If you want to set your graphics properly start from testing just ISI contents (better if you test with latest official stuff) and with just ingame settings. No inspector. No DSR and stuff. Nothing which is not game controlled. I know this may sounds like sort of Conservative Boring Broken Record Official Suggestion... but believe me this is the ONLY way to understand what's going on with your system. You are kinda adding variables (CCP overrides, DSR etc) on top of more variables (a bad track conversion) which make problem solving very tricky. Sure you are getting some rubbish output there.
Hey Tuttle, can you give an "official statement" about mip map bias? I know it depends on the texture resolution and the material, but I see so many converted tracks with alpha transparency material (fences, guardrails, road lines, etc.) and mip map bias is set to -5.00! Btw, negative LOD-Bias setting in Nvidia drivers is indeed broken (or openGL only?).
A standard track texture is using Mip Maps, which are just a series of subres version of the same texture, to be loaded progressively, as you move inside the scene. It is basically a down-filtering using pre filtered images. Usually a game engine load the max res available when texel : pixel=1 and starts to load subres when you move away from that texture. This way you get a better "fit" between texel and pixel, avoiding flickering and shimmering. Basically, at the time you are using a -5 value, you are moving the MipMap LOD table by -5, loading almost all the time the max res available, even when you are very far from that specific texture. This is gonna introduce HUGE flickering, awful aliasing for transparencies, shimmering and FPS drops. You see in the picture the difference between two Mips, using a -5 offset. At the time the game engine needs to call that Mip 5 (11 total), will Lod back to Mip 1, causing a very bad texel : pixel ratio and because of that you will get jaggies, flickering, useless AA, shimmering, FPS drop etc etc etc... View attachment 18962 Since modern GPUs are perfectly capable to run Anisotropic Filtering, the use of negative MipBias it's useless and also may kill your performance when running too big negative values. I'd say -0.5 it's still reasonable for some texture you want lodding later, but everything under -1 it's useless for modern GPUs.
Thank you very much! @Tim Please make it sticky and pin it in the modding section in CAPITAL LETTERS!
I've got a better idea: let me put it on the wiki, here: http://wiki.rfactor.net/index.php?title=MipMap
Perfect. I just need something that I can easily find and point with the finger on it when things go in the wrong direction.
I tried a 24" 1080p monitor and it is better but not dramatically. I bought 2 970 cards and wanna buy either 2 more TV's or 3 monitors. Obviously TV's are cheaper but I think I know I should just go with the monitors. I do appreciate the help and suggestions!
I've reset everything back to defaults and ran on Silverstone which is 'official" and for sure much better graphics. But the whole appeal to me about RF2 is that somebody @PickBadger built all of my local tracks like Motorsport Ranch, Texas World Speedway and also my backyard track COTA. I really want to spend some time on COTA and it is tricky plus I get lost on 4 corner tracks so this stuff is time well spent and really helps my confidence after spending $600 for a weekend outing. So I'll take what I can get and be happy!!
A more permanent solution would be for the game engine to enforce all textures to have, say, no more than -1 LOD bias. rF/rF2 is the only game engine I know of that seems to have this issue. It seems modders keep copying old stuff and thus limiting the maximum bias level would perhaps be the easiest way to deal with it.
Just had a look at the track. The fence texture is high res and mip mapping is disabled. Material is "specular T1". The worst combination I have ever seen. lol Btw, mip map bias is only -2. It's easy to fix.
1. Afaik rf2 is the only sim, where you can force it. In the player.json. "Texture sharpness" (not sure about the correct naming...) 2. For me it is the other way around. rf2 is the only sim, where I have a minimum of jitter/shimmer and jaggies. But then, I only use stock content or proper done stuff from feels3, vlm, nuno... AC and SCE (to some extend) are much worse in my opinion. AC ruins the hole experience with too sharp textures on fences, armco and some off the track stuff.
I agree, from the moment pCars and AC came out the majority made a clear distinction between their graphics and rF2. Like they never looked at different aspects and was all just based on the wow factor. I looked at all their Historic tracks and they were just too clean too precise looking, driving the Lotus 49 looked ( and felt ) like a guest drive in 2015. Why do their cars look like boxes in the distance ? In F3 community pack and way back Skyfox's skin pack I could see drivers helmets so far up the road it is not funny, cars still have real form and shape you can pick out a Eve and Spark easy. In AC or pCars at the same distance I can't even tell what model GTs they are ! Next time you load Belgium look at the loader, I assume the shot is using rF2 settings. I just love the natural gradual softening of objects look along the signs, etc. from closest to furthermost. As you rightly say everything in the other sims looks the same LOD or they turn to horrible fakey look DOF and other things. And all these PP filters, so many have wildly different ideas what natural looks like. rF2 looks more natural for mine.
Here's the thing with using TV's.............. Regardless of what it is 720/1080 this isn't it's 'native' resolution. You need to find it's native resolution and use that if you want it to look 'sharp'. So when looking in your TV manual and it says resolution this is what you need to use. Case in point is my 32" TV.............. Screen size (in.) 32" Display Type LCD Full HD (1080p) Yes HD Ready Yes Resolution 1360x768 ANY resolution I use other than 1360x768 is blurry.
Well that doesn't sound right. If your screen can handle 1080p then it must be a 1080p screen. Something sounds off about that.
No, he's right when you don't have a real 1080p screen. Infact many TVs are capable to show HD but using smaller native resolution and that's just using hardware image processing. As well as for many 720p TVs are running 768p native. Problem is sometimes you aren't able to switch to native resolution because wrong EDID data stored in the TV, but if you know (and you can access) the native res you should use that one to get the proper texel (texture pixel) : pixel (tv/monitor pixels) filtering.
Could someone, finally after years of this debate, please confirm whether there is a magic setting that corrects all the crappy misuse of settings that Tuttle described? If so, what is that setting? I sure haven't ever found it despite fiddling with Texture Sharpening until blue in the face. Badly done tracks remain badly done tracks until the author fixes them as far as I know. Tosch, when you said easy fix, did you mean for the track author or for us lowly users? I interpreted your comment(s) as aimed at the author(s). Regardless, is stonec's suggestion actually feasible? Can this be corrected/overridden in the game engine itself, for a universal solution that doesn't require thousands of textures across hundreds of tracks to be updated? If so, let's fix all the z-fighting issues at the same time!
And some TVs only provide this native resolution over the designated PC input (usually an analog VGA connection on those 768p TVs).
I've been having issues with 3rd party tracks also. Take Lowlands for instance. It has GREEN guard rails that shimmy and shimmer like Christmas glitter. Drove me nuts. Tried things like have been discussed in this thread. Then......I found this ------- >>>> https://forums.geforce.com/default/...lamp-negative-lod-bias/post/4308251/#4308251/. edit: fixed link ...this link is for a file fix for the negative lod clamp. It works in Win 10 with latst nVidia drivers. Took care of Christmas glitter for me. In the player.json under graphics options I set texture sharpening to 5(auto). Also, I run 8x filter with 3x AA from within rfactor2. I too run my computer into a 42" TV. I had a bit of cartoonish looking graphics along with some input lag. I went into the advanced menu settings and disabled all the TV enhancing effects. That helped both issues considerably. In addition, I set the menu options for color to something a bit more life like rather than cartoon like. TV's from the factory are set to MAX everything to make people go WOW when they turn them on the first time. Now, trees and grass look like the real things. Randy
