Microsoft Train Sim Graphics

[MorseLady]

I find the graphics in MS Train Sim 2002 demo train rides leave much to be desired especially trees. The worst is the Settle to Carlisle ride the best is the Northeast Corridor. I was running it on a 64MB Nvidia card and it ran smoothly but I expected the graphics to improve with my new computer's 256MB Nvidia card but it is still not video quality or don't you get video quality with MS game graphics? Or is the app now out of date and are there any upgrades planned? It runs smoothly enough, just don't like the graphics.

[TechZ]

The game is a bit old now and I presume that even with a newer card, you were already getting the best out of it.

[Platypus]

MorseLady, you may not get video quality with game graphics, but it seems there are options for improving the image rendering in Train Sim that cannot be activated from the menu options in the program, but must be initiated by running the program with a command line switch. The most likely to help you is probably Full Screen Anti-Aliasing - I found a reference suggesting this can be invoked by starting Train Sim in a DOS window with a command line like this:

c:\program files\microsoft games\train simulator\train.exe /fsaa

This will of course vary if your program is not installed in the folder shown above. The person suggesting this also said they hadn't been able to get it to work on their GeForce4 card...

Anisotropic Filtering is another possibility for improvement, done with:

c:\program files\microsoft games\train simulator\train.exe /anisotropic

It may be possible to have both at the same time (train.exe /fsaa /anisotropic) but I can't say for sure.

There is also the support site:

http://www.microsoft.com/games/trainsimulator/

Hope this helps.

[MorseLady]

Neither of those command lines work, at least in XP Professional SP2, get a prompt that the program is not recognised as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

In any case it would take a year to explain to my husband how to even use the command prompt and he uses the game more than I do.

It seems the game, having been developed in the days when a 64MB graphics card was good going, reaches its prime operating peak at that and I wonder if M$ have any plans to update it like they have done with Plane Sim - the earlier versions are dreadful.

Other games requiring fast rendering including a very fast motorcycle track race game look so much better than M$ games.

I will not worry about it now I am satisfied it is not our new computers at fault. I will explore the support link Platypus and thanks.

[Platypus]

No worries. If the information I found about the command line switches is correct, then XP may well cause it not to work - it's more choosey in what it will accept than older OSs.