IS NVIDIA Image Quality A Joke, Or Is It Just Me

To DrR1pper:

Sitting in the car and pressing alt+M doesn't show a message at all?

Maybe try jumping in and doing it before any plugins have a chance to start up, though I'm not sure they can interfere with it anyway. But if I press it a message comes up (in the message box) saying Mip LOD Bias Enabled (or disabled). And when disabled I can see more distant/angled textures and stuff look softer.

 

Do you guys use the two AF optimisation options in nVidia inspector? Alt+M works for me, not sure I like it though... I am a little confused though. Is it better to use ALT+M or force through inspector or both?

 

Ah, i was trying it in a replay lol. I did that so i could bench test with fraps the fps difference but alt+m doesn't work in the replays. Silly me.

Thanks for the clue of the "message box" Lazza.

 

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I use no optimizations ever and I set texture filter to highest quality always. You may get some "free" improved performance with no visual loss whatsoever by having optimizations on and texture filter to the 2nd highest quality, but the obsessive compulsive side of me makes me disable them/leave at max quality. Plus, it helps things be more "apples to apples" when comparing & benchmarking different cards, drivers, brands (amd vs nvidia) etc.

Having said that, unless you see a drop in visual quality, my general advice would be to keep the optimizations on as default, and also the texture filter quality to it's default as well (I think 2nd highest?).

 

rightio all do what you said and switch them off. Cheers again for the help rf2 looks so much better now.

 

Luis, your screenshots are much smaller than the resolution you are playing with. Therefore you can't see the AA quality on those screens due to the resizing (Resizing is basically Downsampling, which is the best AA anyway).

 

Thanks, but i don´t know much about these terms. Will post the screenshots on a public server instead use forum tool (if i understand you right)

 

Previously I was set to AA x 2, AFx4 and SuperGridSampling x2 and on my test situation (sunny practice Lime Rock park with F3 Eve) I had around 104 fps when I unlock my Adaptive Vsync for FPS test purpose. My goal for SuperSampling was mainly to remove jaggy white lines on the ground. Now I set AA x 4 which is more better on object like cars, AFx16 to crips more the track and removed SuperGridSampling (OFF) and used the ALT-M (ALT-? for azerty french keyboard) and I got 138 fps, so a pretty good boost! The blur effect this LOD bias stuff induce is not that annoying (with 16xAF) as it only appear on track, not on opponents cars, etc. like FXAA which blur all the screen. I really happy like this, really nice quality, and big FPS boost

Edit: I tried to set the negative Lod Bias though NVidia control panel and through Inspector without success. Only the ALT-M do the trick...

 

Yes, that may be the reason. The screenshots only have a resolution of 1920x480 pixels while your gaming resolution is 3072x768 pixels. You can upload the images to a freehoster, I usually use [u]http://www.directupload.net[/u] for that purpose.

Same for me. LOD Bias in the Inspector doesn't work at all for me, in other games I can get the most blurry mess by setting it to +3, rFactor 2 just doesn't respond at all. No change, still way too sharp.
I don't use Supersampling for the moment anymore as well. 4x Multisampling, 16x AF and Alt+M gives a lot fps (100+) and the white lines on track as well as fences and whatnot stopped flickering / have no Aliasing anymore. That's why I had to thank TechAde multiple times. I was looking for a solution to my problem for MONTHS. This makes so much of a difference. Even 8xSGSSAA didn't work well on alpha textures like fences. Alt+M is exactly what I was looking for.

Apparently old graphics cards work differently with ISI's graphics engine. I'm pretty sure that with my old GTX285 (and the same driver version) I was able to blur or sharpen textures by changing the LOD bias in the Inspector. This doesn't work anymore with my GTX770. It's always oversharpened, giving lots of Aliasing and artifacts.

 

On a sidenote, I think we should really make a new thread with the title "Press Alt + M on track to dramatically decrease Aliasing". Looking at the unedited screenshots thread, so many shots with fences in them etc. could be enhanced dramatically, for example this one: http://isiforums.net/f/attachment.php?attachmentid=11928&d=1394321561
Did I mention already that I hate Moiré patterns?

People need to know about this.

 

Here, exactly my resolution in this host you pointed:



Anyway,a lways people start to talk about anti aliasing, i get confused because as you see on the first on i posted, my nvidia CP gives me 2 options of Anti aliasing:
1. from 2X to 32 CSAA in anti aliasing setting
2. from off, than multisample to 8X (supersample)

I never see or understand that abbreviations and options:
SGSSAA
SuperGridSampling
Sparse Grid

 

SGSSAA is the same as Sparse Grid, it stands for "Sparse Grid Super Sampling Anti Aliasing".
The Nvidia Control Panel doesn't offer you all options available. You can see and set the additional modes in a separate program called Nvidia Inspector:



Download it here.

 

i prefer sgssaa. Perhaps because i have a lightboost monitor so any texture is always sharp and clear to me even when in motion.

 

Thank you again. Aready have this software but only use to check gpu statistics in general. But i think is better not messing with these setting which seems to me designed to people with specific knowleged.
Tanks again,

 

- "1. from 2X to 32 CSAA in anti aliasing setting" - these are the different anti-aliasing modes in the nvidia control panel.

- "2. from off, than multisample to 8X (supersample)" - this is the anti-aliasing for what they call "transparent" objects, eg. fences, trees, foliage, etc.

The supersampling you referred to in option "2" is not true supersampling. Unlike AMD, NVidia doesn't list true supersampling in their control panel, if they did it would fall under option "1", not "2". If you download Nvidia Inspector you will see the supersampling that Nvidia hides from us all, they look like this, 1x2, 2x1, 2x2, 3x3, 4x4.

Sparse Grid Supersampling (SGSSAA) is also hidden in the NV control panel, again it can be found in NV Inspector. This one is under the transparency AA mode (option "2" from your post above). It is advised that when you use this SGSSAA that you also set regular AA mode (option "1" ) to multisample (MSAA), and set it to the same amount that you set you SGSSAA (option "2" ) to. So make them both either 2x, 4x, or 8x.

The SGSSAA, while looking beautiful (especially at 4x+) takes a lot of power to run, just like AMD's supersampling AA, and NV's hidden supersampling in option "1" (1x2, 3x3, etc). This is where the "Alt-M" magic comes into play. The "Alt-M" trick seems to fix the jaggies and shimmering that otherwise only frames-per-second (fps) killing SSAA/SGSSAA+MSAA could fix, and as long as this works consistently for all objects/lines and on all tracks then you probably don't need those "brute force" anti-aliasing modes anymore. (This is brilliant news and deserves it's own thread in order to spread the word out more )


Some things to take note of though...

- The "Alt-M" trick only works for RFactor 2 though unfortunately, not pre-RF2 ISI engine based games...

- For RFactor 1 and RF1 engine based games (eg. Game Stock Car 2013, Formula Truck 2013, Turismo Careterra, ARCA Sim Racing, Superleague Formula), the way to go is still to use supersampling (SSAA) w/ AMD, or MSAA + SGSSAA (both @ the same sample amount) w/ NV.

- With regards to pre-RFactor 1 ISI engine based games (eg. GTR 2, GT Legends, Race 07/Race Injection, GTR Evolution) I still haven't tested if, for NV, SSAA (eg. 2x1, 3x3, etc.) or MSAA + SGSSAA works better, and closer to AMD's supersampling.


Are you starting to understand a little more? It can be overwhelming, I was sort of freaking out (as you can tell by the first post in this thread) from all the AA options and combinations, but don't worry, you'll get used to it all quick.

 

I have a 120Hz 3D Vision capable monitor as well, but that has nothing to do with this specific "sharpness issue". Textures are actually too sharp from a low angle, hence the texture Aliasing. For me, visible Aliasing in motion is even worse the higher the refresh rate and my fps are. It's just flickering faster, and I usually have 100fps+.

Of course the overall picture quality will be better using Supersampling instead of Multisampling, but it can only slightly cure something which is broken in the renderer itself. I have no idea if AMD cards have the same over-sharpening issue like the newer Nvidia cards, but the latter ones are simply using "wrong" LOD biases. In the end it's still personal preference of course.

In short, when it comes to image quality, for me, it's:

(SGSSAA + Alt+M) > (Multisampling + Alt+M) > (SGSSAA) > (No AA + Alt+M) > (Multisampling) > (No AA)

The performance of Multisampling + Alt+M is simply superior to SGSSAA + Alt+M though, it's almost twice as much fps for me @ maximum ingame details (~60 to ~120 while alone on track).

But just out of interest, since rFactor 1 has the same issue on newer Nvidia cards, which image would you prefer, this or this one?

Greez Rob

 

Yes man. Thanks a lot to you and Robert for the explanations. I will definitely try some of these setting here.

Cheers!

 

In recent years I went AMD Radeon HD 6990, 6870, 2x 6970, 3x 6950 (by the way, dual and triple cards scaled decently good in RF2, even as of a while ago, the build that the ISI C6R first came out, at least on a single screen), 7950, 7970. The same thing happens in all ISI engine based games (RF1, GTL, Race 07, RF2, etc.). The only way to get a "perfect" image is to use supersampling as your AA mode.

You forgot to list the combination that SGSSAA is supposed to be used in. I think that may compete for first on your list in terms of image quality (MSAA + SGSSAA @ equal sample amounts, no Alt-M).

 

Just one question more: should i put nvidia control setup at default values before messing with nvidia inspector or it doesn´t make any difference and nvida inspector will override any setting by nvida CP?

Thanks in advance