MX Simulator

Changes:

• Added "ground sub-mesh resolution" to the advanced graphics settings.
• Set editor background to blue.

Windows users: https://mxsimulator.com/snapshots/mx-2024-04-12-1668.exe
Linux users: https://mxsimulator.com/snapshots/mxbin-2024-04-12-1668

Replace mx.exe or mxbin with one of the above files. The default location for mx.exe should be "C:\Program Files (x86)\MX Simulator". Please note that the ".exe" extension is hidden in Windows so the file will just show as an application named "mx". I'd keep a backup of the originals since these aren't well tested.

You probably want to leave the sub-mesh resolution at 16x16 but if anyone with a slow system wants to benchmark the different settings I'd definitely be interested in seeing the results. (It's 16x16 instead of 33x33 because it's the triangle fan count rather than the vertex count.)

Looking at the terrain wireframe in game looks like the ground sub-mesh resolution is just altering how many polygons are being drawn for the terrain right? Would be interesting to see how this affects performance on my slow laptop. Might do some tests on that later.

No, it changes the granularity it can subdivide at. So at 16x16, if there's a single height element bump somewhere it'll have to draw the surrounding 33x33 area at max detail. At 8x8 it'd only have to do a 17x17 area. At 1x1 it's pretty close to the original way with minimal triangles but lots of draw calls.

Each time you lower it it'll reduce the triangles and increase the draw calls. So on a GPU that's relatively slow at vertex processing the draw call hit might be worth it for the reduced vertex processing. I think most stuff will do best with 16x16 though. I need to do some benchmarks to be sure.

Been having a bug where lines in the terrain are transparent:



It's a pretty large build plain: 4096 x 4096 Terraininfo file is [11 0.600000 -42.819809 69.746552]

Not sure if it has anything to do with the resolution or if it's just a bug in the newest snapshot.

sethypeety wrote: ↑Mon Apr 15, 2024 8:08 pm Been having a bug where lines in the terrain are transparent:

https://i.gyazo.com/d60e6eed4d241d9879f ... 0c12d5.png

It's a pretty large build plain: 4096 x 4096 Terraininfo file is [11 0.600000 -42.819809 69.746552]

Not sure if it has anything to do with the resolution or if it's just a bug in the newest snapshot.

You mean the blue line right? It looks like it could be a crack due to rounding errors on the GPU.

If you could use a scale that converts to an exact floating point number it might help. Try 0.625 instead if 0.6. Basically you want to use a number where the denominator is a power of 2. So if you're trying to get close to 6/10 your first try would be 5/8 which is 0.625. If you need to be closer, you could try 19/32 = 0.59375.

Ah that makes sense. It isn't effecting gameplay so I'm just gonna leave it for now but I will take that into account when making future tracks.

Idk what you keep doing to the graphics of the game but i have everything maxed, why is the track blurry 20 feet ahead of me then loads when i get closer? It's not the track because it happens on the pro national tracks and i always download the high quality versions.

kurtmx wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2024 12:41 am Idk what you keep doing to the graphics of the game but i have everything maxed, why is the track blurry 20 feet ahead of me then loads when i get closer? It's not the track because it happens on the pro national tracks and i always download the high quality versions.

Don't "max everything". For some settings it's not even clear what "max" is! Try the high detail presets.

kurtmx wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2024 12:41 am Idk what you keep doing to the graphics of the game but i have everything maxed, why is the track blurry 20 feet ahead of me then loads when i get closer? It's not the track because it happens on the pro national tracks and i always download the high quality versions.

Bruh

jlv wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2024 2:25 am

kurtmx wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2024 12:41 am Idk what you keep doing to the graphics of the game but i have everything maxed, why is the track blurry 20 feet ahead of me then loads when i get closer? It's not the track because it happens on the pro national tracks and i always download the high quality versions.

Don't "max everything". For some settings it's not even clear what "max" is! Try the high detail presets.

That basically maxes every setting out anyone beside ground geometric detail and model geometric detail which should be maxed for best quality anyway though right? and it sets the terrain syn rate to 8 instead of 10. It still does it on certain tracks but its not as noticeable with syn rate at 8.

Ch4rl1e Camer0n wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2024 8:55 am

kurtmx wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2024 12:41 am Idk what you keep doing to the graphics of the game but i have everything maxed, why is the track blurry 20 feet ahead of me then loads when i get closer? It's not the track because it happens on the pro national tracks and i always download the high quality versions.

Bruh

Wtf you bruh'n about?

kurtmx wrote: ↑Tue May 07, 2024 4:36 am That basically maxes every setting out anyone beside ground geometric detail and model geometric detail which should be maxed for best quality anyway though right? and it sets the terrain syn rate to 8 instead of 10. It still does it on certain tracks but its not as noticeable with syn rate at 8.

Try ground texture resolution at 4096x4096 and ground texture levels at low+mid+high

kurtmx wrote: ↑Tue May 07, 2024 4:36 am That basically maxes every setting out anyone beside ground geometric detail and model geometric detail which should be maxed for best quality anyway though right? and it sets the terrain syn rate to 8 instead of 10. It still does it on certain tracks but its not as noticeable with syn rate at 8.

There's a point where increasing the settings just makes things slower with no visible improvement. The high detail settings try to be at that limit. They aren't the be all end all but they're a good place to go back to if you're having trouble. Go ahead and use a higher setting if you know what effect it'll have, but if you deviate and the preset works better you just look silly complaining. It'd be like putting the largest possible jets in your carb and wondering why your engine is running bad.

Jakob Hubbard wrote: ↑Tue May 07, 2024 11:11 am

kurtmx wrote: ↑Tue May 07, 2024 4:36 am That basically maxes every setting out anyone beside ground geometric detail and model geometric detail which should be maxed for best quality anyway though right? and it sets the terrain syn rate to 8 instead of 10. It still does it on certain tracks but its not as noticeable with syn rate at 8.

Try ground texture resolution at 4096x4096 and ground texture levels at low+mid+high

Thankyou for the constructive reply, i appreciate it. The low+mid+high helps

jlv wrote: ↑Wed May 08, 2024 1:23 am

kurtmx wrote: ↑Tue May 07, 2024 4:36 am That basically maxes every setting out anyone beside ground geometric detail and model geometric detail which should be maxed for best quality anyway though right? and it sets the terrain syn rate to 8 instead of 10. It still does it on certain tracks but its not as noticeable with syn rate at 8.

There's a point where increasing the settings just makes things slower with no visible improvement. The high detail settings try to be at that limit. They aren't the be all end all but they're a good place to go back to if you're having trouble. Go ahead and use a higher setting if you know what effect it'll have, but if you deviate and the preset works better you just look silly complaining. It'd be like putting the largest possible jets in your carb and wondering why your engine is running bad.

I Was just asking because you know every single other game i play usually the higher settings gives a higher quality... I sometimes forget this game is like 14 years old with very minimal updates over the years. Might just go to Mx Bikes so i don't have to "look silly for complaining"

kurtmx wrote: ↑Fri May 10, 2024 4:58 am I Was just asking because you know every single other game i play usually the higher settings gives a higher quality... I sometimes forget this game is like 14 years old with very minimal updates over the years. Might just go to Mx Bikes so i don't have to "look silly for complaining"

Nah, everything has settings that are counterproductive to set too high. MXS probably does a worse job of hiding those settings from the user though. I should probably remove that menu.

And it's actually been 16 years since the first copy sold!