Some nice person posted this casually and wow this is the first I heard about this.  I'm hear to tell you if hadn't already heard it's been possible to get FSX DX9 highest quality AA using Inspector with no performance cost all along (check it out RobA!).  That's right!  I've been outspoken about trying to get LM to work on this, in fact as you know they mention in the rendering FAQ there are inherent issues w/ DX11 and some AA settings and they were in some way working w/ NVidia to help resolve this.  Well, nothing needs resolved!  I can't tolerate FXAA as for my eye everything gets too soft verging on slightly blurry.   So, give this a whirl and see what you get.  I'm totally jazzed as this was my number one complaint and I can now say I have the exact same appearing AA as I had in FSX DX9 which I felt was perfect for all practical purposes.  Take note of the first AA compatibility setting (DX1x, choose the BIOSHOCK option) and as you can see I went back to 'override' in game settings and set my own preferred AA & super-sampling settings.   My runway lines are again jaggie-free and runway threshold swimming behavior has 90% disappeared, and of course FXAA is still OFF, and the performance impact is zero!   I'm stoked!!

Enjoy!!

Cheers

 

 

My runway lines are again jaggie-free and runway threshold swimming behavior has 90% disappeared

 

Just tried it but while shimmering control and detail are good I still get very bad taxi/runway line pulsating

with your settings (default startup flight).

 

gb.

That is great news!

Could you please also share your in-game settings for AA?

 

Btw your NI screenshot shows settings for the 'GLOBAL_DRIVER_PROFILE'. Is this where you set this, as opposed to the Prepar3D profile?

Tried this a while back and there is a signifigant performance hit for me sadly, but my PC is far less powerful, so its a case of YMMV. I can use 8xS + 2xSGAA in FSX with no trouble at all, so I am hoping that nV or LM can do something to help P3D and make AA more affective and less expensive.

 

Edit to add: that using the old FSX settings xS & SGAA [which works well on runways etc] also make the water render in odd ways, making it look very blurry, esp, where sunlight is reflected... anyone else get this?

 

 

with no performance cost all along

 

Bummer, was hoping this was a new trick but it's solution that's been around for 'ages' already ^_^ and it certainly DOES have a (sometimes HUGE) effect on performance!!! Well, unless you have a Titan, apparently.  ^_^ But on my good old GTX580 this setting results in an fps of around 29 where I usually get 34 (which is my hard limit so actual fps probably is higher) and in certain circumstances (lots of clouds) fps even drops to low 20's with these settings (where is stays above 30 with the regular AA settings). Glad it works for you though.  ^_^ I still hope LM is looking at this together with nVidia because it definitely still needs to be resolved…!

  I still hope LM is looking at this together with nVidia because it definitely still needs to be resolved…!

 

If the Nvidia issues are not resolved within the next few months I may consider going ATI. I'd dump my 670 into my gaming rig.

 

Though I'd also have to purchase P3D too!

 

 

....I may consider going ATI

 

Is the situation any different or better on the red team?

Is the situation any different or better on the red team?

 

From what i've read so far on various forums ATI appears to be quite a good card for P3D regarding the AA issues.

If Nvidia get the drivers sorted out then I assume that will put Nvidia back in front.

Just tried it but while shimmering control and detail are good I still get very bad taxi/runway line pulsating

with your settings (default startup flight).

 

gb.

Are you sure you have it set the same eh?  I'm shocked by what this did for the dizzying line pulsating.  I'm using the latest WHQL driver for my Titan GTX.

Bummer, was hoping this was a new trick but it's solution that's been around for 'ages' already ^_^ and it certainly DOES have a (sometimes HUGE) effect on performance!!! Well, unless you have a Titan, apparently.  ^_^ But on my good old GTX580 this setting results in an fps of around 29 where I usually get 34 (which is my hard limit so actual fps probably is higher) and in certain circumstances (lots of clouds) fps even drops to low 20's with these settings (where is stays above 30 with the regular AA settings). Glad it works for you though.  ^_^ I still hope LM is looking at this together with nVidia because it definitely still needs to be resolved…!

W/O the compatibility setting which was the pearl I did not see this kind of improvement w/ no performance hit, so it's definitely resolved now.   I wonder if you aren't asking for too much since the sim really needs a high end GPU or SLI'd lower end GPU.  I'll be quite surprised if they can sneak out this sort of image quality w/ no bit hit on lower end GPUs which seems to be what you're hoping for--seems very unlikely to me.  You can get this sort of result w/ FSX/DX9 since there is so much of the GPU that isn't demanded in that sim.

 

 

Edit to add: that using the old FSX settings xS & SGAA [which works well on runways etc] also make the water render in odd ways, making it look very blurry, esp, where sunlight is reflected... anyone else get this?

 

I need to go up and see if I'm getting this w/ these settings too.  When I first experimented w/ Inspector I discovered, and least at the time it was the clear conclusion, that it was not the AA setting that did this it was predominantly the AF setting in inspector, which is why you see AF settings left at Application Controlled/Off.  Once I did that the bizarre water effects, moire, blurry, etc went away.  Be e sure you make sure those are off as well.

That is great news!

Could you please also share your in-game settings for AA?

 

Btw your NI screenshot shows settings for the 'GLOBAL_DRIVER_PROFILE'. Is this where you set this, as opposed to the Prepar3D profile?

In-game I have MSAA at 4x, and Anisotropic Filtering at 16x. I am using the current WHQL driver from nV. It's also important to set AF at Application Controlled/Off in NI to eliminate the moire and distortion of water textures.  I need to go verify now that those aren't again showing up since discovering this trick ;o)

 

 

If the Nvidia issues are not resolved within the next few months

 

They're resolved here thank goodness.  Were you not able to get the improvement you'd hoped using the settings above w/o a significant hit on performance I assume is what you are saying?

I need to go up and see if I'm getting this w/ these settings too. When I first experimented w/ Inspector I discovered, and least at the time it was the clear conclusion, that it was not the AA setting that did this it was predominantly the AF setting in inspector, which is why you see AF settings left at Application Controlled/Off. Once I did that the bizarre water effects, moire, blurry, etc went away. Be e sure you make sure those are off as well.

 

 

I have AF 'off' in Inspector, so it seem its the AA mode combination that causes the odd water... using the modes you show in the settings shot eliminates the water issues totally, but the performance hit is a little too much to bear for me, reducing my fairly stable 30fps to the low 20's when overflying urban areas... this was testing over Orbx FTX Ireland.

 

I've gone through a lot of the AA modes, but have yet to try them all.

 

There is still much more impact using Inspector in P3Dv2 over FSX and feel there is work that can be done to help in this area; at least I hope so.

 

Obviously running a Titan has a lot to do with being able to push the AA where us with lesser cards are going to struggle.

 

BTW... can you run with AA off in P3d like we do in FSX?... I seem to need it on in the sim, or I get no AA at all.

 

 

I have AF 'off' in Inspector, so it seem its the AA mode combination that causes the odd water... using the modes you show in the settings shot eliminates the water issues totally, but the performance hit is a little too much to bear for me, reducing my fairly stable 30fps to the low 20's when overflying urban areas... this was testing over Orbx FTX Ireland.

 

Ahh!  I posted this late last evening after learning about the Compatibility setting mentioned.  This was clearly the solution to what I'd tried before.  I too, as RobA also posted, had improved AA but w/ a perf hit until I read about and turned on the compatibility setting.  So, just went out to test water:  ouch!   Not good!  OK, here's the other piece of what I had learned previously when playing w/ AA settings w/o the compatibility fix, and I know I posted on this early on but promptly forgot about once I turned NI settings effectively off, and here it is:   I MUST have NEG LOD Bias set to Allowed, not clamped.   Once I did this just now water quality went back to the same as w/ only in-game AA settings (MSAA 4x primarily).   I really haven't tried this in ultra-complex areas yet, but in my default area I'm seeing identical frame rate as w/ NI AA settings off so at least it's hopeful.  I run very dense sliders and suspect I will be fine fine.  I'm stoked!

 

I do have a Titan in the box though so I'm sure it's handling the AA well which I would surely hope it would.

hmmm, on my side and some others i know, the aa-bahaviour of P3D is the same as fsx with dx10 (Steve's shader fix applied).

 

All we need is to enable AA ingame and set transparency AA in the NI to 4xSparseGridSupersampling (or 8xSGSSAA if you got a faster vga).

 

"Normal not transparency" AA settings in NI have no effect at all.... and don't need to.

 

Also turning on/off any (tested them all) compatibility mode has no effect.

 

This on a GTX660 (GTX660TI and GTX 670) with actual whql-driver and all (about a year ago) whql-drivers before.

 

Also turning on/off any (tested them all) compatibility mode has no effect.

 

... on our rigs...

 

But thank's for testing, every hint is welcome!

Also turning on/off any (tested them all) compatibility mode has no effect.

 

... on our rigs...

 

But thank's for testing, every hint is welcome!

Well I have to believe what you are saying but I'm pretty sure I tried all of these things very early on and experienced some pretty nasty performance degradation (RobA mentioned this too I think) which I'm not seeing any more.   I will go back again and retest using only the 4xSGSS and see how it looks.  I know last night when I tried this I did go back and turn the DX1x comp mode off and the outcome wasn't good, turned it back on and saw the improvement again, hence the preliminary conclusion was affirmed.   It is tough to conclude anything w/o exhaustive testing I am aware but alas it was late and it was such an improvement (primarily in runway lines & thresholds)  that I had to say something quick!

Try one more time and verify this.  I just did a fairly comprehensive set of tests and it is, without equivocation, the Compatibility Mode of DX1x BIOSHOCK that is what is responsible for the vastly improved AA in my configuration.  I tested each one of these independently restarting P3D V2 between each change:

• Compatibility Mode:  none selected
  • MSAA 4x in game
  • FXAA:  OFF
  • AF 16x in game
  • NI
    • SparseGridSuperSampling 4x
    • AA Mode:  Application Controlled, therefore none selected in NI
      • RESULT:  jaggies appear in runways and certain exterior airplane liveries from certain angles as you know, and runway thresholds still have jaggies--i.e., no AA has been applied for these types of lines.

Same as above, however now I have selected in NI AA mode = Override any application setting (or like that).  I add my preferred SUPERVCCA_64, and add retain SGSS:  RESULT:  no change--jaggies remain.

 

Now, I turn Compatibility Mode to DX1x, BIOSHOCK

RESULT:  jaggies now gone, water texture is fine in both DX9 & DX11 modes.

 

Turn Comp Mode back to none selected and the jaggies return.

 

It's surprising to me this isn't the case for you or maybe others, but it most certainly is here!  It could be if you are using FXAA the difference may not be as compelling.  But I am stoked because I see not only the runways lines & thresholds vastly improved, but have retained the crispness of leaving FXAA off in-game.

 

Cheers