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Ray Proudfoot

Anti-Aliasing... the down side

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I expect everyone already knows about this but just in case you don't there is a big downside to applying high levels of Anti Aliasing even if it doesn't slow down your graphics performance.Here are two pictures of part of the PSS Concorde panel. See any difference? The first was taken with a AA of 2X and the second with AA set to 6X (the maximum on my card). The effect on these pictures isn't as obvious as when viewing a full panel. The panel is noticeably less sharp with higher AA applied.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/168962.jpghttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/168963.jpgWhilst it's nice to have minimal jaggies when viewing the aircraft externally I'm not sure I want to lose the sharpness in the panel. I'm running at 1920*1200 so I'm not convinced the jaggies would be a big problem anyway.Just thought any of you who are also suffering with less-than-sharp panels might be interested.


Ray (Cheshire, England).
System: P3D v5.3HF2, Intel i9-13900K, MSI 4090 GAMING X TRIO 24G, Crucial T700 4Tb M.2 SSD, Asus ROG Maximus Z790 Hero, 32Gb Corsair Vengeance DDR5 6000Mhz RAM, Win 11 Pro 64-bit, BenQ PD3200U 32” UHD monitor, Fulcrum One yoke.
Cheadle Hulme Weather

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Sorry Ray but something is wrong with your setup there. I run dual 8800 GTX at 16X/16X 1920*1200 and there is ZERO blur in my setup. Something is not right there...-PPrimary RigLiquid CooledIntel C2D E6600 @3.2 gigsAsus P5N32SLI-Plus2 gigs Corsair XMS PC6400 4 4 4 12 @810Dual OC'd XFX 8800GTX @ 2 gigs24 inch Widescreen LCD 16XAA/16XAFDual 19 inch LCD'sRaid-0+1PCPower and Cooling 1k Quad SLIhttp://home.comcast.net/~psolk/3monitorsa.htmlBackup RigAMD 4000 San Diego @ 2.72 Gigs Kingston Corsair XMS CL2XFX 7900 GTX Raid-0psolk.jpg


Have a Wonderful Day

-Paul Solk

Boeing777_Banner_BetaTeam.jpg

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Well if something is wrong would you care to share it with me? Perhaps you could upload some panel pictures for comparison.Actually, it makes prefect sense why the panel would be less sharp with higher levels of AA. Since AA is designed to blur the edges of angled lines it seems perfectly feasible that it actually blurs the whole image to achieve this. Hence the slight blurring of the panels.Whilst I can set 16AF I cannot set AA above 6X. I have a reasonably powerful card so why can you set AA to 16X and perhaps more importantly why is it necessary at 1920*1200? Surely the need for AA is now redundant unless resolution is 1024*768 or lower?


Ray (Cheshire, England).
System: P3D v5.3HF2, Intel i9-13900K, MSI 4090 GAMING X TRIO 24G, Crucial T700 4Tb M.2 SSD, Asus ROG Maximus Z790 Hero, 32Gb Corsair Vengeance DDR5 6000Mhz RAM, Win 11 Pro 64-bit, BenQ PD3200U 32” UHD monitor, Fulcrum One yoke.
Cheadle Hulme Weather

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Hi Tom,Yes, I do have Render to Texture ticked. Shouldn't it be on? I seem to remember from when FS9 was first released there could be problems if it was turned off.The tooltip help for this say's "Select this checkbox to use multitexturing for effects. May decrease performance on some computers."Later... just tried starting FS9 with it turned off and FS9 has crashed. Seems it should be turned on. So I'm back where I started :-)Cheers,


Ray (Cheshire, England).
System: P3D v5.3HF2, Intel i9-13900K, MSI 4090 GAMING X TRIO 24G, Crucial T700 4Tb M.2 SSD, Asus ROG Maximus Z790 Hero, 32Gb Corsair Vengeance DDR5 6000Mhz RAM, Win 11 Pro 64-bit, BenQ PD3200U 32” UHD monitor, Fulcrum One yoke.
Cheadle Hulme Weather

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Don't you just love computers? I have render-to-texture turned off (have done for months) and not only has it given me better FPS, my FS9 does not crash. Also, I use the in-game anti-aliasing instead of using the video card settings (Radeon 9200SE) because in contrast to all the advice I read, it gives me better FPS!Don't understand it - but my PC shouldn't run FS9 as well as it does anyway, so I'm not complaining.;)

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Rules aren't rigid. If something works for you then ignore all the advice and do what seems right.I discovered this blurring effect purely by accident. As turning AA to 2X doesn't appear to introduce any negative effects it will stay at that setting unless someone can come up with reasons why it should be changed.Strange how using the internal AA gives you better performance. But hey, who's knocking it if it works! :-)Cheers,


Ray (Cheshire, England).
System: P3D v5.3HF2, Intel i9-13900K, MSI 4090 GAMING X TRIO 24G, Crucial T700 4Tb M.2 SSD, Asus ROG Maximus Z790 Hero, 32Gb Corsair Vengeance DDR5 6000Mhz RAM, Win 11 Pro 64-bit, BenQ PD3200U 32” UHD monitor, Fulcrum One yoke.
Cheadle Hulme Weather

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Guest Zevious Zoquis

Any chance you've got dxt3 textures installed for your clouds? I believe thats the thing that cuases FS to crash when the render to texture option is disabled. You should be able to run the sim with it disabled (in fact iirc that's how the sim defualts when freshly installed)...

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Well done! That's the reason it's on. As I use AS6 I need toleave that option on.So now that we've established RToT needs to be on and generally everything looks a lot sharper is there a good reason to turn AA higher than 2X? I don't think there is.Thanks.


Ray (Cheshire, England).
System: P3D v5.3HF2, Intel i9-13900K, MSI 4090 GAMING X TRIO 24G, Crucial T700 4Tb M.2 SSD, Asus ROG Maximus Z790 Hero, 32Gb Corsair Vengeance DDR5 6000Mhz RAM, Win 11 Pro 64-bit, BenQ PD3200U 32” UHD monitor, Fulcrum One yoke.
Cheadle Hulme Weather

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I've noticed this at times too, mostly because my monitor is limited to 1280x1024. In the real world, lines are of course sharp, while 'jaggies' do not exist. Considering that aliasing occurs when representing a hires image at lower resolutions, I suspect a leaning towards ultra high resolutions is closer to reality than more AA.regards,Markhttp://www.dreamfleet2000.com/a320/custbanner2.jpgPC Power Silencer 470/3.2HT/2048mb/ATI X1950pro/SB Audigy


Regards,

Mark

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Ray, there is more to AA than just the panel. Consider the lines of a runway, taxi lines etc... So many simmers complain of scenery flickering, that is your AA and guess what there is no flicker at 16x. You can see by the two images 2x aa vs 16x aa which one would you rather have? Go and put yourself in the cockpit looking down the runway and show us a screenshot at 2x vs 6x (as high as your card can go.) I will bet there will be a noticeable difference between the two. You are making your analysis based on a zoomed in portion of the entire picture.-Paulhttp://www.nvnews.net/reviews/msi_geforce_..._horizontal.pnghttp://www.nvnews.net/reviews/msi_geforce_..._horizontal.png


Have a Wonderful Day

-Paul Solk

Boeing777_Banner_BetaTeam.jpg

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Hi Paul,Yes, I appreciate it's not just the panel that's affected by AA but to answer your question I would prefer AA 16X for scenery views and AA 2X for the panel view. ;-)Given that this isn't possible I have to decide which I prefer. At present it's 2X when flying Concorde (because the panel is referred to so often) but I may well switch to 6X when flying my PMDG737 using Project Magenta as I don't display the panel and have a full forward view. PM runs on a separate PC providing a glass cockpit.So it seems I can make my cake and eat it! :-hah Cheers,


Ray (Cheshire, England).
System: P3D v5.3HF2, Intel i9-13900K, MSI 4090 GAMING X TRIO 24G, Crucial T700 4Tb M.2 SSD, Asus ROG Maximus Z790 Hero, 32Gb Corsair Vengeance DDR5 6000Mhz RAM, Win 11 Pro 64-bit, BenQ PD3200U 32” UHD monitor, Fulcrum One yoke.
Cheadle Hulme Weather

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Hi Mark,Paul makes a valid point that runways/taxiways needs some AA otherwise everything appears oversharp and unnatural whereas panels benefit from lack of AA at high res.Maybe in FS15 this problem will be resolved but until then I'll adjust AA depending on whether I'm displaying a panel or not.Cheers,


Ray (Cheshire, England).
System: P3D v5.3HF2, Intel i9-13900K, MSI 4090 GAMING X TRIO 24G, Crucial T700 4Tb M.2 SSD, Asus ROG Maximus Z790 Hero, 32Gb Corsair Vengeance DDR5 6000Mhz RAM, Win 11 Pro 64-bit, BenQ PD3200U 32” UHD monitor, Fulcrum One yoke.
Cheadle Hulme Weather

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Too bad it can't be that way all the time;). My issue with lower AA levels is that it does indeed produce a "flickering" at most high end add-on airports. Running at 1920*1200 16xAA/16xAF provides the crispness of high resolution + the fluidity of high aa/af and allows me to have my cake and eat it too also :) I find the best balance is to have the AA set high, unless you are REALLY zoomed in on the panel.This could also be an Nvidia vs ATI discussion with Nvidia's new transparency aa at supersampling making it even better...All the best,-PaulPrimary RigLiquid CooledIntel C2D E6600 @3.2 gigsAsus P5N32SLI-Plus2 gigs Corsair XMS PC6400 4 4 4 12 @810Dual OC'd XFX 8800GTX @ 2 gigs24 inch Widescreen LCD 16XAA/16XAFDual 19 inch LCD'sRaid-0+1PCPower and Cooling 1k Quad SLIhttp://home.comcast.net/~psolk/3monitorsa.htmlBackup RigAMD 4000 San Diego @ 2.72 Gigs Kingston Corsair XMS CL2XFX 7900 GTX Raid-0psolk.jpg


Have a Wonderful Day

-Paul Solk

Boeing777_Banner_BetaTeam.jpg

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