Setting Arma 2 resolution higher than monitor rez gives extra detail

[Libertine 1]

I noticed setting Arma2 to 2x my monitor's resolution gave a huge increase in detail and smoothes aliasing. Not only that, its playable, easily. I was playing Metro 2033 and was noticing how much MSAA blurred the scene and it was to the point where i didnt' want to use it even though my computer could handle it. I was hoping someone could reply with some knowledge on how this works. Does this use DirectX or is this special Arma 2 code? I tried increasing Metro 2033's resolution via the user.cfg's but it didn't work.

[Nicholas 5]

Are you talking about the 3D resolution or monitor resolution? Setting 3D resolution to 2x your monitor resolution will give more detail, but I don't think it'll improve performance...

[rye1 21]

Well good. Because it would damage your vision if it was low i.e. below 100%. :p Extra plus!

[Libertine 1]

Are you talking about the 3D resolution or monitor resolution? Setting 3D resolution to 2x your monitor resolution will give more detail, but I don't think it'll improve performance...

Lol, no, it doesn't improve performance. If only it did... we'd have a miracle on our hands. But at 3840 x 2160 my GTX 570 handled it amazingly well. But how to do this with games that aren't so demanding, like Mass Effect would be a good candidate. I use a 46" 3DTV of 1920x1080 for a monitor and doing this makes this low dpi screen look like how i think a 4k monitor would look. Could any official's say whether this is a special Arma thing that only Arma can do or could i apply this technique to another game.

[Nicholas 5]

It's a special ArmA feature.

[Libertine 1]

Thanks, but is that an assumption or a fact? Mind stating how you know that?

[Nicholas 5]

Well, tell me how many other games you know of that allow you to set the 3D resolution to 2x your monitor size?

Some games might allow it, but it's rare. It has to be built into the game. The objects and textures are made so they can be used at that high resolution. Not something you can just add in.

[sethos 2]

It's just game downsampling.

You can do that with every game, it provides a crisper look and a bit of pixel-density AA effects. It's just very, very few games that support it in-game, you mostly have to do it out of the game.

[Libertine 1]

Thats what i thought too, but it'd be nice to know if its a directX function that could be requested for other games. I think i'll be requesting it from now on anyway.

Edited January 15, 2012 by Libertine

[Libertine 1]

Took some screenshots. Pretty impressive.

http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=221677

[Nicholas 5]

You're setting the 3D resolution, correct. And not the actual resolution? I thought the 3D resolution brought better textures.

[rye1 21]

And it's better for your eyes. Less than 100% = glasses in 6 months.

[Leon86 13]

And it's better for your eyes. Less than 100% = glasses in 6 months.

right, so all console gamers have glasses?

[rye1 21]

Damaged eyesight, to some degree.

[Foop 10]

Took some screenshots. Pretty impressive.

http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=221677

Your native resolution image looks horrible because you're not using any form of anti aliasing. The higher res image is just an expensive way of doing super sampling.

Try the latest 1.60 patch, and then set up FXAA (I use '17' for the FXAA setting and 6 for the sharpness setting). I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

[scruffy 21]

How does Supersampling in Arma run for others? Even "low" for Antialiasing drops my FPS lower than 150% 3D resolution on 1920x1200 does most of the time. It looks better with foliage than AA as I don't like ATOC, helps against shader aliasing and does not have the white-border-bug in combination with smoke. It isn't as smooth as AA, though SMAA can help. 200% looks awesome, but I guess I'll have to wait for my next graphics card to use it anywhere else than in the desert.

Libertine: Search the web for Nvidia Inspector (and the proper AA bits for the games and how to lower the texture lod) to get SSAA in most games. ATI users on a >=5000er card can force it in DX9 games. I played Mass Effect 1+2 with it, it's great.

[-=seany=- 5]

I never really thought about how you could do this in other games, but it would be pretty sweet. It is a good alternative to AA.

I can think of another couple of games that could benefit from having the ability to set a Render Res/ Display Res option.

I have also found AA very FPS expensive in Arma, that's one of the reasons why I was so interested in getting FXAA in Arma.

[domokun 515]

I quite agree. AA has too great an impact when playing 1920x1200. Moreover it provokes disconcerting white sparkling in foliage. So I've disabled AA. Since I've disabled AA, AToC is disabled too. However since then I've discovered FXAA and it works well because it offers a some AA and while it isn't impressive as traditional AA, it only incurrs a 5% hit to FPS and doesn't seem to suffer from any visual anomalies. I've also tried FXAASharp but although visually impressive, the performance hit was too high to justify it. But then maybe that's because I'm only running a R4890.

[dcal 16]

This is a helpful thread, you guys just answered a couple questions I had...thank you.

[SFJackBauer 10]

You CAN do it in most of the games, but you have to do it through your video driver, and it doesn't offer fine control as Arma does.

Its called Super Sampling Anti-aliasing, the image is rendered n times bigger than the monitor resolution and then scaled down.

[fraczek 4]

The results of using moderate supersampling are pretty swell, at least on my graphics card and AII settings :) Must try it out with low amount of FXAA next time. Now, if only my computer would tolerate 200% supersampling without playing like slow-motion film :)