Use 'Multisampling/Supersampling combined'. I cannot name it correctly now, as I do not have it installed currently.


EDIT: with combined, you can even antialiase the river edges (flickering).

I will. Too bad, nHancer is getting lost.

how is possible tu use them combined? in my driver they are on a drop down list... is either one or the other.

with a tool?

S!

I think Caspar meant the nHancer tool where you can do this. On NV control panel you can not do this.

Thanks for the tips guys.

I downloaded NVIDIA Inspector 1.9.4.2.

Tried a lot of different settings and found IL-2 wouldn't load up to the menu screen a lot of times, it'd just flash Il-2's main menu then crash back to desktop and I'd have to use Windows Task Manager to shut it down. Sometimes on repeated tries the settings would stick and sometimes they wouldn't. I don't know why, but I've seen that sort of thing before when adjusting driver settings so I just put it down to the temperamental nature of such things. I wouldn't blame it on the 'NVIDIA Inspector' program itself, which I found to be a good program, well set out and easy to use, with lots of settings available to adjust. I'll still keep 'nHancer' installed as it has some other features I might use, but 'NVIDIA Inspector' is definitely a keeper.

In terms of the settings themselves, changing the Antialiasing setting to '8xSQ [Combined: 2x2 SS + 2x MS]' was enough to practically eliminate the jaggies on the cockpit instrument dials, while still giving me about 40-50fps looking at the panel, and 30-40fps looking around outside the plane.

However, with a GTX285 and using my preferred in-game settings, my frame-rate drops to the mid-teens over the more graphically demanding terrain (eg. over palm trees on the Pacific Islands QMB map). So, I'll probably just stick to jaggy old 8xQ AA and getting 40-60fps everywhere. I couldn't find a lower setting or combination of settings than '8xSQ [Combined: 2x2 SS + 2x MS]' that would fix the aliasing on the cockpit dials.

Anyway, thanks again, now I've got a way to get higher quality screenshots, and another way to justify upgrading my video-card (damn it :grin:).

Yes, I meant nHancer. But Nvidia Inspector can do it just as fine... but only with latest drivers. Thanks again for that suggestion!

@Les... I have an 9800GT, but I get the same framerates as you with 8xS. But I use stock game, so maybe any mods influence framerate? BTW, I use to set Anisotrophic filtering to OFF, as I do not see such a big impact on eyecandy like with Antialiasing. So I grab a few more frames.

Hm... I had a lot of similar problems lately and I didn't used the "inspector". I guess there is a relation between tweaking the video driver and the IL-2 suddenly failing to start.

I will investigate. I have some starting points.

No mods, using the GeForce 260.99 WHQL drivers.

I usually have Anisotropic filtering on and set to 16X because it's frame-rate impact is minimal and it sharpens up the grass runways to one consistent level. Without it I'd look down the runway and there'd be a solid block of softened grass textures up ahead, moving away from me as I approached it, or towards me as I moved away from it. Thing is, that effect seems to be greatly reduced now anyway with Antialiasing set to '8xSQ [Combined: 2x2 SS + 2x MS]'. It's still there as I come in to land on the runway, but I think I can put up with it.

Anyway, I went back and turned off Anisotropic filtering altogether just to have a look, and pretty much got my normal frame-rates back! In some places that added up to about 20fps regained (from 17fps to 38fps)!

But just as much as turning off the Anisotropic filtering helped boost framerates, in one case (in the Hurricane), turning off the mirrors gave me up to 20(!) more fps. I'm sure they, Anisotropic and mirrors, never used to have that much of an impact just using 8xQ Multisampling.

Whatever the case, for me, it's worth losing the mirrors and Anisotropic filtering just to have anti-aliasing working on the cockpit gauges, while still getting playable frame-rates over stuff like palm trees on the islands. The mirrors were just ornamental and I see much more of the cockpit gauges than I do of the things Anisotropic filtering now effects.

I did some of my testing in the F4U and the difference in the way the gauges look without all the jaggies is huge. There is still some minor aliasing going on, but there's no going back from here. For me, this kind of improvement in image quality ranks right up there with the way IL-2 Mat replaces the default aircraft insignia with better looking ones. This info should be stickied somewhere and made common knowledge for all.

I've got to say again though, it's an absolute pain in the arse trying to get these setting changes to stick sometimes. I couldn't even Alt+Tab out of the game and get back into it again, Il-2 would just flash up then crash back to desk-top again and refuse to respond to normal closing down.

I do seem to be able to exit and restart, and Alt+Tab in and out of it as normal now though, as long as I don't adjust anything inbetween. So I seem to be set up okay.

Thanks again, Il-2's never looked better.

Never saw any difference there - I just thought, that it was normal like that.
Will try to change it.


Thats quite natural. Mirrors have been always a 'fps-drag queen' on my systems. Also AA makes heaviest framerates dropping at places with transparent objects, especially with many layers of transp. objects (like clouds, smoke etc.) You can have 50fps normal, but when a plane in front of you is starting, frames drop to 15fps! I always have to wait untill the dust is settled in front of me. :rolleyes:


IMHO settings shouldn't be changable with the game running anyway, at least it should not have an impact, as the settings get loaded with the application (esp. if you use profiles, but also global).

I'm glad I could help. Tweaking the 'Old Lady' ist still a science, even after 10 years. There was a time before Oleg implemented the 'new clouds', when I could play it on a GeForce 4 with 1024x768 and 16xAA enabled.
It looked smooth as hell. :cool: