MSAA not working...hideous shimmering!

[Nevyn]

Reverted to TAA, the jags and shimmering were driving me crazy, the blurry image from TAA is not very nice either but more tolerable imo. Hopefully they will resolve this in the next two weeks tm as I would not like to have the TAA as a permanent solution.

[LOW_Hitman]

Iam only using DCS in VR but have you tried to force msaa within the nvidia control panel? For example Anisotropic filtering only works when i set it to 16 in the panel AND in the sim. If i set it only  in DCS it isn't working.

[corehub]

4 hours ago, LOW_Hitman said:

For example Anisotropic filtering only works when i set it to 16 in the panel AND in the sim. If i set it only  in DCS it isn't working.

I will try force these options in AMD driver to see if it works

Edited August 8, 2024 by corehub

[Nevyn]

7 minutes ago, corehub said:

I will try force these options in AMD driver to see if it works

 

Let us know how you get on as I tried that a while back and it made no difference.

Edited August 8, 2024 by Nevyn

[corehub]

13 hours ago, Nevyn said:

Let us know how you get on as I tried that a while back and it made no difference.

I tried it made no difference either. Maybe the implemented MSAA is just that bad.

[BladeRH15]

Can I ask Eagle Dynamics if they are still looking in to this problem?...I gave up playing months ago and have given up with the game/sim altogether for some time now as it's too ugly to play. Cant you even attempt to fix TAA?

MSAA still not working at all...Yes, I've tried everything including a full re-install! The only thing that works is reverting to the earlier version as mentioned in my earlier post. This indicates that the problem is NOT at my end.

Thanks.

[MAXsenna]

Can I ask Eagle Dynamics if they are still looking in to this problem?...I gave up playing months ago and have given up with the game/sim altogether for some time now as it's too ugly to play. Cant you even attempt to fix TAA?
MSAA still not working at all...Yes, I've tried everything including a full re-install! The only thing that works is reverting to the earlier version as mentioned in my earlier post. This indicates that the problem is NOT at my end.
Thanks.

It's better to perform a full repair compared to a full re-installation. It's the same anyway, just quicker. What neither a repair or a reinstall will do, is touch/fix your settings in Saved Games, for good reason. Try to rename, (for backup), your DCS folder under Saved Games and see if that solves it. If it doesn't, rename the folder back. If it fixes it. You can then copy back files/folders until you find the culprit.
BTW: What makes you think it doesn't work? I thought mine wasn't working, but only because even at 4x the shimmering is really bad. Have you tried to turn it off for comparison?
Cheers!

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[TheFreshPrince]

Well on my end it looks pretty much the same with the shimmering and bad anti-aliasing for distant, linear objects as well as clouds. But I remember MSAA always like this.

TAA is better, but the picture gets very blurry. Better to get a card that supports DLSS/DLAA, which is acceptable quality.

[MAXsenna]

Well on my end it looks pretty much the same with the shimmering and bad anti-aliasing for distant, linear objects as well as clouds. But I remember MSAA always like this.
TAA is better, but the picture gets very blurry. Better to get a card that supports DLSS/DLAA, which is acceptable quality.

TAA is better? Will try that one then. On my system, (really old), the performance between 0x and 4x MSAA is negligible.
DLSS/DLAA are greyed out for me, even if my card is supposed to support it.

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[TKhaos]

I had bad shimmering, tried TAA and ended up with ghosting as well mainly on the undercarriage but overall look was horrendous so went back to 4x MSAA. In the end I turned down the sharpness in DCS which improved it a lot, then put it at zero and manage sharpening with AMD Adrenaline, guessing as I had it on in game and AMD it was over powering. Default in AMD was 80% so knocked that down to 30% and much better.

[MAXsenna]

I had bad shimmering, tried TAA and ended up with ghosting as well mainly on the undercarriage but overall look was horrendous so went back to 4x MSAA. In the end I turned down the sharpness in DCS which improved it a lot, then put it at zero and manage sharpening with AMD Adrenaline, guessing as I had it on in game and AMD it was over powering. Default in AMD was 80% so knocked that down to 30% and much better.

Ah! Thanks. Gonna check my NVIDIA settings.

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[TKhaos]

27 minutes ago, MAXsenna said:

Ah! Thanks. Gonna check my NVIDIA settings

Not saying it will work for everyone but in my case it did, pretty sure some of it is down to conflicts with Nvidia/AMD settings and the in game stuff.

[MAXsenna]

Not saying it will work for everyone but in my case it did, pretty sure some of it is down to conflicts with Nvidia/AMD settings and the in game stuff.

It's gonna be worth a quick check no matter!

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[RoddersAndDodders]

I have also been seeing this for a few updates. As far as I can tell, there has been some changes made to the edge detection. In this F-15E you can see prominent edges on the fuselage aren't aliased at all, and I don't think it is sharpening. I turned off the driver sharpening and I am using the DCS built in sharpening at a fairly low level when I took this.

[LizardKingYB]

Did somebody find a solution? I noticed a few patches ago - bad antilasting on objects and clouds...

[Bucic]

I was just about to post a bug report on shimmering in F-5E remastered (4th Dec 2024 patch) cockpit but this may be just shimmering with MSAA in general, it's just that it's much more visible in cockpit.

I don't use sharpening and I only use nvcpl defaults as far as AA goes, plus maybe custom Negative LOD bias.

[Bucic]

Wow, ED, it's about time you invest in a known-issues section in the published changelogs.

 

So, MSAA sure is broken. The F-5E remaster overuses glossy surfaces but it's the MSAA which is directly responsible for causing massive shimmering issues. In many areas it adds a contrasting outline, completely white in some cases! Because of it the new cockpit seemed to me just different, not better than the old one. Switching from MSAA to DLAA brought a massive improvement! Not a hint of shimmering in the entire cockpit. With MSAA it was so bad that it even cause a moire effect on the box-panel below the HUD.

Specific settings tested:
nVCPL - Negative LOD bias - Clamp - Allow -- doesn't matter
no upscaling, no sharpening
most settings set to Application controlled or default

Track, specs and screenshots attached. Can provide DxDiag dump on request.

EDIT:

Forum quota at 200 kB again... Sharing via OneDrive

https://1drv.ms/f/c/66cf2646234394fc/El5X3iuLdzRCtfv81pSi7CMBe0gJIQK7n_93_7-K0jqQMA?e=g55WVu

 

 

 

Edited December 12, 2024 by Bucic

[Bucic]

[Bucic]

[MAXsenna]

How's the performance compared to MSAA?

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[Bucic]

14 hours ago, MAXsenna said:

How's the performance compared to MSAA?

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk
 

Hard to say. My system is capable of ~100 FPS but I cap it to 60. Just try it. This is bad! You can even see pixels marching on the edges in recorded YouTube videos!

https://youtu.be/LMTlVur56MQ?t=256

The difference is hard to describe. With DLAA it's as if you're looking at a physical object. I obstained from AI-smear techniques but the proof is in the pudding!

Edited December 13, 2024 by Bucic

[TheFreshPrince]

DLAA seems to be the only alternative to MSAA, because TAA produces massive ghosting for me. Unfortunately, you need an Nvidia RTX 2xxx and higher for DLAA. So all older graphic cards are basically useless in DCS as of now. MSAA really looks horrible. Especially clouds. horizons, etc.

DCS pixelparty:

 

Not sure, but the wobbling of clouds and fog is likely related to MSAA:

 

 

[GumidekCZ]

Clean drivers and settings for RX 6900 XT, latest drivers with MSAA 4x - this is terrible

This is how rivers look like now, A-10C edges are also very ugly. I cant do anything in DCS to make it better.

Edited February 3 by GumidekCZ

[YoYo]

Since I was called to the board in another thread, I'll give an example that there is no problem with MSAA, at least for me. It works 100% (DCS 2.9.11.4686 / 24.12.2024). Im using the x2 option myself, but x4 works for me too without any issue. Maybe if I buy a RTX 5090, I'll switch to x4. 

Tips from my side: I see that some people here are showing NVidia Overlay screenshot. This is not a good way. Any overlay can cause problems. I also dont use NVidia Experience, I always install only drivers. I remove old drivers using DDU unistaller only (https://www.wagnardsoft.com/display-driver-uninstaller-DDU-, deep uninstall, clean all profiles). NVIDIA settings do not touch, leave default for DCS. Make all changes only in DCS settings (off, x2, x4). Also after changing the settings restart DCS. I once noticed that for MSAA to catch, you have to restart DCS. I hope this helps.

I still use MSAA because I fly in VR, and DLSS or DLAA blur the image too much for me, and also cause streaking (ghosting), which I simply can't stand. This old option is still the best choice for me over DCS, at least for VR. For 2D, MSAA doesn't look as good as DLAA, but that's not perfect either and has its flaws.

Edited January 9 by YoYo

[BladeRH15]

My original post was made around 7 months ago regarding this problem with MSAA and it's still so bad that the sim is unplayable even in 4k.

For those saying there isn't a problem why does reverting to an earlier version fix this non-existent bug? 2.9.5 works...2.9.6 does not!

I use an AMD 7900XTX  and have spent many many hours trying to sort things out but to no avail.

I have invested a lot of time and money in to DCS and as I mentioned earlier have only fired the sim up to check if there has been a fix after an update but after 7 months...nothing!

 

Edited January 14 by BladeRH15