Graphics anomally in Monogame OR

In 'normal (XNA-based) OR, the buffer beam/vanance of the General Motors locos in MT add-on Irish Enterprise North looks like this:



But in the Monogame version, it looks like this:



There was also a now-fixed issue in MG where snowflakes were rendered as solid saucers and I notice that rain in MG is rendered a light streak but is dark in stock XNA OR. So I'm guessing this is just another quirk of the different rendering engine and may not be readily fixable. Unless playing around with the textures might be worth trying.

What is "Monogame OR"?

It's discussed in this thread:

http://www.elvastower.com/forums/index.php?/topic/30924-going-beyond-the-4-gb-of-memory/page__st__10

The potential advantages seem to be less memory usage and better performance. I've recently updated my Monogame version to the one linked to in post #179 which corresponds to 'normal' OR v.4018.

I have both 'vanilla' and MG installs of OR and in general, I'm using the Monogame version since - despite some anomalies like rendering shadows (eg being cast inside some tunnels in some routes) I'm getting sufficiently higher FPS to produce smoother running in denser scenery areas with any given graphics settings.

Ivor

Edit - I've now posted the query over on Elvas Tower: http://www.elvastower.com/forums/index.php?/topic/31377-monogame-rendering-issues/

Hi Ivor,
From your post on the elvastower Forum, I note you're using an NVIDIA GTS 250 with v341.92 drivers.

I wonder if these are causing your problems?

The graphics card is very old (as graphics cards go) - maybe it can't support all the MonoGame options - and the drivers you mentioned are not specified to work with Win 10 - you should be using v341.74 (dated 29 July 2015)

I have replied similarly to your ET post.

Cheers,
Ged

Thanks Ged. I'm inclined to doubt it's the card, though - performance limiting yes, but there seem to be various rendering issues associated with Monogame itself, including shadows being rendered differently, snowflakes being solid discs and also that in XNA, a 'cabshader' function dims 2d cabviews as darkness falls if there isn't a separate night texture, but doesn't do that in MG. At any rate it seems that OR will move to Monogame after 1.3. The snow issue was fixed and while shadows in MG still seem to render differently, I don't think I'm still seeing shadows case where none should be (except inside some tunnels!) so that may have been fixed too.

Well it's not the graphics card - I'm now using a slightly less old GTX560 which has GDDR5 not 3 and a different architecture. I have also noticed the black texture on a bridge abutment in the same route and it's on the front of all the 017/111 and 141/181 Class GM diesels. I had a look at the .ace texture and there seems nothing remarkable about it. The black rectangle (which still shows up black, even if the loco itself is otherwise invisible in fog!) obscures the central area in a single area of texture which isn't overlaid by the alpha channel and covers the buffer beam and valence; the left- and right-hand parts of this texture display fine, it's just the central zone which is blacked out. Googling 'Monogame + black texture' produces some results but nothing that seems relevant. Looks like as with shadows, this is just something MG does differently; maybe the next MG release will fix it. Not sure why it only seems to affect some textures, and just in this route from what I have noticed so far.

Hi Ivor,

Not sure why it only seems to affect some textures, and just in this route from what I have noticed so far.

I doubt very much that it would only apply to one route!
If you have another compatible route in the same installation, try the loco in that (use same consist in Explore mode).

Cheers,
Ged

slipperman12 wrote:Hi Ivor,

Not sure why it only seems to affect some textures, and just in this route from what I have noticed so far.

I doubt very much that it would only apply to one route!
If you have another compatible route in the same installation, try the loco in that (use same consist in Explore mode).

Cheers,
Ged

Yes that seems highly unlikely Ged! Having now tried the same locos in other routes, I'm seeing the same black rectangle. The common element is MG and within that, so far just this black rectangle and black bridge abutment, and they are both from this one route. There seem to be features of some routes that produce different resuls in OR+MG, not seen in vanilla OR - or other routes in OR+MG. In the latter, I'm seeing shadows - what looks like the shadows of trees - inside some tunnels in EB's LSC, but not in any tunnels in MT's LSE. I haven't noticed the black texture effect on other locos from other routes, yet - at the moment I'm spending most of my time in LSC, for which there are a lot of extra activities available on UKTS. I can always revert to vanilla OR for Irish Enterprise North - I have both installed (they share common settings, saves and last route, in my Appdata folder).

Update - now using a basic but GDDR5 rather than 3 GTX 560 SE and stil getting the black rectangles.

I looked at the .ace file in TGATool2, the one which includes what is obviosly the texture mapped to the buffer beam/valence. It (the texture) is evidently designed to cover the full width and lacks any shading - the central section is darker when viewed in stock OR (and in MSTS) but black when viewed in MG OR, as per the pics above.

Deduction - something not visible in the texture itself is causing a darkening of the central area (to make the vertical 'folds' in the cab front stand out). This is working fine in MSTS and native OR bug is being messed up by MG's rendering.

So the search is on for this 'something'.

I am not remotely sure, but I don't think it's anything to do with the .ace file's alpha channel, transparency thingy. I can see this and the buffer beam/valence texture is overlaid white, the black bits just apply grills to the top of the air intake.

What I know about paint programs could be fitted comfortably into the narrow space between 'nothing' and 'next to nothing'. Ditto, about the business of mapping textures to a 3d model.

What am I looking for, I wonder? Could there be a layer in the texture, designed to 'cast a shadow', but invisible when the texture is viewed in TGATool2? A layer that might show up if the image was loaded into a dedicated paint programme, and which I could edit, to lighten how it's displayed by MG?

Or (less likely?) do modellers typically achieve this effect by mapping a second 'shadow' texture - which could be in a different file in the loco folder - to the area in question, as a sort of overlay? So I should try to find that instead? If you don't have the source files for the 3d model, I'm guessing you can't see the texture mapping, and would have to look at each texture individually to try to find the overlaid texture?

Any advice gratefully received!!! FPS is ok in native OR but better in OR MG, plus moiré effects are reduced (although shadow display is a bit inferior). It would be good not to have to swap to vanilla OR to play with my GMs