Anisotropic Filtering in Action....

[Guest]

Here's an interesting demonstration of anisotropic filtering, showing the improvement in texture sharpness that can be achieved with even modest anisotropic settings.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/27382.gifOf course, many cards allow you to go higher, but I've found that 8x or above has almost too much detail, and it looks odd to have the autogen fade away but the landscape remain sharp. 4x is the sweet spot for me.If you computer can handle it, this filtering really makes the landscape more vivid. Setting mipmapping to 5 has the same sort of effect as 2x anisotropic, but at the cost of shimmering.A caveat: Because anti-aliasing and filtering are now also applied to the 3d clouds, you may notice a larger performance penalty than was the case with FS2002. I tend to stay away from downloaded weather because the cloud complexity strains my system at 2xAA and 4x Aniso.

[Dark Moment 0]

Thanks, that's interesting. But, from what I've seen to date in 24 hours of FS9 ownership, I think I'm going to be flying everywhere in clear skies and with default aircraft. I can't believe how heavy the hits are with AA, AF, and enabling anything but a wisp of cloud.450MHZ the minimum spec? Come on, MS, that's an insult to our intelligence. I run a rig which is neolithic by comparison to most in these forums. P4 1.8GHZ, 512MB RAM, Windows XP, GeForce2 cards (that'll have summat to do with it, sure, but not much) with every driver, DirectX and Windows update and I'm getting between 3-11FPS around KSEA, both on the ground and in the air. Yuk.I've played with all the settings recommended at the top of this forum, not much change. If anything, FPS has fallen because some of the recommendations for tweaking the settings are written by those with much faster systems.So Meljet 777s on my rig, with complex panels? Forget it.Mark "Dark Moment" Beaumonthttp://www.swiremariners.com/newlogo.jpg

[Guest]

Clarification on Anisotropic filtering please. If I read correctly elsewhere, for better performance it is recommended that the filtering be disabled within the FS9 environment and enabled through the video card settings.....correct?Can a drop of frame rates be expected at higher filtering levels?All these recommendations are making my head swim!

[Cloud9 0]

Sounds like you need to get at least a GF3 (better is the Radeon 9500 Pro for ATI users) or above to enjoy FS2004. FS uses DX8 and DX9 but I understand that GF2 cards don't support either one. You will get a boost in performance if you get a newer card that is also affordable. Check out www.newegg.com or www.googlegear.comCloud9

[Guest]

Anisotropic filtering will be an option through your card settings or tweaker only. You might be confusing it with Anti-aliasing, which is provided as an option in FS2004 but should probably be disabled there and enabled via your driver.FS2004 does let you increase mip-mapping, which can give you a similiar texture sharpness as anisotropic, but probably with some texture shimmering.and, yes, a drop in frame rate will accompany anisotropic filtering, especially with clouds. As with all things, you need to find the quality/performance ratio that works for you.

[Dark Moment 0]

Thanks, Dreamerman, you're right, of course. And they're very affordable, I confess. I think I've just peeved that we have a sim here that won't run on acceptably on something I bought only 16 months ago, which then was close to state-of-the-art (2GHZ was tops at that time). But I appreciate the links, new ones to me.Mark "Dark Moment" Beaumonthttp://www.swiremariners.com/newlogo.jpg

[Chris Willis 8]

Hi, I use only the driver display setting, NOT an external tweaker.I use 8x anasotropy, 2x AA, 1024x768 32 bits, I lock to 20 fps and I get 20 fps most of the time only when many clouds layers clouds frame rate drop but still smooth, I get higher fps If I unlock the frame rate slider. Anisotropic filtering fps drop is less then the AA enabled. I get never ground blur with fs2004 compare to fs2002.fs2004 all at full , except shadows, mesh to 85 % from 3rd party, ultrea high ms setting , 40 mil clouds draw distant, clouds percentage to 100%Intel p4 2.53 ghz 533 mhz, 512 ram kingston 333mhz, p4p800 8x Asus board, gforce4 ti 4200 128 meg 8x, Direct x9b, official nvidia 44.03 These line HELP on texture it control the ring of Fs texture which are not available with anisotropic.Open your fs9.cfg file, and modify the following lines:TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=9.500000TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=4.50000TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS= This is the default radius in textures for all rings, default is 2.5 TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS= This is the radius used for the inner ring when the extended texture ring is turned on, default is 4.0 Performance Boost -Enable the T&L will increase your performance near 4 fps-AntialasingThe Antialasing inside fs2004, will reduce alot your performance, uncheck from the fs2004 and only use the Antialasing from external tweaker or from your driver display setting.Better performance in 2d panel mode and others area.By disabled the AGP Texture Acceleration, your performance will increase specialy with 2d panel and others area. (You will not nead to turn of the AGP Texture Acceleration under your DirectX, it's the same function inside fs9.cfg)In your fs9.cfg under:(DISPLAY.Device.NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200 with AGP8X.0)Mode=1024x768x32TriLinear=1TextureAGP=0 <------------------------- Add this linePanelAsTexture=0 <--------------------- Add this lineBy adding the PanelAsTexture line, your performance will even increase specialy with 2d panel 3rd party aircraft, it may cause 2-d panels to blank out if you've enabled AA inside FS2004, uncheck AA in fs2004, and enabling AA from your prefered tweaker or your driver display setting. Special thank to JohnCi for the PanelAsTexture=0ThanksChris Willis[link:fsw.simflight.com/FSWMenuFsSim.html]Clouds And Addons For MsFs

[Joseph29 225]

What exactly does Anti-alasing do? On mine I disabled to FS2004 Anti-alasing and controled the setting through the graphic card. I got better looking textures (smoother) but the game crashed, so I put the Anti-alasing back on in the game and put it back to the way it was on my graphic card and FS2004 did not crash. But not the graphic are back to not looking so good (all the edges are jagged)

[Guest]

>What exactly does Anti-alasing do?Well, you sort of answered your own question there. Anti-aliasing is designed to reduce the "jaggies" (jagged edges of polygons) by setting your image at a higher resolution than your actual resulion, and then downsampling to what you see on the screen. This adds interpolated pixels along the edges to make them smoother.It has a performance cost because your video card is actually displaying at that higher resolution.I'm not sure why your system would be crashing when you set anti-aliasing through your video card. It obviously isn't working for your through the flight sim checkbox.What are your system specs?

[Guest jase439]

I've noticed FS2004 is much more frame-rate friendly with anisotropic filtering than FS2002. AF doesn't seem to cost must with clouds. FSAA is a real performance slayer, though. I just turned it off and run full bore with AF and the EXTENDED_TEXTURES tweak that Chris Willis posted.Nice visual demo of AF, btw.J

[Guest]

How is this feature accessed? Is anisotropic filtering accomplished through your respective video card tweaker or through FS9? Can't seem to find this feature anywhere.Using Geoforce 4 Ti 4200 card with version 4.13 drivers.

[Joseph29 225]

>>What exactly does Anti-alasing do?>>Well, you sort of answered your own question there.>Anti-aliasing is designed to reduce the "jaggies" (jagged>edges of polygons) by setting your image at a higher>resolution than your actual resulion, and then downsampling to>what you see on the screen. This adds interpolated pixels>along the edges to make them smoother.>>It has a performance cost because your video card is actually>displaying at that higher resolution.>>I'm not sure why your system would be crashing when you set>anti-aliasing through your video card. It obviously isn't>working for your through the flight sim checkbox.>>What are your system specs?My system specs are:P4 1.9 GHz256mb RAMGerforce2 MX 400 graphic card(Im getting a new graphic card and more RAM next week)

[Guest]

>My system specs are:>>P4 1.9 GHz>256mb RAM>Gerforce2 MX 400 graphic card>>(Im getting a new graphic card and more RAM next week)My understanding is that the MX cards are fairly weak, so I wouldn't stress about trying to make anti-aliasing work if you are getting a new card. If you get a fairly decent Radeon or GeForce I think you'll get a big improvement. With that system, the video card is your bottleneck.256MB Ram and a decent video card will put you in good shape. At that point, you'll be able to use features like higher resolutions, anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering ... FS2004 will become more CPU dependent for you.Just be aware that you will probably still have to make compromises with the 3d clouds, especially if you use AA and AF.

[Guest]

>How is this feature accessed? Is anisotropic filtering>accomplished through your respective video card tweaker or>through FS9? Can't seem to find this feature anywhere.>>Using Geoforce 4 Ti 4200 card with version 4.13 drivers.You have to use your video card settings or a tweaker program. With my radeon, I can go into the advanced driver properties (right click on the desktop, click on the settings tab, click on advanced, look for a tab that relates to Direct3d settings), or I can use a tweaker. I'm not sure what the options are with the GeForce. Maybe someone else can help.

[Guest]

OK.........found the option. On my system, it is under GL settings. Thanks for your help.