Jaggies, jaggies, jaggies

[louiseSEUK 2]

Hi all,Well, first off, apologies if I've posted in the wrong forum - it's a sort of hardware issue (8800 GTS 512), but more driver related. Please see the attached - this is really noticeable (and annoying) when in flight - spot viewing from angles gives this rather unpleasant jaggies across the wing (and this paint nicely shows off the problem on the fin too). If I look straight down, though, the lines are crisp and sharp. It'll happen on the ground and in the air; I've also noticed taxilines and runways exhibit the same problem. I've found that if I zoom in to 1x, then the edges are rendered fine, but as soon as I zoom out more than 2x, then they'll appear (happens in VC too, can attach screenshot of that if it helps). Again, all other AA seems to be fine - the aircraft body, for example, renders just fine, as does scenery buildings, even zooming out to max - it just seems to be the finer detailed lines etc that exhibit this problem.I'm using the standard Nvidia Control panel (I have tried using Nhancer, but I've not really been able to get this to work - I end up with really bad aliasing), and AA set to 8Q, AF to 16. I'm using the 169.xx drivers, and haven't upgraded as the 175.xx break Remote Desktop access, which I need to have. I did notice, though, that the problem continues on these later versions, so I think its a setting rather than the driver version. I'm on XP SP3, and it's FS9.Other than this (annoying) problem, FS runs really really well on the rig! Thanks,Leo Godalming UKhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/supporter.jpgMSI P6N PlatinumXFX GeForce 512MB 8800 GTSQuad Core E6600 @2.4GHz3GB Corsair PC2-6400WD 250GB for Flight SimHitachi Deskstar 500GB - Dedicated FSXP, Regular XP and Vista

[ulisses 1]

Hello Leo,Your anti-alias setting in the overall image looks fine, your problem are the thin lines near the horizontal plane.It is a problem in computers and video footages in general, mainly in high contrasted images like thin black lines over white background (or viceversa) like your wing example.When you zoom out, a 4 pixels line comes 2 pixels in height and the jaggies is worst. The "easy" way to improve it is using better anti-alias (16Q)Another try is reducing your AF and setting AA to Supersampling.But are these worth (thinking about FPS) ?Make some tests with your texture resolution, sometimes reducing the general texture size (inside FS display settings) can blur it a little and help on jaggies.More than that, you can check the 3D video setting "Texture filtering - Quality" and adjust it to High Quality.The best way to improve the thin lines render is increasing you monitor resolution to something like 1600x1200 or more.Anyway, I'd like to say it is quite normal.I hope this helps,Ulisses

[louiseSEUK 2]

Anyway, I'd like to say it is quite normal. - meh, not what I was hoping to hear!! I'm going to have a try with the other settings, but I am at max res now - 1280x1024. It does look like blurring the textures may be having a slight effect, but will plug away with the other suggestions. Thanks, Ulisses!Leo Godalming UKhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/supporter.jpgMSI P6N PlatinumXFX GeForce 512MB 8800 GTSQuad Core E6600 @2.4GHz3GB Corsair PC2-6400WD 250GB for Flight SimHitachi Deskstar 500GB - Dedicated FSXP, Regular XP and Vista

[ulisses 1]

Quite normal in image world, I work with 3D animation and video production, many times I have to work around for improve thin lines near the horizontal plane.What I can say is that texture painters should smooth these lines to help AA in FS.Good luck !Ulisses

[ryanbatc 12,812]

yep, that's normal.

[louiseSEUK 2]

OK, well I have managed to get a fix to Nhancer (newer version!) to fix the problems I was having with the earlier version not aliasing properly. Seems that fiddling with some of those settings is having some benefit, though it still remains particularly noticeable on the E-Jet (thats not intended to be a critisism, just an observation, overall its a fine plane!). Thanks to all for your help, good to know its not just ne, its just the way things are...Leo Godalming UKhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/supporter.jpgMSI P6N PlatinumXFX GeForce 512MB 8800 GTSQuad Core E6600 @2.4GHz3GB Corsair PC2-6400WD 250GB for Flight SimHitachi Deskstar 500GB - Dedicated FSXP, Regular XP and Vista

[ulisses 1]

Great Leo,What setting helped more ?Also, I'm interested in know how FSX performs in your machine (I have the same MB, now updating the CPU to a Quad and maybe a 9800GTX which is like your video board).Ulisses

[louiseSEUK 2]

Seemed to be the biggest improvement was turning down the max texture slider in FS options.. I really didnt see any noticeable difference between 8 and 16X AA - looked much of a muchness, and the jaggy problem certainly wasnt greater or (perceiviably) less.Go for the mobo - I really like it, but I've not had much success with overclocking - I put this down to poor ventilation though. Its much better when o/c'ed in the middle of our spare room, but that is hardly practical :) TBH, I rarely use FSX, but in DX9 mode, I can run everything midway quite well. I think another post somewhere here on the fora suggested FS9 for Heavies, FSX for low and slow - I would agree with that.Its on my Vista partition (itself pretty irregularly used), as I wanted the DX10 bells and whistles - but I cannot seem to get AA going with the Nvidia drivers, so DX10 is a no no for me (though the latest drivers may have fixed that, I couldn't honestly say).Shame really, as I also got World in Conflict - and that has absolutely gorgeous DX10 graphics. Despite the complaints of Vista (and there are some justified, IMO), DX10 when it works really is quite impressive - (almost) worth the investment in Vista...Leo Godalming UKhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/supporter.jpgMSI P6N PlatinumXFX GeForce 512MB 8800 GTSQuad Core E6600 @2.4GHz3GB Corsair PC2-6400WD 250GB for Flight SimHitachi Deskstar 500GB - Dedicated FSXP, Regular XP and Vista

[Guest GabeThePilot]

I find that the best setting for AA in FSX is 4xS thruogh nHancer.It is the only setting that stops the shimmer of the RealAir gauges - which are superb.'Q' settings tend not to work for me and anything higher than 4x Super Sampling is not supported in the latest driver/nHancer combo's.You will always get shimmering in the distance in fSX, especially with fences and straight lines. Using Transparency AA help, but SS Transparency hits your frame rates.some people feel that adjusting MipMap Bias in the CFG file can influence this - personally I've not seen any effect at all. to be honest, if you use Anisotropic Filtering, I think Mipmap bias is irrelevant.Setting 'in-game' AF to 'trilinear' and switching AA to 'none', is the best way to go...set it all up in nHancer. And always use Vert Synch with Triple Buffering enabled.