Hello all,

There as small anti-aliasing problem that has been bothering me for a little while. The problem is, that anti-aliasing does not seem to be applied to certain objects in FSX. For example, some knobs in the NGX (like the engine mode selectors and autobrake selector), some tree types (African trees), and the biggest problem: the white runway markings of the default runways, are not being anti-aliased. Only the part closely to your position is being anti-aliased, but the part in the distance looks quite jaggy. Custom runway textures are anti-aliased just fine by the way.
When I start a flight on a runway in a helicopter, and take off, anti-aliasing does seem to become active for the markings at a certain altitude (around 50 ft), but anything below that makes the white markings look quite jaggy. 

I am using anti-aliasing via NVIDIA Inspector, running Ryan's settings, but I have also tried Word Not Allowed's ones, and tried experimenting with different settings like 2xSGSS, and no matter how high I put the anti-aliasing (for example 32xAA), still, these few objects will not be anti-aliased. 

Is AA actually active? Yes it is, I can put AA inside FSX to off and everything in FSX is very crisp, but just not the default runway markings and some knobs in the cockpit. 

To be honest, I do not think it is related to a specific video card, because I also remember having it on my GT 320 and GTX 560Ti, but wasn't that bothered about it at that time.

Video card is an Asus GTX 670 DC2-2GD5, with NVIDIA drivers 310.90. 

I suppose this is a "normal" problem in FSX that is not fixable, and in that case I will not care about it. If there is a way to solve it, please tell me.

I attached a screenshot too. I don't know if it's a good representation because I'm nut sure whether AA still works in a screenshot, but in the highlighted part is where the problem is most noticeable.

 

 

I am using anti-aliasing via NVIDIA Inspector

 

This is your problem.  Turn them on in FSX.  FSX works better with AA/AF turned on in the application.  You can try using the Enhance the application settings but that hasn't really improved anything on my system.  I have great AA/AF with it turned off in NI and turned on in FSX.  Better fps too. 

 

No screenshot came through.

 

Best regards,

Jim

This is your problem.  Turn them on in FSX.  FSX works better with AA/AF turned on in the application.  You can try using the Enhance the application settings but that hasn't really improved anything on my system.  I have great AA/AF with it turned off in NI and turned on in FSX.  Better fps too. 

 

No screenshot came through.

 

Best regards,

Jim

I have already tried setting AA via FSX only and disable it altogether in NI. Quality is greatly reduced, but no change to the runway markings. Little to no AA is applied to them. Then I tried Enhance Application Setting, but it turned out to be no different from Behaviour Flags set to "None". Then I tried setting a different type of runway markings in REX (from Brighter to Enhanced), but no difference.

 

I tried uploading a screenshot but it says the file is too big (2.5 MB). 

 

But as I said, AA is actually working. The image quality of FSX is very good, the problem is just that it's not applied to the runway markings of default airports, but it is actually working fine on runway markings at add-on airports. I suspect it's because the default runway markings are not proper textures, they are just white patches, and probably isn't detected properly by the driver or video card, that it should be anti-aliased. The problem is definitely not THAT bad. There seems to be a little bit of AA applied to it, but it's only a little bit, so the runway markings look fairly jagged, especially in the distance.

 

I can already rule out my monitor, video card, and video driver because I have had it with multiple of those hardware components and drivers.

 

Therefore I think this problem is normal and I'm just asking for confirmation that it is, so I can stop worrying about it. 

Hi Arjen,

 

Okay.  Cool!  It works the best if I employ the AA/AF within FSX.  I have never gotten NI to work without a massive loss in fps.

 

Best regards,

Jim

 

Therefore I think this problem is normal and I'm just asking for confirmation that it is, so I can stop worrying about it.

 

+1, i.e. confirmed

 

IMO, FSX DX9 really needs NI AA (8xS, 2xGSAA) plus AF (16x) to look its best (but still not perfect); this works fine for me.

Arjen I think what your seeing is quite common. I get very good AA/IQ and performance but do see a little less quality in what you are describing. Never found a way to make it better and I've tried. Even higher AA, but then gave up performance with little results. Just FSX and drivers not optimized for it I reckon. tried DX10 and all the mods and its worse or at least, no better.

Sorry about the necromancy, but I discovered something interesting in regards to shimmery runway markings at default airports.  The REX runway markings textures are to blame.  I've found that the original FSX runway marking textures do not suffer simmering issues nearly as badly as the REX textures (and they are good looking).  The easiest way to go back to the default markings textures is to use REX to restore the default texture from your initial backup, disable loading runway textures in the options tab and then reinstall your perferred REX textures.  All other REX markings are fine as they are, and you can still use REX runway textures with the default markings.