Benchmarks and question

So here are the benchmarks for my big bad new Alienware desktop (well, I tried to run them. They came up incomplete without the GPU or HDD (GPU is GTX 1080) Not sure why, and not sure quite how to read what was there). My question is that this machine should be more than adequate for T:ANE but I am curious about why it really doesn't look much better than my old laptop. It was a relatively slow i7 and an old NVidia 4xx I think. This new machine runs way more smoothly as far as framerates, so that is really nice, but there are screenshots by folks on here like Claus (cvo2010), DeadpoolMX55, felix_g and others that make T:ANE look as downright real as some of the best 2019 shots I have seen. I have maxxed out all of the settings I have found on the Main menu and on the Launch Window and mine still looks like - Well, like a simulation. I looked at the Environment settings but could not reconcile trying to change R,G, & B separately. I also have looked at the NVIDIA settings but don't really see anything there I understand very well, so I pretty much leave it default. Is there something I am missing to make T:ANE look its best? I am sure that route, time of day, choice of rolling stock and locos (weathered, etc.), angle and closeness, screen composition, weather, etc. all play a part, but I still think something is lacking....

I tried running these twice, I will try it again to see if I can get better answers for benchmark....
Got the benchmarks in paste-able format, but still incomplete with no explanation. But I did get the numbers below:

Explanations are on the Web page.
https://www.userbenchmark.com/page/guide#interpret

Nothing wrong with those benchmarks other than maybe test without USB drives attached, if they are USB3 they seem a bit low.

That benchmark software thought my old monster of a dual processor Xeon workstation was only good for email and light web browsing which it most certainly is not. I think the software struggles with reading some types of computer architecture and comes up with a wrong assessment as a result.

I agree with that Ann, It did not know what to do with the Optane cache, which is roughly equivalent to SSD. I have Trainz pinned to the Optane cache, but it gave it a huge negative rating, and looks like it threw the HDD in with it, which is obviously not an SDD....

I guess what I was really fishing for was the arcane knowledge some of our compatriots have on how to set the settings to look so much more lifelike. But who knows, it may be tribal knowledge and I am not part of the right tribe. Obviously just setting everything to ultra is not it...

Forester1 said:

I guess what I was really fishing for was the arcane knowledge some of our compatriots have on how to set the settings to look so much more lifelike. But who knows, it may be tribal knowledge and I am not part of the right tribe. Obviously just setting everything to ultra is not it...

Click to expand...

A lot of practice in using environmental Controls and a good choice of textures is how it's mainly done. Plus some are probably changing the shader settings for taking screenshots. Currently you can't save the shader settings between sessions though. And you don't need ultra settings for everything for it to look good.

Midday with the ambient and sun with the tree rotating things all dialled to around 2.30 clock time is a good place to start in TRS19 or Midday in TANE. You are looking at grayish colours in the boxes.
TRS19 is easier than TANE as it has an additional light / brightness slider.

There is somewhere on here a thread by one of the "experts" on how the environmental controls can be used plus the tutorial on either the Wiki or Trainz Portal.

Thanks Malc. I'll try some of that. I didn't know if the Wikis would still hold, as a lot of them are labeled for 2009.....