-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
2014 High-Res PC Screenshot Thread of the Last Hope for Image Quality
- Thread starter Stallion Free
- Start date
Drunken Master
Member
Stallion Free
Cock Encumbered
Just messing around with Durante's tool a bit with Dead Space 3. 4K + ingame SMAA gives sublime image quality when downsampled to 1080p here.
MrRoderick
Member
The best solution is to use GeDoSaTo, Durante's new tool! I was able to run the game at 8k at 60fps! Which is insane, and the IQ was gorgeous. The garage area is always aliased for some reason though..
Hehe
symphonask
Member
^ Wallpaper'ed. Cheers!
Sorry for the silly question, but I'm new to this GeDoSaTo stuff. How did you get it working with project cars? I tried adding the exe names to the white list and no luck. It doesn't give me the option to change the resolution either in windowed or fullscreen. What am I missing here. (great shots btw MrRoderick )
Just messing around with Durante's tool a bit with Dead Space 3. 4K + ingame SMAA gives sublime image quality when downsampled to 1080p here.
4K is sooo last year , man .
Stallion Free
Cock Encumbered
4K is sooo last year , man .
4k is playable for me though, 8k isn't
I'm still pleased with the results at 4k.
MrRoderick
Member
Thanks! As for GeDoSaTo, unfortunately my mention of it was in reference to helping Drunken Master with NFS: Hot Pursuit. If I could run pCars in 8k at 60fps i'd poop my pants.
GeDoSaTo only works in dx9. However, pCars can be forced to run dx9. However again, I was not able to get pCars to load past the 'logos' screens with any GeDoSaTo res above my highest downsampling res :/
For the shots I posted I was using Nvidia control panel downsampling, 3840x2160. That plus the in game DSx4 AA, FXAA, and SweetFX. I get about 20 fps with all that, and anything above that nukes my vram (though I think the card could still calculate it, argh).
pCars can be a pain to get pristine screenshots out of, but you can get some great IQ at 1440p or 1600p, at 60fps depending on your card.
Drunken Master
Member
Dude I love you and Durante for this! I tried 4K and I really note the difference...
BONKERS
Member
That guy is full of horse shit son.
Find what works for *YOU*. Maybe to him without 60FPS there isn't a point and he doesn't care about Aliasing quality. But that doesn't make it objectively better.
But tip though, don't just use *Just* downsampling. Use downsampling in combination with other AA methods to get the best results. (Generally PPAA methods to increase edge quality as much as possible pre-resolve)
Ex.
Alan Wake @1600x900 (Not the best image example though because it's indoors. Just had to find a decent quick checkpoint)
8xMSAA only
Vs
2.4x2.4 downsampling + 4xMSAA + FXAA (Essentially, 4k resolution with 4xMSAA+FXAA then downsampled to 1800p and then down to 900p)
This is unplayable for my set-up only because I have GTX 570. Downsampling from just 1800p with 4xMSAA+FXAA I get between 20-40FPS and it looks nearly as good.
MrRoderick
Member
Dude I love you and Durante for this! I tried 4K and I really note the difference...
Yeah looks great
I'm wondering now, looking at the little bit of fuzzy in your shot, and considering many frustrations I've had with pCars and other games, if often times the panel junctions on cars, such as the back of the door in your shot, is usually showing a specular highlight, even at quite off angles, and thus still looks aliased because of 'shader aliasing'. I don't quite know what shader aliasing is. Is it something that is cleaned up by SGSSAA but not by brute force downsampling, because of how SGSSAA works? I say this since I had zero instances of such fuzziness when I could briefly run pCars with 8xSGSSAA.
Bonkers is the SGSSAA guru, perhaps he can provide some insight.
Ah^ nice timing. Thoughts?
BONKERS
Member
Timothy lottes would be able to provide a more technical explanation ( I don't have a complete understanding of everything but you can see some of his here http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=44697036&postcount=13149 , his explanations also show why downsampling = very nice edge quality)
But basically SGSSAA is actually FSSGSSAA (Full Scene Sparse Grid Super Sampling Anti Aliasing)
Where as typical TrSSAA is actually TrSGSSAA. The difference being, that FSSGSSAA causes alpha test = pass for all pixels (and not just for Alpha tested objects), which causes it to apply the SG Super sampled shading based on your number of samples to the entire scene a number of times to separate buffers offsetting each buffer differently before they are all blended back to the main frame buffer.
If you ever noticed that when using SGSSAA that the rendered scene is extremely clean and alias free, but the UI/2D elements sometimes become slightly blurred. (depending on the AA flag function and the game itself) This is the reason. It's basically akin to the old days of FSAA, except there is no way for SGSSAA to be told to only apply to certain passes since it's a driver hack basically. Hence it just does everything most of the time.
(. In FFXIV 2.0 for example, you can get 4xSGSSAA and skip the UI rendering pass, freeing you of some UI glitches and blur with the flag 0x004012C5. The caveat however is that this flag works *only* for 4xSGSSAA. It flat out doesn't work with 2 or 8x SGSSAA for whatever reason.)
Sometimes, when you add in FXAA to downsampling it may help with specular highlights, but generally with cars, there are temporal issues with the shading that potentially only very high ratios of downsampling would be able to fix i'm guessing like below due to the angle and intersecting geometry/UV/etc. (IE: 4x4=16xOGSSAA)
I'll use UE4's temporal AA as an example because it misses this same sort of thing
http://i.minus.com/iT4t3KxpK5LB7.png
This flickering/crawling line, I am fairly certain it is a shading issue due to the angle of the two intersecting walls, where this is supposed to be; IE; a flat long mid range roughness specular highlight; The Temporal AA doesn't quite know how to handle this as far as I can see.
Compatibility flags generally tell the driver what kinds of frame buffers to look for when it's doing all this. The 5 at the end of that FFXIV flag,tells the driver to ignore the primary flip chain (where the UI pass is probably added i'm guessing). This allows it to not apply AA to the UI and cause some minor blurring and super sampling glitches (Akin to the kind you get in emulators like PCSX2 and Dolphin with higher internal resolutions)
This is as best as I can explain it, and my total understanding is ultimately more limited than I would prefer. SGSSAA is something every game engine should have these days instead of MSAA. (But at the same time, they shouldn't do it cheaply like some games do OGSSAA these days where it only super samples certain buffers. So if other effects are fixed by a factor of display resolution. Their precision can't be increased by also super sampling that buffer. Where as with driver/GeDoSaTo, these are all proportionately increased as well. This results in moderately better effects in some games. Such as Deus Ex Human Revolution's HDR Buffer, and in Alan Wake, you can see in my shot above, the bloom resolution is proportional as well)
(in the case of Deus Ex, this issue isn't present in the original game. The HDR is of lower quality than the original. It's rendered proportional i'm guessing 1/6th or more to the main rendering resolution. Where as originally it is fixed somewhere between 1/2th or less. Resulting in little to no undersampling artifacts such as aliasing, stair stepping,shimmering and flickering)
SGSSAA sometimes can effectively super sample low resolution effect buffers in the current form that it is in the driver as well. Take Dead Rising 2 for example, with SGSSAA,the AA Fix set off and a rendering height of less than 1024px can super sample the Depth of Field and Shadow buffers. Increasing the quality of said elements)
So i'd honestly prefer that if a game has lower resolution effects, that if SGSSAA would be able to handle them as well instead of just running those at 1x or less. Or at least offer an SGSSAA quality option. Simple Low-High switch that runs effects as is at 1x and only super samples the main rendering buffers, or as I described previously.
Well, that was an overly long and convoluted explanation that probably didn't make too much sense for many people.
But basically SGSSAA is actually FSSGSSAA (Full Scene Sparse Grid Super Sampling Anti Aliasing)
Where as typical TrSSAA is actually TrSGSSAA. The difference being, that FSSGSSAA causes alpha test = pass for all pixels (and not just for Alpha tested objects), which causes it to apply the SG Super sampled shading based on your number of samples to the entire scene a number of times to separate buffers offsetting each buffer differently before they are all blended back to the main frame buffer.
If you ever noticed that when using SGSSAA that the rendered scene is extremely clean and alias free, but the UI/2D elements sometimes become slightly blurred. (depending on the AA flag function and the game itself) This is the reason. It's basically akin to the old days of FSAA, except there is no way for SGSSAA to be told to only apply to certain passes since it's a driver hack basically. Hence it just does everything most of the time.
(. In FFXIV 2.0 for example, you can get 4xSGSSAA and skip the UI rendering pass, freeing you of some UI glitches and blur with the flag 0x004012C5. The caveat however is that this flag works *only* for 4xSGSSAA. It flat out doesn't work with 2 or 8x SGSSAA for whatever reason.)
Sometimes, when you add in FXAA to downsampling it may help with specular highlights, but generally with cars, there are temporal issues with the shading that potentially only very high ratios of downsampling would be able to fix i'm guessing like below due to the angle and intersecting geometry/UV/etc. (IE: 4x4=16xOGSSAA)
I'll use UE4's temporal AA as an example because it misses this same sort of thing
http://i.minus.com/iT4t3KxpK5LB7.png
This flickering/crawling line, I am fairly certain it is a shading issue due to the angle of the two intersecting walls, where this is supposed to be; IE; a flat long mid range roughness specular highlight; The Temporal AA doesn't quite know how to handle this as far as I can see.
Compatibility flags generally tell the driver what kinds of frame buffers to look for when it's doing all this. The 5 at the end of that FFXIV flag,tells the driver to ignore the primary flip chain (where the UI pass is probably added i'm guessing). This allows it to not apply AA to the UI and cause some minor blurring and super sampling glitches (Akin to the kind you get in emulators like PCSX2 and Dolphin with higher internal resolutions)
This is as best as I can explain it, and my total understanding is ultimately more limited than I would prefer. SGSSAA is something every game engine should have these days instead of MSAA. (But at the same time, they shouldn't do it cheaply like some games do OGSSAA these days where it only super samples certain buffers. So if other effects are fixed by a factor of display resolution. Their precision can't be increased by also super sampling that buffer. Where as with driver/GeDoSaTo, these are all proportionately increased as well. This results in moderately better effects in some games. Such as Deus Ex Human Revolution's HDR Buffer, and in Alan Wake, you can see in my shot above, the bloom resolution is proportional as well)
(in the case of Deus Ex, this issue isn't present in the original game. The HDR is of lower quality than the original. It's rendered proportional i'm guessing 1/6th or more to the main rendering resolution. Where as originally it is fixed somewhere between 1/2th or less. Resulting in little to no undersampling artifacts such as aliasing, stair stepping,shimmering and flickering)
SGSSAA sometimes can effectively super sample low resolution effect buffers in the current form that it is in the driver as well. Take Dead Rising 2 for example, with SGSSAA,the AA Fix set off and a rendering height of less than 1024px can super sample the Depth of Field and Shadow buffers. Increasing the quality of said elements)
So i'd honestly prefer that if a game has lower resolution effects, that if SGSSAA would be able to handle them as well instead of just running those at 1x or less. Or at least offer an SGSSAA quality option. Simple Low-High switch that runs effects as is at 1x and only super samples the main rendering buffers, or as I described previously.
Well, that was an overly long and convoluted explanation that probably didn't make too much sense for many people.
Drunken Master
Member
Very interesting! I asked myself why I can't get those highlighted lines at some parts of the cars away even with MSAA.
So SGSSAA does Supersampling without Transparency AA? For best quality would be the best to use SGSSA (3D objects) + TrAA (2D objects like grids) + FXAA (for those specific highlights)?
So SGSSAA does Supersampling without Transparency AA? For best quality would be the best to use SGSSA (3D objects) + TrAA (2D objects like grids) + FXAA (for those specific highlights)?
Drunken Master
Member
Finally some clean ass shots!
BONKERS
Member
Well FSSGSSAA (just SGSSAA in inspector) already does transparencies since it applies it to every pixel. Plus you wouldn't be able to anyway.
Using FXAA on top isn't a good idea. It will just end up blurring the image and reverse AA'ing some things.
Not to mention using FXAA on top of other forced AA has been broken/not working since 331.82.
The best quality (Depending on the game) would be at least 4xSGSSAA + some downsampling. (Sometimes depending on the game and your downsampling ratio, you can also add in FXAA to help with some stray edges post resolve. Battlefield Bad Company 2 for example benefits from this) You really have to do it on a per game basis.
Some games REALLY don't like downsampling with SGSSAA due to how Texture LoD calculations are done. It actually ends up creating more temporal aliasing with these games. (Games like Bioshock 1 and Two Worlds II for example. BS1 doesn't like Auto LoD either at native as it creates some moire/shimmering) Forcing some positive LOD bias does help a little bit, but it never ends up looking quite entirely right.
Really you just have to experiment and find what works for you with each game and the GPU power available.
If you can only get 1080p60FPS with 4xSGSSAA on your HDTV for example. That's still pretty damn good.
Drunken Master
Member
Drunken Master
Member
Ah I see. Are those issues with negative LoD only known in DX10/11 games? I heard that on DX9 you didn't have a problem using SGSSAA and downsampling.
Many thanks for your time and explenations! Really appreciate your help!
4K is sooo last year , man .
Even 8K will not save you from the banding
BONKERS
Member
Np. But no, unfortunately it's not exclusive to DX10+.
I've found that the majority of the games i've played/tested didn't really suffer the issue. But there are many that do. That's why I recommended just doing it on a case by case basis. Which isn't the best solution. But if you don't mind a few minutes of tinkering it's helpful.
A lot of the time, SGSSAA by itself will look just fine in motion even though edge quality/iq in a still isn't the absolute best.
I wish it would at least catch on with developers on PC save for the fact if you are going for MSAA, why bother just go for SGSSAA (With a quality switch like I mentioned prior).
If there was a way I could promote an open, royalty free method of implementing it for everyone to use (Not royalty free in money sense, but rather it's an open standard like OpenXX APIs and is not proprietary). I would do so in a heartbeat. I've often thought about it a lot.
Haha, yeah.. if we were able to modify compiled game data and change the format of rendering buffers to higher precision ones... then maybe... in my dreams.
legacyzero
Banned
Trying to figure out GeDoSaTo
legacyzero
Banned
legacyzero
Banned
Boulotaur2024
Member
Avoiding banding in solid colors was I suppose a longstanding quest for me.
Then I had the sad realization that it is due to the limited 24-bit colorspace of common monitors. If you make a gradiant that has a change of even just 2 RGB values by 1 point each, that's a visible band.
What everyone does of course is use textures or dithering to hide it. It still made me kind of want a crazy high-color monitor though.
Boulotaur2024
Member
DodgyGeezerFella
Member
BONKERS
Member
Soul Calibur 2 running on Dolphin: 1080p(internal 2560x2112) 8xAA
So good
DodgyGeezerFella
Member
DodgyGeezerFella
Member
TheVampire
Banned
TheVampire
Banned
Similar threads
- Poll