Confused about anti-aliasing, taxi lines and aircraft textures

[SirTommy 4]

With FS2004 I have smooth taxi and runway lines. The aircraft look good as well.

With FSX the taxi lines have a "barber pole" effect as I move around. When my view is perpendicular to a taxi line the line breaks apart completely.

The default aircraft look nice and smooth in exterior view. Payware aircraft in exterior view have the "barber pole" effect on their paint and panel lines. I've tried all sorts of AA settings and scoured the forums trying to figure out why this is happening. I can't find a setting that smooths out the taxi lines and the textures on the payware aircraft. I've tried settings using Nvidia Inspector and I've tried using just the Nvidia Control Panel.

My graphics card is a Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti. Not the best card out there, but shouldn't it be good enough to smooth out those lines? Could it have anything to do with me using REX runway and taxi textures? Why do default aircraft look better than payware (Caranado mostly)?

Obviously there is something I need to learn. I'm at my wits end watching these lines go crazy as I taxi around. Very distracting.

The rest of the sim looks great. Those lines though...they'll be the death of me.

[lownslo 592]

What settings are you using in the sim, and what are the configs you're using in NCP and NI?  Also, are you using DX9 or DX10?

Greg

[SirTommy 4]

Thanks for your response.

I'm using DX9. I've never tried using DX10 (my impression is that it requires more tweaking, which I'm growing ever more weary of. Maybe I'm wrong about that).

NCP settings are:

1. Anisotropic filtering 8x 
2. AA FXAA On
3. AA Mode Enhance application setting
4. AA setting 4x
5. AA transparency 4x supersample

Sim settings are:

1. Anisotropic filtering
2. AA checked

These are the current settings (at least the ones I think are relevant), although I've tinkered with other settings. I've also tried turning off filtering and AA in the sim and only using the video card. I've tried using "override any application setting" among other things.

Not using Inspector right now since I couldn't get results with it. I assume I have to use either one or the other (NCP or NI), correct? Will they conflict with each other or will one just override the other? (More confusion here).

Honestly, all the options in Inspector overwhelm me. I've tried multiple combinations. I've tried some that made my card just shut down. So, it's a tool I'm obviously not qualified to use. Feels like I need to take a whole class on how to use it. 

Maybe I'm expecting too much(?) Does anyone have totally smooth taxi lines in FSX?

[vortex681 806]

1 hour ago, SirTommy said:

Not using Inspector right now since I couldn't get results with it. I assume I have to use either one or the other (NCP or NI), correct? Will they conflict with each other or will one just override the other? (More confusion here).

NI gives you more options than NCP. Anything you change in NI, if there is a corresponding setting in the NCP it will also be changed. They both effectively do the same thing. If you use NI (just as in NCP), there is a menu icon which allows you to restore the current profile back to NVIDIA defaults so there's always an escape route if you do something wrong. One advantage of NI is that once you have a setup that works, you can save it as a game profile and restore it later if subsequent changes you try don't work.

I use DX10 mode and prefer it to DX9 but you really need Steve's DX10 Scenery Fixer (payware app) to get rid of all of the potential graphics problems that can occur - no more additional tweaking needed than with DX9. Using DX10 does give you excellent cockpit shadows which are not available in DX9 and you can add cloud shadows on the ground with a small, additional add-on.

Edited April 24, 2018 by vortex681

[SirTommy 4]

1 hour ago, vortex681 said:

NI gives you more options than NCP. Anything you change in NI, if there is a corresponding setting in the NCP it will also be changed. They both effectively do the same thing. If you use NI (just as in NCP), there is a menu icon which allows you to restore the current profile back to NVIDIA defaults so there's always an escape route if you do something wrong. One advantage of NI is that once you have a setup that works, you can save it as a game profile and restore it later if subsequent changes you try don't work.

I use DX10 mode and prefer it to DX9 but you really need Steve's DX10 Scenery Fixer (payware app) to get rid of all of the potential graphics problems that can occur - no more additional tweaking needed than with DX9. Using DX10 does give you excellent cockpit shadows which are not available in DX9 and you can add cloud shadows on the ground with a small, additional add-on.

Yes, I definitely noticed all those additional options with NI . Unfortunately, I haven't been able to use them to get my taxi lines looking right. If I can get the settings right, I will certainly save them in a profile.

I also noticed that after making changes with NI there were new options listed in NCP ("override any application setting" for example). So I could tell there was some overlap.

I might try DX10 eventually. If I knew it would give me good taxi lines I would do it right now. As it is, there must be something I can do with DX9 to get those lines looking better. Just can't seem to crack the code.

[SirTommy 4]

Okay, so I've achieved some improvement by following this guy's inspector settings (except for the 1/2 refresh rate). The taxi lines are somewhat better and the payware aircraft look better. The problem continues where the taxi lines curve. Maybe this is just a characteristic of FSX(?). Or, maybe I need to break down and do a serious upgrade to my PC (i.e. rebuild). FPS with some payware planes could use some help. Default planes are fine. I suppose I've found an ok compromise for now. Unless anyone has any other suggestions.

 

Many of the lines are better and the aircraft look better.

[lownslo 592]

While Nvidia Inspector can indeed be daunting try sticking with it.  NI is far more powerful and useful than Nvidia Control Panel.  This is a great NI guide for FSX DX9 set-up (and recently updated, too!)... in this hobby NickN knows his stuff: http://www.simforums.com/forums/nv-inspector-fsx-fsxse-windows-7-8-10-updated_topic59954.html

Good luck,

Greg

[SirTommy 4]

2 hours ago, lownslo said:

While Nvidia Inspector can indeed be daunting try sticking with it.  NI is far more powerful and useful than Nvidia Control Panel.  This is a great NI guide for FSX DX9 set-up (and recently updated, too!)... in this hobby NickN knows his stuff: http://www.simforums.com/forums/nv-inspector-fsx-fsxse-windows-7-8-10-updated_topic59954.html

Good luck,

Greg

Thanks, Greg, I'll check it out. The fact that I got some improvement from following that video gives me some encouragement too.

[vortex681 806]

16 hours ago, lownslo said:

This is a great NI guide for FSX DX9 set-up (and recently updated, too!)... in this hobby NickN knows his stuff: http://www.simforums.com/forums/nv-inspector-fsx-fsxse-windows-7-8-10-updated_topic59954.html

Thanks for that link, Greg. It looks interesting and I'll probably try his settings to see if they can improve my current setup. The only thing I find a little odd is in the MSI Afterburner section. Why would you want to set a custom fan profile where the fan speed was 30% at 0°C and gradually ramp it up from there? I use Afterburner and have my fans set so that they stay off until about 40°C. Outside of games, my card sits at around 33°C almost all of the time (with the fans off). There seems little point (and less noise) cooling the card below this sort of temperature.

Edited April 25, 2018 by vortex681

[lownslo 592]

4 hours ago, vortex681 said:

The only thing I find a little odd is in the MSI Afterburner section.

I hadn't looked at that, as like you I have used my own profile the past few years.  Indeed, the profile in his guide doesn't make much sense, and as well isn't that much different from the stock profile (which never really made sense to me).  To each his own, I guess.

Greg