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View Full Version : Can TF mods fix antialiasing?


SharpeXB
05-13-2013, 12:40 AM
It's great, all the good work being done to improve CoD.
But the most important improvement would be to add functional antialiasing. Without that the sim is terribly unplayable due to the jagged blurriness.
That should be a high priority.

Royraiden
05-13-2013, 02:21 AM
It's great, all the good work being done to improve CoD.
But the most important improvement would be to add functional antialiasing. Without that the sim is terribly unplayable due to the jagged blurriness.
That should be a high priority.

Have you tried sweetfx?Also waht gpu are you using? I use an Nvidia card and turning FXAA on did a huge improvement on the jaggies for me.

SharpeXB
05-13-2013, 03:52 AM
I've tried Nvidia FXAA and SweetFX
Niether of those make any difference I can discern.
Unfortunately the lack of sharpness on the screen is just the kiss of death for a flight sim. It's impossible to see clearly and other aircraft just dissappear at certain distances. As good as CoD is in many ways, this quality makes it quite unplayable.

Royraiden
05-13-2013, 04:19 AM
I've tried Nvidia FXAA and SweetFX
Niether of those make any difference I can discern.
Unfortunately the lack of sharpness on the screen is just the kiss of death for a flight sim. It's impossible to see clearly and other aircraft just dissappear at certain distances. As good as CoD is in many ways, this quality makes it quite unplayable.

I understand your concern as I hated the jaggies I got with my old Radeon card.Sorry it doesnt work for you, by the way my nvidia control panel settings are set to "Global" as assigning the settings to COD exe seems to be uneffective.As for the aircraft dissapering over distance that has to do with how lods work.Hopefully the TF chaps will have some time and effor dedicated to this issue in the future, maybe they can get it sorted over time.

SlipBall
05-13-2013, 09:08 AM
I've tried Nvidia FXAA and SweetFX
Niether of those make any difference I can discern.
Unfortunately the lack of sharpness on the screen is just the kiss of death for a flight sim. It's impossible to see clearly and other aircraft just dissappear at certain distances. As good as CoD is in many ways, this quality makes it quite unplayable.


I cannot find any evidence that "other aircraft just disappear at certain distances"...furthermore in order for that to be true, it would need to be experienced by everyone. Is it hard to track aircraft, yes. Do the aircraft disappear, no. At least not at a reasonable distance for any possible engagement to occur.

Royraiden
05-14-2013, 12:05 AM
I cannot find any evidence that "other aircraft just disappear at certain distances"...furthermore in order for that to be true, it would need to be experienced by everyone. Is it hard to track aircraft, yes. Do the aircraft disappear, no. At least not at a reasonable distance for any possible engagement to occur.

Is not that they disappear per se, its just how the lods work and how the AA or maybe the lack of AA works.When you are near other planes they look right in all aspects, you can hardly see any jaggies if they are up close, but as they move farther away from you their shape is reduced to the point that the aircraft is represented by maybe 2 horizontal lines of pixels for the wings and maybe one short vertical line of pixels for the rest of the fuselage, those lines start to shimmer like crazy.Its easier to see the actual first dot than to keep track of planes when they are in that "shimmering lines representation".Im sure Im not the only one experiencing this phenomenon.

SharpeXB
05-14-2013, 02:29 AM
Is not that they disappear per se, its just how the lods work and how the AA or maybe the lack of AA works.When you are near other planes they look right in all aspects, you can hardly see any jaggies if they are up close, but as they move farther away from you their shape is reduced to the point that the aircraft is represented by maybe 2 horizontal lines of pixels for the wings and maybe one short vertical line of pixels for the rest of the fuselage, those lines start to shimmer like crazy.Its easier to see the actual first dot than to keep track of planes when they are in that "shimmering lines representation".Im sure Im not the only one experiencing this phenomenon.

Yes, that's what I experience. It's also possible to see another aircraft, barely at long distance at wide zoom but when you zoom in, it's not visible. Maybe the real issue is LOD along with AA

By the way. I do think CoD is just awesome. Don't want to seem negative, but this issue has put me off a bit. A solution would be to use labels but those are such a distraction. It is a gorgeous looking sim.

Added system specs below

SlipBall
05-14-2013, 09:36 AM
Is not that they disappear per se, its just how the lods work and how the AA or maybe the lack of AA works.When you are near other planes they look right in all aspects, you can hardly see any jaggies if they are up close, but as they move farther away from you their shape is reduced to the point that the aircraft is represented by maybe 2 horizontal lines of pixels for the wings and maybe one short vertical line of pixels for the rest of the fuselage, those lines start to shimmer like crazy.Its easier to see the actual first dot than to keep track of planes when they are in that "shimmering lines representation".Im sure Im not the only one experiencing this phenomenon.


For what ever reason some people have never experienced what you describe here. That would indicate to me that it is a hardware related but do not know. I am redoing some videos now with my new knowledge of the FPS limiter. I'll try to capture what I see in both game's but it may be boring to most. Simply proving that my system can track AI has no value to anyone else I suppose.

SharpeXB
05-14-2013, 12:13 PM
We all have this game so perhaps an example isn't needed, but here's some screenshots
look at the cable running along the top of the 109 which appears as a jagged broken line

then look at the second shot of the Fw190, see how the cable appears solid.

The problem is at a far distance that jaggedness means the aircraft breaks up into blocks and isn't recognizable or sometimes even visible.

It's great that people are working to mod and improve the sim, but this should be their first priority. This is a great looking sim and the modeling work is fantastic, but it's marred by the lack of antialiasing

SlipBall
05-14-2013, 01:26 PM
We all have this game so perhaps an example isn't needed, but here's some screenshots
look at the cable running along the top of the 109 which appears as a jagged broken line

then look at the second shot of the Fw190, see how the cable appears solid.

The problem is at a far distance that jaggedness means the aircraft breaks up into blocks and isn't recognizable or sometimes even visible.

It's great that people are working to mod and improve the sim, but this should be their first priority. This is a great looking sim and the modeling work is fantastic, but it's marred by the lack of antialiasing


Not for me, at a reasonable distance that I would even notice aircraft in the area. You can prove this to your self by flying a mission/give auto pilot the controls'/switch to outside view/using the mouse, distance your aircraft a few miles away from your view using dragging the mouse

SharpeXB
05-14-2013, 01:48 PM
Here's some other examples
the first two from CoD you can see the wing vanish as the plane flies away in the distance

in the second example you can see the aircraft even as a small speck that grows as you get closer, it doesn't lose pieces or detail as you see it closer

SlipBall
05-14-2013, 02:26 PM
Here's some other examples
the first two from CoD you can see the wing vanish as the plane flies away in the distance

in the second example you can see the aircraft even as a small speck that grows as you get closer, it doesn't lose pieces or detail as you see it closer


Try my idea in post #10 you will see that the wings remain at a reasonable distance

SharpeXB
05-14-2013, 07:08 PM
Try my idea in post #10 you will see that the wings remain at a reasonable distance
Yes, you can use the zoom view to see objects more clearly. But there's also an odd effect, I'd have to make a video to explain. You can sometimes barely see an aircraft at long distance in a wide FOV. When you zoom in to look closer, it vanishes. Zoom out again, it will reappear.

SlipBall
05-14-2013, 08:00 PM
Yes, you can use the zoom view to see objects more clearly. But there's also an odd effect, I'd have to make a video to explain. You can sometimes barely see an aircraft at long distance in a wide FOV. When you zoom in to look closer, it vanishes. Zoom out again, it will reappear.


This shorter range disappearing first started to occurred with the MG graphic engine rewrite. The game went from a 9km view limit down to about 5km as the new viewable limit of aircraft. They should remain viewable for you up to that limit, they do for me. So then you may be at that threshold and so the problem. With some luck maybe TF may be able to increase that limit in the future...adjusting the battle area grid size downward should help

Royraiden
05-14-2013, 11:56 PM
Not for me, at a reasonable distance that I would even notice aircraft in the area. You can prove this to your self by flying a mission/give auto pilot the controls'/switch to outside view/using the mouse, distance your aircraft a few miles away from your view using dragging the mouse

I think it wouldnt be a good way to test the subject like that because the camera even if far away is still linked to the aircraft.I have tried different field of views and while they make a difference in spotting aircraft , they dont solve the phenomenon for me.

SlipBall
05-15-2013, 08:32 AM
I think it wouldnt be a good way to test the subject like that because the camera even if far away is still linked to the aircraft.I have tried different field of views and while they make a difference in spotting aircraft , they dont solve the phenomenon for me.


It could be done using "next" camera view and so there would not be a link to any single aircraft. The "phenomenon" for you is not game related or I would suffer it as well...aircraft are hard to track at a distance, but if I am sure it is in the area I can usually pick up on it

Royraiden
05-15-2013, 10:05 PM
It could be done using "next" camera view and so there would not be a link to any single aircraft. The "phenomenon" for you is not game related or I would suffer it as well...aircraft are hard to track at a distance, but if I am sure it is in the area I can usually pick up on it

Ill try the non linked camera to see what I get.Im amazed that you can make such a bold statement just based on your own experience.The Op has the same problem and I have read many times on different forums where people complained about the same issue.Even then I wont dare to say that it does or doesnt happen to everyone because I cant test each person's PC.You seem to not understand the actual problem we are having, none of us is complaining about just tracking a plane at far distance, all of us are aware of its difficulty, but as I said earlier, sometimes it is easier to track the single dot than to track the shimmering lines of pixels, which by the way are not only seen on distant aircraft, they can be seen on distant shore lines and mostly any object in the sim, and this seems to happen to everyone because I have seen it in all the videos I have watched from Cliffs of Dover.I have seen this phenomenon with 2 gpu's, one ATI, the other NVIDIA.With the latter when enabling FXAA I had a significant reduction of jagged lines, specially inside the cockpit but the jaggies on far objects are still there and I really doubt it is hardware realated, at least on my part.

SharpeXB
05-16-2013, 01:54 AM
It could be done using "next" camera view and so there would not be a link to any single aircraft. The "phenomenon" for you is not game related or I would suffer it as well...aircraft are hard to track at a distance, but if I am sure it is in the area I can usually pick up on it
Have you tried other flight sims like Rise of Flight or DCS? How does your experience of CoD compare to those?
RoF does a great job of rendering aircraft at distances. You can make them out as small specks that almost look like dust on your monitor and then recognize them as they get closer, even if they are in haze or clouds. I wish CoD was as nice.

SlipBall
05-16-2013, 09:13 AM
Have you tried other flight sims like Rise of Flight or DCS? How does your experience of CoD compare to those?
RoF does a great job of rendering aircraft at distances. You can make them out as small specks that almost look like dust on your monitor and then recognize them as they get closer, even if they are in haze or clouds. I wish CoD was as nice.


No I pretty much just fly Clod...my only point was that the aircraft retain their shape even at a great distance away. They can look like ground black pepper at a great distance away too in Clod, but can be tracked by me so I wonder why you can't, monitor??.

Original game...watch full screen
http://s51.photobucket.com/user/SlipBall/media/tt_zpsf452eb45.mp4.html

109's & 111's final game
http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f394/SlipBall/Launcher2013-05-1604-18-41-82_zps6c2f824b.png

Royraiden
05-16-2013, 07:05 PM
No I pretty much just fly Clod...my only point was that the aircraft retain their shape even at a great distance away. They can look like ground black pepper at a great distance away too in Clod, but can be tracked by me so I wonder why you can't, monitor??.

Original game...watch full screen
http://s51.photobucket.com/user/SlipBall/media/tt_zpsf452eb45.mp4.html

109's & 111's final game
http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f394/SlipBall/Launcher2013-05-1604-18-41-82_zps6c2f824b.png
Dont assume that we are the only 2 people with this issue.

Please have a read: http://theairtacticalassaultgroup.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4517&p=45658#post45658
It has been acknowledged by Team Fusion as well in more than one thread and some of their members have explicitly stated that there is an issue with how the LODS are being displayed and that they are not optimized.
By the way your picture looks fine, but the shimmering lines that seem to disappear are seen when the other planes are more or less at the same altitude.You can compare the OP first 2 pictures, the first one is fine, but in the second one the left wing is missing.I dont know how much evidence do you still need to at least consider that this might be software related.

SlipBall
05-16-2013, 08:04 PM
Dont assume that we are the only 2 people with this issue.

Please have a read: http://theairtacticalassaultgroup.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4517&p=45658#post45658
It has been acknowledged by Team Fusion as well in more than one thread and some of their members have explicitly stated that there is an issue with how the LODS are being displayed and that they are not optimized.
By the way your picture looks fine, but the shimmering lines that seem to disappear are seen when the other planes are more or less at the same altitude.You can compare the OP first 2 pictures, the first one is fine, but in the second one the left wing is missing.I dont know how much evidence do you still need to at least consider that this might be software related.


OP's 2nd pic I don't know what the problem is here for you guys, probably the monitors. It cannot be the software though or everyone would have the problem...the OP aircraft is at least 4.5km away I think and may be much further and about to fade out

over 4km away here, very visible/trackable but certainly maybe too far to bother with
http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f394/SlipBall/Launcher_2013_05_16_14_50_05_468_zps54efcbf1.png

blown up so as to read the distance
http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f394/SlipBall/a_zps1e4c8d8f.jpg

I don't bother trying to catch up to aircraft that far away unless they are bombers

Royraiden
05-16-2013, 10:33 PM
Check post 11 again and please illustrate where the hell do you see the left wing.Only the right wing is showed, if you see the left one then you must be hallucinating.By the way you just ignored everything else I wrote and the link I gave you where it was stated by TF members that there is an issue with the LODS.Once again the pictures you uploaded are of no use since you werent at the same altitude.

Let me explain this to you for one last time: there are different lods for aircraft representing them at different distance, there are transitions between each other, as I said several times before, the problem ISNT spotting aircraft at far distances, the problem IS that between that transformation from dot to the final form there is a lod which shimmers a lot and therefore it sometimes disappears(theres no better example than the first two pictures posted at #11).

Here is another link:http://theairtacticalassaultgroup.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4428&p=44766

Check the 10th post.

SlipBall
05-17-2013, 07:30 AM
Check post 11 again and please illustrate where the hell do you see the left wing.Only the right wing is showed, if you see the left one then you must be hallucinating.By the way you just ignored everything else I wrote and the link I gave you where it was stated by TF members that there is an issue with the LODS.Once again the pictures you uploaded are of no use since you werent at the same altitude.

Let me explain this to you for one last time: there are different lods for aircraft representing them at different distance, there are transitions between each other, as I said several times before, the problem ISNT spotting aircraft at far distances, the problem IS that between that transformation from dot to the final form there is a lod which shimmers a lot and therefore it sometimes disappears(theres no better example than the first two pictures posted at #11).

Here is another link:http://theairtacticalassaultgroup.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4428&p=44766

Check the 10th post.


I don't have this problem that you seem to have, and so can only speculate. I would say that when your target is extending away as in the OP's images, a decision to follow makes little sense. An arcade game can cure bad piloting skills, but do you really want that?

SharpeXB
05-17-2013, 12:34 PM
I don't have this problem that you seem to have, and so can only speculate. I would say that when your target is extending away as in the OP's images, a decision to follow makes little sense. An arcade game can cure bad piloting skills, but do you really want that?
the first two screenshots I posted of the CoD 109 and the DCS 190
You don't see a difference between those?
One game has antialiasing, the other doesn't.

SharpeXB
05-17-2013, 01:42 PM
No I pretty much just fly Clod...my only point was that the aircraft retain their shape even at a great distance away. They can look like ground black pepper at a great distance away too in Clod, but can be tracked by me so I wonder why you can't, monitor??.

Original game...watch full screen
http://s51.photobucket.com/user/SlipBall/media/tt_zpsf452eb45.mp4.html

109's & 111's final game
http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f394/SlipBall/Launcher2013-05-1604-18-41-82_zps6c2f824b.png
That perhaps might be the reason you aren't noticing this. You have to try some other games to compare CoD to.
Look again at these shots
see the cables on the wing of the WWI flying boat?
then look at the wire running along the top of the 109

antialiasing samples the pixels so that lines, especially near horizintal ones appear to be straight and not jagged. I don't know much about computer graphics but it seems to me when a plane or part of it diminishes in size to near a single pixel, if there is no sampling, then it will just dissapear.
CoD has no built in aa, you can tell if you adjust the setting on the menu and your screen image doesn't change at all.
(I could be totally wrong) but aa works by detecting edges within the 3D program, therefore trying to add it afterwards like with SweetFX won't really work.
RoF is available as a free demo, check it out.
CoD has some outstanding models and maps, I can just imagine how good they would look if it had antialiasing

Uploaded images don't really do justice to any of these games either since they look compressed. The image on a real screen in RoF looks much better.

SharpeXB
05-17-2013, 01:57 PM
PS experimenting with CoD some more, I've been away for a while
I might be guilty of playing around with Nvidia CP too much. On default it's not quite as bad as I remember.

Royraiden
05-17-2013, 05:01 PM
Sharpe dont waste your time with this troll.I gave him examples of the issues,, links showing a lot more people complaining about it and posts by 2 Team Fusion members recognizing there is an issue with the lods and its currently on the to do list.His only argument is that he doesnt have the problem, the fact is that he doesnt have a clue about what we and others are talking about saying that he doesnt chase planes that are that far.It doesnt take a scientist to know that planes can come and go so the issue is present when another plane is flying towards you.

OP if you want more help, post your concerns over at the ATAG forums, theres a reason why so many people like me avoid this one.

SlipBall
05-19-2013, 07:02 PM
That perhaps might be the reason you aren't noticing this. You have to try some other games to compare CoD to.
Look again at these shots
see the cables on the wing of the WWI flying boat?
then look at the wire running along the top of the 109

antialiasing samples the pixels so that lines, especially near horizintal ones appear to be straight and not jagged. I don't know much about computer graphics but it seems to me when a plane or part of it diminishes in size to near a single pixel, if there is no sampling, then it will just dissapear.
CoD has no built in aa, you can tell if you adjust the setting on the menu and your screen image doesn't change at all.
(I could be totally wrong) but aa works by detecting edges within the 3D program, therefore trying to add it afterwards like with SweetFX won't really work.
RoF is available as a free demo, check it out.
CoD has some outstanding models and maps, I can just imagine how good they would look if it had antialiasing

Uploaded images don't really do justice to any of these games either since they look compressed. The image on a real screen in RoF looks much better.


I understand what you are saying and do agree other games look better in that respect with the AA. It is what it is though and so only time will tell if that can be improved by TF...as far as your little friend goes, he is just a bad pilot maybe, maybe not.

ZaltysZ
05-20-2013, 07:49 AM
(I could be totally wrong) but aa works by detecting edges within the 3D program, therefore trying to add it afterwards like with SweetFX won't really work.

Modern games use deffered shading, what means that geometry rendering and lightning are decoupled. This allows complex lightning (and gives other benefits) for lesser performance hit, however it also has disadvantages. One of them is problematic use of hardware AA, because of mentioned decoupling (geometry stage is to early for AA, and lightning one is too late). There are the ways to accomplish it (especially with newer hardware and DX versions), but it is not the mater of "on/off" like it used to be with older games, it requires careful design of graphics engine. The only quick "on/off" type solution is doing AA via postprocessing (running edge detection on final image and etc.), which is becoming common choice for most modern games, which uses deffered shading.

Royraiden
05-20-2013, 11:30 PM
Good news, it seems this issue will be fixed or at least dealt with on the next patch.

http://theairtacticalassaultgroup.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3991&p=45928#post45928

Check out Kwiatek's( Team Fusion member) posts number 22 and 27.