New nVidia drivers have FXAA in the control panel - Question for the Devs...

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by buddhatree, Apr 10, 2012.

  1. buddhatree

    buddhatree Registered

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    New nVidia 301.24 beta drivers have FXAA in the control panel now and the settings are off and on...

    So what should we do?

    FXAA in-game and the NV CP? FXAA in CP only? FXAA in-game only?

    And ideas Devs?

    Cheers
     
  2. K Szczech

    K Szczech Registered

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    It's always better not to enforce anything in OP if game is well programmed.

    For example - sometimes programmers may want FXAA applied to 3D view, but not to HUD, which allready has nice and smooth appearance.
    If you enforce FXAA in CP then you end up with FXAA being applied everywhere, despite intentions of programmers.

    Of course if game does not support some feature you may enforce it in drivers, but otherwise I would stick with leaving everything as application controlled or create separate profiles for each application.
     
  3. oldschool1478

    oldschool1478 Registered

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    I found the following in the Release Highlights for that driver:

    NVIDIA FXAA Technology – shader-based anti-aliasing technology available from the NVIDIA Control Panel that enables ultra-fast anti-aliasing in hundreds of PC games. FXAA delivers similar quality to 4x multi-sample antialiasing (MSAA) but is up to 60% faster, enabling substantially higher performance in games. FXAA is supported on all GeForce 8-series and later GPUs. Note: This feature is disabled for games that already have built-in support for FXAA.

    That last sentence would make me think it doesn't mater if it's on or off, in the nVidia control panel, as it would be disabled anyway.
     
  4. Axeslayer

    Axeslayer Registered

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    I have it set to off in the Nvidia settings for RF and set to on in the FR video setup with anti aliasing turned of , Works well that way . Set it to on with GTA4 as well , works well with that game . Think that if the game has the option to use FXAA turn it of in the Nvidia control and on in the game , if the game dosn't have it then turn it on and anti alaising off in the Nvidia controll to make it work with game .
     
  5. Tony

    Tony Registered

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    With FXAA turned on in nVidia's control panel I get fuzzy text in Windows Mail (known fault recognised by nVidia, no work-around as yet) So I leave it off, & am anticipating an ISI update so I can turn it on in-game & not have a black screen after a track has loaded :)
     
  6. FONismo

    FONismo Registered

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    Same here with FXAA on in the CP i get next to no AA. Pretty sure that it is recommended by nVidia that you only use the option when a game engine does not support it. Latest drivers in general do not seem to give as clean an image as i have seen before on rF2, may roll back. Mills inpaticular i am having some aliasing issues
     
  7. Cleverleyson

    Cleverleyson Registered

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    MLAA please ISI, i know you hate Ati/amd But doesn't MLAA look better than FXAA...
     
  8. Axeslayer

    Axeslayer Registered

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    Works great with the latest beta drivers from Nvidia (301.24) , just make sure you set anti alising to none in game or it doesn't work . Leave FXAA off in the Nvidia control panel just set it to on in game .
     
  9. Bart S

    Bart S Member

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    IMHO MLAA is better than FXAA, FXAA seams to loose texture quality when in motion altho still remaining sharp on edges, I noticed big different when I was on ATI in the road detail.
     
  10. Axeslayer

    Axeslayer Registered

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    True MLAA looks better but FXAA is a good choice if you need to improve your FPS .
     
  11. Spinelli

    Spinelli Banned

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    MLAA is not supposed to be used with AA, but rather on its own as an alternative for games that aa doesnt work good on, or you loose too many frames with regular aa, etc etc. It just basically applies an aa to everything on the screen PERIOD, makes everything a little blurrier, text, menus, everything it doesnt know the difference, its a sort of fake aa, so if nvidias fxaa is the same thing then id say use it on its own not with actual aa as that defeats the point and will destroy frames (unless the game or drivers are smart enough to only keep 1 on when you have both enabled).

    Maybe this is part of lots of peoples fps problems......I noticed tons of ppl having aa in rfactor on (level 1,2,3 etc) but then they would ALSO have the fxaa option on aswell... which again if its like amd/ati's mlaa then your definetely not supposed to have both on at the same time....Maybe I should start a thread on it??.....
     
  12. bigtabs

    bigtabs Registered

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    I take it by AA you mean any other kind of AA solution? Sorry, that's just not true. There's no reason not to use it in combination with other types of AA to improve image quality. BF3 is one game that lets you do it right from the options menu, Skyrim is another.
     
  13. Spinelli

    Spinelli Banned

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    Im not sure how fxaa works but MLAA is a substitute for actuall aa for ati/amd cards.

    "The other AA method is a post-processing filter known as MLAA. This method works with all games and inconjunction with all the other standard AA modes but MLAA can lead to excessive blurring. As such it should only really be used when a game doesn't support standard AA modes."

    Yes you can use it with aa but that is completely pointless and you would be destroying your frames by using both, maybe fxaa is different i dont know but mlaa is just a post process filter applied to the entire screen no matter the game, what part of the game, the menus, or anything its just a post processing filter and for this reason it blurs the image.

    I use it in Borderlands where the AA wether I set it in control panel or ingame seems to suck and not apply to lots of objects. This is a perfect example where you would use MLAA because the regular aa doesnt work that great for that game so since MLAA is just a post processing filter it gets applied to the entire screen no matter what, on any game period and works well here, but you can tell it blurs the entire screen rather then just getting rid of jaggies on edges/lines...

    I was experimenting with using it on crysis as a cheap way to get some aa but it just made objects too blurry and i reverted back to the much sharper and less jaggedy 8x aa for that game, but like I said it works good for borderlands where it seems aa sucks in any mode (except super sampling obvisouly but that destroys frames)

    The only other option I could use in borderlands is super sampling but we all know that decreases frames 10 fold



    Straight from NVIDIA

    1. FXAA IS DESIGNED TO BE FASTER, AND HAVE A SMALLER MEMORY FOOTPRINT, THAN TRADITIONAL MSAA, BUT WITH SOME COMPROMISES IN PRESICION AND QUALITY.

    2. FXAA IS TO BE AN EFFICIENT ALTERNATIVE TO TRADITIONAL ANTI-ALIASING WHERE MSAA IS EITHER IMPRACTICAL (TOO COSTLY) OR INEFFECTIVE (SHADER ALIASING)

    More info http://isiforums.net/f/showthread.php/5177-Fxaa-on-and-aa-Pick-1!!
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 16, 2012
  14. bigtabs

    bigtabs Registered

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    I'm sorry, but you really know very little about this and it shows. I've been closely following 3D graphics rendering technology for the last decade, and you are basing your conclusions off a couple of paragraphs taken out of context, and probably some equally misinformed forum posters around the internet.

    Play a game with plenty of alpha channel textures and shader aliasing etc.

    In situations where you have the graphical horsepower for MSAA, but not transparency. Using FXAA or another post processing AA solution in combination with MSAA yields far nicer visuals than MSAA alone, for a practically unnoticable performance penalty. It is impossible to destroy your framerates (on anything but the most aged PC graphics card) by adding a post processing AA solution into the mix, as they cost so very little per frame.

    Have a look at this screenshot comparing FXAA off and on on some aliasing that MSAA will never touch: http://www.hardocp.com/image.html?image=MTMxMDIyNTU4NEVUa3NkblNuWWxfM183X2wucG5n This stuff looks horrible in motion, as I'm sure you're aware, so the fact that FXAA can tidy it up for almost free is great.

    I'm sure you will agree that regular MSAA is far better than FXAA on geometry edges. Therefore it is simple (and correct, you can try it for yourself) to conclude that MSAA applied on the scene, followed by FXAA will indeed give a better image.

    To be clear. MSAA is applied before FXAA. There is no contention or fighting between the two. The FXAA just 'sees' a cleaner image to start with, and applies itself to the bits that MSAA missed. With FXAA being so very very cheap it's a no brainer to use it pretty much whenever you can, particularly as quite often you can configure it to reduce any negative artifacts, such as over blurring the image.

    There are two occasions you might not want it:

    - when it cannot be configured, and is set up in such a way that the image is too soft for your liking

    - when you are already using supersampling, or MSAAx4 (or more) combined with TSAA. In this case, it is pointless, as you already should have a clean image before the FXAA gets it's turn.


    It's probably important to note that rF2, for whatever reason, has a very bad AA implementation. There is a ton of aliasing in this game that pretty much can only be fixed by using supersampling at this point.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 18, 2012
  15. bigtabs

    bigtabs Registered

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    If you are interested, here are 2 years of posts on the subject at a game graphics technology forum covering the time when these post process AA solutions were just surfacing until the present day.

    http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=55634
     
  16. DurgeDriven

    DurgeDriven Banned

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    It is all totally subjective, use what suits you.

    I have everything on in rF2 and default NVCP which is exact opposite of others here.

    It runs 101% and looks great, never drops below 60fps and is as smooth as a baby's bum.

    And it is beta. lol
     
  17. Nand Gate

    Nand Gate Banned

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    Hey Durge - where is that awesome server you had p[en the other day??!! Looking for it but cant find?
     
  18. Spinelli

    Spinelli Banned

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    Yes for things that regular aa doesn't touch fxaa can be great as it can substitute for adaptive/transparency aa very well with such a small loss of frames, but in those situations people should atleast try fxaa on its own without further aa on top of that. I have read tons of technical articles from pros, reviewers, and regular people, I'm always reading up on pc tech aswell, I've read up on tons of people who once they upgraded their cards and had the horsepower to use high amounts of adaptive/transparent aa to be relieved of finally not having to use fxaa no more as it blurs textures, tons of people have said this even for games like Skyrim and Battlefield 3.

    Cleverleyson if you have an amd/ati card that supports MLAA you can use it in rfactor 2 as MLAA supports any game no matter how old, direct x 9, 10, 11, games in opengl, etc, etc, but it does blur, it works awesome though in borderlands where regular adaptive/transparent aa sucks wether set in game or control panel, so I just disable all the aa alltogether and MLAA takes care of everything but you can notice the blur, but once you start playing you don't notice the blur that much, you prob notice the blur even less in a game like rfactor where your concentrating so much on the gameplay itself (the driving).
     
  19. bigtabs

    bigtabs Registered

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    Which means there are quite often situations where using MSAA and FXAA (or any PPAA) is distinctly better than using just one. Namely, where you don't have the horsepower to run TSAA, which is what I said in my previous post. Sure, try FXAA on it's own but it's ludicrous to suggest that it compares favourably to MSAA on geometry edges, while the game is in motion.

    You are trying to argue that people 'pick one' and never do both. That is wrong.
     
  20. jimmywest73

    jimmywest73 Registered

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    I was going to ask this myself thanks for the update guys much appreciated.
     

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