How to turn Anti Aliasing on - Game looks horrible without

[Skeptic 10]

By default if you have Fillrate at 100% in game menu it is not set properly in Arma2.cfg (located in My Documents\Arma 2 folder)

Your resolution is set by

Resolution_W and Resolution_H

Your MSAA is set by

Render_W and Render_H

At 100% fillrate (no MSAA) it should be

Render_W=Resolution_W and Render_H=Resolution_H

But it's usually not the case. And Render setting are <100% of Resolution which leads to more jaggies.

For 1680x1050 you should set

Resolution_W=1680

Resolution_H=1050

Render_W=1680

Render_H=1050

In your graphics driver panel force AA to 2x. I also set post-processing to None in Arma2 game settings.

Enjoy.

Edited June 2, 2009 by Skeptic

[Padooka 0]

Does postFX=0 in ArmA2.cfg turn off post-processing?

Does anyone know what the setting HDRPrecision do?

Skeptic is right about the Fillrate problem. I had Fillrate set to 100% in game and the Render size was still set larger than my desktop resolution inf ArmA2.cfg. I had to manually set it to equal my desktop resolution.

[ThePainkiller 10]

In your graphics driver panel force AA to 2x. I also set post-processing to None in Arma2 game settings.

Enjoy.

i thought it doesnt do anything when you force it in your control panel? (i cant see a difference if i turn it on tbh.

[Skeptic 10]

i thought it doesnt do anything when you force it in your control panel? (i cant see a difference if i turn it on tbh.

I thought it worked on my ATI 4890 with 9.4 Cat. I will double check any way. What graphics card and drivers you have? One thing for sure is that with fillrate lower than resolution - you get massive amount of jaggies.

Does postFX=0 in ArmA2.cfg turn off post-processing?

Does anyone know what the setting HDRPrecision do?

Skeptic is right about the Fillrate problem. I had Fillrate set to 100% in game and the Render size was still set larger than my desktop resolution inf ArmA2.cfg. I had to manually set it to equal my desktop resolution.

That's correct for postFX - so called depth of field. I don't like that we don't have control over LOD with PostFX - craps out at too short of a distance.

Highger HDR precision should produce more accurate effect. I don't know what is performance cost in Arma 2 engine, but it should help with lower video RAM usage. Try setting it to 16 bit and see if you get any artifacts.

HDR images require a higher number of bits per color channel than traditional images, both because of the linear encoding and because they need to represent values from 10−4 to 108 (the range of visible luminance values) or more. 16-bit ("half precision") or 32-bit floating point numbers are often used to represent HDR pixels. However, when the appropriate transfer function is used, HDR pixels for some applications can be represented with as few as 10–12 bits for luminance and 8 bits for chrominance without introducing any visible quantization artifacts.[8]

Edited June 2, 2009 by Skeptic

[garack666 10]

By default if you have Fillrate at 100% in game menu it is not set properly in Arma2.cfg (located in My Documents\Arma 2 folder)

Your resolution is set by

Resolution_W and Resolution_H

Your MSAA is set by

Render_W and Render_H

At 100% fillrate (no MSAA) it should be

Render_W=Resolution_W and Render_H=Resolution_H

But it's usually not the case. And Render setting are <100% of Resolution which leads to more jaggies.

For 1680x1050 you should set

Resolution_W=1680

Resolution_H=1050

Render_W=1680

Render_H=1050

In your graphics driver panel force AA to 2x. I also set post-processing to None in Arma2 game settings.

Enjoy.

forcing aa in drivers has o effect.

[hoak 0]

It would be helpful if BI were to post a technical/support recitation of the ArmA II renderer, the interactions of post-processing, deferred render (if it's done that way), aliasing artifacts, and Fillrate/Anti-Aliasing. From what we've been shown Fillrate does not appear to remove alias artifacts as well as less render intensive FSAA...

If the lack of ability to apply real FSAA is due to some deferred model render support for DirectX post-processing effects, it would be nice if BI would offer an option to 'opt out' of post-processing entirely as most of the post processing effects like Blur and DOF are not realistic as implemented, are widely disliked and obviously confers additional unnecessary render overhead...

:butbut:

Edited June 3, 2009 by Hoak

[Majormauser 0]

Hoak-

I'm still waiting for BIA to do this for ArmA 1. Fortunately a user mapped out what all the graphics options did.

[garack666 10]

it would be helpful if bi were to post a technical/support recitation of the arma ii renderer, the interactions of post-processing, deferred render (if it's done that way), aliasing artifacts, and fillrate/anti-aliasing. From what we've been shown fillrate does not appear to remove alias artifacts as well as less render intensive fsaa...

If the lack of ability to apply real fsaa is due to some deferred model render support for directx post-processing effects, it would be nice if bi would offer an option to 'opt out' of post-processing entirely as most of the post processing effects like blur and dof are not realistic as implemented, are widely disliked and obviously confers additional unnecessary render overhead...

:butbut:

^^this!

[Skeptic 10]

forcing aa in drivers has o effect.

You are correct. Zero, zilch, nada. 125% fillrate smoothes things out a bit.

[Rommel 2]

Can you show us a screenshot of your settings menu, so we can see what's different from this one? Cheers.

Hmmm... I'm missing Anti-aliasing and Refresh rate. :mad:

Ah well, I enabled mine ages ago through the profiles file. :rolleyes:

[metalcraze 290]

Isn't fillrate > 100% = FSAA? Because it works exactly like that with 200% being FSAA 4x

[Dr.Pulp 0]

Isn't fillrate > 100% = FSAA? Because it works exactly like that with 200% being FSAA 4x

yeah, but it consumes way more power. and you really need a high end machine do use it.

[OverDawg 10]

Would be a priority for me if I was a dev. Letting ppl gain fps while the graphics go up is a great way to score points with your customer. This fillrate thing has to go, such a performance loss for setting only similar to 4xAA is a definate no-no. But I don't know how many ppl BIS has to work on several things at once, and judging from other threads they have their hands full atm fixing AI bugs etc. So I guess graphical 'bugs' will get adressed later

[smashwings 10]

I think too AA is a MUST in a game like that, for aiming at long distances and to give realism to the look.

I stop playing GRAW because of that, have no AA spoils any of other graphic improvement, ARMA I (with ACE mod better) looks much more realistic because you can see ENEMIES at a distance and not "bunch of pixels" at far.

And no, "Fillrate setting" is nothing like 4xAA, neither at 200% , so real AA is needed or I will stay at ARMA I.

Sorry to say but I will think a lot to buy it (probably not buy) if not AA implemented.

[Skeptic 10]

Isn't fillrate > 100% = FSAA? Because it works exactly like that with 200% being FSAA 4x

Actually someone from BIS wrote that Fillrate at 200% is higher than MSAA 4x that's why it's so hard on GPUs.

[smashwings 10]

Actually someone from BIS wrote that Fillrate at 200% is higher than MSAA 4x that's why it's so hard on GPUs.

tried the 200% fillrate, is no near as 4xAA, it enhaces the quality but do not eliminate the jaggies as real AA, not to talk about the performance drop of course...

[Skeptic 10]

Here's BIS Dev's quote on this matter:

Yes its there, its just not called antialiasing, you can under or oversamled picture by fillrate optimizer, when you will set it highher then 100% you can smoothly set supersampling (full picture antialiasing).

I think its like 4xFSAA (from four pixels is calculated one at result)

You're right - quality wise 200% fillrate is nowhere near 4xMSAA, but performance wise it hits like truckload of bricks.

[hoak 0]

I finally got a chance to see the game in action, and while I'm generally enormously impressed, this cheap software driven scaling trick supplanting FSAA, and saying it's just like FSAA is simply false. Worse the post-processing effects are more out of scale and ugly then so politely described by others. I hope this is at the top of the priority charts as it's visually very ugly for such an otherwise modern and superb game.

:butbut:

Edited June 4, 2009 by Hoak

[cross 1]

Can having FSAA have some repercussions on the multithread engine...ie could the multithread engine be the reason they left FSAA out ? Perhaps FSAA uses some info from the Micro-AI-thread which this info dependency in return slows down the engine more?

[hoak 0]

Can having FSAA have some repercussions on the multithread engine...ie could the multithread engine be the reason they left FSAA out?

No, lol, sorry not related, multi-threading only improves the performance and quality of FSAA...

Perhaps FSAA uses some info from the Micro-AI-thread which this info dependency in return slows down the engine more?

Again, no -- ArmA II is a DirectX game; which means it employs DX to do most of the work. It is possible BI chose some sort of deferred render technique not supported in DX that makes FSAA impossible.

There was a comment elsewhere by one of the Developers that FSAA is currently disabled because of artifacting on shadows, and that they could re-enable it in a patch -- which is what makes me think the above.

It sounds like they didn't like the notchy looking shadows DX gives via the normal channel -- but IMHO they are far less ugly then alias artifacts on every asset in the game, and from all the reactions I've seen virtually everyone feels the same...

:butbut:

[maddogx 13]

Full ack, Hoak.

I can live with jagged edges for now because they're not so apparent at 1920x1080, but it would be nice to get some 2x or 4x AA without the insane performance loss.

[hoak 0]

Full ack, Hoak.

I can live with jagged edges for now because they're not so apparent at 1920x1080, but it would be nice to get some 2x or 4x AA without the insane performance loss.

Yeah, well, not everyone has a display with that rez, and a GPU that has a power supply that doubles as an arc welder. In fact considering the sales on Steam which seem pretty good, BI might do well to look at the Steam Hardware Survey to get a good idea of the mean system performance of people buying their game and what it will look like to most that will be playing it.

Don't get me wrong, I love that the game scales well and that it looks fantastic for you; which means it will be nice for me as well come next my hardware upgrage -- but in the meantime, ouch the alias artifacting and Blur really horrid for such an otherwise S.O.T.A. game...

:butbut:

[hoak 0]

We will try to enable MS AA in some patch. It should be possible, if you will tolerate some minor artifacts on some shadowed edges (I have seen the same artifact in many games with AA enabled, therefore I think it is not that bad).

This cheered me up to an extent, I and many can tolerate any manner of shadow artifacts for actual AA support, even how shadows would be preferable to the lack of an option now... Is there any time window that we might anticipate AA in a patch?

:o

[smashwings 10]

Yeah, well, not everyone has a display with that rez, and a GPU that has a power supply that doubles as an arc welder. In fact considering the sales on Steam which seem pretty good, BI might do well to look at the Steam Hardware Survey to get a good idea of the mean system performance of people buying their game and what it will look like to most that will be playing it.

Don't get me wrong, I love that the game scales well and that it looks fantastic for you; which means it will be nice for me as well come next my hardware upgrage -- but in the meantime, ouch the alias artifacting and Blur really horrid for such an otherwise S.O.T.A. game...

:butbut:

1920x1080 is a good resolution, but i'm sure it's not a 19 inch monitor but a minimum of 22" so the jaggies get bigger with it; Sure it looks good but never as good as AA.

With tthe TFT's that exist now Aliasing is a FACT if not AA applied, native resolution and pixel/point measure dictates it

Edited June 8, 2009 by Smashwings
bative => native

[Helmut_AUT 0]

On my 27" 1920x1200, Jaggies are not any less big than a 19" 1280x1024 screen. I only need 2x for most games though, 4x only for those that are older and need that extra bit of polish.

And the performance penalty for fillrate is insane - even at 125% my 9600GT would have to render 2400x1600 pixels, which is way too much, whereas normal 2xFSAA costs me about 2 frames in any game.