Actualy there is, just look up HDRR on wikipedia. Older games faked it with enhanced contrast settings.

Even the "Real" HDR you see in video games isn't truly HDR, because standard monitors can't show the full contrast ratio of HDR.

Belive me, I did my reseach on it before hand.

I said it's fake, never said it would be perfect. however, you can't get true HDR on a regular monitor anyway, so why not get it close?

A regular monitor doesn't have the contrast ratio to display true HDR so realy all that fancy crap in DX9 is for nothing unless you get a special monitor. well, unless you want bloom and enviromental contrast differences, neither of which applys to LFS since you arn't constantly going in and out of buildings or trying to get blinding blur effects from things (which is about all bloom is good for).

Just read up on HDRR on wikipedia, HDR is a mostly usless function on DX9 since older games just faked it with boosted contrast settings anyway and you need special hardware (an HDR monitor) to get real HDR.
Plus, boosting your contrast has no effect on performance.
I won't argue that the HDR in games does look better sometimes, but it would look even better if it was displayed on an HDR monitor.

Like I said several times, THIS IS FAKE HDR, it doesn't have to look like real HDR because it can't! Not just because of hardware though, it can't even come close to that HDR crap in games.

And about the clouds, I have the high ress reflections which change your skys. I didn't notice the over expossed clouds, they look fine to me.
I also found out that my monitor isn't as bad as I thaught, I looked at the screenshot on a school monitor and it didn't look bad, it actualy looked better, and my school has realy nice TFT displays in the 2d/3d desighn class I was in.

Quote from alland44 :

It must be a lot easier, just smearing the screen with a big load of vaseline

Or mount some bad see through plastic

And I suppose you tried it or watched the video OR looked at the picture before you made that statement?

Hell, my file server still runs Windows 89SE.

From personal experiance, Vista is a load of BS. My friend couldent even use his new GFX card with it because Vista thinks his DVI connector is, get this! "unsecure". It's a god damn monitor port for god's sake! of course it's not going to be secure, it doesn't have to be!

Vista has a fue good features that I thaught would have been nice, but after using it. It's slow and not worth the resources it takes to display the flashy GUI.

Whoop-di-dy-do! I can use my flash cards as ram!
Fat lot of good that does if you cant see whats on the screen because vista thinks your monitor port is unsecure!

He wen't back to XP after that. and I never bothered to get Vista in the first place, since it crashed on me several times in the store. (all I did was click that fancy round start button and BAM!)

Heres a video, its bad quality but you can se what I'm talking about.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxpLxsOMr9c

I just noticed my shift light doesn't come on in patch W, it blips and blinks here and there but doesn't come on at the shift point.
Anyone else have this problem?

I don't use it so it doesn't bother me but I do belive it is a bug.

The problem is, and not many people know this. You can't get REAL HDRI on a standard monitor, but you can get HDRR, which is still basicaly a somewhat faked HDRI for video games. Thats because standard monitors lack the Contrast ratio to show true HDRI effects as you would see them on specialized hardware.
And if you want to disagree with that, go edit wikipedia.

This was an attempt to get the HDR look that games have, not true HDRI. On my screen it looks good. but as I stated several times it depends on your monitor's contrast settings and ratio, in my case narrowing the levels gave me a more realistic feel because it brought out the full colors of the monitor without loss.

I'll say it again MY SETTINGS ARE EXTREEM! I HAVE AN OLDER CRT!

EDIT: one more thing, reduce your gama to get the deeper shadows and remove over exposure.
I forgot to mention. ATIs settings default to 1.0 mine is at 0.6.

Last edited by DragonCommando, Sat, 31 Mar 2007 22:44.

Quote from Don :

i dunno, but for me the pic on the far right looks most "real" (=when compared to what i see with my eyes)

Thats what I get with these settings, the point is to get it balanced so it doesn't look grey like one image or over expossed like the other one.
It just gives the track a bit more realisim, it seems more life like.

If you'v ever traveled on a country highway when the sun is setting the effects are almost the same. The side of the barns and houses facing the sun have this almost gleam to them. And the shadows seem deeper.

With these settings, you get more Contrast between shadows and highlights. It comes closer to what you see in real life.

If you change the lighting to cloudy afternoon, it looks like a cloudy afternoon. Everything has this muted feel to it but the contrast is still there. Theres no high gleam on anything.

Also, for clear day, everything is bright and clear, but the shadows are still deeper, they look as if they are actualy cast by the trees.

The way I set it for LFS is similar to how I fake HDR in photo shop, you have to clip the levels a bit and then bring the mid contrast up a bit. Remember, it's still fake, so its still LDR but it LOOKS like HDR.

Remember, Your monitor can't display the true contrast ratio of HDRI, so even real HDRI is still somewhat fake when displayed on a regular monitor. What you are actualy doing is narrowing the contrast to what your monitor can display to give you the full range from Darkest to Lightest

Last edited by DragonCommando, Sat, 31 Mar 2007 13:24.

It realy does give the effect of HDRI though doesn't it?

My mom realy thinks so, and she used to be a photographer. She's seen more photo effects then I can ever imagine.

I know, the "My mom" line makes me sound like a little kid, but I still stand by my parents experiance so I tend to mention them alot.

Before HDRR was fully developed and implemented, games would create an illusion of HDR by using light blooming and sometimes using an option called "Enhanced Contrast Settings". - Wikipedia.

I think I was on to something and didn't even notice it.

I guess I realy did come up with a Fake HDR for LFS.
The light blooming is missing, but who's gonna miss it anyway.

Last edited by DragonCommando, Sat, 31 Mar 2007 03:49.

Quote from XCNuse :

what are you talking about?

i think you're confusing what i'm saying, i love your picture, i'm trying to get my settings to that

i'm talking about the pictures deggis posted

Oh, I'm sorry. I got a bit carried away. My appologies.

What you have to do is set it up like the first post illustrates and then work back from that untill it doesn't look over expossed. If it looks under expossed at max settings you might try some monitor tweaks, but that will change it for desktop to, so I'd avoid that unless you realy want the change and your monitor has custom color and image setups.
I used alot of Alt-Tabing to get it right for my monitor, but I played with the gama a bit, and I'v found it doesn't help at all.

Also, don't forget to make a profile for LFS if you can, some games don't benefit from these settings and others it won't effect at all.

Last edited by DragonCommando, Sat, 31 Mar 2007 03:25.

Quote from XCNuse :

lol with those pictures you just posted
you know what it would really be like?

go swimming in a pool and let your eyes soak up all the chlorine and look around lol because that is EXACTLY what it looks like hahahahhaahhaa

Did you try it at least, before bashing it?

I just finnished saying that it will look different on other peoples monitors because of the color settings I have on mine.

Before you bash it, at least get your facts straight by TRYING it.

Quote from Bendito :

I remember playing Brothers in Arms, and it had some kind of a bloom effect. I felt like going to the eye doctor for some prescription glasses.

Have to agree there, bloom just makes things look out of focus.

I stated that my settings are alot more extreem than they have to be, I use an old CRT. you should try slightly lower settings(or more) to get a better effect.

And I'm glad you tried it, some people woulden't even touch it and then posted negative comments.

Quote from spankmeyer :

You can't close your eyes from the truth blooming in front of you:

HDR effects and tear gas shaders suck ass on a Biblical scale.

agreed

Bloom isn't even an HDRI effect, it's an HDRR effect.
What's happening with these settings is I'm doing my best to simulate HDRI on every frame of a render. It seems to work, but only if you actualy see it in real time.

Edit: you should see it in HL1, theres no glowing on anything, just a lot of depth.

Last edited by DragonCommando, Sat, 31 Mar 2007 00:25.

Quote from deggis :

I also said bloom sucks. This doesn't have bloom because thats a shader.

The only thing related to HDR that my card supports is bloom (ugly as hell)

This is the closest I can get in photoshop to what it looks like in-game, still not the same depth you get in-game.


[attach]27467[/attach]

honestly, I'm not joking, it looks almost real in-game.
Remember, I said LIKE HDR.

Last edited by DragonCommando, Tue, 15 Jan 2008 18:45.

The whole point of HDR is to show an image with a wider range

"In computer graphics and photography, high dynamic range imaging (HDRI) is a set of techniques that allow a far greater dynamic range of exposures (i.e. a large difference between light and dark areas) than normal digital imaging techniques. The intention of HDRI is to accurately represent the wide range of intensity levels found in real scenes ranging from direct sunlight to the deepest shadows." - Wikipedia

I think that actualy best discribes what I'm seeing on my screen now when I play LFS. The darks are darker and the lights are lighter, and everything in between is more vibrant and seems to have more depth
It realy does seem more realistic, and I'v seen many bad uses for HDR (CS:S for one).
My point is, if you don't need special hardware for HDR imaging (which you don't, other than the camera as far as I know) then you shouldent need it for gameing.

The cool part is, you can control this effect. You can go crazy and have it eye burning bright (like in the comic, or CS:S which I dislike)
Or you can go with a more toned down setup, I use an older CRT monitor, so to get the effect to a good level, I need somewhat extreem setting.

Edit: I faked HDR for a screen shot and thats where it came from, I figured "Hell, if I can do this with a photo, why not a game"

It seems to work for me, not sure about other people. Just try different levels of each slider.
The Gama is something I left alone, it seems to grey it out to much.

I know what HDR is, I use HDR for photos sometimes (just for kicks)

Try it before you shoot it down.

Damn I wish screenshots worked.

I don't know what your monitor is set to, but on mine it looks like HDR.
try changing the setting (on the card) a bit, it shouldent look greyed out or over colored. but you do get the bloom like effect on some surfaces. and darks should look darker, thats mostly the point to HDR, its a wider range of light.

In the menu however, it WILL look ugly as SH**

Nope, if Nvidia cards have the same sliders for full screen 3d mode. It should work.

I'v discovered a way to get HDR like effects in LFS without actualy having HDR, it should also work on most other games.
Please note though, that this will also be effected by your monitor color and brightness/contrast settings so account for those if you don't get the wanted effect.

[attach]27459[/attach]

though these settings seem extreem, they are fine for my setup.
MAKE SURE YOU HAVE IT SET TO FULL SCREEN 3D!! NOT DESKTOP

You should be able to get the same effect with an Nvidia card with the similar settings it has.

I coulden't get a screen shot since the effect didn't show in the screens.
The color correction only effects 3D as the settings state, so unfortunately you won't be able to show off. Setting the desktop sliders to this level is not recommended as it will kill your eyes and other people STILL will not see the effect.

Note: This works without putting any more strain on your hardware and looks amazing on my screen.
Basicaly it's fake HDR.

EDIT: one thing I overlooked. make sure you have all channels selected, if you mess with just one the colors look bad.

Last edited by DragonCommando, Tue, 15 Jan 2008 18:45.

+1 if it has that intense shock testing, fender tearing, wheel jarring madness that the real baja event has. Not many sims or games capture that feel.

I would buy it just for this type of racing (Not that I'm not already going to.)

I just want it to use more than one cpu, I have a Prescott HT running at 3.2 ghz and I get around 100fps in HL2, with a 64mb agp4 card no less. But LFS I get around 50 at lower resolutions and stable at 30 with 1280x1024. I use all the high res textures for the track I have so I had around, get this, 90fps at 1600x1200 before. (I didn't think my old Radeon 9000 could go 1600x1200 in 3d)

I would think that if LFS used both logical CPUs it would help a bit.
(then again, I realy don't need the high res textures )