14 minutes ago, w6kd said:

I suspect that you may have some kind of mismatch between graphics settings made with NVI or NV CP and the in-sim settings, which can make AA stop working altogether. 

You mentioned that you were messing with nVidia Inspector--not sure if you're aware, but NVI makes persistent changes to GPU settings in the Windows registry, so just because it's not running does not mean that any changes you made previously are not still present.  To go back to default, you have to explicitly make that happen in NVI. 

There are other "what the hecks" in your settings, given your system specs.  The AffinityMask setting Steve mentioned is a disaster unless you're running with SMT disabled.  Having High Resolution Terrain Textures/TEXTURE_SIZE_EXP=9 is pretty aggressive for a 1660.

Some substantial improvements were made in P3Dv4 beyond the very old version you're running (4.1).  I'd strongly suggest upgrading to the latest (P3Dv4.5 HF3).

Were it me, I'd start by resetting the GPU settings in NVI to default, upgrade P3D to v4.5HF3, let the sim build a new Prepar3D.cfg file and start from there with sliders no higher than mid-range to start.  If the jaggies are still present, then I'd uninstall the driver, run DDU to clean out any remnants of the old driver, and reinstall the current drivers.

 

I am currently installing all the latest AMD chipset drivers as another person recommended just to be certain, and I also just reset all NVIDIA inspector and control panel settings to default and erased my CFG file. I will try to attempt to use 8xMSAA and FXAA OFF for this test.

 

I also suspect that it could be just my monitor as well. It’s a 1080p monitor and that only goes so far in terms of seeing cockpit labels or textures at a further zoom.

6 minutes ago, FredricG said:

I am currently installing all the latest AMD chipset drivers as another person recommended just to be certain, and I also just reset all NVIDIA inspector and control panel settings to default and erased my CFG file. I will try to attempt to use 8xMSAA and FXAA OFF for this test.

 

I also suspect that it could be just my monitor as well. It’s a 1080p monitor and that only goes so far in terms of seeing cockpit labels or textures at a further zoom.

It's not your monitor.  It's only displaying what the GPU sends it.  Those jaggies are composed into the frame in the computer, not the monitor.  The screen shots you posted clearly show that AA was not working at all.

1 hour ago, w6kd said:

It's not your monitor.  It's only displaying what the GPU sends it.  Those jaggies are composed into the frame in the computer, not the monitor.  The screen shots you posted clearly show that AA was not working at all.

Just reset all NVIDIA inspector and control panel settings to default, let the CFG rebuild, and it still looks exactly the same. (ReShade and Tomatoshade enabled)

https://postimg.cc/gallery/4cdgZ5W

https://postimg.cc/jLZ1j5vt (Virtual Cockpit, standard 0.30 zoom)

 

UPDATE: Just tried uninstalling NVIDIA drivers and using DDU to completely uninstall them, restarted and did a clean install of the latest Game Ready NVIDIA driver, same settings as in the screenshot - but to no avail. It still looks the same. This is pretty disheartening.

Edited December 11, 20205 yr by FredricG

Have you tried it without the shader mods?

There does come a point where the easiest and least time-sucking approach is to uninstall everything and rebuild from the ground up.  I also keep a detailed log of changes, additions etc when I build and when I update things, so I have a record of the changes I made along the way and have a fighting chance to go back and undo things.  I also keep multiple backups on a pair of 10TB HDDs so that I can restore the system back as far as 3-6 months prior if needed to get back to a previously-working config.

The base P3D with no addons does not behave this way...if, after a reinstall, it does, then your Windows config is probably borked.

Good luck...sounds like you have a pernicious ghost in the system.

 

9 minutes ago, w6kd said:

Have you tried it without the shader mods?

There does come a point where the easiest and least time-sucking approach is to uninstall everything and rebuild from the ground up.  I also keep a detailed log of changes, additions etc when I build and when I update things, so I have a record of the changes I made along the way and have a fighting chance to go back and undo things.  I also keep multiple backups on a pair of 10TB HDDs so that I can restore the system back as far as 3-6 months prior if needed to get back to a previously-working config.

The base P3D with no addons does not behave this way...if, after a reinstall, it does, then your Windows config is probably borked.

Good luck...sounds like you have a pernicious ghost in the system.

 

Just uninstalled all my 3rd party shaders and the result is significantly better but there is a bit of aliasing still noticeable if you look at it. So I have come to the conclusion that the major culprit was Tomatoshade for some reason. I am still investigating the remaining aliasing. ReShade has no effect on the AA. Do you think this looks any better? 

https://postimg.cc/CZ5Q3gVJ

Edited December 11, 20205 yr by FredricG

13 minutes ago, FredricG said:

Just uninstalled all my 3rd party shaders and the result is significantly better but there is a bit of aliasing still noticeable if you look at it. So I have come to the conclusion that the major culprit was Tomatoshade for some reason. I am still investigating the remaining aliasing. ReShade has no effect on the AA. Do you think this looks any better? 

https://postimg.cc/CZ5Q3gVJ

Absolutely--AA is definitely working in that shot.  I don't see significant aliasing in that screenie.  FWIW, P3D has always had some issues with jagged/flickering runway edges and taxi lines, for example, that take massive amounts of AA (like 8xSSAA) to (nearly) completely deal with, so accepting some of that comes with the territory.  But it sure looks like your shader mod was the main culprit.

 

Reshade, TomatoShade and NVidia Inspector can all be combined to enhance the look, feel and performance of P3D version 4.5.

That said they all work within the boundries of the current hardware's capablities, i.e. they are no magic bullet cure all for underspeced hardware.

Infact TomatoShade was never updated for 4.5 HF3 and as a result introduces errors and issues and for some things just plain doesn't work. That said even without a specfic 4.5 HF3 update it is very useful if you steer clear of the parts of it with problems and I've managed to build a profile to tune the look feel which along with a couple of manual shader edits has returned a great result.

Reshade is OK, however I find it's of limited use, although the Deband, LumaSharpen and Clarity options are great. There are many more reshaders, like HDR, multiple types of sharpeners, several bloom types and lighting types such as curves and lightroom, which are all useful to an extent, although I find less = better.

Note I didn't mention the AA types because I've tried them and they are not of any particualr use. P3D's SSAA is the best and the higher you can run the better, noting higher resolution equals greater AA load on the GPU.

For instance at 1920x1080 I can manage 8 x SSAA provided the skys are realtively clear and I don't have vegetation casting shadows and 4 x SSAA is pretty bullet proof for all conditions in 1920x1080 (with no casting of vegetation shadows).

At 2556x1440 4xSSAA is the max dropping back to 2xSSAA for normal use.

When it comes to understanding the capabilities of your hardware, some form of GPU monitoring is ideal. That way it is possible to see the effects of exceeding a GPU's capabilities and develop an awarness of how far you can push a P3D configuration to keep it just below the point of overloading (which will kill a smooth vsync and introduce stuttering).

Don't ovelook the P3D config file either as LM provide many tuning opporunities via the config file to enhance P3D's look and feel. Think of it has a detuned v8 engine that with suitable tuning will unlock much potential.

As a comparison, for P3D v 4.5 HF3 I run a 1070Ti overclocked to 2 Ghz via a 30 Hz vsync screen mode and a Ryzen 2700x at a base clock of 4.2 Ghz with 32 GB of ram. Also leaveage some of that ram as a ram disk for loading selected scenery very fast.

I find it's at a pretty sweet spot for myself although a more powerful GFX card would be handly to run higher resolutions with higher SSAA and also enabling casting of vegetation shadows.

Cheers R

Removed

Edited December 11, 20205 yr by Gridley
wrong sim!

On 12/11/2020 at 11:08 AM, w6kd said:

Absolutely--AA is definitely working in that shot.  I don't see significant aliasing in that screenie.  FWIW, P3D has always had some issues with jagged/flickering runway edges and taxi lines, for example, that take massive amounts of AA (like 8xSSAA) to (nearly) completely deal with, so accepting some of that comes with the territory.  But it sure looks like your shader mod was the main culprit.

 

Did some tinkering with Tomatoshade and the preset settings, and I think I've been able to find a combination of Tomatoshade settings without making it so that AA isn't working. In your opinion, do you think AA is working in this screenshot by any chance? I think it is. If so then I think I have this situation all sorted out.

https://postimg.cc/SYS3kDF4

EDIT: I'm finding that aircraft like the Aerosoft CRJ and A330 do not want to work with my antialiasing at all. It seems to work with some, but not all.

https://postimg.cc/QKjkFdbG

Edited December 14, 20205 yr by FredricG

AA is definitely not as good as FSX, i think this is maybe down to using DX11/12 and not DX9. Like you I use a 1080P screen and have to have the AA setting high in order to improve the jaggies. I think this is why alot of people use a 4k screen for P3D, not an option for me at the moment,

 

13 hours ago, Dazkent said:

AA is definitely not as good as FSX, i think this is maybe down to using DX11/12 and not DX9. Like you I use a 1080P screen and have to have the AA setting high in order to improve the jaggies. I think this is why alot of people use a 4k screen for P3D, not an option for me at the moment,

 

Same here, a 4K screen is out of my budget for the foreseeable future. P3D definitely does look better on a 4K screen and can also run smoother since you have to use less AA. But as it is right now, I'm having to use 4xSSAA to make it look noticeably good. Still tinkering.

Edited December 15, 20205 yr by FredricG