R-Factor Graphics Configuration

[PabloVND]

Ok, Then I see a lot of messages complaining about Tuquoise glare, Car Excesive Shinning, And So on. That's true, something is going on on Rfactor 2 graphics and most people think that is the core simulator and that is not; more related to graphic options that I think is a little mess.

I my case I expend a time with graphics config and then as a result only one formula seem to be correct for best quality results and also able to elude extrange post processing effects.

I think Studio 397 should post other recomended settings because if you follow those indications some effects are far from correct in terms of gamma curves and brightness: thats a major fact in this simulator because some users seem to be hold back beacuse the grafics when in fact are pretty good.

Here my results:

Antialiasing 4 because 5 introduces some blurring
Post processing effects: None

Circuit detail, payer detail, oponent detail, texture detail: Full
Texture filter: x8 (because 16 is too much to match antialising) (Critical setting)

Special effects: Full

Shadows: High (going further causes extremely dark shadows and the high resolution of them exceed the other scene elemets) (Critical setting)

Shadow Blur: Off (It just add a horrible blur to image) (Critical Setting)

Soft Particles: Off (Turn this on adds a strange glare on the car white shine and also sky horizont, and tho whole image in fact, and many people are complaining about)
(Critical Setting you really need to avoid This)

Rain drops: High or Ultra
Road reflection : Ultra
Eviromental Map. High

I play in Ips Screen and this setting give a correct gamma curve in the whole image with no postprocessing and a Very good results.

I think Studio 397 should care abot that because his recommended settings are far from the corrects ones I Think.

This are the real Rfactor graphics:

Instead of that:

 

[stonec]

Antialiasing 4 because 5 introduces some blurring

AA 4 and 5 are virtually identical as you can see from screenshots below. Anything above AA 3 adds little useful to my eyes.

Shadows: High (going further causes extremely dark shadows and the high resolution of them exceed the other scene elemets) (Critical setting)

The shadow setting has nothing to do with darkness of the shadows, it only impacts draw distance and resolution.

Shadow Blur: Off (It just add a horrible blur to image) (Critical Setting)

Shadow blur gets rid of the jagged shadows you get on lower shadow settings, but it also affects FPS, so it's a trade-off. It doesn't add blur to any other part of the image.

Soft Particles: Off (Turn this on adds a strange glare on the car white shine and also sky horizont, and tho whole image in fact, and many people are complaining about)
(Critical Setting you really need to avoid This)

Soft particles does nothing based on many screenshots and testing comparisons I made.

Rain drops: High or Ultra
Road reflection : Ultra
Eviromental Map. High

These settings only impact the resolution and refresh rate of reflections. Rain drops from medium to ultra doesn't add much.

I think Studio 397 should care abot that because his recommended settings are far from the corrects ones I Think.

Post processing effects: None

None of the other settings you mentioned impacts whole image gamma, post processing is the only setting that could potentially do that. But in rF2 post processing is active even if you select "none". You still get the HDR, blue ambience etc., "none" only means that certain extra effects like depth of field are disabled. Basically gamma is pre-determined to what the rF2 devs found optimal, since there is no gamma slider available.

 

[Daniele Vidimari]

Sorry but:

Antialiasing 4 because 5 introduces some blurring
Post processing effects: None

I've always used level 5 and i've never seen any blurring, level 5 simply gives a less aliased image.
There are big differences between pp off and pp low, is a matter of tastes of course, but imo pp on (even on low) gives a better image overall.

Circuit detail, payer detail, oponent detail, texture detail: Full
Texture filter: x8 (because 16 is too much to match antialising) (Critical setting)

Opponent details full is a big issue when racing with a lot of cars (30-40). You will rarely see an opponent close so much to notice difference in car and livery quality if you set it i.e. at medium.
I'm not aware of any reason to not use aniso x16, it gives a sharper image and it doesn't cost anything in performance.

Shadows: High (going further causes extremely dark shadows and the high resolution of them exceed the other scene elemets) (Critical setting)
Shadow Blur: Off (It just add a horrible blur to image) (Critical Setting)

Shadows setting control how many shadows you see, assuming the track maker did a good job in optimization. In most cases with shadows low you will see the shadows only in the key objects of the scene, like walls, pitbuildings, trees close to the track, bridges. The more you level up, the more shadows you see. Too dark shadows seems to be an overall issue with rf2, many have reported this, but is not controlled by shodow setting.
I agree that shadow blur doesn't look good and it's better to turn it off.

Soft Particles: Off (Turn this on adds a strange glare on the car white shine and also sky horizont, and tho whole image in fact, and many people are complaining about)

This has nothing to do with glare or horizon (maybe the haze, but i'm not sure about this), this control the effects like the dust lifted up from a car running off track.

Rain drops: High or Ultra
Road reflection : Ultra

Good if you have a very powerfull pc, otherwise these settings kills the fps even in a sunny day.

This are the real Rfactor graphics:

Instead of that:

Again this video comparison has nothing to do with graphics settings, the first is recorded using post effects high or ultra, in well made and well optimized tracks, using custom camera angles and in most of the scenes low sun angles, the second is simply a lap recorded in a very old and bad optimized track.

@stonec beated me.

 

[Daniele Vidimari]

@stonec
As far i'm aware the shadows draw distance is set in the SCN of the track and can't be changed by graphics settings, from SIMTrackpedia:

Below the "GroupMethod=LinkSingle" line i place the line: "MaxShadowRange=(800.00)" to the SCN file.
This prevents objects outside the 800m range to cast shadows. Change the value at your own taste.


An example is Daytona Road Course, where there is clearly a big issue with the shadow draw distance set too low, no way to solve the issue with any of the graphics settings

 

[PabloVND]

The video is not accurate but you see an exageration of the effect glare vs not glare for we can understand.

Of course every sistem is different but I playse for users who don't find the image to try this config I proposed to see. In the end is a matter of minutes to change and load track.

 

[PabloVND]

Stonec, again yo can see the extrage glare in the screeshots you put. Try with my config and you see this glare dissapear.

Here you have a video made by me yesterday with the graphic configuration I made. Maybe yo can do a video and we can compare.

 

[stonec]

Right, I should have been more specific. Those shadow settings probably don't change the cut-off draw distance itself, but they do change the LODs at which shadows are drawn. If you go from low to maximum you'll see that the edges appear much less jagged into a longer distance ahead, which is because a higher LOD is chosen to be used.

Shadows are IMO a bit of a black art in rF2 currently, which is why I'm looking forward to the shadow system getting updated. I did quite a bit of modding and track conversion few years ago so I'm familiar with the MaxShadowRange value. I never fully understood what it does. What I learned was that a too high value starts making shadows in short distance look more jaggy, so it's a compromise and I basically just went with a setting that ISI/S397 tracks used.

 

[Juwe Lahann]

again yo can see the extrage glare in the screeshots you put. Try with my config and you see this glare dissapear.

I believe this is still a thing until full implemention of PBR shaders, but I don't know for shure (s397 mentioned it when releasing the PBRs for the first time with the GT-Challengers-Pack):

"Another known issue is that our post effects are not fine-tuned yet to the new materials. That means in some conditions they produce unbalanced results, like too much glare. We are currently comparing our output to that of industry standard ray tracing solutions to make sure our output matches such solutions and when we are happy with that we’ll re-calibrate the post effects to work with realistic light intensities from things like headlights and solar specular. If it bothers you, we recommend you turn those effects down a notch or two for the moment."

From Roadmap dec '18 (https://www.studio-397.com/2018/12/roadmap-update-december-2018/ )

 

[PabloVND]

Same settings as first post but road reflection setting to high.

 

[PabloVND]

Actually what unbalaces the image most is the enviromental reflection. You notice that on sky and clouds.

Antialiasing level 3
No fxaa
No post processing
Full detail
Full effects
Anisotropy x8
Shadow high
Shadow blur off
Soft particles off
Road reflection ultra
Enviromental reflection off

 

[PabloVND]

 

[Corti]

you do not specify what your hardware is ...
I'm going to test your configuration, I hope it works.
My PC:
Intel Core i7-4770 CPU @ 3.40GHz, 3401 Mhz
ASRock H87 Performance
Physical installed memory 32,0 GB
Total physical memory 31,9 GB
Physical memory available 26,0 GB
Total virtual memory 36,7 GB
Virtual memory available 29,8 GB
Paging file 4,75 GB
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 4GB
Dell S2409W(HDMI) 1920 x 1080 x 60 hz.

current configuration

 

[PabloVND]

Just Nvidia card and w 10. The most relevant is rgb complete as color management and also color management by nvidia in control panel. Lg34Um69g an ultrawide 1080p monitor Ips. I think some "issues" on post processing are only noticeable in ips panels (affects color). But I don't know for sure because I can differences I my mobile.

In any case materials and lightnig are being worked now, so probarbly those are just provisional settings. But as you know the volumes are important in a sim and the picture to be coherent.

Results (Ignore video stuttering)

 

[Supa]

I dont use it in Config. I have mine set to none and just use the settings i n your graphics card thru nvidia inspector

 

[stonec]

Results (Ignore video stuttering)

I'm not sure what this video is supposed to show. Yeah it looks good but rF2 always looks good in early or late night hours. Actually most games look better in dark conditions because you can't see the details. You need to provide screenshots before and after with default settings and your setting so we can really see if there is any difference. Otherwise this is just speculation.

 

[Alex72]

One thing i Think is a Little bit Jarring is the new shaders on cars that make them look almost White from certain angles in Sunlight. Like a red Ferrari when seen from the side and the sun is on it looks almost White in color. It doesnt look like that in real Life. Thinking its just some tweak to cut off lighting or similar. Sorry i dont have an example atm as im at work. Nothing too bad or something to complain about, but i Think it could be improved a Little to make it look even better.

 

[PabloVND]

This apparently has to be with everything, postprocesing, antialiasing, cubemaps road reflection...
After many test I got a 2.0 settings
Anti aliasing: Level 3 (I think msaa x4)
Post procesing: off (unbalances image gamma for me )
Circuit, player, oponent, texture: full
Texture filter: 8x (matches AA good)
Special efects: full
Shadows: high (going further is not optimised I think)
Shadow blur: off (not working good for me)
Soft particles: high (balances glare effect between car and scenario)
Road reflection: high (goig further unbalances image glare fpr some strange reason)
Enviromental reflectin: high
These work for me and maintain quality, whole image contrast coherence, and limited glare on the horizon and escenario.

 

[PabloVND]

New RFactor 2 Definitive Graphic configuration: post processing Low, Level 3 Anti Aliasing, circuit opponents player textures full, AA x8, special effects medium rain drops high, road reflection high, envirometal reflection high, shadows high, fxaa off shadow blur off soft particles off.

 

[PabloVND]

Post processing low for best performamce but not deactivated for lighting reasons (glare and blue tint well known side effects)

 

[nov79]

to be able to play this game@2k@120fps @ultra setting with11 oponents，9900kf@5G +2080 super oc is needed，very hardware demanding in raining or at morning/sunset time
，reason is reflection calculation，raindrop calculation，headlight，and long shadows at sunrise/sunset. these scenarios are real hardware killer. I used to have4770k+1070 the fps is below 40 in raining plus sunrise or sunset time