Fxaa on and aa? Pick 1!!

[taufikp]

modmate, yes indeed FXAA in rF2 right now is not at its best, at least when I compare it to FXAA Tools injector (since I don't have an NVidia card). And I'm talking about the anti-aliasing strategy here, not the other visual enhancement modules (these modules in FXAA Tools surely can help to improve the look of DX9 applications).

Back to topic.

Do you need to use FXAA and AA altogether or not? It really depends on your liking and visual preference and computer power I think. In my rFactor 2 installation, I'm using internal AA Level 1, FXAA On, and HDR On. V-Sync is set to Video. Anti-aliasing and anisotropic filter in GPU driver is set to 'application setting'. For me, this is the setting that gives me the best balance of graphic performance and graphic quality.

[Spinelli]

Hey taufikp, just curious if you have tried your settings above but with aa set to level 0/off.... Does the fxaa not take care of all the jaggies and you therefore need the level 1 aa to go with it?... Just curious on your results/thoughts.....

[taufikp]

Few moments ago I made few graphic comparison about rF2 internal FXAA and internal AA. Here's one of them


FXAA and AA Comparison #1 by simfactor, on Flickr

Just click on the graphic to see the rest of them.

Using FXAA alone without any AA (in game or driver) at all does reduce jaggies in my system, as you can see in the graphic above.

[Gary Corby]

The best graphics settings are the ones that look best to you, and there are no right or wrong answers. You just have to experiment to find what works on your system. As a rule of thumb, you want the lowest settings that give you a picture you like. Try starting with everything off, then incrementally increase graphics settings until you're happy (or until your settings are maxed out...whichever comes first).

A quick explanation of AA and FXAA:

AA is a system for smoothing the jagged lines that computers generate on screen. Smoothing does a lot to make the image more realistic. AA does this by scanning to find all the edges within the image, and then dotting around them with faded pixels the same colour as the edge, to create the illusion of a continuous line. The previously sharp line becomes fuzzy in return for smoothness.

Unfortunately, finding those edges is incredibly tedious and expensive for even fast computers. Almost all the processing in AA goes not into smoothing the lines, but into finding the lines to smooth. People have fiddled with different ways of doing this, and that's why there are different edge detection options in your video driver.

A bright lad at nVidia decided to see what happens if you don't detect edges at all, but simply smooth everything. The result was light years faster to run. That's what FXAA is. A side effect is FXAA smooths the lines deep inside textures. FXAA is particularly good for first person shooter games where players frequently look through wire mesh fences. The wire mesh and the stuff behind it comes up much clearer. BUT! FXAA also muddies small textures that are otherwise crisp and clear if you use only vanilla AA. A good example in a racing game is if you look to the end of a long straight, where the sides of the road meet at infinity, FXAA will make the distant point a bit blurry.

Since race drivers don't typically look through wire meshes, and most things you see have well-defined borders, it isn't immediately obvious that FXAA should help rF2. Vanilla AA choices should in theory give a crisper image. However FXAA is super efficient, so on your system it might give good enough anti-aliasing at a fraction of the cost of traditional AA, leaving system resources free to deliver better frame rate. You just have to try it and see.

[modmate]

Adaptive aa (along with its nvidia version called transparency aa or whatever nvidia calls it) should be enabled I agress with you 100%, that's not what fxaa aa is though, I don't know why you keep bringing that up I never even mentioned transparency settings, you really don't have any idea what fxaa is, its the nvidia alternative to mlaa, I don't know how much more I have to keep explaining it

For me its an SBAA working like 4x MSAA but 60% faster. Wich acts on top of for example 16CSAA. Thats what Nvidia explained. Anyway, im pretty sure AMD`s Mlaa is far away from the Fxaa performance and we should not compare these.
For Nvidia Users Fxaa is set on top of AA and thats it. See the pic so you can imagine the settings. For ati i dont know how its setup.

Pic example of Nvidia CP latest beta drivers 301.24:

[Spinelli]

Using FXAA alone without any AA (in game or driver) at all does reduce jaggies in my system, as you can see in the graphic above.

Nice does it reduce jaggies enough not to need any other aa on top of it?

A side effect is FXAA smooths the lines deep inside textures......BUT! FXAA also muddies small textures that are otherwise crisp and clear if you use only vanilla AA. A good example in a racing game is if you look to the end of a long straight, where the sides of the road meet at infinity, FXAA will make the distant point a bit blurry.

Vanilla AA choices should in theory give a crisper image. However FXAA is super efficient, so on your system it might give good enough anti-aliasing at a fraction of the cost of traditional AA, leaving system resources free to deliver better frame rate. You just have to try it and see.

Thank you ive been pretty much saying this the whole time, but I guess my quotes from nvidia themselves and the creator of fxaa (and tons of other peoples experiences) just arent enough for some people to believe me, but thank you for backing me up.

im pretty sure AMD`s Mlaa is far away from the Fxaa performance and we should not compare these.

Yes, FXAA from most if not all tests ive seen performs much faster than MLAA, but sorry your wrong as they DEFINETELEY get compared to eachother all the time if you research the technology and all the proffessional computer websites, as they are pretty much each company's version of the technology, so in a way they are direct competitiors.

For Nvidia Users Fxaa is set on top of AA and thats it.

No thats not "it". FXAA can be added on top of AA, sure but thats not the point of fxaa, the point of fxaa is to have a cheap form of aa, so that consoles and computers that cant handle real aa can still have little to no jaggies but with some texture blur at times. I just sent you a quote straight from nvidia and the developer of fxaa themselves, and they themselves just said its supposed to be an alternative yet your here saying its supposed to be on top of regular aa and thats it, ok your right, and Nvidia and the creator of fxaa are wrong, sure.

[bigtabs]

Please stop. You sound like a troll. Who cares if people want to use them together? Why do you care so much?

Do you really think that any technological solution should only ever be applied to it's original purpose? Don't you believe that these technologies can then find a way to be useful beyond their original intention? Come on now, don't be silly. The original point of the algorithm is irrelevant. What is relevant is it's range of applications right now.

It is simple fact that FXAA solves certain aliasing that MSAA can not, and it is simple fact that MSAA is better at fixing geometry aliasing than FXAA on a moving image. The two combined work extremely nicely together at times.

http://www.hardocp.com/image.html?im...xfM183X2wucG5n

It is quite plain to see that you are adamant about your position and will not accept any ideas that are contrary to it. That means whatever research you are doing, is being done with a filtered viewpoint. You filter out anything that is presented to you that says something different to what you already believe.

Educate yourself.

[DurgeDriven]

Just run the mother.

Try many things, no persons way is better, different hardware, specs, tastes, list goes on....

I do not care one iota what either of you say I run it my way and it looks awesome.