nVidia's FXAA mode (anti-aliasing)

[TFL Replica]

Originally Posted by lowenz

As the "old" SMAA, SweetFX doesn't work with STALKER Clear Sky and STALKER Call of Pripyat (either with DX9 rendering path)

Any solutions for the future?

Copy dlls to the bin folder and put everything else in the main folder.

[CeeJay.dk]

Originally Posted by TFL Replica

Copy dlls to the bin folder and put everything else in the main folder.

injector.ini always goes in the same directory as the dlls.

[CeeJay.dk]

Originally Posted by Prag

Is Timothy Lottes still working on FXAA 4?

No he has abandoned that.

[XRyche]

Originally Posted by CeeJay.dk

Pattern 8 uses the same convolution kernel as pattern 2, only it uses 9 point samples to do this, instead of the 5 linear samples that pattern 2 uses.
It's not really that slow .. only slower in comparison to pattern 2.

They *should* produce the exact same result, and in SweetFX (using the InjectSMAA injector) they do.
In MPC-HC they do not .. or at least they did not, because I suspect that this problem might have been fixed in the latest MPC-HC. Try upgrading MPC-HC and compare the two patterns.

Pattern 9 uses the same kernel as pattern 4, but again is slower for the same reason.

I created pattern 8 and 9 because I suspected that they might work better for MPC-HC.

If you were wondering what pattern 32 and pattern 33 are - they are comparisons between the other filters - I calculate 2 patterns and subtract one from the other and then display the difference.
No difference is black and the brighter the pixel the bigger the difference.

I was trying to find the best strength modifiers to make pattern 1 and 3 be as close as possible in strength to pattern 2.

I often like to implement something more than once so I can compare the solutions.
Especially if I'm trying to find a faster implementation of something.
I take the result of the old implementation and subtract the result of my new (hopefully faster) implementation and if I see a completely black result then I know there was no difference in the output. It's a sanity check

The different luma coefficients in the developer settings calculate the luma (grey) acording to different color spaces.

It has nothing to do with 6 vs 8 bit monitors.

Ah, i understand now. I am using JanWilliem32 "MPC-HC tester builds for internal renderer fixes" last relatively stable release , which is deviated from MPC-HC 5050, as my default player.

I mentioned the bit depth of my monitor since 6 and 7 bit monitors would just dither up to full RGB.

Anyway I was wondering if you could perhaps modify your vibrance shader to dynamically modify contrast like you have for saturation. Nvidia has a feature that's called "Digital Vibrance" that does just that. The only problem is that it does it for everything (desktop, video player, applications...everything). Needless to say it can be very distracting when running general applications and such. Nvidia has similar features just to use for video but it has no affect when outputting RGB. I would guess you could probably do the contrast similarly to the way you have done the saturation.

Sorry for talking video on a primarily gaming forum.

[AUTh0r1ty]

@CeeJay.dk
I think that the SweetFX Injector deserves it's own thread. Would be great to have always the latest version/changelog in the first post.

How do you feel about that?

[TFL Replica]

Originally Posted by CeeJay.dk

injector.ini always goes in the same directory as the dlls.

Oddly enough, I didn't have to do that for Crysis 2 and the AA + PP still worked fine.

[CeeJay.dk]

Originally Posted by TFL Replica

Oddly enough, I didn't have to do that for Crysis 2 and the AA + PP still worked fine.

If the injector dlls can't find injector.ini they will still work fine, but keys will not be mapped to the settings in injector.ini, the steam overlay compability hack will not be enabled and the SMAA preset will be SMAA_PRESET_HIGH and not the custom preset that uses your own settings.

Without injector.ini to remap the keys, the default keys are Printscreen for screenshots and PAUSE to turn the shaders on and off. Reload shaders has no default key.

[CeeJay.dk]

Originally Posted by AUTh0r1ty

@CeeJay.dk
I think that the SweetFX Injector deserves it's own thread. Would be great to have always the latest version/changelog in the first post.

How do you feel about that?

Yeah, thats probably a good idea.

For several reasons:

1) This threads OP is gone
2) This thread is not so much about nvidia FXAA mode anymore but about shader injectors
3) Shader injectors are not nvidia specific so the thread so be placed somewhere where everybody will see it

I do like being in the same thread as Minerias FXAAtool because both are shader injectors and share similar problems and features.
I also like being in a stickied thread.

Where should we place this new thread and what should we name it?
I'm thinking the Games subforum because pc gamers of both amd and nvidia (intel even) persuasions come there.

@Mineria - Should this new thread be a joint threads for all shader injectors - that is, do you want to move to the same thread?

[CeeJay.dk]

Originally Posted by XRyche

Ah, i understand now. I am using JanWilliem32 "MPC-HC tester builds for internal renderer fixes" last relatively stable release , which is deviated from MPC-HC 5050, as my default player.

I mentioned the bit depth of my monitor since 6 and 7 bit monitors would just dither up to full RGB.

Anyway I was wondering if you could perhaps modify your vibrance shader to dynamically modify contrast like you have for saturation. Nvidia has a feature that's called "Digital Vibrance" that does just that. The only problem is that it does it for everything (desktop, video player, applications...everything). Needless to say it can be very distracting when running general applications and such. Nvidia has similar features just to use for video but it has no affect when outputting RGB. I would guess you could probably do the contrast similarly to the way you have done the saturation.

Sorry for talking video on a primarily gaming forum.

I was under the impression that my Vibrance did more or less the same as Digital Vibrance .. maybe not in the same way - but the idea is the same.
Both modify saturation, but digital vibrance does it for everything .. hence why I created the shader.

Don't worry about talking video - it's fine - although if you want we could take the mpc discussion to the Doom9 forums.

[TFL Replica]

Originally Posted by CeeJay.dk

If the injector dlls can't find injector.ini they will still work fine, but keys will not be mapped to the settings in injector.ini, the steam overlay compability hack will not be enabled and the SMAA preset will be SMAA_PRESET_HIGH and not the custom preset that uses your own settings.

Without injector.ini to remap the keys, the default keys are Printscreen for screenshots and PAUSE to turn the shaders on and off. Reload shaders has no default key.

I see. Thanks for clearing that up.

[vis]

Any chance sweetfx will be compatible with Torchlight 2? I've tied using it the way I normally would..and no luck.

[lowenz]

Originally Posted by TFL Replica

Copy dlls to the bin folder and put everything else in the main folder.

The game crashes with SMAA/SweetFX, it's not a problem of main exe place

[TFL Replica]

Originally Posted by lowenz

The game crashes with SMAA/SweetFX, it's not a problem of main exe place

SMAA (and by extension, SweetFX) work fine with Clear Sky. If you won't take my word for it, I have screenshots as proof here.

Copy dxgi.dll, d3d9.dll and injector.ini to the bin folder and copy everything else to the "S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Clear Sky" folder. It works. tested it again with SweetFX right now.

[XRyche]

Originally Posted by CeeJay.dk

I was under the impression that my Vibrance did more or less the same as Digital Vibrance .. maybe not in the same way - but the idea is the same.
Both modify saturation, but digital vibrance does it for everything .. hence why I created the shader.

Don't worry about talking video - it's fine - although if you want we could take the mpc discussion to the Doom9 forums.

Well yes, your vibrance shader and Nvidia's Digital Vibrance both modify saturation but...Nvidia's Digital Vibrance modifies colour separation/contrast as well. Adding contrast modification to your vibrance shader (both in SweetFX and as a MPC shader) will probably make it look even better. Especially in the more colourful games like WOW.

I think keeping this here is okay since it's not strictly deviating from gaming . Although posting the video player shaders on Doom9 wouldn't be a bad idea either, once you finalize them, that is.

[AUTh0r1ty]

Originally Posted by TFL Replica

SMAA (and by extension, SweetFX) work fine with Clear Sky. If you won't take my word for it, I have screenshots as proof here.

Copy dxgi.dll, d3d9.dll and injector.ini to the bin folder and copy everything else to the "S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Clear Sky" folder. It works. tested it again with SweetFX right now.

Should we somewhere create an index of tested games and with which version of SweetFX it was tested?

[CeeJay.dk]

Originally Posted by AUTh0r1ty

Should we somewhere create an index of tested games and with which version of SweetFX it was tested?

Not a bad idea. I'm currently maintaining a list of games that needs special attention that will be released with the next version of SweetFX

But having a list of games and any compability problems in the thread is also a good idea.

[Pill Monster]

SweetFX in Fallout New Vegas looks nice and sharp, however some transparent edges have pixel crawl/shimmering.

It also adds about 15% to my GPU load.

[mypc]

In darksiders 2 while using sweetfx gpu load increase like 12 to 15% is this normal

[Shael]

Originally Posted by CeeJay.dk

Not a bad idea. I'm currently maintaining a list of games that needs special attention that will be released with the next version of SweetFX

But having a list of games and any compability problems in the thread is also a good idea.

Hi, just to add to your list…

It works with:

• Guild Wars - works but not that noticeable but I'll do another testing when I take screenshots
• Guild Wars 2 - works great, noticeable - SweetFX 1.1.1. Although it is too bright when you play the game via WINE Linux, but since I haven't bothered playing with the SweetFX options yet, I don't know how to adjust it. It's tolerable in my case too.

Both of these games uses DX9. GW2 has partial support for DX10 and no support for DX11. But there are no settings to choose DX10 for GW2 and ArenaNet said it's defaulting to DX9.

I'll post a screenshot sometime this week, currently using mobile internet and it's intermittent

I also tested it with:

• Combat Arms - it works, but Nexon NA's detector will kick you after it detects it (tested using SweetFX 0.4 beta)
• Dragon Nest - it works, at least the AA, and makes the image crisp and clearer. But DN's graphics design/style/art doesn't fit with the changes - tested with SweetFX 0.4 beta
• Vindictus - it works too, however the sky changes to a gloomy effect like it is going to rain or there's a storm - other than that I haven't noticed anything - tested using SweetFX 0.4 beta

I'm not an expert with determining what's good and what's not and/or what exactly is "working" or not. My definition of "working" is if it shows changes to the graphics of the game, and if the changes looks good to me (and I like things clearer and not blurred).

Now as far as getting banned, since these are online games, nope, all my accounts are still alive and very much active.

Last but not the least, thank you very much for SweetFX ^_^ Keeps the games easy on my eyes.

[lowenz]

Originally Posted by TFL Replica

SMAA (and by extension, SweetFX) work fine with Clear Sky. If you won't take my word for it, I have screenshots as proof here.

Copy dxgi.dll, d3d9.dll and injector.ini to the bin folder and copy everything else to the "S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Clear Sky" folder. It works. tested it again with SweetFX right now.

Uhm.

Really strange, must discover why it isn't working for me!

EDIT: yes, you're right! Now it's working!

[alientorni]

I've been using sweetfx on almost every game i've installed. I've got to say that i haven't experienced any abnormal issue, the only was with 1.1 (dx10 render error, solved on 1.1.1)
list of games i tried succesfuly
-ac revelations
-battlefield 3 (i don't like how it looks, and performance impact but it works)
-bf2 (need to disable msaa)
-black mesa (need to disable msaa)
-borderlands 1 & 2 ( b2 vanilla looks really blurry, sweetfx it's made for this game, vibrance is vital)
-darksiders 1 & 2
-devil may cry 3
-all mass effect
-transformer fall of cybertron
-unreal, ut (this two with a d3d10 render) ut 2004 & ut3

you have done an excellent work. what are you developing right now for the next release?

[Mineria]

Originally Posted by CeeJay.dk

@Mineria - Should this new thread be a joint threads for all shader injectors - that is, do you want to move to the same thread?

Just make one for SweetFX only, since it seems to be a further development of the other existing injectors.
Is the project uploaded to some sort of version control, SVN, Mercurial, GitHub or alike?

[CeeJay.dk]

Originally Posted by Mineria

Just make one for SweetFX only, since it seems to be a further development of the other existing injectors.
Is the project uploaded to some sort of version control, SVN, Mercurial, GitHub or alike?

Sort of.

To keep it real simple, easy and automatic I use dropbox.

It automatically backs up the files, distributes them to my other computers and keeps copies of earlier versions of the files. Most people don't know about this last feature - to access earlier versions of files, use the dropbox.com web version and rightclick on the file you want to see earlier versions for and choose the previous versions option.

I maintain branches simply by giving each a directory.

I currently have the following development branches :
SweetFX development
DSfix development

and the archived releases:
SweetFX 1.0
SweetFX 1.1
SweetFX 1.1.1

I also share the releases with a group of friends through a shared dropbox folder.

Would you like access to the development folders?

My dropbox referral link is http://db.tt/FS0Bf2W if anyone wants their Dropbox with 500mb bonus from my referral link.

[CeeJay.dk]

Originally Posted by alientorni

I've been using sweetfx on almost every game i've installed. I've got to say that i haven't experienced any abnormal issue, the only was with 1.1 (dx10 render error, solved on 1.1.1)
list of games i tried succesfuly
-ac revelations
-battlefield 3 (i don't like how it looks, and performance impact but it works)
-bf2 (need to disable msaa)
-black mesa (need to disable msaa)
-borderlands 1 & 2 ( b2 vanilla looks really blurry, sweetfx it's made for this game, vibrance is vital)
-darksiders 1 & 2
-devil may cry 3
-all mass effect
-transformer fall of cybertron
-unreal, ut (this two with a d3d10 render) ut 2004 & ut3

you have done an excellent work. what are you developing right now for the next release?

Have you tried tweaking the settings for the games where you don't like the look?.

For the next version I'm working on improving the shaders I adopted from FXAAtool as well as putting in the preset hotkey solution that I promised (a few pages back) I'd look into.
I'm having limited success optimizing the shaders - Tonemap and Technicolor are a little faster now, but depite many attempts this past week I just can't seem to make any progress with the bloom shader. I've tried to get it to move many of it's calculations out of the inner loops and precalculate whenever possible, but it seems the compiler had already thought of those optimizations and done them, so my changes to the code made no improvement to the performance.
I've also tried to cut some math code simply to check if the speed changes and it doesn't .. the bloom shader (and HDR too btw) are severely botlenecked by the many texture lookup they make, so even if I could optimize the math, the shader would still have to wait for the lookups to finish and there would be no change in performance.

It's getting quite frustrating so I've given up on optimizing the current bloom shader. I need to code a new better bloom shader from scratch if I want improvement and I need time to design one that works well, yet still run at an acceptable speed (currently the bloom and HDR shaders are clearly the slowest shaders in the entire suite).
I think I'll postpone that for a later version.

Currently my roadmap is:
1.2 - More performance, hotkeyed presets and a fix to dither

1.3 - Experiment with different s-curve adjustments to brightness to get richer black and stronger whites. I did early work on this with limited success some months ago and tested it in Assassins Creed : Revelations because I felt that game had a washed out look. I want to improve on that and make it work well for a large number of games.

1.4 Different simple ways of adjusting the color of a scene. I'm thinking White balance and split toning.

Future: Advanced color grading .. I'm looking into way to adjust the colors using splines, but currently it looks like it would run quite slow and be hard to understand and tweak for most users. The easy and fast way to do color grading would be to load a texture and use it as lookup table which is what ENBseries does, but since the InjectSMAA injector does not allow me to do that, I'm forced to look at other options.

A better faster bloom shader.

I'm also hoping to improve LumaSharpen by using a curve function to determine the sharpening strength and I also want to try out sharpening against the median instead of the average of the surrounding pixels, to hopefully avoid sharpening noise and lessen sharpening greatly on harsh edges, such as the ones that SMAA antialiases - hopefully this will make LumaSharpen stop messing with the smoothness of the anti-aliased lines.

Originally Posted by Shael

Hi, just to add to your list…

It works with:

• Guild Wars - works but not that noticeable but I'll do another testing when I take screenshots
• Guild Wars 2 - works great, noticeable - SweetFX 1.1.1. Although it is too bright when you play the game via WINE Linux, but since I haven't bothered playing with the SweetFX options yet, I don't know how to adjust it. It's tolerable in my case too.

Both of these games uses DX9. GW2 has partial support for DX10 and no support for DX11. But there are no settings to choose DX10 for GW2 and ArenaNet said it's defaulting to DX9.

I'll post a screenshot sometime this week, currently using mobile internet and it's intermittent

I also tested it with:

• Combat Arms - it works, but Nexon NA's detector will kick you after it detects it (tested using SweetFX 0.4 beta)
• Dragon Nest - it works, at least the AA, and makes the image crisp and clearer. But DN's graphics design/style/art doesn't fit with the changes - tested with SweetFX 0.4 beta
• Vindictus - it works too, however the sky changes to a gloomy effect like it is going to rain or there's a storm - other than that I haven't noticed anything - tested using SweetFX 0.4 beta

I'm not an expert with determining what's good and what's not and/or what exactly is "working" or not. My definition of "working" is if it shows changes to the graphics of the game, and if the changes looks good to me (and I like things clearer and not blurred).

Now as far as getting banned, since these are online games, nope, all my accounts are still alive and very much active.

Last but not the least, thank you very much for SweetFX ^_^ Keeps the games easy on my eyes.

Again try to tweak your settings to improve the look on the games where the default settings don't look great to you.

For Guild Wars I've noticed that you need to turn off in-game antialiasing.

For Wine , show me a screenshot of how it looks. A washed out bright look might be because it's not doing gamma correction correctly in some step. I might be able to compensate for that.

Originally Posted by mypc

In darksiders 2 while using sweetfx gpu load increase like 12 to 15% is this normal

Running extra shaders on your GPU does in fact increase the GPU load.
How much is increases is entirely dependent on your graphic card, resolution and the shaders you enable in SweetFX and their settings.

If your GPU already run the game with a very high GPU that means that your framerate is bottlenecked by the speed of your GPU and adding more load to it with SweetFX will decrease your framerate.
If your GPU is not being fully utilized by your game that means that the game is bottlenecked by the CPU and adding more GPU load with SweetFX will not decrease your framerate.

So yes, an increased GPU load is normal.

[CeeJay.dk]

Okay I've made a new separate thread for SweetFX here in the games subforum

Please discuss SweetFX and share your settings, screenshots, videos , etc there