Resolved Highest quality driver settings for NVIDIA cards

Discussion in 'Community Support' started by The Iron Wolf, Feb 24, 2016.

  1. The Iron Wolf

    The Iron Wolf Well-Known Member

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    Thanks, I didn't notice those choices, this is something to try. To be honest 8xMSAA x 8xSGSSAA trick was from GTR2 and GTX 580 days :) And as I mentioned, that combination eliminates jaggies, but makes image a bit blurry, so there's room for improvement. I'll report back with my findings.

    Good question is which Transparency AA will look best in RRE combined with pure SSAA.
     
    Last edited: Feb 27, 2016
  2. The Iron Wolf

    The Iron Wolf Well-Known Member

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    I settled on: Untitled.png

    I'll share more when i have time. Thanks Nate, this is step forward in both quality and performance.

    EDIT: this adds shadow flicker, and I do not use this anymore
     
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    Last edited: Apr 19, 2016
  3. The Iron Wolf

    The Iron Wolf Well-Known Member

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    Ok, I am done comparing things and bottom line, I still prefer 8QxMSAA + 8xSGSSAA at 1080p with GTX 780 TI. Some observations:

    8QxMSAA + 8xSGSSAA – it looks like SGSSAA is the only way to solve shadow shimmer in RRE. Shadows and tarmac look best to me in this mode. There’s shimmer in trees and bushes while camera is moving, but my preference is steady shadows, as I don't have time to analyze what's going in the bushes while trying not to crash at 160km/h. This article http://naturalviolence.webs.com/sgssaa.htm suggests LOD adjustmnets are necessary, this is something to explore.

    32C 2x2 SSAA + 8xSSAA – overall best picture, and better performance, but shadows flicker/shimmer.

    General notes:
    - I guess AA settings would be a matter of personal preference, someone might prefer no shimmer in trees to no shimmer in shadows, someone would prefer 200FPS. Unfortunately no mode is perfect yet.
    - Diminishing returns - honestly, at such high levels of AA differences are becoming subtle.
    - Screenshots won’t do justice, most problems visible in motion only.
    - 32C mode runs almost 3Gb VRAM, so might not work on all tracks
    - It looks like SGSSAA is very resource hungry technique, running SSAA + SGSSAA pretty much impossible with 780TI.
     
  4. Sascha Reynders

    Sascha Reynders Well-Known Member

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    Interesting results, I did some testing of my own at Spa this evening and at 32C 2x2 SSAA+8xMSAA +8xSSAA my fps dropped to an average of 23 leaving the pit lane and 31-32 on track. 2x2 SSAA + 8xSSAA was about the best my 970 could do while maintaining an almost constant 60fps on track, "almost" because I did suffer fps drops to 53-58 at certain points of the track, especially passing the pits. So I settled on 8QxMSAA + 8xSSAA, but I upped the in-game screen resolution to 3840x2160 through DSR. Result: solid 60fps except when leaving the pit lane, when it fluctuates between 45-55, but that doesn't bother me much. And it looks good enough to me :)
     
  5. Sascha Reynders

    Sascha Reynders Well-Known Member

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    And while I was at it, I did some testing on this as well, with these results:

    - Vsync and triple buffering off: fps fluctuating between 71 and 90fps, with lots of stutter, quite undriveable
    - Vsync and triple buffering off and framerate limited to 58fps with NVInspector: solid 60fps but still lots of stutter, equally undriveable
    - Vsync and triple buffering on: solid 60fps, a fluid image and a perfectly smooth driving experience

    With Vsync and triple buffering enabled, there was no noticeable input lag either; The virtual steering wheel mimicks the movement of my G29 perfectly, and the car goes where I want it to go, and when I want it to. I was throwing the Zakspeed Capri around Spa and I had no problem hitting apexes (well "no" might be a bit exaggerated, but that's more due to my driving abilities than input lag ;) ) or catching slides and drifts, it all felt pretty natural to me. If there is input lag, it doesn't affect my driving, maybe I just got used to it ? Anyway, I'd prefer a tiny bit of lag to the choppy, stuttering gameplay I experienced without Vsync.

    Just my 2 cents, cheers !
     
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  6. Stiku

    Stiku Member

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    I have to point out, that you were using Triple buffering, which is known to lower the input lag on vsync.
    Not like le_poilu claims that it increases.

    Second I have to point out about input lag, we turn into the corner before the corner starts sometimes sooner, sometimes later. but always before. So if there are any input lag it can be counted and adjusted into the time before we start to give the input to turn(read, we get used to it), so the input lag doesn't matter in driving games that much.
     
  7. le_poilu

    le_poilu Well-Known Member

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    It matter when you need to react when something unexpected happens like oversteer, or any contact with an other car.
    Driving game is not only being alone on a clean race line you never leave, nothing else happening.
     
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  8. The Iron Wolf

    The Iron Wolf Well-Known Member

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    Just to be clear, this is without DSR, right?
    In my experiments, I do not touch DSR at all. Considering DSR, is a whole separate investigation. I am a bit surprised seeing lower number on 970, as it is in my understanding very close to 780TI. Maybe, Spa is much more complex track than Zandvroort I've been using in my tests.
     
    Last edited: Feb 28, 2016
  9. Sascha Reynders

    Sascha Reynders Well-Known Member

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    No, this was at DSR 2560x1440, I think ... now you got me doubting if I didn't forget to turn down the resolution 'cos it was the last setting I tried after 2x2 SSAA + 8xSSAA, and that was with DSR 3840x2160. I'll give it another go later on today and report back.
     
  10. Sascha Reynders

    Sascha Reynders Well-Known Member

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    You're absolutely right, that's why I did my testing during practice, qualifying and 30 minute races against 23 opponents at Spa :)
     
  11. Sascha Reynders

    Sascha Reynders Well-Known Member

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    Ok, it turns out DSR was still at 3840x2160 when I was running 2xSSAA+8xMSAA with 8xSSAA... With those AA settings I get 60fps up to 2880x1620 except in/passing pitlane, with DSR at 2715x1527 fps drop when passing the pitlane is limited to 57-58 so I settled on that for now.
    In-game, I also upped shadows to "high", set shadow split to "on" and motion blur quality to "high" (motion blur "fast") with no loss in fps whatsoever. Tested it on a few other tracks as well (Macau amongst others) and results seem to be consistent.

    EDIT: I also set Texture Filtering - Quality to "high quality" in NVInspector
     
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    Last edited: Feb 28, 2016
  12. The Iron Wolf

    The Iron Wolf Well-Known Member

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    This is great. Now, I am curious if anyone compared performance/quality of bumping SSAA vs DSR?
    Also, in your settings do you get steady car shadows? I wasn't able to remove dancing pixels in shadows with anything but SGSSAA.
     
  13. Sascha Reynders

    Sascha Reynders Well-Known Member

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    Car shadows looked Ok to me, didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. Then again, they're not my primary focus of attention while racing, especially on a high speed track like Spa ;)

    By the way: I did some more reading on the various Nvidia Inspector settings on Guru3D, and it seems the "clamp" setting for negative LOD bias is no longer supported by Nvidia, so I set it back to "allowed" (default) and didn't notice any difference. Also, the triple buffering settings only work in OpenGL apparently, so I'm using D3DOverrider now to force it on in D3D applications.
     
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    Last edited: Feb 28, 2016
  14. Paradox Agi

    Paradox Agi Active Member

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    SSAA and DSR are exactly the same stuff. The picture is rendered in a higher resolution internally and then scaled down to displayed resolution. As the DSR option affects GUI and other stuff and messes it up in R3E, I suggest using SSAA options in NVidia Inspector.

    And, be aware, that R3E ignores any NVidia Inspector AA Setting as long as in game the MSAA is set to off. At least 2x MSAA should be activated to benefit from the tweaks there.
     
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  15. Sascha Reynders

    Sascha Reynders Well-Known Member

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    Are you sure about that? 'Cos I have AA set to "No MSAA" in-game and my testing seems to indicate otherwise. With DSR set to 3840x2160 for instance, and not changing any video settings apart from AA settings in NV Inspector, I get following results (same track, same cars, same number of cars):

    - 8xMSAA with 8xSSAA: 60fps
    - 2xSSAA with 8xSSAA: 60fps with a short and very small drop near the pit area
    - 2xSSAA+8xMSAA with 8xSSAA: 23-31fps
    - 4xSSAA with 8xSSAA: about the same, 23-31fps

    If R3E ignores these settings with "No MSAA" set in-game, shouldn't I be seeing 60fps all the time, regardless of what I set in NV Inspector? I just assumed "override application settings" meant just that, even when the application setting is "off" or "no..."
    I'm by no means an expert on these matters, so I'd love to hear more about this.

    Also, I have noticed no graphics glitches or other weirdness in the GUI/menu screens while using DSR.
     
  16. ElNino

    ElNino Well-Known Member

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    I'm sure it's noticeable for some folks doing championship FPS multiplayer matches, but never once have i noticed any lag myself using vsync.
     
  17. Paradox Agi

    Paradox Agi Active Member

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    The NV Inspector did not work at all for me when setting AA to off in the game until found this solution somewhere in the steam forums and finally it worked using at least 2x MSAA. Of course, you are right, if AA set in NV Inspector is not used, it should not affect performance. Maybe this has been changed, your tests are a bit more recent than mine.
     
  18. Sascha Reynders

    Sascha Reynders Well-Known Member

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    The plot thickens...

    It seems you are right about this: I set AA to 2xMSAA in-game and fps dropped to an all-time low of 2-8fps :eek: Override to 8xMSAA with 8xSSAA is the highest I can go now in order to maintain a solid 60fps. So in-game AA settings definitely have an influence on how the tweaks in NV Inspector work, still doesn't explain why different AA settings in NV Inspector yield different results in fps with No MSAA set in-game though...I'm scratching my head a bit there...
     
  19. Paradox Agi

    Paradox Agi Active Member

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    Okay... This musst be the reason why my 970 could not compare to you results. I used the MSAA ingame to make sure it really works.
     
  20. Blanes

    Blanes Well-Known Member

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    Gonna try this ... I have a 980ti running 4K on a 40inch Phlips monitor and currently with ingame 8xMSAA I keep solid 60fps no problem but like to see if the SS looks better.

    Re input lag, I must be one of the lucky people who never notice it at all because I can drive hit apexes catch slides etc, and never perceive and lag at all. Would suck hard to be seeing that though so I can see why people do anything they can to eliminate it. Like someone said, there is no right or wrong here, just whatever works for the individual :)