Shimmering trees and blocky shadows

[Hirgab 9]

I have a really bad case of shimmering (mostly from trees in the distance) and VERY blocky shadows (no AA applied to shadows whatsoever.)I have set sharpening to maximum and I have checked the .cfg file to confirm 16x. I'm using an AMD 5970 card with the official 12.1 drivers (without the CAP1) and settings are on application controlled.I have tried forcing AA through the CCC but that did not change anything. Changed 'box' to 'wide effect' and 'edge effect' and did not notice any difference. Also changed from 'multi-sample' to 'super-sample' and no difference.Also, I find the ground textures to be VERY blurry when flying low, almost unacceptably so - but this could be working as intended.Anyone else having a similar experience?

[trevorbee 0]

Yep, I am getting lots of shimmering (trees and buildings) and no AA. So far I have not found any way to improve it.My GPU is an ATI Radeon HD 5450.

[nbz 4]

Same problem here (NVidia 570). The shimmering goes away when I use "supersampling" antialiasing in the driver, BUT that causes artifacts (stripes in clouds), and utterly destroys the fog. Transparency anti-aliasing does not seem to help either, just like in FSX.

[JonP01 104]

That is strange, as I am using supersampling with a GTX580 and not getting the stripes in the clouds. Normally those sorts of artifacts are caused by using the rotated grid supersampling rather than the traditional supersampling. For my own part I am using 32xS (8 x MS plus 2x2 supersampling), no transparency AA at all and 8 x AF with all optimisations set to maximum quality in the drivers. No artifacts are visible anywhere, no shimmering anywhere at all and still easily able to maintain 60 fps vsync all the time.

[megs8888 20]

Jon what do you mean by super sampling are you talking Nvidia Inspector settings? Can you post a screenshot of your settings I have a 580 aswell and get shimmering runways and trees. Thanks Wayne

[JonP01 104]

Hi Wayne,I have attached a screenshot of my inspector settings. I tried to attached the actual profile as well but the software would not let me upload that file type and I did not want to cheat by changing the extension. If it does not work, make sure you have deleted the default Microsoft Flight profile first (the one integrated into the Nvidia drivers). Then setup my one.If you find your performance is compromised at these settings (my monitor is smaller than the average these days), you can go down to 16xS or 12xS at the expense of a small loss of quality (especially with 12xS) and very slightly more shimmer. If that is still not enough you can turn on the flitering optimisations (anisotropic and trilinear) and reduce the texture filtering quality to "quality" but again this will slightly degrade the image quality a bit further. Even then it is still miles better than the default settings.

[megs8888 20]

Is this for FSX Jon not MS flight right? sorry didnt want to get mixed up :)

[JonP01 104]

This is for Flight only. These settings are hopeless for FSX.

[megs8888 20]

OK cheers anyway

[nbz 4]

Jon, thank you for your Inspector settings.Unfortunately, even with those settings, and whatever else I try, I get artifacts whenever the antialiasing is supersampling, or has a supersampling component. I did try to nuke the default nVidia Flight profile.I could live with a few stripes in the sky, but the fog breaks just really bad.These are the stripes:This is the degraded fog. Even jitters around like FSX fog. Weather is set on "high", so it should have a smooth edge:The steeper down I look, the worse it gets. This shows what I believe to be the fog shader getting confused by the double-width, double-height rendering that results from the 2x2 supersampling. This is of course reduced in size but shows the entire screen area (the above images were just snippets):Considering how that looks, I guess I will have to put up with shimmering trees...

[JonP01 104]

Hi,I have seen a "straight" edge for the fog below but I never tested to see if this was due to supersampling or not. I don't ever recall seeing any other issues but maybe I have concentrated so much on the ground below I have not stared into the clouds long enough. The results from a GTX570 should be the same as a GTX580. If you want to PM me with your email address, I can send you my .nip file directly as there might just be some setting that is different and not easily detected.Where exactly were you flying when you took those shots? I will try to fly there and see if I can duplicate the result.I'll also look for other artifacts next time I run the game but thus far the only strange visuals I have ever seen are fog edges. If that is indeed the case then I guess the options are having two profiles - one for fog and one without fog.I'll post again if I do find any artifacts I have missed though. It would not be the first time, however that different cards in the same series have produced different results.For my own part, shimmering and imperfect anti-aliasing drives me absolutely crazy and I always want to eliminate this first above anything else, almost no matter what the cost is. There are minor artifacts in other applications I run where I apply supersampling of various types but I put up with them in order to eliminate all the jagged edges and shimmering. I gues this is why Nvidia do not expose these options in their own drivers due to incompatability issues.

[nbz 4]

Jon, thank you for your detailed post.I have seen a "straight" edge for the fog below but I never tested to see if this was due to supersampling or not.Sounds like it is due to supersampling. When that is off, fog renders perfectly smooth as advertised for me.I don't ever recall seeing any other issues but maybe I have concentrated so much on the ground below I have not stared into the clouds long enough.But this sounds like you do NOT have the same issue.... I guess you would have noticed these stripes, as they have no fixed position in the sky but move around when changing view direction (including just banking you plane).The results from a GTX570 should be the same as a GTX580.That's what I think, too. Except for a 10-15% performance advantage for you.If you want to PM me with your email address, I can send you my .nip file directly as there might just be some setting that is different and not easily detected.I will do so. Thank you for this.Where exactly were you flying when you took those shots? I will try to fly there and see if I can duplicate the result.Near ANY coast, on ANY island, using the Dense Fog weather. Try looking to the side from the cockpit, and bank the plane so you can look down. The effect should be immediately obvious - unless you think my third screenshot looks just fine ;-)I'll also look for other artifacts next time I run the game but thus far the only strange visuals I have ever seen are fog edges. If that is indeed the case then I guess the options are having two profiles - one for fog and one without fog.This is what I will do, I guess. Fog edges DO happen when the graphics setting for weather is less than "High". But that is normal and does not come with the 2x2-screen issue seen in my third shot.[...] For my own part, shimmering and imperfect anti-aliasing drives me absolutely crazy and I always want to eliminate this first above anything else, almost no matter what the cost is.Almost the same for me. Things have to get as bad as my third shot before I consider NOT using supersampling.[...] I gues this is why Nvidia do not expose these options in their own drivers due to incompatability issues.Yes. I have to say that every setting that is available from NVidias panel works without artifacts.

[OzWhitey 3,353]

I've had constant annoyance with shimmering in FSX when veiwed on a 40 inch lcd Tv. It's the most noticable improvement in Flight - no shimmer with the autogen and airports. I'm using a gtx570, and still have it set up in inspector for FSX as per the guidelines in the sticky in the PMDG forum.

[meshman 109]

The steeper down I look, the worse it gets. This shows what I believe to be the fog shader getting confused by the double-width, double-height rendering that results from the 2x2 supersampling. This is of course reduced in size but shows the entire screen area (the above images were just snippets):

The "ghost plane" effect was/is mentioned to the development team. Your screen shot will help.

[nbz 4]

The "ghost plane" effect was/is mentioned to the development team. Your screen shot will help.

I have now seen it there, and commented on it.For the sake of completeness, and to show how this seems to be clearly related to multisampling antialiasing, here is another one I did for multisampling 3*3. I will link both shots from the beta forum.