I'm curious what everyone in here is running these days in the way of AA. Specifically transparency settings. I've found the absolute best compromise for myself at 8xQ and 4x Sparse Grid Supersampling. I honestly cannot tell a difference with 8x and 16xQ/32x. The 'xS settings tend to hurt frames for me when any heavy clouds are visible, and stutters tend to be prevalent at these settings as well.

Setting inspector is part of my preflight:I normaly use 8xS + 4xSGSS. 4xSGSS is hard on the GPU, but I found that setting AF to application controled and then in FSX filter to "Anisotropic" helps relief some of the Sparse Grid induced strain. Not sure why but it's not placebo, believe me (or much better, try it if you haven't already)In very bad weather 4xSGSS can bring my OCed GTX480 to it's knees (frames in the teens and jerky as hell) but most of the times it will remain in the mid 20's while flying through the clouds and reasonably smooth.Too much autogen (trees I think) can be a problem with 4xSGSS too, so I never set it any higher than Very Dense. Actually before using SGSS I always used Normal or Sparse because of the stupid way it pops up... and the shimmering. Now it looks so good that I set it as high as the flight conditions allow.So while planning a flight, I pick one of my 3 predefined set of FSX settings based mainly in departure and arrival, and then I check the weather: if I can foresee overcast conditions, then I'll tune down SGSS to 2x, especially when flying in IVAOI'm pretty sure a mid range card like a 460 or your 560 can handle 4xSGSS with moderate AG and a few clouds anyway, but I never tried it with my 460. I'd be interested in knowing how you do with 4xSGSS Zach, and if setting Anisotropic filtering to app controlled helps get those high AA settings working decently for others too (a couple of members of the forum already told me it made a difference, some others said it didn't)

Here are mine, this could be a pretty interesting thread. I though I should do the same for REX.I may set the AF to app controlled and see what happens Dazz.

I may set the AF to app controlled and see what happens Dazz.

Thanks heaps Andrew Just in case someone else wants to try it and didn't understand what I meant, here's how Inspector looks with my settings

No worries Dazz.

OK, so I tried with Anisotropic in FSX and got 135FPS in the trike at a little addon regional airport. With the nVidia Inspector I got 159FPS with 16x so Inspector wins!

That's possibly the worst testing of graphics I've ever heard. Get in that NGX and sit in EGLL peak traffic.

Thanks. I could but I I think an increase of 25FPS is sufficient to tell weather there is difference. I did a bit more with the NGX at YSCB (FTX) and it still came out on top.

Can the settings in NVidia Inspector be changed and tested on the fly (no pun intended) or do you have to restart FSX and a flight each time you want to adjust and test something?

Can the settings in NVidia Inspector be changed and tested on the fly (no pun intended) or do you have to restart FSX and a flight each time you want to adjust and test something?

A restart is required, unfortunately.

Setting inspector is part of my preflight:I normaly use 8xS + 4xSGSS. 4xSGSS is hard on the GPU, but I found that setting AF to application controled and then in FSX filter to "Anisotropic" helps relief some of the Sparse Grid induced strain. Not sure why but it's not placebo, believe me (or much better, try it if you haven't already)In very bad weather 4xSGSS can bring my OCed GTX480 to it's knees (frames in the teens and jerky as hell) but most of the times it will remain in the mid 20's while flying through the clouds and reasonably smooth.Too much autogen (trees I think) can be a problem with 4xSGSS too, so I never set it any higher than Very Dense. Actually before using SGSS I always used Normal or Sparse because of the stupid way it pops up... and the shimmering. Now it looks so good that I set it as high as the flight conditions allow.So while planning a flight, I pick one of my 3 predefined set of FSX settings based mainly in departure and arrival, and then I check the weather: if I can foresee overcast conditions, then I'll tune down SGSS to 2x, especially when flying in IVAOI'm pretty sure a mid range card like a 460 or your 560 can handle 4xSGSS with moderate AG and a few clouds anyway, but I never tried it with my 460. I'd be interested in knowing how you do with 4xSGSS Zach, and if setting Anisotropic filtering to app controlled helps get those high AA settings working decently for others too (a couple of members of the forum already told me it made a difference, some others said it didn't)

I can see no difference in performance between 2 and 4xSGSS, but aircraft liveries definitely show some stepping when at the lower 2x. 8xSGSS, however, brings the performance down to 25 FPS as opposed to locked at 30, and an apparent jerkiness or stuttering is noticed. Mind you I've done all of this "testing" parked on RWY1 at KDCA with a 2000' overcast, all sliders right, and no AI traffic. The real performance hit for me comes when using you settings, 8xS AA, with any of the above mentioned transparency settings. I've noticed, however, that I literally can tell no difference in AA quality between 8xQ and 8xS when using SGSS. This, of course, comes down to individual preference and a keen eye. The latter of those two I may lack. As far as anisotropic filtering goes, I honestly see no performance hit one way or the other, and have always set FSX to anisotropic for the same reasons you do.

Tell me if you'd do anything different...

Ryan, you're running a faster card than me, but would you try 8xQ with Transparency Supersampling set to 4x Sparse Grid Supersampling. I'm curious if you can see an obvious difference of performance and quality for you when running my settings.

When I updated my drivers, and I see all of you have the same thing, the line which says "SLI compatibility bits (DX10)" defaulted to "0x000000F5 (DX SDK Detail..." etc. etc. So my question is why that setting? When you look at the options for that setting there is a "0x000200F5 (MS Flight)". Is it possible the default setting is wrong and maybe changing it to the MS Flight setting will yield better results?

Ryan, you're running a faster card than me, but would you try 8xQ with Transparency Supersampling set to 4x Sparse Grid Supersampling. I'm curious if you can see an obvious difference of performance and quality for you when running my settings.

No significant change in IQ or FPS.

No significant change in IQ or FPS.

Hmm. Thanks Ryan.