CFAS on and NoAA option

[sag75 0]

Hi, I have FSX sp2 and DX10 fixer last version.  I have found no apparent differences in graphic between CFAS On and either "2X" or "NoAA" selected (CFAS turns gray but on on state). Except several FPS increments between the two options. So in what situation i can see a difference?

[SteveFx 258]

If you have aa off then cfas cannot do anything so it is is greyed out.

if aa is enabled then that should improve IQ by removing zagged lines but will cost fps.  

Ignoring  cfas and the fixer  if you cannot tell the difference between aa off and aa on then I would be concerned about your setup.

adding cfas to aa should improve the resolution of cockpit MFDs at a lower cost than turning on supersampling and will also improve flickering at a distance of complex scenery models from orbx.

[sag75 0]

Hi, I post below two shots about CFAS gray out option, but there is a difference on MFDs and the far trees between the two pics:

 

https://ibb.co/5TWNZwj
https://ibb.co/x8QzpJc

 

And there isn't difference if I select 2x and CFAS ON, or reverting "2x" to "NoAA", but leaving CFAS ON (that turns gray). 

Edited December 8, 2020 by sag75

[SteveFx 258]

I don’t understand what you trying to do.

In both pictures antialiasing is turned off.

Therefore the setting of cfas makes no difference as it is only does anything  if aa enabled. 

As I have said forget about cfas can you tell the difference between 2x aa and no aa.

if not then have you turned on some other form of aa such as fxaa by mistake?

[sag75 0]

I was just wondering why the MFDs (and the distant trees) are worse in the first picture than in the second picture, even with AA turned off in both situations.

I checked, i cannot see differences between NoAA and 2x. I have antialias checked in the FSX display options. But in Nvidia Inspector AA are all in off

Edited December 8, 2020 by sag75

[SteveFx 258]

It is incredibly difficult for anyone to comment on aa based on what I think are probably fairly low resolution JPEG’s that have gone through image compression.

A lot of aa artefacts are also  caused by motion and are not clear in a static picture. 

Turning aa off and on in the fixer just sets the fsx.cfg display setting option to turn aa on and off which should also appear in the fsx display setting from within fsx ie they control the same thing.  The fixer 2x, 4x also sets another fsx.cfg setting MultiSamplePerPixel.

2x is very very low but you ought to see some difference along the edge of the cockpit window frames.

The best form of aa is sgssaa which extends the base aa but can be very very expensive.

cfas is a lower quality extension to base aa.  It’s actually a collection of settings some of which rely on aa being enabled such that there is a multi sampled output buffer and some which do not.

when enabled it should improve MFDs when viewed at a distance by reducing line flickering when the lines are diagonal relative to pc display.

it improves tree flickering especially in winter when the eye point is moving but I am sure that this one relies on having a multi sampled texture to output to.

 

[SteveFx 258]

Ok - I have been able to use my PC rather than my IPAD and I can see better comparing side by side.   

Yes the CFAS is clearly working on the MFDs and other displays .

As I mentioned CFAS isn't one feature but rather a collection.  To be honest I assumed none would work without AA  being enabled which creates a Multi Sample Target but on reflection one of the features is texture over sampling on textures without mip maps and on reflection that would work without the MSAA target.   It is that feature that improves MFDs and other displays and it is working as it should.

I cannot explain why the trees and white lines on the panel at the far right between the switches   are improved - I would expect both to be mipmapped textures and thus not benefit from CFAS - the alpha to coverage feature within CFAS that improves trees relies on the MSAA output