MSAA setting

[Nahemoth]

Hi,

 

 I have been using some DCS settings with MSAA disabled for gaining performance, but after installing some new shaders, I wanted to try again MSAA x2. But I have realized that even if I enable or disable it, I get the same visual quality.

 

 I have reinstalled the Nvidia 3090 drivers, and I have also reinstalled a clean DCS. The result is exactly the same. The next step is reinstalling windows...

 

Any hint? 

 

Many thanks

[Dauntless]

Make sure you are in full screen. (alt-enter) 

[jib]

Have you perhaps set AA to off in Nvidia control panel and set it to override game settings? (I'm not 100% sure that's an option).

Edited April 11, 2021 by jib

[Woona]

I experienced the same issue for an extended period but regained my MSAA settings' efficacy after giving DCS a complete wipe from my drives and DDU'ing my drivers for my 3080, then reinstalling the latest driver from Nvidia. I'm not sure which of the two made the difference but one of them made MSAA return to DCS for me.

DDU: https://www.guru3d.com/files-details/display-driver-uninstaller-download.html

As for wiping DCS and getting a clean install, I uninstalled it as normal, wiped the DCS folder where it was installed and removed the DCS folder in my savedgames, then reinstalled anew. A somewhat tedious process but it's there.

  

1 hour ago, jib said:

Have you perhaps set AA to off in Nvidia control panel and set it to override game settings? (I'm not 100% sure that's an option).

 

NVCP AA settings do not impact DCS. See https://youtu.be/dd6tsxmCosQ?t=2231 for measurements.

Don't mean to harp on you, just trying to kill that misconception wherever it pops up.

Edited April 11, 2021 by Woona

[Nahemoth]

3 hours ago, Dauntless said:

Make sure you are in full screen. (alt-enter) 

also tried...

 

2 hours ago, jib said:

Have you perhaps set AA to off in Nvidia control panel and set it to override game settings? (I'm not 100% sure that's an option).

 

 

I'm using the NVCP default settings.
 

1 hour ago, Woona said:

I experienced the same issue for an extended period but regained my MSAA settings' efficacy after giving DCS a complete wipe from my drives and DDU'ing my drivers for my 3080, then reinstalling the latest driver from Nvidia. I'm not sure which of the two made the difference but one of them made MSAA return to DCS for me.

DDU: https://www.guru3d.com/files-details/display-driver-uninstaller-download.html

As for wiping DCS and getting a clean install, I uninstalled it as normal, wiped the DCS folder where it was installed and removed the DCS folder in my savedgames, then reinstalled anew. A somewhat tedious process but it's there.

  

NVCP AA settings do not impact DCS. See https://youtu.be/dd6tsxmCosQ?t=2231 for measurements.

Don't mean to harp on you, just trying to kill that misconception wherever it pops up.

 

 

I will try the DDU, maybe it works.

 

There is another thing that I have found, after I reinstalled the kegetys VR shader mod, I started seeing previous shimmering. I think it has nothing to do with the MSAA problem, but I noticed some degradation with this mod. I have also reinstalled the universal shader mod.

[Woona]

6 minutes ago, Nahemoth said:

I think it has nothing to do with the MSAA problem, but I noticed some degradation with this mod. I have also reinstalled the universal shader mod.

 

Shimmering will always be more noticeable with sharpening, so I'd put my money on that being down to CAS (from your 'universal shader'). I've run quite a lot of tests with the VR shaders and can't say I've ever seen a degradation in shimmering/AA from it, nor do I know that there'd be a logical explanation to that. CAS however will most definitely make shimmering more noticeable, although cleaned up heavily with MSAA (read: I use CAS and MSAA 2x myself and shimmering is negligible, DCS PD 1.4 + Index HMD).

 

Let me know how DDU and a DCS wipe works out for you.

Edited April 11, 2021 by Woona

[Nahemoth]

1 hour ago, Woona said:

 

Shimmering will always be more noticeable with sharpening, so I'd put my money on that being down to CAS (from your 'universal shader'). I've run quite a lot of tests with the VR shaders and can't say I've ever seen a degradation in shimmering/AA from it, nor do I know that there'd be a logical explanation to that. CAS however will most definitely make shimmering more noticeable, although cleaned up heavily with MSAA (read: I use CAS and MSAA 2x myself and shimmering is negligible, DCS PD 1.4 + Index HMD).

 

Let me know how DDU and a DCS wipe works out for you.

 

Yes, I supposed that MSAA should correct the shimmering created by the shader mod. That's why I realised that something was wrong with it.

 

I will test that this night.

[Nahemoth]

I have used DDU but nothing changed.

 

Even if I set MSAA x4, the GPU frametime does not change...

[Woona]

1 hour ago, Nahemoth said:

I have used DDU but nothing changed.

 

Even if I set MSAA x4, the GPU frametime does not change...

Have you tried repairing DCS on a complete scan + remove extra files and seeing if the completely vanilla install lets you apply MSAA?

[Supmua]

Every time you change AA setting, DCS app should be restarted.  MSAA 4X can be pretty taxing.

[Nahemoth]

6 hours ago, Woona said:

Have you tried repairing DCS on a complete scan + remove extra files and seeing if the completely vanilla install lets you apply MSAA?

 

Yes, I tried with a completely clean DCS installation, but before DDU.

 

 

4 hours ago, Supmua said:

Every time you change AA setting, DCS app should be restarted.  MSAA 4X can be pretty taxing.

 

In the past I remember that DCS restarted automatically changing the MSAA setting, but now you have to do manually. 

 

Today I will do some more tests.

[Woona]

3 hours ago, Nahemoth said:

 

Yes, I tried with a completely clean DCS installation, but before DDU.

 

At this point, I would report this situation as a bug. Something is not right with DCS if you're able to DDU and vanilla DCS with zero MSAA enabling. You're only short of reinstalling Windows (which is, to be fair, a fairly healthy thing to do once in a blue moon) to get the setting back. 

[Nahemoth]

2 hours ago, Woona said:

 

At this point, I would report this situation as a bug. Something is not right with DCS if you're able to DDU and vanilla DCS with zero MSAA enabling. You're only short of reinstalling Windows (which is, to be fair, a fairly healthy thing to do once in a blue moon) to get the setting back. 

But if I'm the only one that has this problem, I'm not sure that we can consider this as a bug...

[Woona]

3 minutes ago, Nahemoth said:

But if I'm the only one that has this problem, I'm not sure that we can consider this as a bug...

That'd be the case, however I just recently had to help out another guy whose MSAA stopped working after updating, whereas mine randomly kicked back into action after DDU'ing. It's a rare issue but you're the third person I'm aware of now who's experienced it. The worst that can happen is that developers become at least somewhat aware of the issue and can keep an eye out.

[captainHelmet]

Have you tried emptying the fxo and metashaders2 directories in the "Saved Games" folder?  The saved games folder doesn't get cleaned up as part of a fresh install.

[Nahemoth]

5 hours ago, Woona said:

That'd be the case, however I just recently had to help out another guy whose MSAA stopped working after updating, whereas mine randomly kicked back into action after DDU'ing. It's a rare issue but you're the third person I'm aware of now who's experienced it. The worst that can happen is that developers become at least somewhat aware of the issue and can keep an eye out.

 

You are right, I will try to report the problem.

 

10 minutes ago, captainHelmet said:

Have you tried emptying the fxo and metashaders2 directories in the "Saved Games" folder?  The saved games folder doesn't get cleaned up as part of a fresh install.

 

Yes, I also deleted the complete folder...

[Nahemoth]

I did some more tests after a second try with DDU, and suddendly I started seeing how MSAA works.

 

I suppose that the key step has been DDU, but how knows...

[Woona]

2 hours ago, Nahemoth said:

I did some more tests after a second try with DDU, and suddendly I started seeing how MSAA works.

 

I suppose that the key step has been DDU, but how knows...

Glad to hear you got it working! 

[Pride37]

Hi there,

Same here from this evening on 2.7... Lost MSAA effects despite it was on 2x in the settings. I'll give that DDU a try and will report back if it works.

Edited April 17, 2021 by Pride37

[Pride37]

Well, actually, no need of DDU's on my side, I simply renamed the "saved games" folder as BigNewy advised, and it did the trick for me. It's a bit of a PITA, since I had to redo all the settings and only copied my logbook from the previous folder (and HOTAS bindings of course...)

[FupDuck]

On 4/11/2021 at 12:37 PM, Woona said:

 

Shimmering will always be more noticeable with sharpening, so I'd put my money on that being down to CAS (from your 'universal shader'). I've run quite a lot of tests with the VR shaders and can't say I've ever seen a degradation in shimmering/AA from it, nor do I know that there'd be a logical explanation to that. CAS however will most definitely make shimmering more noticeable, although cleaned up heavily with MSAA (read: I use CAS and MSAA 2x myself and shimmering is negligible, DCS PD 1.4 + Index HMD).

 

Let me know how DDU and a DCS wipe works out for you.

 

May I ask what CAS is? 

 

And FWIW, I also can't say I notice much of a difference using different MSAA settings, but then I'm kinda new to all this and don't really know how much of a difference I should be seeing. Is it in your face different when it's working? Thanks! 

[Woona]

On 4/18/2021 at 12:07 PM, Pride37 said:

I simply renamed the "saved games" folder as BigNewy advised

Could you elaborate on the renaming trick/link to it?

 

26 minutes ago, Sandmonkee said:

May I ask what CAS is? 

Contrast Adaptive Sharpening, an AMD-developed tech that allows sharpening both for 2D and VR. It's really a must-have for me in DCS VR:

 

[Pride37]

7 hours ago, Woona said:

Could you elaborate on the renaming trick/link to it?

Hi Woona,

Sure, I just rename the DCS.openbeta folder located in C:\Users\yourname\Saved Games\ (the one with fxo and metashaders folders in) by just adding ".old" at the end, then I usually proceed to a low complete clean-up. Then I start up DCS to let it rebuilt a new proper folder in saved games. After that, I copy the logbook.lua and my input files in the new folder and rebuild the settings. It's a quite long procees, and I actually have to go into it every time DCS crashes (that usually breaks MSAA setting effect and I also loose 20 to 30% FPS), but it seems to work for me.

Sorry I don't have a specific link to provide, but I read BN saying several times it could help for some.

[Woona]

On 4/29/2021 at 10:26 PM, Pride37 said:

Sure, I just rename the DCS.openbeta folder located in C:\Users\yourname\Saved Games\ (the one with fxo and metashaders folders in) by just adding ".old" at the end, then I usually proceed to a low complete clean-up. Then I start up DCS to let it rebuilt a new proper folder in saved games. After that, I copy the logbook.lua and my input files in the new folder and rebuild the settings.

 

So essentially
1) rename dcs.openbeta to dcs.openbeta.old
2) run complete repair on DCS using the repair tool
3) copy over old files as required

I'll try to ask friends to do that when they see it break (knock-on-wood that my MSAA doesn't break once again). Thanks for the response, really appreciate that.

[Pride37]

2 hours ago, Woona said:

 

So essentially
1) rename dcs.openbeta to dcs.openbeta.old
2) run complete repair on DCS using the repair tool
3) copy over old files as required

I'll try to ask friends to do that when they see it break (knock-on-wood that my MSAA doesn't break once again). Thanks for the response, really appreciate that.

 

That's it.

You're very welcome, but I don't guaranty it will work for everyone.

Concerning performances, just after the latest OB update, I applied this procedure and ran a VR free flight in F/A-18 over Syria, and I was amazed to see it was perfectly smooth, no stutter at all and solid 45 fps even over populated areas while low flight. Unfortunattely, I never experienced again this level of perf in FPS, even with the above procedure, but to be honest, so many other things changed (Windows update, NV driver update to 466.27) that it becomes really tricky to find out the culprit... Moreover, I do use some mods which could also affect the performances (Mustang corrected shadder, better trees, CGTC, better runway, and of course CAS), but at least MSAA is still there.