Is P3D Anti Alias hopeless?

[Nyxx 6,993]

2 minutes ago, AnkH said:

Why this? I use widescreen enabled in the config since years, now also in P3Dv4.1. Is there any disadvantage from using this?

BTW: I use 4xSSAA and have absolutely crisp panels and gauges. I guess 4xSSAA should be possible in daytime also for a 980 on 1080p. In night time, I only use 4xMSAA due to the enormous performance loss when combining DL and SSAA...

I think if you use chaseplane it now set or users widescreen automaticly, you had to set widescreen months ago for it to work. I set to widescreen within p3D anyway. 

If there is now a reason not to I also would like to know why.

You comments on AA are spot on.

[odourboy 1,289]

Ive used widescreen since day one also. What's the issue?

[Guest]

2 hours ago, AnkH said:

Why this? I use widescreen enabled in the config since years, now also in P3Dv4.1. Is there any disadvantage from using this?

Not sure how my suggestion to help out A member having trouble with AA and gauges turned into a "recommendation for all to turn off Widescreen"?

OP was having an issue with gauges -- one's screen resolution, AA settings, and zoom level will impact how gauges look ... turning Widescreen OFF will bring back a more accurate "zoom" relative to a pilot's head position in the VC which should make the gauges more readable.

Thread about it here from some years ago: The WideView Thread

Cheers, Rob.

EDIT: on a side note, the more one zooms out, the lower the FPS as there is more for the CPU/GPU to render as you see more of the virtual world.

[Matthew James de Bohun 55]

20 hours ago, sidfadc said:

Age old problem of using 4xSSAA at night with dynamic lighting brings most cards down.  You can’t NOT use DL in the PMDG or else the landing lights don’t illuminate ground.  This is the position I’m in using a 1070.  I think it’s ridiculous if even a 1080ti can’t handle 4xSSAA with DL on because those cards aren’t cheap.  Anything less than 4xSSAA produces horrible ORBX night light shimmering as well so you are getting double shafted.  

Even with 4XSSAA I get noticeable shimmering. Granted nowhere near as bad as the lower AA settings but it still bugs me.

Despite numerous searches for a solution I can't get rid of it. I just have to hope that now we have 64 bits to play with that Orbx etc will come up with a vast improvement!

[honanhal 1,420]

FXAA is the only AA mode in P3D that brings shimmering down to an acceptable level for me. Even 4x SSAA leaves a lot to be desired in terms of image quality, aside from which a mere 2X SSAA brings my 1070 to its knees at addon airports (and I'm on a 1080 monitor, not 4K or anything!), so I use FXAA with 8x MSAA. It's acceptable, but cockpit text is blurred and performance in heavy cloud is still plagued by microstutters. Not ideal.

AA is P3D is clearly a problem. Image quality was better in FSX a full 5 years ago (albeit with much worse performance). Something for LM to work on, I guess...

James

[DylanM 1,069]

If you are using a high resolution (I have a 43" 4K screen) or using DSR, you can also try MSAA + MFAA. Image quality is certainly better, and does not have blur textures like FXAA.

[TheBoom 31]

There is one other option, SMAA. 

But it involves a third party shader injection tool namely Reshade. Worth a try if you don’t mind tweaking and fiddling around with stuff.

Currently using 4XSSAA with a 1080ti at 1440p but it’s slightly annoying that I have to keep switching back to 2x at night.

Might give SMAA + 4MSAAxMFAA a shot and report when I have time. 

[gboz 157]

7 hours ago, Rob Ainscough said:

Not sure how my suggestion to help out A member having trouble with AA and gauges turned into a "recommendation for all to turn off Widescreen"?

I think maybe advice to zoom in a bit more might of been better than advice to turn wideview off. One less variable.

 :)

gb.

[odourboy 1,289]

On 13/12/2017 at 11:03 AM, Rob Ainscough said:

... Also, if you have "widescreen" enabled, I suggest you disable it.

Cheers, Rob.

Your words Rob. I wondered how this helps AA. (Still do)

[ryanbatc 12,833]

12 hours ago, honanhal said:

FXAA is the only AA mode in P3D that brings shimmering down to an acceptable level for me. Even 4x SSAA leaves a lot to be desired in terms of image quality, aside from which a mere 2X SSAA brings my 1070 to its knees at addon airports (and I'm on a 1080 monitor, not 4K or anything!), so I use FXAA with 8x MSAA. It's acceptable, but cockpit text is blurred and performance in heavy cloud is still plagued by microstutters. Not ideal.

AA is P3D is clearly a problem. Image quality was better in FSX a full 5 years ago (albeit with much worse performance). Something for LM to work on, I guess...

James

Not with default FSX settings.  If you used nvidia inspector or nvidia CP it was far better I agree

[swiesma 625]

Just gotta throw this in:

In 4K I don't really see a difference between MSAA and SSAA. But maybe I'm blind, who knows :-)

I run 4K @ 4x MSAA, FXAA off, 16x Anisotropic... and I have no shimmering problems etc? I am fully ok with the visuals I get. if they fix autogen loading then P3D is perfect for me.

[honanhal 1,420]

8 hours ago, ryanbatcund said:

Not with default FSX settings.  If you used nvidia inspector or nvidia CP it was far better I agree

Good clarification. You’re right, I meant with NV Inspector.

James

[Dazkent 113]

To me this is what is stopping me from switching from FSX to P3D, I run 1080P on a single screen and all I would like is the AA to be at least on par with FSX. I am guessing that as it's not DX9 the method of performing AA is different. When using V3 I always had trouble with ORBX scenery with flashing sparklies. If the AA could be improved without the need to go 4K or bring the graphics card to it's knees using nvidia inspector I would definitely make the change.

 

 

[Guest]

I'm not sure how the AA could be any better in P3D V4?  8XSSAA is about as good as you can get provided you have the GPU to handle it ... at 1920 x 1080 you need "less" GPU processing power (less pixels to operate on).  SSAA will remove the "flashing sparkles", 2XMSAA + FXAA will also remove the flashing sparkles.  No need to go to 4K.  

Moving from 1920 x 1080 to 3840 x 2160 will introduce about a 22% FPS reduction (provided your GPU has enough VRAM and isn't >3-4 years old).  Moving to 4K should reduce the need for AA.

Widescreen is a just a zoom level offset allowing you to zoom OUT more.  The more you zoom out the smaller the VC text/gauge will be and the harder for AA to process and the need for higher levels of AA.  If you use ChasePlane I would NOT use Widescreen since CP has it's own zoom and you can easily position your viewpoint (head) after you get the desired zoom level.

If one is seeing "ocean shimmering" that can be caused by other factors beyond AA, a big cause of ocean shimmering are 3rd party water texture set replacements, so if you're seeing lots of ocean shimmering, consider using a different water texture set and/or even a different water detail setting (sometimes lower water detail can be better visually).

Cheers, Rob.

[Dazkent 113]

19 minutes ago, Rob Ainscough said:

I'm not sure how the AA could be any better in P3D V4?  8XSSAA is about as good as you can get provided you have the GPU to handle it ... at 1920 x 1080 you need "less" GPU processing power (less pixels to operate on).  SSAA will remove the "flashing sparkles", 2XMSAA + FXAA will also remove the flashing sparkles.  No need to go to 4K.  

Moving from 1920 x 1080 to 3840 x 2160 will introduce about a 22% FPS reduction (provided your GPU has enough VRAM and isn't >3-4 years old).  Moving to 4K should reduce the need for AA.

Widescreen is a just a zoom level offset allowing you to zoom OUT more.  The more you zoom out the smaller the VC text/gauge will be and the harder for AA to process and the need for higher levels of AA.  If you use ChasePlane I would NOT use Widescreen since CP has it's own zoom and you can easily position your viewpoint (head) after you get the desired zoom level.

If one is seeing "ocean shimmering" that can be caused by other factors beyond AA, a big cause of ocean shimmering are 3rd party water texture set replacements, so if you're seeing lots of ocean shimmering, consider using a different water texture set and/or even a different water detail setting (sometimes lower water detail can be better visually).

Cheers, Rob.

Thank you Rob for the very useful insight for AA settings, it has been a while since I have used P3D and I am very tempted to give v4 a try. My current card is a GTX 970 ,silly me bought one a few months before the 10 series came out. In FSX it pretty much sits there having a nice rest and not sure if it would be up to the job for P3D. Could stretch to a 1070 in the new year though and maybe a new SSD. I do like the thought of not having to worry about out of memory errors and having a stable sim.