Hello all, I have recently been trying to improve the graphics settings of rFactor 2 as currently is looks very bland and basic even on, what I thought, were good settings. Therefore I have attached a few images relating to my setup. I see these magnificent screenshots in the screenshots thread and mine looks nothing like that. Granted there are a few tweaked photos but still.. The surroundings do not look to bad, it is more the onboard. My PC setup is: Core i5-2500k @ 3.30GHz 8MB Memory Radeon HD 5850 Video Settings: http://i.imgur.com/4qBMx.png Video Resolution: http://i.imgur.com/ysTKM.png Display Settings: http://i.imgur.com/dMVl9.png Onboard shot: http://i.imgur.com/qBNIk.jpg External shot: http://i.imgur.com/Gzto3.jpg Thanks for your help.
Hmmm.. rF2 sure aint no screenshot generator. It also looks very different depending on track and time of day. When you get it right it has its moments of magic but some combinations just look nasty. I cant seem to get lime rock looking anything other than waterpaint mess, however spa at dusk can be really atmospheric. Some modded tracks of course have better textures.
Reflections are one of the biggest FPS killers, so I have those turned off so I can up the detail in other areas. I have road and environment reflections off; shadow blur on the fastest setting instead of quality; and everything else set to either "on" or the highest setting (except for texture filter which is at X4 I think), and it looks and runs pretty well on my older ATI 5770.
Well, those screenshots you're talking about are using everything (or almost everything) maxed out, bypassing the game AA and forcing the GPU to use different filtering and AA settings. Try to experiment forcing your ATI with a standard filter AA8x and 8x sampes and using the Adaptive MSAA instead the basic MSAA. The super sample AA looks perfect but it's a total killer for performances, but if you want just to make some good screenshot, you can use a temporary SSAA and everything maxed out just for this purpose, if your card (and your CPU) can handle at least 30fps with this ultra high settings. BTW, you're using pretty low quality settings and the time of the day doesn't help as most dramatic shots are taken in low sun conditions. The second shot (the external one) is taken using a very short angle of view (zoom or tele) so low res textures are looking worse because of this. A very good zoom shot needs pretty high res texture to look nice (especially for backgrounds and trees), but everything have to be a compromise between performances and graphics...and yes it's true; rFactor 2 is not a screenshot maker.
Ihave same ati 5770 as yourself,,just a duel core 3.0 3gigs of ram,,run the same settings a you apart from i run at x8. and my old comp runs at 60 to 100 frps.read about people with comps that nasa would like to get hold of and yet have trouble running rf2. guess i am just one of the lucky ones
What sort of settings we talking to go up to? For example on 'Sync' - None, Software, GPU, Video. I don't know what are optimal settings here?
Those settings are more on the performance side but they don't affect the quality of the render. Dunno what you're searching for exactly. Good looking for screenshots? Performance? If you want more quality you've to work on the texture side (track and car texture quality), and filtering (antialising, aniso etc.). Of course more you push on this side, less performance you get. For me the most killer feature are shadow blurring, car mirrors and environment reflections. Try pushing a bit your card settings and texture quality, turning off the shadow blur (for now) and see what happen.
Better looking more than anything, when I am on track driving etc. That's the main aim really. Cause quite frankly at the moment rF1 looks better than rF2 lol
Nah! Absolutely nah! Even pCARS looks worse than rF1 if you turn off post effects and turn general quality to low values... Push on your GPU and texture settings...
You can run FXAA with AA, it adds very little stress to the GPU with a added smoothing to the rough edges, for some machines it makes things blurry but for me for example it doesnt, things stay sharp and just become more smooth. Shadows are very big fps loss compaired to the gain of looks, I use high shadows with shadow blur off, I also have everything else on/max, and I run with 70-120fps. Only things I seem to have problems with is the inconsistency of fps which causes stutter on tracks that have big close to track objects, monaco being the worst I suppose, but it settles some after I drive around the track few times. Turning sync of somekind on would make it go away but it drops too much fps and has a big problem with generating input lag which makes it not an option. Maybe a ssd drive might help with this stutter aswell but what I mostly wait for is ISI to optimize the gfx engine which most likely will improve the performance and appearance. Locking fps is deffinetly something Ill try as soon as I find myself back to testing things, since in every other modern sim that I play (iracing, wrc3 modded) that is using such measures is much more pleasing to look at and play (graphically speaking) when there is no stutter, or the odd chopping action happening on occation. I do not use HDR at all atm. either. It makes things look little weird and unnatural on certain times of the day, and it also is too much of a loss to fps considering what it has to offer at its current state. Im not really all that fiddly person so Im not into making HDR profiles for each track seperatly either so Ill just wait for the next thing. As I have told many here that take your time with the gfx and turn this on and that off, see what happens, also I recommend trying different times of day which can suprise you with the appearance incomparison. Usually times close to late afternoon and early morning (sunrise/sunset) have the best dynamic and brings out the best of rF2 looks. Its also these parts of the day irl that mostly people find most pleasing to the eye.
Seems quite a good trick that as such. I set the 'Sync' to GPU and then had only FXAA on and no HDR. That made it a lot smoother but even from the cockpit that looked much more pleasing on the eye.
http://isiforums.net/f/showthread.p...ossibly-prevents-stuttering-caused-by-100-CPU Great post about different kind of syncs in rF2 by KeiKei. To sum this all up with one sentence would be, avoid vsync. I do recommend on reading it tho, gives good pointers what they actually do and how it shows.
Seems to work well: Change "Render Once Per VSync" to "3" in \rFactor2\UserData\player\player.PLR Go to in-game settings and set "Sync: GPU" Auto Detail Framerate="120"
Like tuttle said, if you are going to be using regular AA, but not beautiful super-sampling (even just 2x really kills frames, but 4x looks beautiful, and 8x looks PERFECT) then at the very least use adpative-AMD/transparent-Nvidia AA. Also, experiment with setting the AA amount from the graphics control panel, rather than RFactor itself. You should include a pic of your GPU's graphics settings as well. Also, you should always set AF to x16, x8 to x16 barely makes a difference in fps in any game anymore. It helps make things more sharp and clear the farther and more angled away they are from you (for example, the ground as it gets further and further away from you).
