2012 High-Res PC Screenshot Thread of Don't Use Imgur

Which is the cleaner/better option for AA in the control panel between SGSSAA and the normal SSAA options?

Seen as i can't downsample (which i'd say felt smoother than forced AA) i have to go with the above.
 
Terbinator said:
Which is the cleaner/better option for AA in the control panel between SGSSAA and the normal SSAA options?

Seen as i can't downsample (which i'd say felt smoother than forced AA) i have to go with the above.
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SSAA should be ( with few exceptions ) cleaner than sgssaa every time, the one that is better is the one that let's you maintain 30/60/120 fps whilst eliminating the jaggies. Which more often than not is sgssaa since it's less taxing than ssaa when used correctly.

Oddly enough I've never gotten SSAA to work via inspector, ever. Don't know what I was doing wrong but by then I just said screw it and went with sgssaa.

Alan Wake

alanwake2012-11-2412-55ihf.png


alanwake2012-11-2412-7wek2.png
 
Corky said:
SSAA should be ( with few exceptions ) cleaner than sgssaa every time, the one that is better is the one that let's you maintain 30/60/120 fps whilst eliminating the jaggies. Which more often than not is sgssaa since it's less taxing than ssaa when used correctly.

Oddly enough I've never gotten SSAA to work via inspector, ever. Don't know what I was doing wrong but by then I just said screw it and went with SSAA.
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You mean SGSSAA here, right? did you see my comment about the U2711 on the last page, by any chance?

I think the only game i know SSAA was wokring was Skyrim as my frame-rate absolutely nuked - although VRAM usage was nowhere near the 2GB buffer of the 680 - it was like it was hitting the shading power too. SGSSAA works fine in it too, though, so i tend to go with that.

Also, i need to play through the PC version of Alan Wake. It's amazing how much more atmosphere the game appears to have just by looking a lot sharper compared to the 360.
 
Terbinator said:
You mean SGSSAA here, right? did you see my comment about the U2711 on the last page, by any chance?

I think the only game i know SSAA was wokring was Skyrim as my frame-rate absolutely nuked - although VRAM usage was nowhere near the 2GB buffer of the 680 - it was like it was hitting the shading power too. SGSSAA works fine in it too, though, so i tend to go with that.

Also, i need to play through the PC version of Alan Wake. It's amazing how much more atmosphere the game appears to have just by looking a lot sharper compared to the 360.
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Yes I meant sgssaa, too many acronyms hah.

Went back and read it, I must say very interesting to see you can manage 3840x2160 since I couldn't go 1 pixel above 2560x1440 on my dell u2711 regardless of refresh rate. I'm assuming the gpu plays a bigger role than the monitor itself?

Yeah I've encountered that issue as well, only custom resolutions that show of up for me in almost every game are the ones with 60 hz. A recent example was bf3 where I couldn't get my 3800x2100~ res to show up because it was set to 49 hz or something so I stop bothering.
 
Corky said:
Yes I meant sgssaa, too many acronyms hah.

Went back and read it, I must say very interesting to see you can manage 3840x2160 since I couldn't go 1 pixel above 2560x1440 on my dell u2711 regardless of refresh rate. I'm assuming the gpu plays a bigger role than the monitor itself?

Yeah I've encountered that issue as well, only custom resolutions that show of up for me in almost every game are the ones with 60 hz. A recent example was bf3 where I couldn't get my 3800x2100~ res to show up because it was set to 49 hz or something so I stop bothering.
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The monitor i had before hand was a U2311 and could do 3840*2160 fine IIRC, if not, definitely 3200*1800 - so the GPU can definitely hit it.

As for your experience of the U2711 versus mine, how was you conencted? I'm using DP at the minute but the results are the same with DL-DVI too. I've not tried HDMI but then i don't believe it has the bandwidth to run 1440@60 does it?
 
Terbinator said:
The monitor i had before hand was a U2311 and could do 3840*2160 fine IIRC, if not, definitely 3200*1800 - so the GPU can definitely hit it.

As for your experience of the U2711 versus mine, how was you conencted? I'm using DP at the minute but the results are the same with DL-DVI too. I've not tried HDMI but then i don't believe it has the bandwidth to run 1440@60 does it?
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I was using dual link dvi, but at that point I was running sli 560 tis, and got rid of both the monitor and the gpus. Now I'm on a u2312hm and a single 670, which leads me to believe that the gpu plays a bigger role in the compatibility aspect of different resolutions. In any case 3200x1800 is taking enough in most games at 60 hz, no way my 670 would manage anything but oldish titles @4k and 60 fps.
 
Black_Stride said:
Fuck that!
I didnt need to know he loses an arm, true indeed i dont know how he loses it, but now as im playing the game ill be sitting there waiting for this moment to happen......it detracts from my enjoyment, thing is it wasnt even that good a screenshot really, the game looks practically the same from EP1 all the way through to 5, there was no need to post something so big and blatant

Call me a bitch or whatever, but spoilers for the sake of spoiling shit is damn inconsiderate, i dont even post substantial spoilers for old games.
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Vulcano's assistant said:
If you haven't played the game, then spoiler may be devoid of context, but even an hour in, a screenshot of a moment yet to occur speaks loads. I does happens that one ends up deducting the entire plot from a single picture if one has been paying any attention to the game.
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At the end of the day, this is a thread to display pretty in game screenshots. If a screenshot might be spoilery but otherwise looks nice, why wouldn't you take a screenshot of it? Isn't that overalll the point?
 
Corky said:
"But I need it... for image editing purposes... yes yes image editing! *dear god I hope she bought that*"
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My excuse for the U2711 was it would help with my dissertation as i can have two full pages up side-by-side.

Great success!

*stops de-railing the thread*
 
It's too bad that not only am I not personally invested in the setting of AC3 (the American revolution is incredibly dull compared to other historical settings and American media have already depicted the setting ad naseum for us non-Americans), but I also find lighting in the shots to making me yawn, because it reduces the atmosphere.

I.e. an increase in post-processing effects and particle emitters would go a long way for the game to look much more interesting and atmospheric instead of dull and lifeless, imo.
 
Lime said:
It's too bad that not only am I not personally invested in the setting of AC3 (the American revolution is incredibly dull compared to other historical settings and American media have already depicted the setting ad naseum for us non-Americans), but I also find lighting in the shots to making me yawn, because it reduces the atmosphere.

I.e. an increase in post-processing effects and particle emitters would go a long way for the game to look much more interesting and atmospheric instead of dull and lifeless, imo.
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Yeah lighting looks underwhelming. Also I'm no fan of TXAA (sorry Tim!).
 
Based on the shots in here AC3 is the first game I'm digging TXAA in. The blur is still a little too heavy but if that gets dialed back a bit it'll be great. No jaggies and I do like the filmic look it provides, although I don't think it would work for every game. It's kind of a shame that it's a high cost, nVidia only solution though.

Hitman looks really great. S-E's pressure for high quality textures in their PC ports has really lead to some beautiful games.
 
AC3 - Slightly downsampled, custom SweetFX setting to up vibrance a bit and get rid of the drab filter.

Zeliard said:
Just TXAA, doesn't that add some blur? Outside of that it's straight from Fraps (after bmp-png conversion through abload).
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It does but I didn't recall it being that much. Maybe I'm just seeing things. Mine probably aren't much better.

ibfSWUoN5Nodtv.png


ipugwZFsi2Zxg.png
 
Sethos said:
It does but I didn't recall it being that much. Maybe I'm just seeing things. Mine probably aren't much better.
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Most of those pics I took were during movement so maybe there's some slight motion blur effect showing up. In a couple of the cases it's prominent but I don't know about the others. I do know that the general blurriness of AC3 images contrasts poorly with how sharp and vibrant Hitman is. :P Still a good-looking game though, especially in motion.
 
Lime said:
It's too bad that not only am I not personally invested in the setting of AC3 (the American revolution is incredibly dull compared to other historical settings and American media have already depicted the setting ad naseum for us non-Americans), but I also find lighting in the shots to making me yawn, because it reduces the atmosphere.
Click to expand...
Yeah I agree. They should have gone with the french revolution, now that would be great, so many fascinating things happened during that period.
 
Corky said:
Eh? It's by definition the most thorough form of AA ( super sampling ) and as such yes it is mroe performance hungry. For me it's the goto AA, I even use downsampling before I start using ingame AA since most modern solutions are nonexistent / shite out of the box.
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Again, only if you actually do it at obscenely high resolutions (which most posters aren't, near as I can tell).
Corky said:
Same here, and for what it's worth I think downsampling from ~~3840x2160 looks much better than X xSGSSAA that would be the equivalent of the same res. Dishonored was a good example of this.
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This doesn't even make sense to me. The whole point of using a sparse grid is to save performance. If that isn't happening, what is even the point of using SGSSAA?
 
Zyrusticae said:
Again, only if you actually do it at obscenely high resolutions (which most posters aren't, near as I can tell).
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You don't need "obscenely" high resolutions for the effects of downsampling to beat any AA out there.


This doesn't even make sense to me. The whole point of using a sparse grid is to save performance. If that isn't happening, what is even the point of using SGSSAA?
Click to expand...

It's not making sense because you're not reading it right, in the part you've quoted I say SSAA looks better than SGSSAA what about that doesn't make sense? I didn't mention performance there.

...looks much better than...
Click to expand...
 
Corky said:
You don't need "obscenely" high resolutions for the effects of downsampling to beat any AA out there.
Click to expand...
Is that so? I admit I haven't even tried it (outside of Planetside 2, which conveniently lets you do it through the .ini file) simply because it takes so much bloody work to do (I can't even set the refresh rate to anything less than 59 through the drivers).

Corky said:
It's not making sense because you're not reading it right, in the part you've quoted I say SSAA looks better than SGSSAA what about that doesn't make sense? I didn't mention performance there.
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You said "same here" in response to this quote:
Cannon Goose said:
I've always found downsampling to be WAY less of a performance hog than SGSSAA.
Click to expand...

So yeah, I'm still scratching my head here.
 
AC3's lighting is desperately flat. It's an improvement upon Revelations for sure but it's time for next-gen to finally broke out.
 
Zyrusticae said:
Is that so? I admit I haven't even tried it (outside of Planetside 2, which conveniently lets you do it through the .ini file) simply because it takes so much bloody work to do (I can't even set the refresh rate to anything less than 59 through the drivers).
Click to expand...

I beg to differ, once you finally ( admittedly it can be ever so slightly cumbersome to setup but unless you're unlucky it takes but a few minutes and after that it's a one time only thing and you wont have to think about it again ) have your custom downsampling/supersampling resolution it works in 99.9% of the games across the board. No fuss no muss, any game that isn't somehow resolution locked will allow you to use that resolution and as such benefit from the aa method. All this is of course with the caveat of having the display/gpu config that even allows for downsampling to begin with, it ain't universal.

Which brings me to the following part

You said "same here" in response to this quote: So yeah, I'm still scratching my head here.
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Yes, in hindsight I phrased that bad, what I meant to say is with regards to performance, SSAA is a much more "known" performance hit regardless of how small/big whereas SGSSAA needs driverlevel tweaking, and bits that might net you even worse performance than SSAA depending on the bits and the game itself. Again, I'm well aware that sgssaa is supposed to be less taxing than ssaa ( after all I used it for years before switching to downsampling ) but there are scenarios where the former is either bugged or simply incompatible with certain games.
 
I'm well aware that sgssaa is supposed to be less taxing than ssaa (downsampling)
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Comparing 4xSGSSAA vs 4xOGSSAA (downsampling), the downsampling is much more efficient for shading. The higher the triangle density, the more efficient downsampling is compared to SGSSAA. This has to do with how the GPU packs pixel and samples for shading, downsampling packs much better. If anyone is interested I'll go into the details. The only time 4xSGSSAA will be faster than 4xOGSSAA is when for some reason the game's post processing runs at 1x (no MSAA) with 4xSGSSAA (compared to the 4x cost on driver enabled 4xOGSSAA downsampling). Note, some games with built-in in-game 4xOGSSAA might be running post processing at 1x, which will always be faster than driver forced 4xSGSSAA. Also 4xTrSSAA should be faster than 4xOGSSAA, but the shading quality of 4xTrSSAA won't be nearly as good.


The blur (with TXAA) is still a little too heavy but if that gets dialed back a bit it'll be great.
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Make sure with AC3, CODBO2, and TSW that you have the 310.54 beta driver. That driver did get the blur dialed back compared to the prior driver. Also with CODBO2 make sure to turn off Ambient Occlusion, as AO massively increases blur when TXAA is on (bug in the TXAA integration with AO). There might be similar problems with AC3, just I haven't played AC3 yet.


But I'm curious to try TXAA + 4xSGSSAA. How to set that?
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Get the 310.54 beta driver. Grab the NVIDIA Inspector. Then choose 4xTXAA in game in the AA option, and before starting the game set the following settings in the NVIDIA Inspector,

SgssaaInspector.png
 
TimothyLottes said:
Comparing 4xSGSSAA vs 4xOGSSAA (downsampling), the downsampling is much more efficient for shading. The higher the triangle density, the more efficient downsampling is compared to SGSSAA. This has to do with how the GPU packs pixel and samples for shading, downsampling packs much better. If anyone is interested I'll go into the details. The only time 4xSGSSAA will be faster than 4xOGSSAA is when for some reason the game's post processing runs at 1x (no MSAA) with 4xSGSSAA (compared to the 4x cost on driver enabled 4xOGSSAA downsampling). Note, some games with built-in in-game 4xOGSSAA might be running post processing at 1x, which will always be faster than driver forced 4xSGSSAA. Also 4xTrSSAA should be faster than 4xOGSSAA, but the shading quality of 4xTrSSAA won't be nearly as good.
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Ooohhh, this is fascinating. I'd love to hear the details about this, I'm very curious!
 
Is there no need to set an lod bias if it runs with TXAA?
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The 310.54 beta driver has an automatic negative LOD bais enabled by default when SGSSAA is enabled. The automatic default works quite well. You can still go in the Inspector and override the automatic default. Since TXAA has a wide filter, when I override I usually set it to the most negative LOD bias possible in the Inspector.


Ooohhh, this is fascinating. I'd love to hear the details about this, I'm very curious!
Click to expand...

The GPU shades in batches of screen aligned 2x2 pixels. Each batch of 2x2 pixels can only be from one triangle, so edges and small triangles loose efficiency. When NxSGSSAA is on, the GPU replays the shading in series for each group of 2x2 pixels for each of the N samples/pixel. So 4xSGSSAA is 4x the cost of NoAA, 4xSGSSAA has 1x the number of pixels but 4x the number of samples. However with 4xOGSSAA, there are 4x the number of pixels and 1x the number of samples. This effectively increases triangle size by a factor of 4x in area resulting in 4x less edges and small triangles (a net increase in the efficiency of shading, also increases texture cache performance).
 
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