DX10 and FSAA: some personal observations

[Guest]

I've spend a few hours testing various settings with DX10 Scenery Fixer and nVidia Inspector. Some of what I post here I have already posted elsewhere but I thought it might be a good idea to gather it all into one topic. Take note that I have tested all this with a nVidia GTX580 (using a 1080i monitor) so all of this only applies to nVidia users.

 

nVidia Inspector's 'Antialising - Mode' and 'Antialiasing - Setting' options have no effect at all in FSX when you use DX10. The same goes for the nVidia Control Panel option (as stated in the Fixer's manual). During my testing I found out that on my PC a lot of the other Inspector settings seem to do nothing at all either. Let's start with FSAA (short for FullScreen AntiAliasing).

 

FSAA is taken care of with two entries in the FSX.cfg:

 

[GRAPHICS]

MultiSamplesPerPixel=#
MultiSampleQuality=#

 

You can either add and edit these entries yourself in the FXS.cfg or you can use the convenient 'DX10 Anti Aliasing' option for this in the Fixer. All the Fixer does is add those entries to the cfg and change them whenever you change the setting from within the Fixer. The Fixer itself doesn't do anything with FSAA, it just makes changing those settings easier.

You can always change the settings manually if you want to for some reason and when you start the Fixer after doing so, you will see the Fixer reads and shows the new settings. Take note that if you change the numbers to a combination that's unknown to the Fixer, the dropdownmenu behind 'DX10 Anti Aliasing' will be blank.

 

For anyone who is interested: here is a list of what each Fixer setting does in the FSX.cg.

 

2x

MultiSamplesPerPixel=2
MultiSampleQuality=0

 

4x

MultiSamplesPerPixel=4
MultiSampleQuality=0

 

8x CSAA

MultiSamplesPerPixel=4
MultiSampleQuality=8

 

8x

MultiSamplesPerPixel=8
MultiSampleQuality=8

 

16x CSAA

MultiSamplesPerPixel=4
MultiSampleQuality=16

 

16xQ CSAA

MultiSamplesPerPixel=8
MultiSampleQuality=16

 

32x

MultiSamplesPerPixel=8
MultiSampleQuality=24

 

Using these FSAA settings alone usually won't be good enough for the average user: you really need to add Transparency Supersampling, using nVidia Inspector, to get really good graphics without (too much) shimmering. (This means that the new Cloud Shader won't work anymore but I rather have good shimmerfree graphics!)

 

I spend quite some time testing various combinations and I came to the conclusion that (at least on my PC with a 1080i screen) I at LEAST need to use FSAA 4x (using the Fixer and thus using FSX.cfg) and 4x Sparse Grid Supersampling (using nVidia Inspector). Any lower setting or combination of lower settings results in obvious jaggies and/or shimmering.

 

During my tests I noticed that when you only test using screenshots (or a steady view in FSX) the difference between FSAA 4x and 4x Sparse Grid Supersampling (the lowest good combination) and for instance FSAA 32x and 8x Sparse Grid Supersampling is hardly noticable! You really have to look hard to see differences. Which surprised me, I have to say.

 

However, when you start looking around or flying you will notice FSAA 4x and 4x Sparse Grid Supersampling results in some shimmering. On my PC I had to turn the options one notch up to FSAA 8x and 8x Sparse Grid Supersampling to get a good and steady almost shimmerfree view on the FSX world.

 

The nice (and lucky) thing is that using these higher settings with DX10 did not result in lower performance. Not at ALL, even! I also tried FSAA 32x and 8x Sparse Grid Supersampling and even with those settings performance was acceptable, although I did notice some lower fps here and there. But since those very high settings didn't really improve the overall quality of the graphics I settled for FSAA 8x and 8x Sparse Grid Supersampling in the end.

 

BTW It is adviced (on this forum and the documentation about DX10) that the number you use for FSAA should also be used for SGSS so I guess using 4 or 8 for both are the best options anyway.

 

While I was testing all this I also decided to test (almost) every other possible option in Inspector. This resulted in a few conclusions that again surprised me. I found out that at least on my PC most of the option in Inspector seem to do NOTHING at all in DX10...! Gamma Correction, Line gamma, Transparency Multisampling made no difference at all, so I decided to disable them. If you can't see a difference, why keep things enabled...? I also disabled all FXAA options: afaik allowing FXAA Usage only has an effect on the FSAA in the FSX Main Menu which is not important to me: you never know what else it does that might hinder performance.

 

I also tested all Texture Filtering settings. I use User-defined/Off and 16x for Anisotropic filtering, which is a must. I then first tested if the ingame FSX setting made any difference or not: I sometimes read different opinions about it. On my PC I found it made no difference at ALL if I set AF to Anisotropic or to Trilinear in FSX: in both cases Inspector took care of AF so I decided to use Trilinear in FSX from now on, just to be sure that FSX Anisotropic wouldn't interfere with Inspector's AF.

 

After that I tested ALL other Texture filtering options and this also surprised me... Even with Quality set to Performance and all optimization settings On, I could not see ANY difference...! The quality as well as the performance remained the exact same as with High quality!

I have no idea if this is due to using DX10 or not but in this case I decided to keep all those options off. While turning the Antialiasing options off that seem to do nothing makes sure you don't lose any performance, you could say that it would be better to turn those Filtering options ON because they might help performance, but in this case I decided to go for quality and to make sure the filtering options can't do anything to degrade that.

 

Finally I tested Maximum pre-rendered frames which I had set at 2 (for some unknown reason). I noticed this setting didn't make any difference at all either so I settled for Use the 3D application setting, which seems to be fine.

 

So I ended up with using Fixer's 8x setting (which shows up in FSX.cfg as MultiSamplesPerPixel=8 and MultiSampleQuality=8) for FSAA and the Inspector settings as you can see them on the screenshot below. This gives me great FSAA without shimmers and still great performance. (I have VSync set to 1/2 Refresh Rate in Inspector and I have limited FSX ingame to 30).

 

I hope all of this may help some of you to get FSAA working well with good performance.

 

 

Conclusions so far: the ONLY settings in Inspector that seem to matter with DX10 are:

 

- Antialiasing compatibility (set to Bioshock for AA of aircraft shadows)

- Antialiasing Transparency Supersampling (4xSGSS or 8xSGSS or pick the one that works for you)

- Anisotropic filtering mode (set to User-defined/Off)

- Anisotropic filtering setting (set to 16x)

 

The others don't have any effect at all or do there own thing which isn't really related to all this (LOD Bias and Vertical Sync).

 

Somethng I still have to test: what happens when I use MultiSamplesPerPixel=8 and MultiSampleQuality=0 in combination with 8xSGSS, which is an option that's not available in the Fixer but what looks like a logical step up from 4x.

 

BTW Another thought: some people say they can't get the same quality in DX10 as they can in DX9. Maybe this has to do with the various options apparently doing nothing in DX10...? (Don't get me wrong: I am MORE than happy with my current graphics! I used to use (and be satisfied with) 4x for both but with 8x for both things are even better!)

[Paul J 349]

Great post, Jeroen - mucho bananas. I'm starting on a newer version of the How-To Guide, and this post or parts of it, would make a good addition to it. Is it ok that I use it?

[Bobu 0]

This is great. Thank you. I am struggling with these settings, too. It seems like no matter what settings I change, I get 23 to 24 fps with cockpit shimmering and jaggies. I am testing with the Mustang.

 

My new rig is the 4770k with the GTX 770, running 3 screens at 3840 x 1024. More reading to do.

[Richard Sennett 2,499]

Thansk so much Jeroen check it out now

[Paul J 349]

Try this .nip, Rob - just import it into your Inspector. and this for a cfg, I've already changed the GPU's [Display...] parts to suit your 770.

[Guest]

Great post, Jeroen - mucho bananas. I'm starting on a newer version of the How-To Guide, and this post or parts of it, would make a good addition to it. Is it ok that I use it?

 

No problem, of course: I'd be honored. ^_^ But please first make sure that my findings are correct! ^_^ This is how it all works on MY PC and I'd like to know if this is true on other PC's as well, so before you copy it all as being 'the truth and nothing but the truth', let's see what others have to say about it.

 

P.S. I will add my own .nip to the OP if I can still edit my post later on today.

[Christopher Low 5,341]

Nice post, Jeroen. I have also noted (after a flight today) that changing the DawnDuskSmoothing statement in fsx.cfg from "1" to "0" does not seem to make any difference. I have only tested this in DX10 mode, so I do not know if it matters in DX9 mode. It's also worth noting that I use REX Essential, so I guess it's possible that this has its own Dawn/Dusk smoothing effect built in. Nevertheless, setting it to "0" has cured my problem with respect to darker than normal ground textures at UK2000 Xtreme airports, so I am keeping it!

[Richard Sennett 2,499]

"So I ended up with using Fixer's 8x FSAA setting"

 

You mention this but in fixer I only see CSAA   ?

[Christopher Low 5,341]

I have options for 8x and 8xCSAA, Rich (in addition to quite a few others). What options do you have?

[Guest]

"So I ended up with using Fixer's 8x FSAA setting"

 

You mention this but in fixer I only see CSAA   ?

 

FSAA isn't a mode but stands for FullScreen Anti Aliasing. So the mode I used is actually called 8x. I will edit my OP to avoid this confusion.

[SKEWR 364]

 

 

P.S. I will add my own .nip to the OP if I can still edit my post later on today.

Hi J v E.

 

The latest Inspector is 1.9.7.2 I think. Not sure if the .nip will have problems going to a newer version from 1.9.7.1.

[Richard Sennett 2,499]

Cool thanks Jeroen about to fire up fsx now and see your work  

[Luis_KMIA 242]

Thanks for the info!  Also huge thanks to Steve Parsons, who has given FSX an extended lease on life.  My OOMs using complex add-ons are history.

[Richard Sennett 2,499]

Jeroen  nice job - thank you - now have to figure out quick skeleton when changing to spot view on T777 and VC loading a bit slow (unloaded blocky textures) than all will be good all and all Steves fixer is great bye bye dx9

[TheFamilyMan 279]

Excellent post JvanE. Nvidia DX10 implements AA using MSAA and CSAA. The implemented MSAA levels are 2x 4x, 8x, which IIRC is equivalent to 2 x 2, 4 x 4, and 8 x 8. The implemented CSAA levels add another sub-sampling component which does help out: 4 x 8, 4 x 16, 8 x 16, 8 x 32. 8x is stronger AA than any 4 x N setting, so the Fixer list should show this order by AA strength:
2x
4x
8x CSAA (4 x 8)
16x CSAA (4 x 16)
8x
16xQ CSAA (8 x 16)
32x (CSAA 8 x 32)

BTW I've used 16x CSAA for months. I found that 8x modes really hammers performance in cloudy situations (as does 8xGSSSAA), but maybe the new cloud shader takes care of this...I'll give it a try.