Jagged edges

[haztronic 1]

Hi everyone, I did a topic kind of like this before but it was about distant shimmering, like the horizon. This time its about close jagged edges. I have a 580GTX, using 8xSQ and 4x supersample. Basically, my runways on an angle view are super jagged, with certain payware sceneries they smoothen out, same with taxiways, especially blueprint sceneries, like MCO, the taxiway markings are incredibly jagged. Other than that my graphic edges are smooth. But I'm trying to find an answer to this problemAlso, as I'm posting a topic problem,I may as well ask why sometimes in certain places, especially around the Orlando area, if I pan around the outside of my aircraft, sometimes if I move to quick i will get these black like dagger marks, kind of like a thin twig but a bunch of them on my screen for a split second and then disappear. Like I said, its only in certain parts of the world. Sometimes I think its just to do with my monitor refresh rate, I use a hitatchi hdtv, not very good for gaming but I'm upgrading very soon to a asus 2ms 27inch monitor. Should I go for a 3ms or 2ms?Here's a pic of the jagged edges I was talking about earlier. Thanks a lot fellas!

[cmpbellsjc 2,963]

<br />Hi everyone, I did a topic kind of like this before but it was about distant shimmering, like the horizon. This time its about close jagged edges. I have a 580GTX, using 8xSQ and 4x supersample. Basically, my runways on an angle view are super jagged, with certain payware sceneries they smoothen out, same with taxiways, especially blueprint sceneries, like MCO, the taxiway markings are incredibly jagged. Other than that my graphic edges are smooth. But I'm trying to find an answer to this problem<br />

I've experienced the same thing with some payware addon (Aerosoft)and freeware addon sceneries but its very easy to fix. All you need to do is resave the offending texture files using a freeware tool like DXTBmp and have it resave with mipmaps included. Just this week I downloaded some freeware sceneries that had basically no textures mipped and it was shimmering like crazy and had jagged edges. I simply resaved the textures adding mip maps and it fixed it up. Just make sure to resave the files in the same format that they orginally were in ie. DXT5, DXT3, or DXT1. If the files have no alpha channels you can get away with saving them as DXT1 if you want to lighten the load a bit as well, a secret I learned from FSDT.BTW, I run AA Combined 8xS and 16x AF and having everyting mipped eliminates all the jagged edges and shimmering on a/c and sceneries without having to over work your GPU by running extreme AA leves which might not completely cure your problems anyway.

[Kosta 122]

Instead of 4x supersample, turn on 4x or 2x SGSS. That'll get rid of those too.

[haztronic 1]

So I should just type that in the inspector settings Word Not Allowed?And thanks for the help cmpbellsjc but I have no idea how to do any of that, I would need more guidance if I was to do something like that.

[Kosta 122]

Set as mine:

[haztronic 1]

Okay will do, can I still keep my 8xSQ setting though? and what does 2x - 4x SGSS actually do?

[Paul J 349]

To get a better understanding of how to arrive at Word Not Allowed's excellent settings and suggestions - read this guide here:-http://forum.avsim.net/topic/324786-nvidia-configuration-guide-inspector-2xxxx-drivers-version-20-explanations-of-all-settings/

[Kosta 122]

Okay will do, can I still keep my 8xSQ setting though? and what does 2x - 4x SGSS actually do?

I wouldn't use 8xSQ combined with 2x/4x SGSS. That will virtually kill your FSX performance.Sparse Grid Supersampling is basically the best quality transparency anti aliasing there is. But it is of course also the most demanding one. As P.Taylor once said: there is no free lunch. I am running 2x, and most satisfied by it.

[cmpbellsjc 2,963]

I have a question since the op's problem happens to me once in a while dependng on the area. So is it better to up the video card settings to get rid of the problem or fix the mip map things as the other guy suggested and not have to run more demanding gpu settings?It would be easier to just adjust the gpu settings rather than mess with textures, but I dont want to pay a performance penality by upping AA filtering too much to fix it when I dont always have the problem. Suggestions please.

[Kosta 122]

to up the video card settings to get rid of the problem

Scroll to post 7.http://www.simforums...topic38651.html

So your saying technically transperancy sampling whether multi or super makes no difference to trees' date=' fences and taxiway lines? [/quote']Not exactly.. what I am saying is the perf hit to go one way or the other is no different and when you enable ss and use those features along with CSAA' date=' which kills cockpit shimmers in certain aircraft, it compounds the loss.Some people do not fly planes that display shimmer in the cockpit. If you think trees shimmer bad and give you a headache, there are some aircraft 3D cockpits out there that will make your head spin if CSAA is not in use regardless of the SS settingsIts 6 of 1, 1/2 dozen of the other due to how FSX is designed to render autogen trees and other elements and because of that, as Phil Taylor pointed out, there is no such thing as a free lunch when it comes to shimmer and AA in FSX. [/quote']

[Tabs 2,790]

I wouldn't use 8xSQ combined with 2x/4x SGSS. That will virtually kill your FSX performance.Sparse Grid Supersampling is basically the best quality transparency anti aliasing there is. But it is of course also the most demanding one. As P.Taylor once said: there is no free lunch. I am running 2x, and most satisfied by it.

This is not true. Sparse Grid SSAA is actually lower quality than regular supersampling - it's designed to trade image quality for performance by using less sample points when determining the color averages. Normal super sampling is the best quality you can currently get and also the lowest performing.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multisample_anti-aliasing#Sparse_regular_grid This article here is old but it explains very well how AA actually works inside the video card - you can see how using a "sparse" grid for the color interpolation couldn't result in better image quality - it's less computational work:http://alt.3dcenter.org/artikel/multisampling_anti-aliasing/index_e.php

[Kosta 122]

Ryan, then explain it please, why is it, that the image quality is way way better with SGSS than with normal SS, if the normal SS is superior to SGSS? And I also compared them in performance, SGSS is here way more taxiing on the system than normal SS. I'll read the articles, but I'm going here from my own personal experience, and some others on this forum...

[Kaly 22]

Sparse grid ss is actually higher than just supersmpling.Sparse grid renders the whole image with supersampling not just the transparent plygons.Hence the performance hit will be greater,than if you only used ss.

[CFIJose 5,485]

Sparse grid ss is actually higher than just supersmpling.Sparse grid renders the whole image with supersampling not just the transparent plygons.Hence the performance hit will be greater,than if you only used ss.

and with Sparse Grid it looks much better and sharper.

[Kaly 22]

I agree, Jose!