Polygons visible

[Demongornot]

I have find a strange bug.

DCS World 1.2.0

 

When the MSAA its set to 8 (and 8 only) i can see the polygons of the 3D object, i have try tro change every other options including full screen, aero and other, but this bug appear only at MSAA 8

 

Some Screenshoots

 

 

 

 

 

[Lane]

What driver are you using ? with 12.7beta and 12.7b ( 8.982 ) I dont have any problem like that.

 

Check AA is set to appliccations controlled in CCC. MLAA disabled

 

AA mode is set to "MSAA" ( no adaptative or SSAA). But i suspect it come from something else.

[Demongornot]

I use the 12.6beta (stable on every games, i will wait until 12.8 for update)

 

My settings are :

 

Anti-Aliasing : Use Application Settings

Morphological : disabled

Filter : Edge Detect

 

Anisotropic Filtering : Use application settings

 

Tessellation : AMD optimized

 

Catalyst A.I : Texture Filtering Quality : High Quality

Enabled Surface Format Optimization : Enabled

 

Wait for vertical refresh : Off, unless application specifies

 

Anti-Aliasing Mode : Multi-Sample AA

 

OpenGL Settings : TB : Enabled

 

 

 

Anyways this problem don't affect my gameplay cause i use MSAA 4, its more a bug report for improve stability and prevent this bug to anyone else.

[Lane]

I use the 12.6beta (stable on every games, i will wait until 12.8 for update)

 

My settings are :

 

Anti-Aliasing : Use Application Settings

Morphological : disabled

Filter : Edge Detect

 

Anisotropic Filtering : Use application settings

 

Tessellation : AMD optimized

 

Catalyst A.I : Texture Filtering Quality : High Quality

Enabled Surface Format Optimization : Enabled

 

Wait for vertical refresh : Off, unless application specifies

 

Anti-Aliasing Mode : Multi-Sample AA

 

OpenGL Settings : TB : Enabled

 

 

 

Anyways this problem don't affect my gameplay cause i use MSAA 4, its more a bug report for improve stability and prevent this bug to anyone else.

 

Try without Edge detect maybe .... ( i dont know if it have any impact when used with appliccation controlled, maybe it override it at 8x to 12x ( edge detect as his name said it, detect the edge of polygon, for increase the accuracy of the standard method .. could be this. )

 

Edit: just tested, i confirm it come from Edge detect... at 4x it have no impact, at 8x it add the edge detect even with "appliccations controlled" set on CCC and conflict with the AA of the game. (hence the polygon lines ).

 

Set it to standard ( set replace, and then back to standard, then "appliccation controlled" apply .) Dont forget to change too the profile if you use one .

Edited July 31, 2012 by Lane

[Wolf Rider]

Does DCS use Tesselation?

[Nopileus]

Does DCS use Tesselation?

 

Its a DX9 Engine so no.

[Demongornot]

I confirm the bug was produced by Edge Detect cause without EDAA in MSAA 8 this problem don't come.

 

 

@Wolf Rider : No, DCS don't use Tessellation, some people think that the new terrain engine (EDGE who will come with the Nevada map) will use this technology, but i don't think so, 3D model of aircraft/vehicle (except some who are not yet update) don't need any upgrade, and i don't really see what Tessellation can give to a simple terrain with low/medium 3D details from simple 3D object (don't forget that in simulation house = box + texture).

 

Tessellation add more polygons

And actually every simulator lag with low number of polygons (compare to what a video card can handle) its the same for every simulator : FSX, X-Plane and any other aircraft simulator.

 

With actual aircraft simulator logical/graphic engine design Tessellation will don't really give a big difference between with and without but the FPS drop will be huge, the first thing that every flight simulation need to improve (except Aerofly FS who are a perfect texture for regular flight, even if a second level of texture for close range will be a nice improvement) its the texture who have always a problem, like FSX who show the high resolution texture directly above the aircraft (a stupid optimization cause its exactly the only place where we CAN'T see the ground except for high angle turn or low flight) and texture who look really bad from long range, and main problem : color who are false and non-realistic in every simulator, except Aerofly FS and FSX with payware, another problem, aircraft simulator keep calculating shadow from the sun of the scenery to itself, its useless to make a real time calculation cause sun take always the SAME trajectory, a little deviation between Summer and Winter, but its completely useless to calculate sun shadow when we can precalculate it and just apply difference from atmospherically condition like weather...

 

Anyways every aircraft sim have too many thing to correct/change before think about Tessellation technology, i hope every aircraft sim, including DCS, will NOT handle Tessellation before be completely optimized, cause if we forgot the huge amount of FPS drop, we will see a giant list of new bug.

 

 

If you want to see what is the Tessellation in action look this :

 

Anyways problem solved we know the origin of the bug, ED Team now have to work to this problem for improve the simulation stability and prevent bug from people who will use Edge Detect + MSAA8

Edited July 31, 2012 by Demongornot

[winz]

Once again, wrong. Tessellation can be very beneficial for every engine that is trying to display huge areas. Why?

 

First it's important to understand what tesselation really is. Tessellation is a geometry shader. Shader is a program that is run by the graphic card and can alter the scene in numerous ways. In the early days scenes were prety static, you loaded your models, textures into a scene and the GPU rendered it. If you wanted you change anything, you needed to redefine the scene (i.e. apply different texture to model), and this is very costly performance vise.

Shader is a small program that allows you to change the scene (to a degree), without redefining the scene and can be used on tons of effects that would be impossible without them. Shaders are fast, because they are executed on the GPU. The most common shaders are vertex shader - one that can affect individual vertexes, and pixel shader - shader that can affect individual pixels.

Geometry shader is a shader that affects, suprise surprise, geometry of an object. It allows you to write a small program, that will be executed by the GPU, that will change the polygon for the objects - it can add aditional vertexes.

 

How can a sim engine profit from these capabilities? Simple, one thing sim engines strugle with is the variety of model fidelity they aim to reproduce. You want the ground to have nice details up-close, yet you don't need this detail when flying up-high. You want ground objects to be super-detailed up-close, yet you want to see them up far away. This is were LODs are used, but LODs aren't cost-free. Every LOD is a separate model, so, if you want 5 LODs for an object, you need 5 separate models, and you need to have these 5 separates models loaded in memory (even for ground). Also LOD transition (model pop-up) can be pretty disturbing if the differences between LODs are big (sure, you can smooth this out by making more LODs, but more LODs = more work, and more memory requirements).

 

This is were tesselation can step in and help (it cannot replace LODs). You can write a shader that will increase the amount of detail on a object. You can smoothly increase the amount of detail as things gets closer, you can control the amount of detail added based on parameters (i.e. fps), you have huge control about what the shader is doing, because it's essentialy a program that alters the model. And you need only one model for every detail level. So tesselation can increase the ground fidelity a lot, it can increase the level of detail on those box houses, and it can do so smoothly.

Edited July 31, 2012 by winz

[Wolf Rider]

I confirm the bug was produced by Edge Detect cause without EDAA in MSAA 8 this problem don't come.

 

 

@Wolf Rider : No, DCS don't use Tessellation, some people think that the new terrain engine (EDGE who will come with the Nevada map) will use this technology, but i don't think so, 3D model of aircraft/vehicle (except some who are not yet update) don't need any upgrade, and i don't really see what Tessellation can give to a simple terrain with low/medium 3D details from simple 3D object (don't forget that in simulation house = box + texture).

 

 

I asked, because in one of the screenies I saw an option for "Tesselation" was ticked and the sub option was "AMD Optimised". I'm not familiar at all with ATI/AMD and thought maybe it might be doing something detrimental. Something like looking for something to tesselate but not finding anything and continuing to look but not find and so on, burning up cycles... if that makes sense?

[Lane]

Its a DX9 Engine so no.

 

Well, tesselation have been developped and shown the first time with the X1900 series by ATI ( 5-6 years ago ? ) , since then all gpu made by ATI / and AMD had a tesselation unit and was capable of do tesselation.

 

It is now part of DX11... ( as many other graphics features developped by ATI /AMD, download the developper DirectX SDK, and you will understand what i mean ) .. but tesselation dont really need DX11 ...( but use the code from DX11, instead of use it on his own is a lot more easy at all stade of developpement of your engine ).

 

Im sure in DX 12-13 you will seen too the new MSAA method for deferred lightning render show by AMD with the 7970 demo (proper MSAA or SSAA for the most powerfull system, is really a problem with deffered lightning, hence why now most use post rendered AA with it .... ( you can download and use the code as it is, and the code is given... AMD/ ATI as allways, bring the method to all. lets hope this time it dont take 1-2 years before become a standard, )

Edited July 31, 2012 by Lane