Maxing out AO's graphics.

[Wrangeline]

When I made the video "The Tour" which contained AO footage, I had forced 32x AA. But I got curious as to how crisp I could make the game look. So I tried doing this:

1. Downsample. I run the game on 3200x1800 resolution and then that quality picture is downsampled to fit my 1920x1080 monitor. You get very crisp images this way.

2. In addition to this, I forced on 32x CSAA through my nvidia control panel.

3. FXAA is forced on.

4. I force on Anisotropisk filtering, at 16x

Now, I'm no expert on AA, so some of my settings here may have been redundant or sub-optimal. I'm not sure. But so far, this is what I have done. If you have any suggestions for improvement, please let me know.

Here are some random screenshots I took running these settings. The game ran at 60-100 fps (according to Fraps), and I didn't notice any worse performance than normal. The screenshots aren't taken in the most interesting of places. I was too lazy to run to a better zone!

[Raggy]

Downsampling! There is something I forgot I could do!

[Jihnna]

Cool!

A few questions though, Nvidia user here as well, what version drivers are you running ? How do you downsample ? (TBH I've never even heard of it)
I'm running native resolution for my screens at 1680x1050 (16:10) atm, so any info about starting resolution to downsample here would be appreciated.
The rest you did in nVidia-control panel I know how to do.

Nvm all, I found out on google, got it to look really nice, thanks for this!

[Gatester]

This looks quite a bit better than usual.

[MachSchau]

This sadly makes me think this is what AO will look like with the new engine. You know, nothing crazy, but just slightly better than what it was.

[Esssch]

Wish AMD's Catalyst supported downsampling

[Doctrony]

After following the same process here are the results, the only difference is that my downsampled resolution is 2560x1440:

Before:


After:


After, Close-Up:


Basically removes all the rough, jagged edges. I'm very happy with the improvement. Thank you Wrangeline.

EDIT: It appears as though perks and items placed on action bars don't appreciate the change too much, as you can see in the image below.


Funny thing is, the nanos are fine.

I haven't noticed any performance decreases.
-Trony-

[Mastablasta]

One thing that really bugs me with AO's current graphics, which makes it look worse than it should, is the problem with lighting. How it just bugs out and suddenly illuminates everything. Not sure what the cause is, but it wasn't as bad as it is today back in way back time.

Yea, the issue with action icons has been there forever. It's related to certain types of antialiasing.

I never quite understood how people did not go do this kind of thing instantly force loads of antialiasing and anisotropic filtering. AO has terrible texture degradation when you don't at least force on AF.

@Wrang - FXAA you could probably just drop. It'll at least theoretically cause a degradation in image quality by creating a slight blur. There's the transparency antialiasing setting you could force on as well that might do something for transparent textures. But dunno how well it works with AO.

Wish AMD's Catalyst supported downsampling

Option disappeared at some point, but didn't people make workarounds? Haven't had an AMD card for nearly a year now, so I can't really say ...

[hokutonoken]

Cool!

A few questions though, Nvidia user here as well, what version drivers are you running ? How do you downsample ? (TBH I've never even heard of it)
I'm running native resolution for my screens at 1680x1050 (16:10) atm, so any info about starting resolution to downsample here would be appreciated.
The rest you did in nVidia-control panel I know how to do.

Nvm all, I found out on google, got it to look really nice, thanks for this!

whats the google link you used...atm i'm at work...work place have a lot of site...offlimits ^_^..so i might have to search at home when i get the chance ^_^

[Jihnna]

I used the following links :

Downsampling, a simple method for making your pc-games look better. Has good explanation how to do it.

Aspect Ratio Calculator Helps you determine a resolution that your screen can handle, that you want the game to downsample from.

My screens are rather old Dell 20" 16:10, highest I could go was 2400x1500, any higher and I could only see 10 pixels on top of screen, rest would go black.
But I am VERY satisfied with the results it produced. Always had antialiasing on, so it never looked bad in the first place, but it's still quite better now.

[Wrangeline]

I used the following links :

Downsampling, a simple method for making your pc-games look better. Has good explanation how to do it.

Yep, that's the guide I followed as well.

Glad to hear you guys got some use out of this technique as well

One cool aspect of downsampling is that it only affects the games you want it to affect. When you force on AA and such in graphics control panel, it's forced on for all games and may ruin performance in some titles, forcing you to revisit the control panel to turn things on/off depending on what game you play. But with downsampling you simply turn on the ability for games to have the option to downsample, and then each individual game lets you choose if you want to use downsampling or not. It's not a global option. It's on a application by application basis.

[Jihnna]

When you force on AA and such in graphics control panel, it's forced on for all games and may ruin performance in some titles, forcing you to revisit the control panel to turn things on/off depending on what game you play.

Actually no, not the way I do it, I do it individually for every game in the control panel. I don't use global settings. And thanks again for these tips Gonna try without FXAA, haven't gotten around to it yet today.

[Wrangeline]

Actually no, not the way I do it, I do it individually for every game in the control panel. I don't use global settings. And thanks again for these tips Gonna try without FXAA, haven't gotten around to it yet today.

You can force on AA and such for individual games?

Whaaat?

I need to look into that!

Edit: Oh, there's a tab called "program" and tab called "global". Doh, why didn't I notice that before..

[Gatester]

ah, no luck for a laptop user, even though I rely 100% on a TV externally for my display

[Esssch]

One thing that really bugs me with AO's current graphics, which makes it look worse than it should, is the problem with lighting. How it just bugs out and suddenly illuminates everything. Not sure what the cause is, but it wasn't as bad as it is today back in way back time.

Yea, the issue with action icons has been there forever. It's related to certain types of antialiasing.

I never quite understood how people did not go do this kind of thing instantly force loads of antialiasing and anisotropic filtering. AO has terrible texture degradation when you don't at least force on AF.

@Wrang - FXAA you could probably just drop. It'll at least theoretically cause a degradation in image quality by creating a slight blur. There's the transparency antialiasing setting you could force on as well that might do something for transparent textures. But dunno how well it works with AO.



Option disappeared at some point, but didn't people make workarounds? Haven't had an AMD card for nearly a year now, so I can't really say ...

For ATI the AA/AF forced settings are global, unfortunately. Otherwise I'd have it forced for only AO.

And ya, people made workarounds, but AMD has changed some stuff, so now it's just a huge hassle. They changed one of the .dlls, so instead of just installing one thing, now you have to install 12.xx series drivers, install the 3rd party software, set your downsampling, completely clear the AMD drivers, then install 13.xx, but it doesn't work at all with 13.5, the most recent ones, which also fixes random flickering in DX9 games. Overall, way more work than it's worth imo, though I'd love to do some downsampling.

[Phantom]

These are awesome, Wrangeline! In the process of trying to set this up, but while I'm able to run the custom resolutions on my desktop just fine, the game crashes every time I try to load it at the higher resolution.

Don't suppose you have any clue what could be the culprit?

[Wrangeline]

These are awesome, Wrangeline! In the process of trying to set this up, but while I'm able to run the custom resolutions on my desktop just fine, the game crashes every time I try to load it at the higher resolution.

Don't suppose you have any clue what could be the culprit?

Are you changing the resolution on your desktop? Because you shouldn't do that. Leave the desktop resolution to whatever is your monitors native resolution (mine is 1980x1080 @ 60hz, for example).

Then start the AO-launcher and click the "settings" button above the big play-button. Change resolution there to the big resolution (I use 3200x1800). I also use windowed and borderless because that's the best one to use when you are alt-tabbing a lot, but that's a different topic all together.

However, there is a test-button in the nvidia control panel where you set up the new custom resolutions for downsampling. When you press that test button, it tests the new resolution for a few seconds. If the screen goes black (and stays black) or any such problems, then you may need to try smaller resolutions or it's possible that your hardware setup doesn't support downsampling very well.

[Phantom]

I also use windowed and borderless because that's the best one to use when you are alt-tabbing a lot, but that's a different topic all together.

This would explain it, then. Yeah, my settings are correct otherwise and I'm not using the increased resolution on my desktop, but I run windowed/borderless by default as well and I didn't notice any changes with the new resolution.

I took a look at the downsampling guide and sure enough, downsampling doesn't work in windowed mode unless you run the resolution on your desktop as well (which also causes issues with AO launching for me), so I started trying to run it fullscreen which caused the crashing issues.

So the benefit I'm seeing in those screenshots must be a result of the 32x CSAA (I run 16x normally), and downsampling just doesn't seem to cooperate with AO. Likely the same reason SweetFX and nVidia 3D vision don't: directX 7

I just turned up my CSAA to 32x, and took comparison screenshots between the two resolutions. Not that I want to burst anyone's bubble or anything , but you can see the comparison here.

[Esssch]

Astral, do you notice any FPS drop with higher AA? I usually run 70 FPS running through OA, turned on 24xEQ SSAA through Catalyst and it was feeling really choppy around 40-50 FPS.

[Wrangeline]

This would explain it, then. Yeah, my settings are correct otherwise and I'm not using the increased resolution on my desktop, but I run windowed/borderless by default as well and I didn't notice any changes with the new resolution.

I took a look at the downsampling guide and sure enough, downsampling doesn't work in windowed mode unless you run the resolution on your desktop as well (which also causes issues with AO launching for me), so I started trying to run it fullscreen which caused the crashing issues.

So the benefit I'm seeing in those screenshots must be a result of the 32x CSAA (I run 16x normally), and downsampling just doesn't seem to cooperate with AO. Likely the same reason SweetFX and nVidia 3D vision don't: directX 7

I just turned up my CSAA to 32x, and took comparison screenshots between the two resolutions. Not that I want to burst anyone's bubble or anything , but you can see the comparison here.

Oh snap.

Well, that's awkward.