| ## The Simulator This section describes the simulator program and its settings. Please read the chapter about the Setup menu carefully to avoid problems caused by reduced compatibility of several graphics cards. ### The Main Menu After starting the simulator you will come directly into the Main menu. In the Main menu you can choose the track you want to ride or setup some display, sound or control properties. When you have selected a track inside the Track menu, you are able to click on "Ride" to start the simulation. When you leave the simulation you are always coming back to the Main menu. Clicking on "quit" will leave the application. You can change the environment for the current track with the Environment menu. ### The Setup Menu Via the Setup menu you can set global settings that affect graphical appearance, the sound and the controls of the program. Click on "setup" in the Main menu to get into the Setup menu. The Setup menu lets you alter the following properties: The resolution of the application's window Choose between window and full screen mode Set the color depth of the rendering (only available when in full screen mode) Texture properties like internal color depth representation and filtering modes Geometry detail levels Shadow detail levels The units of the statistics Sound volume Keyboard control assignment Advanced settings The Resolution The default resolution is 640x480 pixels. This is also the lowest resolution possible to run NoLimits. Higher resolutions usually result in higher requirements for your system. You should make sure not to overstress your system by selecting a resolution that could damage your monitor for example. The maximum resolution depends on your graphics card, too. Changing this setting and pressing "Ok" will result in restarting the application. The Mode The default mode is full screen. In full screen mode you usually get higher framerates than in window mode. Some graphic cards do not support window rendering (e.g. Voodoo 2) at all. Window rendering is not recommended when you want to get the best performance possible. Changing this setting and pressing "Ok" will result in restarting the application. The Color depth In full screen mode you can set the color depth of your screen. The default is 16 bit. 32 bit will result in better graphics but might be much slower than 16 bit. It depends on your system if 32 bit makes sense. It is not recommended to use 32 bit color depth when you are not using 32 bit textures as well (see below). Changing this setting and pressing "Ok" will result in restarting the application. The Texture color depth Internal pictures like the trees, sky and ground of the simulation scene are represented by so called textures. You can set the color depth to 16 bit (default) for the textures to save texture memory and enhance speed. When using 32 bit you will maintain the best quality. The Texture filter The texture rendering system uses a filter to enhance the quality of the images. Trilinear filtering is the best filter available but it will result in slower performance. For slow systems the default filter (bilinear) is recommended. The Geometry detail (Detail level) Most computation is required for the geometry like the rails, supports and cars. This setting affects the multiple level of detail geometry rendering. Changing the default setting (normal) may result in better but slower graphics. There are also settings that reduce the detail for higher framerates. The Shadow detail There are two kinds of shadows in NoLimits. Static shadows (produced by the track) and moving shadows (procuded by the cars). This setting controls the detail level of the static shadows. Static shadows are generated by using texture memory. It depends on the track how much texture memory is required. If you have a graphics card that has 32 Megabytes or more memory you can safely increase the shadow detail level. For all other cards it is not recommended to change this option to higher levels than normal. You may also disable the shadows completely. The Units This setting has an effect on how the speed of the trains are represented in the statistics (see below). Advanced Settings The Advanced Settings menu will show up when selecting this item. In the Advanced Setup menu you can optimize the rendering for your needs. There are currently seven settings available. The GL-Extension option lets you choose if the application should take advantage of so called OpenGL Extensions. These extensions can provide higher framerates but should not change the representation of the rendering quality. If you will get strange artefacts or the system crashes then deactivate the GL-Extensions (default). On some systems activating the extensions can improve framerates by over 10%. Activating the Stencil buffer will improve the appereance of moving shadows produced by the cars. Not every system supports the stencil buffer, so if you get slow framerates or the application crashes you should deactivate the stencil buffer (default). Changing this setting and pressing "Ok" will result in restarting the application. The vertical synchronization option will synchronize the frame rate with the refresh rate of the monitor when enabled. This option is only working for some graphics cards. For highest and smoothest framerates it is recommended to set this option to "off". The default depends on the graphics card's OpenGL settings. "on" or "off" will override the default setting of the card. If you have stereo glasses connected to your computer you should set this option to "on". The dithering option can be used to enhance the rendering. On most cards the default corresponds to "on". It is recommended to set this option to "default" for best compatibility. The Multitexture option is not available on all systems. It should be enabled to render terrain data with the highest speed. If Multitexturing is not available it will automatically be disabled. If the scenery is disabled, all trees and scene objects will not be drawn. Disable the scenery if the system is a low-end computer. The mirror level sets the kind of geometry that will be mirrored on the terrain sea. Keep in mind that the mirror-effect slows down the rendering system very much. ### The Track Menu The Track menu lists all tracks that are available in the "Tracks" folder inside the installation directory of NoLimits. Copy your track into the "Tracks" folder to make them available (full version only). If you have more tracks that can be displayed in this menu, you can use the scrollbars to adjust your viewing range. The "tracks" folder can contain sub folders. ### Settings and Keyboard Commands In the simulation you have various control over several settings. The following table describes the keyboard layout and the properties. You can always press "h" for Help to list all keyboard commands that are available, too.
Key | Command
ESC | Return to main menu
h | Show/hide keyboard layout
p | Switch pause on/off (freezes the simulation)
F1 | Switch statistics (speed etc.) on/off
F2 | Switch moving shadows on/off
F3 | Switch sky on/off
F4 | Switch sun flare effect on/off
F6 | Switch shock effects on/off
F7 | Change the field of view
F8 | Switch between simple and realistic lighting effects
F9 | Open or close the harness in manual dispatch mode (full version only)
F10 | Open or close the gates in manual dispatch mode (full version only)
F11 | Switch between automatic dispatch and manual dispatch (full version only)
F12 | Emergency Stop (full version only)
Return | Dispatch train (full version only)
q | Switch view (onboard, rail, fly-by)
e | External fly view
t | Change the train
c | Change the car
v | Change the seat
w, a, s, d | Fly around (fly-view)
shift | Fly faster (combined with w, a, s, d or arrow keys)
arrow keys | Fly around (fly-view)
m | Change the mouse Y-axis
+,- | Adjust the simulation time scale
Ctrl-F9 | Take screenshot (full version only)
### The Statistics When pressing F1 you can enable or disable the statistics. The statistics are displayed at the top of the rendering window. The framerate (Frames Per Second) and the speed of the current selected train are displayed in the demo version. In the full version the statistics are also displaying the accelerations of the rider caused by the coaster including vertical and lateral G-Forces. ### Playing the Ride Operator In the full version you can play the Ride Operator. The Ride Operator usually sits in the station and controls the trains and lets the people get in and out. When pressing F11 you will switch between automatic dispatch (default) and manual dispatch. In manual dispatch you will get control about the harnesses, the gates and the dispatch itself. You can optionally press F12 to enable and disable an emergency stop. The emergency stop will activate all block brakes on the track trying to halt all trains as soon as possible. A nice little operator's panel in the station will indicate the states of the harnesses, gates and so on, by green and red lights. When the gates and harnesses are closed and the next block is not occupied by another train (all lights green) you can dispatch the train in the station by pressing Return. You open and close the gates and harnesses by pressing F9 and F10. ### Saving Screenshots In the full version you can save screenshots by pressing Control-F9. The screenshots will be saved as uncompressed true color Targa Files (ending ".tga") for best quality into the folder "screenshots" inside the NoLimits installation directory. You can use various paint applications to load these files and alter them for your needs (webposting e.g.). ### Environments Environments are simple configuration files that are located in the "environments" folder. These files (.env) contain sets of property assignments. A few pre-defined environments are shipped with this version of NoLimits. Custom environments can be added with ease. To create a user custom environment, simply add a .env file and insert some equations in the form: <property> = <value> A "#" can be used for commenting out lines A lot of properties can be set using this technique including all textures. The following example exchanges the ground texture:
`# This is an example` `sim.ground.texture.path = mytexture.tga`
Tia's Environment Editor for NoLimits is a special tool, that makes it a lot easier to create custom environments than with a text editor. You can download it for free at Tia's NoLimits Tools. Note: All file-paths are meant to be relative to the simulator exe file. Skybox textures must have a resolution of 256x256 pixels and can be either a .TGA or a .JPG file. The background texture must have a resolution of 1024x256 pixels. You can always fall back to the default NoLimits environment by selecting <default> in the environment menu.