[Howto] Improve Anti-Aliasing on DX9/NVIDIA

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by bobbie424242, Oct 23, 2017.

  1. bobbie424242

    bobbie424242 Registered

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    THIS GUIDE IS ONLY FOR DX9.

    The in-game AA setting even at max level is not really statisfying, with many jaggies remaining.
    I hate jaggies with a passion. So I looked for a way to override in-game AA settings with AA settings from a custom NVIDIA profile for rFactor2.exe, to force Sparse Grid Supersampling combined with strong AA. There's a trick to have it working that I did not find immediately hence this howto.

    1. First, if necessary, download and install NVIDIA Profile Inspector

    2. Now create a custom NVIDIA profile for <install dir>/bin64/rFactor2.exe. You can do this either in the NVIDIA Control Panel, or in NVIDIA Profile Inspector ("Create new profile", then "Add application to current profile" icons)

    3. Once created, load the rFactor2 profile in NVIDIA Profile Inspector

    4. That's the trick for our custom AA settings to be applied: set "Antialiasing compatibility" to 0x40

    5. Now in the Antialiasing section set these:

    Antialiasing - Mode: override any application setting
    Antialiasing - Setting: 8xQ
    Antialiasing - Transparency Multisampling: Enabled
    Antialiasing - Transparency Supersampling: 4x Sparse Grid Supersampling

    That's for 8xQ / 4x SGSS which provides the best AA but it is really taxing, so you will have to adapt it to your hardware. On my GTX 970 I have to lower it to 8xQ / 2x SGSS for fps to remain acceptable, although with Automobilista I can crack it up to 8xQ / 4x SGSS and still maintain constant 60 fps @ 1920x1200 because its rendering engine is less taxing thus more headroom.

    6. Make sure "Texture filtering - Driver controlled LOD bias" is set to "on"

    7. When done do not forget to save with the "Apply Changes" button

    8. In the rFactor 2 video config settings set "Anti-Aliasing" to "None", and if you have FXAA enabled I suggest to disable it as well because it is not really needed with high quality AA and will make the final image more blurry (less sharp).

    (optional) 8xQ / 4x SGSS will definitely push your GPU. If it is a 1080 Ti, it should not be a problem but if you need to squeeze more of it, I suggest to overclock the GPU with MSI AfterBurner. This is out of scope for this howto but well documented online

    Also, in my experience, 8xQ / 4x SGSS provide such high quality AA that it is not necessary to combine it with NVIDIA DSR. There's also 8xQ / 8x SGSS for ultimate AA but it is even more taxing (halves the fps on my system).
     
    Last edited: Oct 23, 2017
  2. ebeninca

    ebeninca Registered

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    This is something similar with the automobilista suggestions to reach better graphics?
     
  3. bobbie424242

    bobbie424242 Registered

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    Yes, this corresponds exactly to what recent Automobilista is doing with its NVIDIA AA presets in AMS config.
     
  4. dadaboomda

    dadaboomda Registered

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    For overall quality not only AA it is better to use :

    1) 4K resolution or if you have a nvidia use the DSR function and put 4X (4K) on this.
    2) Use AA level in game : with 4K the aliasing is just perfect on level 3 and you can put it on level 8.
    3) Put high quality textures on nvidia drivers

    - better AA
    - a lot of more details on all the picture
    - no more textures flickering

    For dx9 AND dx 11
     
  5. bobbie424242

    bobbie424242 Registered

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    @dadaboomda

    For dx11,what you describe is the best (and only) solution as AA cannot be forced with a nvidia profile.
    for dx9, forced 4x SGSS provides insanely good AA, better IMHO than 4x DSR. Both are GPU intensive though.
    And nothing prevent to combine 8xQ/4xSGSS (or lower) with 1.25x or 1.5x DSR to even further improve image quality, although
    that's probably overkill and will tax even more the GPU. But if running a GTX 1080 on a low monitor resolution (1080p or 1200p) that should be doable. The thing is to find the right balance with maximum GPU usage to increase image quality while maintaining good fps (for me this is stable 60 fps, not having a gsync monitor).
     
  6. dadaboomda

    dadaboomda Registered

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    With your method which I have tested many times, you ONLY improve AA. (And Aliasing shadows)

    With dsr 4k + using level 3-4-5-6 etc of game AA, you have AN OVERALL IMPROVE, OVERALL. (Details and no more flickering).

    An it is less demanding on my GPU gtx 780 +23% OC.

    Try, you'll see.
     
    Last edited: Oct 23, 2017
  7. bobbie424242

    bobbie424242 Registered

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    I tried it, on DX9. And with a GTX 970 I have definitely better performance and image quality with 8xQ/2xSGSS @ 1200p than
    in-game Level 4 AA / 4x DSR. 4x DSR which operates @ 2400p for my 1200p screen absolutely kills fps, and lower DSR at 1800p is not good enough. Also the game UI does not render correctly when using DSR on DX9. Maybe DSR performs better on DX11 though, I haven't tried it.
     

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