, to put it kindly. It seems that selling Trainz as a working product for graphics artists to enhance for free is the current business model. Fine, N3v gets more customers for a very visually attractive product and the existing customers continue get a more visually attractive experience as well. WIN-WIN.

A future plan will allow spin-offs of Trainz to address other transportation areas. You will sit in the cab of an 18-wheeler enjoying the scenery or the traffic in downtown New York city. They might merge with some struggling aircraft gaming company and allow you to not only fly to exotic locales but to get off of the airplane and drive through a variety of tourist venues world-wide. And what do you see there, a railyard with visually real local trains operating. Maybe take a ride in a train to see the ALPS close-up.

If N3V only had the time and $$$ to debug each step.
 
I am running with nVidia GTX1060 3GB and there are apparently no Driver updates (per Trainz offical response to the flashing trees issue) from either nVidia or Windows. Having been with Trainz since TRS2004 ... words fail me (polite ones that is) with the performance of my TRS22PE. My choice is to run with sparkling/flashing trees ...... or stick with TANE. Currently a "no brainer" really. Regards. Colin.
 
wreeder said:
So undo the change you made that caused this problem for so many users or is the new answer going to be to tell users to go out and spend hundreds or thousands of dollars for a new high spec graphic card?
Click to expand...
Where in Zec's response did it say anything about buying a new graphics card? He was referring to updating the card drivers, not the cards.

I have 3 Nvidia graphics cards, the oldest being a GTX1050Ti, and none are showing this issue. All my cards automatically receive the latest Driver Updates from Nvidia - usually once per month but that can vary.
 
ZecMurphy said:
We are aware of some very old graphics cards (ie NVidia GT 430 and similar) still showing this issue with the latest drivers, and our team are currently investigating this, however for newer/higher spec graphics cards the solution is to install the latest drivers.

Regards
Click to expand...
First, I'm glad that it is working for you. However, if you look around the forum you might notice that many users are reporting this issue.

Now my opinion is bias towards believing the worse possible outcome. We have an admission that code changes were made to take advantage of features in recent drivers and that some users with older cards are not able to fix the issue even with the newest drivers. I installed the newest drivers and found that both TRS22 PE and Trainz Plus refused to start and reported a failure to initialize the renderer error. All my other software and games appeared to have no problems. I too have a GTX1050 Ti card manufactured around 2016 which I bought to replace an dead GTX 460.

Now as I see it there are three possibilities. One, the changes to the code are reversed and we all go back to being happy. Two, the code changes remain but everyone must update to the latest drivers whether they want to or not. Lastly, the minimal specs are magically declared to have been wrong and anyone with less than a RTX card are told they must buy a new card.

Due to the total economic disaster we are going through here in America at the moment, my spending of fun money is suspended for the time being. So I won't be buying a new card just for a game. My computer works just fine for the more important work I do on it.
 
ZecMurphy said:
We are aware of some very old graphics cards (ie NVidia GT 430 and similar) still showing this issue with the latest drivers, and our team are currently investigating this, however for newer/higher spec graphics cards the solution is to install the latest drivers.
Click to expand...
Again, where does this say that you must buy the newest graphic cards to run TRS22/Trainz Plus?
 
I said it wasn't a "driver" issue. It's a programming issue but we have developers who don't admit they make mistakes. No wonder we have the bugs we have.
 
JCitron said:
It's a programming issue
Click to expand...
That may very well be correct but where is the issue? In the Graphics Driver, the Windows API that connects the software to the hardware (a Windows update???), the N3V coding? If it is with N3V then why do I and others not have this issue? Why is it only some?

we have developers who don't admit they make mistakes
Click to expand...
An interesting statement. Emotion or fact? I would like to know the reasoning and the evidence.
 
Look, are you even running TRS22? My beef is that TRS22 was sold as a retail product two years ago and even TRS22 PE was sold as a retail product months ago. Up until the release of the SP3 patch neither had this flickering tree issue using everyone's existing version of the driver. Do you understand? No problem existed. But the developers saw a feature in the newest drivers that they liked and implemented a code change. Zec said they did that. And because there wasn't a release candidate beta build made available, this problem was spread to the entire user base. The issue is shown in only a hand full of 3rd party Speedtrees included as builtin items. If you don't use those trees or run a route that uses those trees then you won't see the issue. Most Speedtrees included don't show the issue. So John pointed out that those trees likely have a problem with the way they are made and the change to the code triggers the flickering trees at the level 2 LOD when the trees are rendered based on a conversation with a person that makes game assets as a job.

So to summarize, new code exposes incorrectly built speedtrees by causing flickering on those trees at the level 2 LOD distance. Common sense says "fix the trees" but after one user updates their driver and the problem appears to go away, the official fix becomes "update your driver". But here is the rub, some users update their driver and the problem doesn't go away. So do we go back to "fix the trees" as the solution or simply pass the buck and decide that certain graphics cards are no longer compatible. Hence, the "replace your card answer". N3V hasn't said that yet but I bet it is at least being discussed.
 
Yes, I am running TRS22 (Standard Edition) build 123801. I use it mostly for testing routes created in Trainz Plus to see if they will run in a stock standard Trainz environment without any DLC or packaged components.

I have been testing the Trees listed by Elstoko in his post #5 - many of those I use as my standard trees anyway. So far the ones he has listed as having the problem are not showing a problem in any of my installs, including TRS22.
 
I just bought 22 Platinum because I wanted to download the Pittsburgh to Harrisburg route by jrfolco which can only be downloaded if you have 22, and yes, the trees flicker white in the distance. I thought there was some bug or that 22 has some issues that need fixing and patching. Is there a way to minimize the white flickering in the trees? I forgot to check what trees he used, but maybe bulk replacing them with trees that do not flicker would help.
 
rwk said:
I just bought 22 Platinum because I wanted to download the Pittsburgh to Harrisburg route by jrfolco which can only be downloaded if you have 22, and yes, the trees flicker white in the distance. I thought there was some bug or that 22 has some issues that need fixing and patching. Is there a way to minimize the white flickering in the trees? I forgot to check what trees he used, but maybe bulk replacing them with trees that do not flicker would help.
Click to expand...
According to N3V you need to update your driver or spend a gazillion on a new video card, otherwise you're SOL. What video card do you have? If it's a 10xxx-series or up, you can update the driver.

I guess it's too difficult to fix the program or update the trees and it's easier to pass the buck, again, on to the user.
 
Another solution would be to replace the trees with ones that do not flicker white, if not all trees do that in 22. I didn’t play around with it enough to check. I would have to open my computer to see what brand of card it is, and what model it is and if newer drivers can be downloaded. I can’t really upgrade the card unless I ask my cousin because since my mom’s passing last year on June 14 in the hospital, her only sister’s son took over handling my brother and I’s banking and social security stuff since his father passed on March 31. His dad had our trust that our mom set up with him and now our financial lady near us has it. My cousin got me a debit card that he controls and he has certain categories and stores blocked. Like grocery stores, Target and Walmart are not blocked but Best Buy is. I have to ask him for permission to get expensive electronic stuff even from a store that isn’t blocked.
 
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You don't need to open your computer to find out. If it's NVidia, there's usually a control panel loaded at start up and you will have access to it via a right-click on your desktop or via an applet loaded in the taskbar tray near the clock.

AMD does a similar thing from what I remember, but the issue seems to be related to NVidia cards.

Once in the NVidia Control panel, click on Help and System Information to give you the information you need such as model (on the left under items) and driver name and version plus other unneeded info on the right.
 
I’m going to try to change the trees in a route and see if the white flickering goes away. With the bulk replace tool I can change all of a tree at once on the entire route.
 
rwk said:
I’m going to try to change the trees in a route and see if the white flickering goes away. With the bulk replace tool I can change all of a tree at once on the entire route.
Click to expand...
For general info - I have had this issue with a GTX1060 version 457.1 card.. Going directly to the nVidia site, I discovered (today) that a version 546.33 existed. Once downloaded and installed... all the sparkly/flashing effects disappeared. Regards. Colin.
 
The NVIDIA driver version 546.33 supports the following card types:
GeForce RTX 40 Series:
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060

GeForce RTX 30 Series:
GeForce RTX 3090 Ti, GeForce RTX 3090, GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, GeForce RTX 3080, GeForce RTX 3070 Ti, GeForce RTX 3070, GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, GeForce RTX 3060, GeForce RTX 3050

GeForce RTX 20 Series:
GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER, GeForce RTX 2080, GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER, GeForce RTX 2070, GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER, GeForce RTX 2060

GeForce 16 Series:
GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER, GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER, GeForce GTX 1660 Ti, GeForce GTX 1660, GeForce GTX 1650, GeForce GTX 1630

GeForce 10 Series:
GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, GeForce GTX 1080, GeForce GTX 1070 Ti, GeForce GTX 1070, GeForce GTX 1060, GeForce GTX 1050 Ti, GeForce GTX 1050, GeForce GT 1030, GeForce GT 1010

GeForce 900 Series:
GeForce GTX 980 Ti, GeForce GTX 980, GeForce GTX 970, GeForce GTX 960, GeForce GTX 950

GeForce 700 Series:
GeForce GTX 750 Ti, GeForce GTX 750, GeForce GTX 745

NVIDIA TITAN Series:
NVIDIA TITAN RTX, NVIDIA TITAN V, NVIDIA TITAN Xp, NVIDIA TITAN X (Pascal), GeForce GTX TITAN X
Click to expand...
Peter
 
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