MSAA not working...hideous shimmering!

[UnderTaker2003]

47 minutes ago, Flappie said:

No wonder why the black smudge disappeared since it seems to be generated by clouds.

We all get the same error messages. These were reported a while ago:

2025-03-15 11:18:31.168 INFO    DX11BACKEND (15272): DX11Renderer initialization (w:3440 h:1440 fullscrn:1 vsync:0 adapter:0 monitor:0 shaderErrors:1)
  ...
2025-03-15 11:18:33.722 ERROR_ONCE DX11BACKEND (15272): render target 'mainDepthBuffer' not found
2025-03-15 11:18:33.799 ERROR_ONCE DX11BACKEND (15272): render target 'uiTargetColor' not found
2025-03-15 11:18:33.799 ERROR_ONCE DX11BACKEND (15272): render target 'uiTargetDepth' not found

 

is the log from a user with nvidia gpu? if so does that black smudge happen to nvidia users with msaa*4 as well? without going into unnecessary lore dump, my gpu is just a placeholder. soon i need to choose between an rx 9070xt or 5070ti and im worried that i would get the same problem with an nvidia gpu as well considering the lack of my luck

Edited March 16 by UnderTaker2003

[Flappie]

NVIDIA user here, and I confirm most weird stuff in DCS happens to AMD GPU owners. I've been avoiding AMD since I replaced my Radeon 4850 for a GTX980 Ti.

[LizardKingYB]

Ok. Can somebody help me fix it. I have 3440x1440 (rtx3070) with MSAA 4x. And almost all far objects need more antilasting (trees, shadows, etc)

Spoiler

null

 

[UnderTaker2003]

1 hour ago, LizardKingYB said:

Ok. Can somebody help me fix it. I have 3440x1440 (rtx3070) with MSAA 4x. And almost all far objects need more antilasting (trees, shadows, etc)

  Hide contents

null

 

this is what im scared of...imagine going through hell to buy an rtx 5070ti and i still wouldnt be satisfied with the anti aliasing

[UnderTaker2003]

guys, ive brought back good, nay EXCELLENT news! ive found a solution that not only fixed the hideous anti aliasing and shimmering, it also fixed my black smudge problem!

this whole thing been bugging me for 2 month and now that i finally found a solution to end it all, man it feels awesome to once again enjoy the only game that i play!

https://www.nexusmods.com/site/mods/757?tab=description

install this mod. it enables dlss for amd gpus(its fsr in disguise but it uses dlss inputs for fsr) then use anti aliasing dlaa and bam! if you want to customize the mod to your liking, after installation when you run the game, simply press "insert" button on the keyboard. the mod interface should show up when you do confirming successful installation

before running the game, run "DisableNvidiaSignatureChecks.reg" file.

also install it in bin or bin-mt folder

my happiness is immeasurable right now

[kl_koral]

sounds too good. Tried to dogfight with DLSS? My experience with any kind of TAA will make bandits dissapear..
Cockpit looks good, but outside gets blury and other planes tend to fade in and out or completely are invisible

[Bucic]

1 hour ago, kl_koral said:

sounds too good. Tried to dogfight with DLSS? My experience with any kind of TAA will make bandits dissapear..
Cockpit looks good, but outside gets blury and other planes tend to fade in and out or completely are invisible

Any fake pixel technology is only intended to be used in concert with sharpening. Probably best as close in the pipeline as possible i.e. fake pixels enabled in-game and sharpening enabled in-game as well (as opposed to enabled in nVidia control panel etc.).

[UnderTaker2003]

1 hour ago, kl_koral said:

sounds too good. Tried to dogfight with DLSS? My experience with any kind of TAA will make bandits dissapear..
Cockpit looks good, but outside gets blury and other planes tend to fade in and out or completely are invisible

What other options do we have? Fsr1?that doesn't even have anti aliasing! MSAA*4? It doesn't work all that well on AMD GPU.if you have alternative other than buying a new Nvidia GPU I'm all ears

[Daemoc]

I noticed MSAA broken on my AMD card quite a few updates ago. I don't remember exactly when, but it has been a while.

ReShade is another option though. You can use a version of DLAA through ReShade that has no ghosting, but it does soften the image quite a bit. You will definitely need some form of sharpening as well. 

I use personally use DCS TAA with no sharpening and the ReShade "AMD FidelityFX Contrast Adaptive Sharpening" with the "Contrast Adaptation" and "Sharpening intensity" both set to "1". That is the best sharpening option I have found that does not over sharpen and cause random pixels to pepper the image.

As long as you have a decent framerate, the TAA ghosting is not as noticeable. It is still there obviously, but not a game breaker. I dunno, I guess I would rather deal with a little ghosting than the flashing pixels everywhere, but YMMV.

As far as enemy spotting using TAA, I found it is best to use the 2x pixel dot option in DCS. Especially at 4k. The dots are impossible to see otherwise.

This is no fix the MSAA bug, but I thought I would post what works for me on the off chance others might find it useful.

[kl_koral]

vor 5 Stunden schrieb Daemoc:

I noticed MSAA broken on my AMD card quite a few updates ago. I don't remember exactly when, but it has been a while.

ReShade is another option though. You can use a version of DLAA through ReShade that has no ghosting, but it does soften the image quite a bit. You will definitely need some form of sharpening as well. 

I use personally use DCS TAA with no sharpening and the ReShade "AMD FidelityFX Contrast Adaptive Sharpening" with the "Contrast Adaptation" and "Sharpening intensity" both set to "1". That is the best sharpening option I have found that does not over sharpen and cause random pixels to pepper the image.

As long as you have a decent framerate, the TAA ghosting is not as noticeable. It is still there obviously, but not a game breaker. I dunno, I guess I would rather deal with a little ghosting than the flashing pixels everywhere, but YMMV.

As far as enemy spotting using TAA, I found it is best to use the 2x pixel dot option in DCS. Especially at 4k. The dots are impossible to see otherwise.

This is no fix the MSAA bug, but I thought I would post what works for me on the off chance others might find it useful.

thanks, I'll give it a try... Last time I used TAA the bandid vanished behind me sometimes completly... thus getting completly invisible...

 

unfortunatly blury cockpit and again fading bandits in dogfight.. May due to the use of 1080p and trackIR (a lot of movement, not optimal for TAA). But thanks for the tip

Edited March 19 by kl_koral

[UnderTaker2003]

22 hours ago, Daemoc said:

I noticed MSAA broken on my AMD card quite a few updates ago. I don't remember exactly when, but it has been a while.

ReShade is another option though. You can use a version of DLAA through ReShade that has no ghosting, but it does soften the image quite a bit. You will definitely need some form of sharpening as well. 

I use personally use DCS TAA with no sharpening and the ReShade "AMD FidelityFX Contrast Adaptive Sharpening" with the "Contrast Adaptation" and "Sharpening intensity" both set to "1". That is the best sharpening option I have found that does not over sharpen and cause random pixels to pepper the image.

As long as you have a decent framerate, the TAA ghosting is not as noticeable. It is still there obviously, but not a game breaker. I dunno, I guess I would rather deal with a little ghosting than the flashing pixels everywhere, but YMMV.

As far as enemy spotting using TAA, I found it is best to use the 2x pixel dot option in DCS. Especially at 4k. The dots are impossible to see otherwise.

This is no fix the MSAA bug, but I thought I would post what works for me on the off chance others might find it useful.

TAA fucking sucks in this game...I used TAA at 4k resolution and smearing and ghosting was killing me... In my case I tested TAA at 4k 120fps and it was no different than 4k 30fps. Then I used that mod I mentioned a while ago.now smearing is gone and ghosting is to a minimum...no need to mention that bandits don't disappear bcz it's not upscaling it's native to native(1440p upscaled to 1440p)

 

I also tried reshade it wasn't to my liking 

Edited March 20 by UnderTaker2003

[Daemoc]

17 hours ago, kl_koral said:

thanks, I'll give it a try... Last time I used TAA the bandid vanished behind me sometimes completly... thus getting completly invisible...

 

unfortunatly blury cockpit and again fading bandits in dogfight.. May due to the use of 1080p and trackIR (a lot of movement, not optimal for TAA). But thanks for the tip

It was worth a shot anyway.

I use Track IR, but I have never tried 1080. I could see how the lack of pixel information would compound the issue.

[kl_koral]

yes I tried it. Besides the smearing, its not helping for VID in Cold War scenarios

 

[HansPeter1981]

I know Videos are not a perfect confirmation of In Game Graphic problems. But the following video form the Contention DCS Server 1.8 Patch shows perfectly the problems being discussed here no matter what the resolution I set it to.  Right away The Powerline shimmers, any thinly wired object, shadows and the lack of Antialiasing.
 

 

Especially for objects not being very close to the aircraft.
I would say it must be related to the LOD which got victim to the the VR Performance bitching the last 2 years.
Also when you set the FOV rather high > 86  the LOD and probably the render resolution of objects / shadows gets massacred... Not sure...

Edited April 11 by HansPeter1981
miss spelled

[Mustang]

As mentioned in earlier post try SGSSAA with DCS 4xMSAA and Negative LOD Bias set to CLAMP, this should eliminate any shimmering.

 

[HansPeter1981]

35 minutes ago, Mustang said:

As mentioned in earlier post try SGSSAA with DCS 4xMSAA and Negative LOD Bias set to CLAMP, this should eliminate any shimmering.

 

No such thing on AMD GPU's...

[felipesm]

About 1 year ago, the MSAA has been broken (rx 6700 XT), and update after update this is not fixed.

[UnderTaker2003]

20 hours ago, felipesm said:

About 1 year ago, the MSAA has been broken (rx 6700 XT), and update after update this is not fixed.

You can use fsr 2 and 3 using my method a few posts above you...image stability is fine if you ask me but try it out for yourself...for me fsr 2 worked better that 3

[smik]

On 4/19/2025 at 8:23 PM, UnderTaker2003 said:

You can use fsr 2 and 3 using my method a few posts above you...image stability is fine if you ask me but try it out for yourself...for me fsr 2 worked better that 3

MSAA is bad for me too
I have a 9070XT, not sure if your solution will work for me. I'll give it a try. Even on the 9070xt, MSAA seems to work much worse than on the 4070 I had.
The optimization is terrible for AMD GPUs.
I would use TAA, the cockpit and scenery can be adjusted a little bit, but the disappearing planes in the distance are unacceptable.

[kl_koral]

vor 54 Minuten schrieb smik:

MSAA is bad for me too
I have a 9070XT, not sure if your solution will work for me. I'll give it a try. Even on the 9070xt, MSAA seems to work much worse than on the 4070 I had.
The optimization is terrible for AMD GPUs.
I would use TAA, the cockpit and scenery can be adjusted a little bit, but the disappearing planes in the distance are unacceptable.

I'm using extend in game settings with Supersampling in Adrenalin settings. This is delivering ok anti-aliasing for me... But it was better in an older version of DCS. It feels no difference between 2x or 4x MSAA... I maybe should try to turn off MSAA, it feels like it's not doing what its supposed to

[virgo47]

I used MSAA year(s) ago, with RTX 3060 I left the job to DLAA (better performance, with some quality issues). After a recent upgrade to RTX 5060 Ti 16GB I revisited MSAA and compared it to DLSS and DLAA-only, and I was quite surprised by its shimmering. But this happened in a shaking F-4E cockpit, so I can't say whether it's good or bad. I don't have any RTX Dynamic Vibrance or other out-of-game options on.

The video moment demonstrating the shimmering shake for MSAA 2x and a bit later 4x is here:

 

[smik]

16 minutes ago, kl_koral said:

I'm using extend in game settings with Supersampling in Adrenalin settings. This is delivering ok anti-aliasing for me... But it was better in an older version of DCS. It feels no difference between 2x or 4x MSAA... I maybe should try to turn off MSAA, it feels like it's not doing what its supposed to

I also tried Supersampling, but it's quite a performance killer. I need to test more.
I think I can see some difference between MSAA 2x and 4x, but the worst is the edge simmering

[kl_koral]

vor 17 Minuten schrieb virgo47:

used MSAA year(s) ago, with RTX 3060 I left the job to DLAA (better performance, with some quality issues).

AMD users here, and any TAA type of AA will give you good solution for the shimering but smearing of everything if you are moving (a lot with trackIR) and you can't play cold war any more because VID is impossible and bandits get washed away by the AA and they even dissapear or the airframe is not visible for visual IFF.

[virgo47]

7 minutes ago, kl_koral said:

AMD users here, and any TAA type of AA will give you good solution for the shimering but smearing of everything if you are moving...

True, the same experience with DLAA. However, the technology really progresses here. The same settings with new HW (3060->5060Ti) were noticeably better, sharper, etc. I finally switched from bearable DLAA-only to DLSS, because suddenly it looked better. I believe FSR and related technologies will also help (e.g. FSR 4 is much better). So eventually we'll get there. I don't know why MSAA shimmers so much. It seems it doesn't like shaking. I thought MSAA treats every frame independently, so shaking should not be a factor.

[smik]

31 minutes ago, virgo47 said:

I used MSAA year(s) ago, with RTX 3060 I left the job to DLAA (better performance, with some quality issues). After a recent upgrade to RTX 5060 Ti 16GB I revisited MSAA and compared it to DLSS and DLAA-only, and I was quite surprised by its shimmering. But this happened in a shaking F-4E cockpit, so I can't say whether it's good or bad. I don't have any RTX Dynamic Vibrance or other out-of-game options on.

The video moment demonstrating the shimmering shake for MSAA 2x and a bit later 4x is here:

 

I think my shimmering is even worse than in the video.
I watched a lot of videos and in some it's not there (probably DLAA) and in some it's terrible.
Unfortunately we can't use DLAA with AMD. When I tried DLAA with 4070, there were ghosts behind the planes