ANTIALIASING???

[Spanker79]

Hi all.I have a question..In the game option there is MSAA,i know it stands for the antialiasing(and what is antialiasing) but i don't know the difference between 2x and 16xQ.

What the Q stands for?

 

Thanks in advance for any answers...

[JetlinerX]

I second this post. I THINK it smooths the edges of objects out. If you notice how the edges of buildings kinda glimmer, I think Antialiasing fixes that. So the higer the number, the more smoothing.

 

DONT take my word on that, that's just what I THINK.

[Irregular programming]

It's just better quality anti aliasing.

[Aries]

What makes the fences and grass stop shimmering in game...

...somehow, I think it wasn't there before...

 

In other games it was anisotropic filtering, but in my Nvidia settings for DCS I have it on 16x and the fences and grass still have that "ants" effect on edges and in holes...

 

:cry:

[sobek]

I don't know what the setting does exactly in the case of MSAA but the setting has an impact on the quality at the expense of the processing power required. So higher means better quality anti aliasing but usually lower FPS.

 

Edit: I think the setting determines how much supersampling is done, but i'm not sure, the descriptions of the algorithm i was able to find were a little lacking.

Edited May 31, 2013 by sobek

[Boris]

AA doesn't necessarily stop shimmering. It's there to smooth the pixelation of the edges seen in the image. The higher the AA, the more effective the smoothing, but the higher the impact on fps will be.

 

To fix the pixelation on fences and grass, you may have to turn on TSAA, which smoothes transparencies. But, again at the expense of fps.

 

Anisotropic filtering is a completely different thing. Higher settings allow textures to be crisper at distance. And you guessed it... The higher the setting, the lower your fps.

[Mewle]

Fences and any texture that has a transparent element will use TSAA, so enable this in options for smoother fences. I believe the Q denotes multi sampling AA as opposed to Full Scene AA, however I may have my wires crossed.

[Feuerfalke]

MSAA = MultiSampleAntiAliasing

 

Basically AntiALiasing smoothes your rendering-output by calculating the image much larger than your actual display can show it and then downscaling it again.

 

MSAA has the advantage to minimze artifacts during rendering, making the image clearer.

 

Q stands for quality, which further improves your image at the cost of RAM-, GPU and bandwidth-usage.

 

 

MSAA can reduce texture-shimmering and transparency-flickers (like fences). It can do it better than SSAA or simple AA, but it does not necessarily eliminate it. That's a problem with texture-filters and how they are rendered.

 

nVidia and AMD have different approaches here.

[zaelu]

What makes the fences and grass stop shimmering in game...

...somehow, I think it wasn't there before...

 

In other games it was anisotropic filtering, but in my Nvidia settings for DCS I have it on 16x and the fences and grass still have that "ants" effect on edges and in holes...

 

:cry:

 

for fences you need this mod: http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=103341

 

for grass... it might be a problem with the texture not having proper MIP maps. I'll try to search where the grass texture is places and have a look if that's the case.

 

DCS has some problems with transparency antialiasing... The big oil reservoirs scattered around the map have a problem on top of them... the texture has los transparency there... also some building blocks.

[Rusty_M]

I thought Q might be quincunx, a different form of antialiasing which blurs two frames together slightly. This tends to result in a slightly better edge-smoothing effect than MSAA, and requires fewer resources to carry out at the cost of the overall image being slightly blurrier.

[Feuerfalke]

Rusty_M, I had the same in mind.

 

I googled before posting, though and found the Q-explanation on an nVidia site. Dunno if it changed or if somebody thought Quality was easier to memorize?

[BTTW-DratsaB]

Get rid of Shimmering with SGSSAA

 

I recently upgraded from a GTX295 to a GTX670 and I was seeming to be getting a lot more Shimmering and aliasing on objects in the game world no matter what I did to try to remove it. E.g: 8xMSAA and Super-sampling, also tried In game TSAA options etc. Nothing seemed to smooth out this very distracting aliasing everywhere (and in many sim games I play).

 

However, I have found a way to kill the shimmering completely. It's called SGSSAA (Sparse Grid Super Sampling Anti Aliasing) and it can only be activated Via Nvidia Inspector. If you have a decent GFX card I strongly recommend trying it out.

 

Here is a very good site that explains SGSSAA and all things AA related (such as the difference between MSAA and MSAA Q) http://naturalviolence.webs.com/sgssaa.htm

 

Here is another good explanation of how to apply SGSSAA: http://www.overclock.net/t/1250100/nvidia-sparse-grid-supersampling

 

The main points to set it up are (Using NV Inspector Elevated settings):

1.Set Antialiasing behavior flags to none

2.Set Antialiasing - mode to Override

3.Set Antialiasing - Setting to 2x,4x or 8x MSAA (only works with MSAA afaik)

4.Set Antialiasing - Transparency SuperSampling to the equivalent of the previous settings. Eg if AA - setting is set to 2x then set this setting to 2x also. They must be the same.

5.Set Texture filtering - LODBias(DX9) to one of the following settings based on what AA you have chosen above: (The use of SGSSAA causes a bit of blurring, this counters it by sharpening up the textures)

2x MSAA + 2x SGSSAA: -0.500

4x MSAA + 4x SGSSAA: -1.000

8x MSAA + 8x SGSSAA: -1.500

6.Finally, Set Texture filtering - Negative LOD bias to Allow

 

You can get NV Inspector here: http://www.techspot.com/downloads/5077-nvidia-inspector.html

Edited May 31, 2013 by BTTW-DratsaB

[Sabre]

I recently upgraded from a GTX295 to a GTX670 and I was seeming to be getting a lot more Shimmering and aliasing on objects in the game world no matter what I did to try to remove it. E.g: 8xMSAA and Super-sampling, also tried In game TSAA options etc. Nothing seemed to smooth out this very distracting aliasing everywhere (and in many sim games I play).

 

However, I have found a way to kill the shimmering completely. It's called SGSSAA (Sparse Grid Super Sampling Anti Aliasing) and it can only be activated Via Nvidia Inspector.

 

 

 

nVidia inspector requires indication of the game's executable to start the profile when this executable is launched.

 

What is the right executable for Inspector to recognize DCS World? There are a few:

DCS_updater.exe

DCS.exe

and some others.

 

If you show the wrong exe your profile will not be started by Inspector when the game launches.

 

Thanks,

Sabre.

[SkateZilla]

16xQ Denotes Quality, or "TRUE"/"Multi-Sampling"

Which Enables twice the Color and Z Samples in the AA Sequence, which produces Better Quality at the expense of a performance hit. (Aka 16x MSAA)

 

CSAA usually has less of a Performance Hit.

 

2xMSAA is 2xMSAA

4xMSAA is 4xMSAA

8x CSAA is 4xMSAA + 4 additional coverage samples (8 coverage samples total)

8xQ CSAA is 8xMSAA (so it still has 8 coverage samples but it has more color samples)

16x CSAA is 4xMSAA + 12 additional coverage samples (16 coverage samples total)

16xQ CSAA is 8xMSAA + 8 additional coverage samples (still has 16 coverage samples per pixel total but with more color samples)

 

https://developer.nvidia.com/csaa-coverage-sampling-antialiasing

[Filament]

nVidia inspector requires indication of the game's executable to start the profile when this executable is launched.

 

What is the right executable for Inspector to recognize DCS World? There are a few:

DCS_updater.exe

DCS.exe

and some others.

 

If you show the wrong exe your profile will not be started by Inspector when the game launches.

 

Thanks,

Sabre.

 

The DCS_updater.exe launches the interface (menu for creating missions, options, etc.). Whether this 'patches thru' to call the game from the interface and keep all the settings you specified, I don't know.

 

I have my Nvidia Settings control panel to launch DCS.exe using the "Nvidia Performance" settings that I've specified, going line-by-line through the configuration options that then calls the game, at the location in the /bin folder that I "told" it to go to, FWIW.

Edited November 7, 2013 by Filament

[Fifi]

After testing FPS ingame, strangely i don't have any impact between MSAAX8Q and X16Q!

So i keep 16Q of course.

But biggest FPS impact is TSSAA. Huge FPS lost using it. So i keep it off, and furthermore not that much of eye candy lost here...no jaggy lines, and clear image.

[lanmancz]

After testing FPS ingame, strangely i don't have any impact between MSAAX8Q and X16Q!

So i keep 16Q of course.

But biggest FPS impact is TSSAA. Huge FPS lost using it. So i keep it off, and furthermore not that much of eye candy lost here...no jaggy lines, and clear image.

 

yeah thats because normal AA only smooths the edges of 3d objects but TSSAA (Transparency Super-sampling Anti-aliasing) is on top of that smoothing also transparent textures such as fences, trees, grass, etc - thats why there is noticable fps hit as this means a lot more stuff to compute.

[Sabre]

After testing FPS ingame, strangely i don't have any impact between MSAAX8Q and X16Q!

So i keep 16Q of course.

But biggest FPS impact is TSSAA. Huge FPS lost using it. So i keep it off, and furthermore not that much of eye candy lost here...no jaggy lines, and clear image.

 

I still use 2X Sparse Grid Supersampling in Inspector instead of in-game TSSAA. It improves IQ quite a bit at an acceptable FPS expense.

MSAA is set to 16Q in-game.

 

For what it matters Anisotropic filtering in Inspector is 16x, but I'm not sure whether it has any bearing on IQ or FPS.

 

Make sure all other AA options in Inspector are set to Application-controlled.

 

 

Sabre.

Edited November 11, 2013 by Sabre