116 replies to this topic

[jimmyfingers]

The latest BETA drivers (304.79) released on July 3, 2012 resolves a major problem with trying to force antialiasing where certain objects were just not drawn correctly or at all when the table was played / rendered. With the latest version it is now possible again to force some antialiasing settings and get some pretty nice results. The usual / typical fine black lines around some light and wall objects is still an issue and VP needs to be relaunched after each game that is rendered / played otherwise some tables will show similar effects as previous versions with things like flippers missing, lights not showing up, or areas missing. There are a few topics in the forum about trying to force antialiasing and more information can be gathered in those. I have not tested these latest drivers or verified this find on Windows XP but have on two different 32-bit Windows 7 systems with different Nvidia cards (a 9600GT and a GTX 560 ti). I had tried about 6 or 7 drivers since the levels that supported my 560 card and this was the first version to not have the glitches - I almost quit trying and thought it was a long shot for trying the BETA but it actually paid off!

So to re-iterate, you do need to quit VP and reload after each running of a table to ensure that it functions correctly with forced antialiasing settings (some tables don't seem to need it but most have some small issue that appears if you don't). Relaunching shouldn't be a problem for most people with front-ends as, to my understanding, essentially all front-ends terminate the program and re-launch after going back to selection and menu screens.

Gathered from the other topics and posts and what I acutally use, some good (best band for the buck) settings to use are as follows:

Anisotropic filtering = 8x
Antialiasing - Gamma correction = On
Antialiasing - Mode = Override any application setting
Antialiasing - Setting = 4x
Antialiasing - Transparency = Supersample (some cards will show a value too - such as 4x)
Maximum pre-rendered frames = 1
Texture Filtering - Anisotropic sample optimization = Off
Texture Filtering - Negative LOD Bias = Clamp

I found fairly little performance impact on most tables and only saw any issue when assessing my SS GI8 MOD table. When it was undergoing heavy GI sequences the ball would stutter reasonably so it may not be suitable for systems running GI8 with less than about 500 FPS through typical play (2x helps a bit but the AA effect is not much better than "Off").

I found that for my front-end to work with them properly (3D arcade) I had to force these settings at a global level, but for VP on it's own I could set it at a per program level and simply made a copy with a different name for a version that doesn't apply any special AA settings (also good to create two copies if you want to experiment with CPU affinity settings).

The subtle difference on some tables makes them quite stunning and even more life like - flippers look great. Can take a bit of playing around but I think it's worth it

 

EDIT:  It turns out that the impact from Scared Stiff was not really the GI8 / light objects but that at the time the lighting seemed to change a lot the alpha flashers were also very busy.  Resolving / improving the alpha flasher performance (on a current WIP / update) got rid of the the stutter while using AA and further experience has shown that GI8 / PF / Plactic lighting changes are not nerely as demanding as alpha ramp changes (both with AA and without AA)

Edited by jimmyfingers, 03 September 2013 - 08:47 PM.

[maceman]

The usual / typical fine black lines around some light and wall objects is still an issue and VP needs to be relaunched after each game that is rendered...

Antialiasing - Mode = Override any application setting

Turn this to enhance instead and you will see your problem disappear i believe..
Cheers,
Maceman

[rob046]

The usual / typical fine black lines around some light and wall objects is still an issue and VP needs to be relaunched after each game that is rendered...

Antialiasing - Mode = Override any application setting

Turn this to enhance instead and you will see your problem disappear i believe..
Cheers,
Maceman

Are you sure? If this is true, that is great news. Because these lines are one of the main reasons why I don't bother with AA. Of course, if all glitchiness is gone, I'd probably use AA almost all the time. Especially since I have a GTX 680 that can easily handle it. Which reminds me, I wonder if the new AA mode (that uses very few resources) introduced in the 680 will now work better?

[jimmyfingers]

The usual / typical fine black lines around some light and wall objects is still an issue and VP needs to be relaunched after each game that is rendered...

Antialiasing - Mode = Override any application setting

Turn this to enhance instead and you will see your problem disappear i believe..
Cheers,
Maceman

Are you sure? If this is true, that is great news. Because these lines are one of the main reasons why I don't bother with AA. Of course, if all glitchiness is gone, I'd probably use AA almost all the time. Especially since I have a GTX 680 that can easily handle it. Which reminds me, I wonder if the new AA mode (that uses very few resources) introduced in the 680 will now work better?

Just like in earlier posts, if you set it to enhance, it doesn't end up doing anything which is why the black lines disappear - that hasn't changed in this version as you still have to force it / use overide with nothing native in VP to enhance.

The black lines aren't that bad and are not present or too noticeable on a fair amount of the tables, especially ones without GI segments.

[toxie]

I have a question on this: I don't think there actually -can- be a real difference between using standard settings and the forced anti-aliasing (with the exception of anisotropy and all other texture settings) when using VP, so does somebody of you have compared the actual images via screenshot? (it would surprise me if there is a difference, excluding the texture settings)

[koadic]

I have a question on this: I don't think there actually -can- be a real difference between using standard settings and the forced anti-aliasing (with the exception of anisotropy and all other texture settings) when using VP, so does somebody of you have compared the actual images via screenshot? (it would surprise me if there is a difference, excluding the texture settings)

Here are some snips from the simpsons table I modded showing the difference...
On:
 aa_on.png   53.01KB   553 downloads

Off:
 aa_off.png   81.73KB   490 downloads

[thewool]

Just installed this driver with the above settings and the results are great. Rails and flippers look sweet as! Thanks for bringing this to our attention Jimmy!

I can live with the tiny black lines, but is anyone finding kickers (seems to be cups) are cutting balls in half where they weren't before?

Edited by thewool, 24 August 2012 - 02:20 PM.

[unclewilly]

Just change the surface on them to something like a 15 height wall

[thewool]

Just change the surface on them to something like a 15 height wall

Trying this now Scott on Rob's Mystic. The kicker at the top is affected by AA.

do you mean create a wall with 15 height then set the surface of the kickercup to the ID of this wall?

also is there a way to preserve the playfield texture that should be displayed?

Cheers.

[unclewilly]

Yes create the wall off the table somewhere or under the apron and assign the kicker to it

[thewool]

Just tried this... it doesn't seem to work when AA is enabled, balls still cut in half for kickercups only.

[unclewilly]

You meen when the kicker object is of type kickercup. The only way i know to fix this is to change to kicker invisible apply the kicker to around a 15 height wall and place a kicker cup image on the playfield images used in the table

[thewool]

Installed these beta drivers on the cab last night. Honestly I was a bit disappointed, the black lines were much more obvious than on my desktop (should have guessed). Was probably going to keep them anyway as the improvment to rails and flippers is significant - but it would be amazing to keep these improvements and get rid of the black lines....

Just tried again this morning with the settings. The black lines were improved slightly with a higher level of AA but still there.

I then set AA back to default - and enabled FXAA in the Nvidia control panel. Breakthrough... everything seemed to have the benefit of AA (flippers/rails smooth) but the black lines had gone!! Tried all the black line troublesome tables (IJ, BK2000, TSPP, BSD) and they all look smooth with no trace of a black line! Honestly they look stunning.

Would appreciate if someone could verify this as I cant believe my eyes at the moment. It seems like the holy grail for VP gfx but also seems too good to be true. Will try and grab some screenshots later on today to demostrate the difference.

edit: my card is an Inno3D GTX 460 1GB DDR5

Edited by thewool, 25 August 2012 - 07:42 AM.

[jimmyfingers]

Installed these beta drivers on the cab last night. Honestly I was a bit disappointed, the black lines were much more obvious than on my desktop (should have guessed). Was probably going to keep them anyway as the improvment to rails and flippers is significant - but it would be amazing to keep these improvements and get rid of the black lines....

Just tried again this morning with the settings. The black lines were improved slightly with a higher level of AA but still there.

I then set AA back to default - and enabled FXAA in the Nvidia control panel. Breakthrough... everything seemed to have the benefit of AA (flippers/rails smooth) but the black lines had gone!! Tried all the black line troublesome tables (IJ, BK2000, TSPP, BSD) and they all look smooth with no trace of a black line! Honestly they look stunning.

Would appreciate if someone could verify this as I cant believe my eyes at the moment. It seems like the holy grail for VP gfx but also seems too good to be true. Will try and grab some screenshots later on today to demostrate the difference.

edit: my card is an Inno3D GTX 460 1GB DDR5

This sounds great wool if this turns out the same on other sytems. When you say "AA back to default" what do you mean (off / global setting or less than the higher setting you had changed it too when troubleshooting - i.e. 4/8)? Ultimately, it would be great if you could list exactly all the settings you used / changed so we could test this, yes - seemingly to good to be true, aspect more precisely. So, please forward a screeny or some numbers for us to try to match. Thanks.

[thewool]

I'll do this Jimmy I have to spend some time with the family first so will have to do it later on.

I think I set AA back to the global setting, so basically off in VP. Will be sure to take a screenshot of my settings.

Another quick observation - launching VP on its own was flawless as I mentioned before. But launching via Hyperpin there was a haze over certain areas of the PF until the ball passed over it once and then it was clear - weird. I was adjusting the Nvidia global settings, might need to create a profile to enable FXAA in VP, but disable FXAA in the global settings. Perhaps it was getting confused (I hope)....

[oooPLAYER1ooo]

I have a question on this: I don't think there actually -can- be a real difference between using standard settings and the forced anti-aliasing (with the exception of anisotropy and all other texture settings) when using VP, so does somebody of you have compared the actual images via screenshot? (it would surprise me if there is a difference, excluding the texture settings)

Here are some snips from the simpsons table I modded showing the difference...
On:
 aa_on.png   53.01KB   553 downloads

Off:
 aa_off.png   81.73KB   490 downloads

wow that is a huge difference

[thewool]

Hello Jimmy, here's some screenshots. They are taken at AF 16x (bog standard), 32x CSAA (HQ AA) and FXAA. Check the description at the bottom of each pic.

On some there are playfied items missing as I forgot to restart VP, ignore these bits, focus on the edges. You may have to download the full size images, then zoom in to see the detail, good one for a comparison is to look at the slings area and around Indy's face on IJ, the FXAA is hands down the best. You may see some jaggies close up because of the zoom but these are not as clear when playing.

The only issue at the moment is the hazy mask when playing VP from Hyperpin. For some reason my Nvidia control panel is not remembering my VP/HP profiles so I've got FXAA set on in global settings. After you launch VP from HP there's a haze mask that only clears when the ball passes through that area, this needs fettling somehow. There's an image of BSD to try and show this...

http://www.flickr.co...57631240363250/

Edited by thewool, 25 August 2012 - 06:47 PM.

[jimmyfingers]

Hello Jimmy, here's some screenshots. They are taken at AF 16x (bog standard), 32x CSAA (HQ AA) and FXAA. Check the description at the bottom of each pic.

On some there are playfied items missing as I forgot to restart VP, ignore these bits, focus on the edges. You may have to download the full size images, then zoom in to see the detail, good one for a comparison is to look at the slings area and around Indy's face on IJ, the FXAA is hands down the best. You may see some jaggies close up because of the zoom but these are not as clear when playing.

The only issue at the moment is the hazy mask when playing VP from Hyperpin. For some reason my Nvidia control panel is not remembering my VP/HP profiles so I've got FXAA set on in global settings. After you launch VP from HP there's a haze mask that only clears when the ball passes through that area, this needs fettling somehow. There's an image of BSD to try and show this...

http://www.flickr.co...57631240363250/

Wool, please, I'm desparately looking for you to post the actual settings you are using. I cannot get any results with FXAA on my two systems (Windows 7 9600GT and 560GTX Ti) that indicate it does anything with just FXAA or with other AA on at the same time the black lines are present. I, and likely others, am looking for you to post the actual settings for the control panel as they look exactly to you so I can properly implement or determine if it is going to be something specific to the type of cards (even OS) or hopefully there's just some other option you have that I don't that is making the difference. To be quite honest, the pictures are seondary to the exact settings as far as I'm concerned. I posted similar things at the beginning of this topic and I'm absolutely dieing here trying to reproduce what you are getting but initial efforts are simply not getting it and without numbers it's getting a bit frustrating. Thanks for what you've done so far but I / we need more detail or pictures of your Nvidia configuration or settings vs. the tables at this point.

[thewool]

Sorry Jimmy, we're going away tomorrow so I've had hardly any time today. The screen shots were taken in a rush....

Here's the settings that work, as long as FXAA is enabled I see the benefit. I tried some of the other settings on/off to try and get rid of the haze when using VP from HP but no joy. Will have a proper go when I retrurn.

Also noticed this setting dithers non-alpha transparent ramps, they don't look as good as alpha ramps but they look better which is a bonus. You can see this in the top right hand clear ramp in the FXAA IJ screen shot (the left hand side curved ramp cover is an alpha).

I'm capped with this effect, hope you can replicate it. Running Windows XP SP3 32-bit by the way, card is an Inno3D GTX 460 1GB DDR5. I'm running VP with no maximum texture limit set, not sure if this helps

note: will be out of touch until Tuesday:

Edited by thewool, 25 August 2012 - 09:34 PM.

[jimmyfingers]

Sorry Jimmy, we're going away tomorrow so I've had hardly any time today. The screen shots were taken in a rush....

Here's the settings that work, as long as FXAA is enabled I see the benefit. I tried some of the other settings on/off to try and get rid of the haze when using VP from HP but no joy. Will have a proper go when I retrurn.

Also noticed this setting dithers non-alpha transparent ramps, they don't look as good as alpha ramps but they look better which is a bonus.

Running Windows XP SP3 32-bit by the way.

Thanks TW, exactly what I wanted to see / confirm. Much appreciated

I Have a feeling that the difference could be between Windows XP / Windows 7. I hope not as I like Windows 7 AND keeping desktop composition left on as the tearing on flippers is resolved in that configuration. I have a windows XP test partition so I'm going to do some testing on my 2 (and a half with the extra partition) systems.