Anisotropic Filtering in IL-2

[zaelu]

Hello...

This problem "tortures" me for quite a while and I still haven't found a solution.

Description/reproduction of the problem:

I have a GF 460GTX card (old one was a 8800GT) a 3GHzs C2D (non OC), 4GB ram, Win 7 config and I am running the game "at max settings" with the latest drivers configured for high quality image, 8xAA and 8xAF at 1920x1080 resolution.

Almost any plane but especially those with similar cockpits like A-20 have a ugly rescaling problem of cockpit gauges. Meaning when I am zoomed back furthest I can't read the gauges cause instead of filtering resize the game apparently only make rescaling by simple interpolation... destroying the image. If I zoom in... no problem... the gauges are exquisite beautiful and quite sharp.

Anyone else have the same problem?

Here are two screenshots to exemplify my problem and a quote of my conf.ini

crop from full image at 1920x1080

cockpit gauges of A20


icons on map that have strange square artifacts at transparency around the aircraft sign... like in no filtering or something.


and the full versions... jpg... originally they were TGA

[il2]
...

[window]
width=1920
height=1080
ColourBits=32
DepthBits=24
StencilBits=8
ChangeScreenRes=1
FullScreen=1
DrawIfNotFocused=0
EnableResize=0
EnableClose=1
SaveAspect=0
Use3Renders=0

[GLPROVIDER]
GL=Opengl32.dll

[GLPROVIDERS]
Open GL=Opengl32.dll
DirectX=dx8wrap.dll

[NET]
speed=8000
routeChannels=0
serverChannels=31
localPort=21000
remotePort=21000
SkinDownload=1
serverName=zaelu's
serverDescription=
remoteHost=
localHost=188.26.152.48
socksHost=
checkServerTimeSpeed=1
checkClientTimeSpeed=1
checkTimeSpeedDifferense=0.02
checkTimeSpeedInterval=3
checkRuntime=0
remoteHost_000=

[MaxLag]
farMaxLagTime=0.5
nearMaxLagTime=0.5
cheaterWarningDelay=3.0
cheaterWarningNum=3

[chat]
...

[game]
Arcade=0
HighGore=1
mapPadX=0.3
mapPadY=0.50648147
viewSet=41
Intro=0
NoSubTitles=0
NoChatter=0
NoHudLog=0
NoLensFlare=0
iconTypes=3
eventlog=eventlog.lst
eventlogkeep=0
3dgunners=1
TypeClouds=2
ClearCache=0
SubTitlesLines=1
HakenAllowed=0


[HotKey game]
...

[HotKey gui]
...

[HookViewFly Config]
timeFirstStep=4.0
deltaZ=15.0

[HookView]
MouseLeft=Len

[HookView Config]
AzimutSpeed=0.1
TangageSpeed=0.1
LenSpeed=1.0
MinLen=1.0
DefaultLen=20.0
MaxLen=3000.0
Speed=6

[HotKey builder]
...

[MouseXYZ]
...

[MouseXYZ Config]
...

[HotKey Console]
...

[sound]
...

[rts]
ProcessAffinityMask=2
mouseUse=2
joyUse=1
trackIRUse=1
DisableIME=0
locale=

[rts_mouse]
...

[rts_joystick]
...



[Render_DirectX]
TexQual=3
TexMipFilter=2
TexCompress=0
TexFlags.UseDither=1
TexFlags.UseAlpha=0
TexFlags.UseIndex=0
TexFlags.PolygonStipple=1
TexFlags.UseClampedSprites=0
TexFlags.DrawLandByTriangles=1
TexFlags.UseVertexArrays=1
TexFlags.DisableAPIExtensions=0
TexFlags.ARBMultitextureExt=1
TexFlags.TexEnvCombineExt=1
TexFlags.SecondaryColorExt=1
TexFlags.VertexArrayExt=1
TexFlags.ClipHintExt=0
TexFlags.UsePaletteExt=0
TexFlags.TexAnisotropicExt=0
TexFlags.TexCompressARBExt=1
TexFlags.TexEnvCombine4NV=0
TexFlags.TexEnvCombineDot3=0
TexFlags.DepthClampNV=0
TexFlags.SeparateSpecular=0
TexFlags.TextureShaderNV=0

HardwareShaders=0

Shadows=2
Specular=2
SpecularLight=2
DiffuseLight=2
DynamicalLights=1
MeshDetail=2
VisibilityDistance=3

Sky=2
Forest=2
LandShading=3
LandDetails=2

LandGeom=3
TexLarge=1
TexLandQual=3
TexLandLarge=1

VideoSetupId=4
ForceShaders1x=0
PolygonOffsetFactor=-0.15
PolygonOffsetUnits=-3.0

[Render_OpenGL]
TexQual=3
TexMipFilter=3
TexCompress=0
TexFlags.UseDither=1
TexFlags.UseAlpha=0
TexFlags.UseIndex=0
TexFlags.PolygonStipple=0
TexFlags.UseClampedSprites=0
TexFlags.DrawLandByTriangles=1
TexFlags.UseVertexArrays=1
TexFlags.DisableAPIExtensions=0
TexFlags.ARBMultitextureExt=1
TexFlags.TexEnvCombineExt=1
TexFlags.SecondaryColorExt=1
TexFlags.VertexArrayExt=1
TexFlags.ClipHintExt=0
TexFlags.UsePaletteExt=0
TexFlags.TexAnisotropicExt=1
TexFlags.TexCompressARBExt=0

TexFlags.TexEnvCombine4NV=1
TexFlags.TexEnvCombineDot3=1
TexFlags.DepthClampNV=1
TexFlags.SeparateSpecular=1
TexFlags.TextureShaderNV=1

HardwareShaders=1

Shadows=2
Specular=2
SpecularLight=2
DiffuseLight=2
DynamicalLights=1
MeshDetail=2
VisibilityDistance=3

Sky=2
Forest=3
LandShading=3
LandDetails=2
LandGeom=3
TexLarge=1
TexLandQual=3
TexLandLarge=1

VideoSetupId=17
Water=4
Effects=1
ForceShaders1x=0


PolygonOffsetFactor=-0.15
PolygonOffsetUnits=-3.0

[DGen]

...

[MD_Titus]

put AA and AF at x16 in the nvidia control panel, and have it set to override application settings.

also, soomed out view isn't actually representative of correct field of view, i believe that fov35 is most representative.

[zaelu]

Thank you for your answer Titus, I will try those settings.

Also, regarding the FOV... I observed that as FOV increases the filtering get's worse... I would expect it would stay the same for the whole game no mater the zoom/FOV setting.

True... I have an enlarged FOV to 106° (max) through an external mean to fit the view on my 16/9 monitor. same thing I think happens for triple head view users that are "officially" supported.

[Les]

I get the same aliasing effect on the cockpit gauges in wide angle view, and with the little plane icon on the map.

I'm using a GTX285 with 16xAF & 8xQAA at the moment, but the image has always been like that as far as I can rememeber, with other cards and settings too. Tried 16xAA and it didn't make any difference.

If you zoom in on the gauges and look at where a white needle or pointer crosses over another white marking you can see a black edge to it that's aliased even in the closest zoomed in view. This doesn't get corrected when you go into a wider view, and so the dials and number just become messed up. I don't think there's a video-setting that can correct it, it's just that the dials themselves are made with too low a resolution.

If you memorize roughly where the needles and pointers should be pointing, you can still guess your speed and altitude etc. while in wide view without actually being able to read the numbers. When I want to see them in more detail, I just zoom in and tell myself it's like leaning forward in the cockpit to look closer.

Hopefully BOB will have all these guages and dials and pointers made with a higher resolution so we don't have to do that anymore. They should just get smaller but still be readable using a wider angle view, not get smaller and then distorted because of their original blockiness.

At the same time, compromises have to be made and there is a limit to how readable these things can be when depicted on a computer monitors screen. When using the widest angle view, you really should be using a projector to blow the image up to life-size scale. If not, it's actually the compressing of the size of the image down to fit onto your monitor that makes things hard to read/see.

I actually tested out IL-2 on a projector once, measuring the cockpit gauges so that they they were life-size when using wide-angle view and placed the same distance from my seating position that they would be in real life. It was @#@%ing amazing. But! Everything was too blurry when blown up like that, because of the low resoution of the projector, and the low resolution of the image itself as described above, so...

Until many many years from now when the in-game art and the means of viewing it have improved enough, I guess we're stuck with using narrower fields of view and/or zooming in a lot.

[EJGr.Ost_Caspar]

You need to set AA-mode to supersampling and use either 8x or higher, or SSAA won't work with newer Nvidia cards. Before the 8800 series and respectivly drivers came out, SSAA did work on lower AA settings too. No idea, why Nvidia changed that.

You can get better results (more options than normal Forceware driver menue) with a nice tool, called 'nHancer'.
Also Rivatuner could show more options.

[Les]

Originally Posted by EJGr.Ost_Caspar

You need to set AA-mode to supersampling and use either 8x or higher, or SSAA won't work with newer Nvidia cards...

You can get better results (more options than normal Forceware driver menue) with a nice tool, called 'nHancer'.
Also Rivatuner could show more options.

I was going to mention 'nHancer' myself as I already use it and can recommend it. Just had a look at the supersampling options in the main AA section though, and it says it only works for directX applications, and the highest setting was 4x4.

I do already have supersampling ticked in the Transparency AA section though, with 8xQ multisampling in the main Anti-aliasing options. No luck with that.

[Flanker35M]

S!

nHancer is pretty much discontinued. Nvidia Inspector is a new tool done by a guy that has a lot of options to tweak things. For example Rage3D or Guru3D have the links to it, worth giving a try. I am still tweaking IL-2 to run on the 580GTX

[julian265]

I always had trouble reading the A20's gauges in wide view mode, with both 4870 and 9800GTX+. I never used much AA though, by preference.

[zaelu]

What I noticed is that high rez gauges (those from mod packs for example) have same or even worse filtering effect. For example the FW with 1024x1024 texture size in every gauge is worse than that with 512. Cause instead of filtering when doing a downsize is making simple resizing with interpolation.

It seems to be from filtering and not antialiasing. If is antialiasing is the transparency antialiasing that I believe doesn't work more than multisampling in IL-2... IRC.

[JAMF]

Originally Posted by zaelu

It seems to be from filtering and not antialiasing.

IIRC the dials have a filtering type assigned to them. People complained about the shimmering and readability of some of the dials, so someone changed something to (activate?) mipmapping.