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2014 High-Res PC Screenshot Thread of the Last Hope for Image Quality

M

Masochism Tango

Member
Realized I was finally accepted here, so hi!

14214533988_5d7f261ff8_k.jpg


14222796589_c7f925ccdc_k.jpg
 
Dries

Dries

Member
Alo81 said:
The end effect is basically what you're saying, but it's not really what is necessarily happening.

It doesn't make the textures sharper, but if the texture itself is large enough, then there's definitely a benefit.

For example, if a game has a 64x64 ground texture that takes up most of the screen, it's not going to benefit in sharpness from downsampling. But if it has a 4096x4096 ground texture, you'll likely be able to discern more detail in it if you downsample.
Click to expand...

Is this what is happening in all those insane downsampled Mirror's Edge screens?
 
J

jim2point0

Banned
Make sure you're using the latest version. The readme explains how to get it started.

1. Open injector
2. Add the DLL and attach it to BF4.exe and click inject
3. Open the GUI (the actual cinematic tools exe)

You'll know it's working when you go all the way to the last tab (misc) and change the global override FOV (I love that feature).

Sadly this campaign is complete crap but it's also quite pretty so I'm looking forward to revisiting certain levels. The tools can completely break scripted events during missions which will require you to restart. This is rather unfortunate since the scripted moments are usually the most interesting set pieces. So yeah... trying to get screenshots of this game is a labor of love, to say the least. And I don't even LIKE the game. I just don't know anything else worth capturing at the moment.
 
J

jim2point0

Banned
I spent 20 minutes or so trying to tweak the lighting parameters in the cinematic tools to try and match this early bullshot. I gave up though because I didn't pause it at quite the right pose and trying again would mean restarting the stupid mission. And there's no way to pull in the much higher res textures on the gun model and walls :p

Mine:
14656848826_62bd9b56c5_o.jpg


Theirs:
large.jpg


I am amazed at all the things you can do with the cinematic tools. I just have no idea what some of the settings do or how to properly tweak them.
 
A

Alo81

Low Poly Gynecologist
jim2point0 said:
I spent 20 minutes or so trying to tweak the lighting parameters in the cinematic tools to try and match this early bullshot. I gave up though because I didn't pause it at quite the right pose and trying again would mean restarting the stupid mission. And there's no way to pull in the much higher res textures on the gun model and walls :p

Mine:
14656848826_62bd9b56c5_o.jpg


Theirs:
large.jpg
Click to expand...

I think yours totally looks better.
 
K

kanuuna

Member
MrRoderick said:
Did you add CA?
Click to expand...

Through SweetFX I've been kicking around with it on a few games now that I sort of figured out how it works. Still seems like half the effects that I try to apply work 10% of the time, but when it works - it's great.

That CA effect for example, would only show after experimenting with some ambient occlusion settings on Inspector. When I had set it to be 'On' with the compatibility flag to 0x000D0001 (World Of Warcraft), the effect would show up. To see that it wasn't just a coincidence, I removed the settings I had put in place. And boom - the effect was gone again. It's really the strangest thing. The in-game SMAA had something to do with it, too, I think.

My SweetFX for pastebin. The desaturation might be a little much.
 
BONKERS

BONKERS

Member
Dries said:
Might as well crosspost here:

I find this interesting. Still want to know:

1. To all people that apply downsampling: Do you use it in all of your games?
A. No, downsampling isn't always the best solution, isn't enough by itself and often has other conflicts such as scaling HUDs/UI that affect playability. Other things can happen such as actually creating more aliasing in motion that you won't see in many of these shots.

In reality every game needs to be treated on a case by case basis. Not all is created equal.

2. Is it better to have no "normal ingame" AA options enabled, while still downsampling to the max? Or is it better that all of the ingame AA is maxed out first and then AFTER that see how far you can downsample?
A. It depends on the game and the AA type it has built into it. Downsampling alone isn't enough to create great results unless you are using GeDoSaTo for VERY high ratios. Realistically with driver downsampling, anything over 2x2 your native resolution may work or may not or look like utter shit.

As above each game is different. But generally when downsampling using another method of AA in concert with downsampling will produce better results. FXAA and similar post process AA methods are actually useful when downsampling. But again realistically, can only do so much. Downsampling + PPAA methods in many games produces subpar and mediocre results in motion while looking totally fine in still screenshots.

3. Will this make my GPU run hotter? Basically, is it dangerous for any part of my PC?
A. It's only as dangerous as the amount of heat the individual part and your system can take. Which depending on ambient temps and other factors is a willy nilly subject.

4. Would OC'ing my GPU be beneficial?
A. Absolutely, what is key however is getting a STABLE OC and one that fits the needs you are looking for. Do you want silent and cooler operation vs absolute max performance no matter the noise level and temps? These are the kinds of questions you may find in OCing articles

5. How does downsampling rate in the "OCD forever tweaking" field? Can you basically tweak endlessy forever to get it running at an acceptable fps or are there just hard boundaries where either you can make it fps-wise, or you just can't.
A. It depends on your own personal level of awareness on what is going on and how you can understand the results of what is happening and how to proceed. As well how much you understand the subjects at hand. Coming from someone who has spent hundreds, maybe even a thousand or more hours contributing to the likes of this or this and other things.

I'd say it's pretty high up there.

But again depending on various factors, another being what you want out of the end result.

6. Do you apply one resolution for all of your games or does every game have their own custom resolution?
A. See above about case by case basis. Some games don't like some ratios of downsampling without creating temporal aliasing, some games the more the better. /shrug

7. Would it be that by downsampling The Witcher 2 I could get it to look better than The Witcher 3 (theoretically wise)?
A. It depends on what sense of the word "better looking" you infer. You could certainly with the currently available hardware (Depending on which brand) and tools, potentially get much better IQ and AA quality with further tweaks to the game itself to remove the absurd sharpening filter and etc.

8. Could you downsample a game like The Witcher 3 at launch or would that just melt our computer?
A. Sure you could given you have the GPU power. Who knows what kind of AA the game will ship with though. I've heard mention of some form of Temporal Aliasing in use on the XBOne, so maybe that will make it into the PC build. It doesn't look too bad from what i've seen. With downsampling it could probably look a lot better with that combined with it.
Click to expand...


My 2cents
 
M

MrRoderick

Member
kanuuna said:
Through SweetFX I've been kicking around with it on a few games now that I sort of figured out how it works. Still seems like half the effects that I try to apply work 10% of the time, but when it works - it's great.

That CA effect for example, would only show after experimenting with some ambient occlusion settings on Inspector. When I had set it to be 'On' with the compatibility flag to 0x000D0001 (World Of Warcraft), the effect would show up. To see that it wasn't just a coincidence, I removed the settings I had put in place. And boom - the effect was gone again. It's really the strangest thing. The in-game SMAA had something to do with it, too, I think.

My SweetFX for pastebin. The desaturation might be a little much.
Click to expand...

Hmm, weird. I use CA and Gaussian bloom and dither. I used to have a really nice custom curve shader I made, but I lost that curves.h file like a dummy. A teensy bit of CA looks great in any game with technology in it I think, haha. It also serves as a soft form of AA, but in a more aesthetically please way.

Also, if you didn't know, as for AO in pCars, if you press F1 you get the dev menu thing and there is an option inside of 'render' to use HBAO instead of SSAO. Also there is a 'high quality' option. You can also up the environment cubemap settings a bit. Wish the game had better reflections though.
 
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