Diablo 3 - nVIDIA Inspector, nVIDIA Control Panel and you

[RamGuy]

The moment many of us have been waiting for is approaching, the release of Diablo III is just a few hours away and I have successfully installed the game client, launched it and checked all in-game settings, downloaded the latest GeForce drivers (301.34) and made sure nVIDIA Inspector is up for the task.


One thing I did notice though is that the default Diablo 3 profile is running "Antialiasing - Behavior flags" - Treat "Override any application setting" as "Application-controlled".

Is this a result of nVIDIA being pussies and just want to make sure no-one is messing up the Diablo 3 release with stupid anti-aliasing configurations or might there be some issues with forcing various anti-aliasing modes with the Diablo 3 client resulting in corrupt graphics and horrid performance?

Have anyone tried playing around with nVIDIA Inspector in the BETA? Should this option be left default, or will you try enabling some improved anti-aliasing modes through nVIDIA Inspector nonetheless?


While we are all waiting for the servers going online I would love to know which kind of anti-aliasing settings your are aiming for, what kind of performance you'd expect from those settings, which hardware you'll be running and what kind of anti-aliasing settings you'd expect to work the best with the Diablo 3 client.

[PhazeDelta1]

Set Antialiasing - Behavior flags to none. Either use the in-game aa or aa/fxaa through inspector. In the beta I had AO, AF, and FXAA enabled through inspector. In game aa was disabled and everything else was set to their highest value. Clutter Density wasn't in the beta I don't think. But from what i've been reading about it, it will rape lower end cards with it on high or medium. It has something to do with the ammount of stuff that shows up on screen.

[eclap]

I messed about with the release version. Had antialiasing flag set to none, forced AO and AF (same as it was in beta so nothing new here). still get AA to work from inspector. ingame AA does a decent job, that's for sure but I wouldn't mind being able to mess about with settings a bit more.

[Jraptor]

I ran the beta with everything maxed out. My son has a 580 and he was able to do the same, so you shouldn't have problems. There are allot of animals (rats, bats, etc) and flying debris and papers running or flying around, and I noticed on my older laptop that reduced settings filtered all that out. It still looked awesome.

[RamGuy]

Stumbled upon some settings over at 3D Center:

Antialiasing Compatibility Flag: 0x004412C1


With this you should be able to force both 8x-16x MSAA and Transparency Supersampling through nVIDIA Inspector without many hiccups. It should work with Sparse Grid Anti Aliasing as well, but some have reported glitches here and there.


I'll be starting of with 8x MSAA + 8x SGSSAA with that compatibility flag and see how it performance running 1920x1080 @ 120Hz on GTX 580.

[eclap]

buggy for me, the whole screen just became a jpeg after forcing that compability flag, no more animations on the login screens any more still, the ingame AA does a nice job

[Daba-8]

So which drivers are recommended for diablo3 any special beta release?

[kakarot]

Thanks for the heads up. I didn't think I would be able to install until tomorrow but it looks like I'll be able to actually play a little tonight at 11pm (est).
As for drivers, I hope we see an official set tomorrow and that it allows us to at least force some transparency aa. This game is the reason i went all out on a monster lcd

[eclap]

I didn't get a new monitor for this but I did bring my 24" monitor closer to me on the desk. Actually makes me feel like I'm gaming on a 27+" monitor haha.

[PhazeDelta1]

Originally Posted by kakarot

Thanks for the heads up. I didn't think I would be able to install until tomorrow but it looks like I'll be able to actually play a little tonight at 11pm (est).
As for drivers, I hope we see an official set tomorrow and that it allows us to at least force some transparency aa. This game is the reason i went all out on a monster lcd

You mean 3am EDT

[kakarot]

dammit you're right. Got excited when I saw the 8pm on their site but now see that it's for some stupid launch party or something

lol eclap, that works and its much cheaper

[Trigunflame]

Originally Posted by Firestorm

Set Antialiasing - Behavior flags to none. Either use the in-game aa or aa/fxaa through inspector. In the beta I had AO, AF, and FXAA enabled through inspector.

If you're going to force some form of AA, might as well do it up nice with traditional 4/8/16/32 + MSAA/CSAA.

1) Forcing FXAA via NV/Inspector applies the shader effect over everything on screen, including text - not good for games like D3 with loads of Quest Lore, Item/Spell Tooltips to read - unless you like the additional blurring.
2) D3's in-game AA appears to be an FXAA implementation anyway, as such, unlike NV/Inspector it can selectively apply the shader effect and avoid the aforementioned issue.

[PhazeDelta1]

Ah, good point. Then i'll just use the reg AA.

[Prophet]

I just got long cable so that I can have my mic in front of the TV

[RamGuy]

Originally Posted by eclap

buggy for me, the whole screen just became a jpeg after forcing that compability flag, no more animations on the login screens any more still, the ingame AA does a nice job

It's working for me, but forcing 8x MSAA + 8x SGSSAA made the entire game unplayable and the graphics got somewhat blurry.

I've got 60-120 FPS (normally around 60) on 1920x1080@120Hz with only the in-game anti-aliasing running on my GTX 580 with everything maxed out so it's seems like this game is draining a lot of performance on it's own without forcing any kind of anti aliasing in the first place.

Seems like the in-game anti aliasing is only sharder based, so I'll try getting 8x MSAA + 8x TRSSAA going and see how much that would affect performance and how much it will improve the picture quality.

[RamGuy]

No problem forcing 8x MSAA + 8x TSSAA using 0x004412C1, but my performance got stuck at 28-40 FPS which isn't good enough.

[Darren Hodgson]

Originally Posted by RamGuy

No problem forcing 8x MSAA + 8x TSSAA using 0x004412C1, but my performance got stuck at 28-40 FPS which isn't good enough.

Why not try 4xMSAA and 4x TrSSA - I suspect you won't be able to see much difference visually anyway.

[PhazeDelta1]

how do you set 4x TrSSAA? I only see the option to enable it, not set the ammout.

[WhiteLightning]

Originally Posted by Firestorm

how do you set 4x TrSSAA? I only see the option to enable it, not set the ammout.

its the anti-aliasing transparency supersampling column

[RoadKillNL]

Originally Posted by RamGuy

It's working for me, but forcing 8x MSAA + 8x SGSSAA made the entire game unplayable and the graphics got somewhat blurry.

Sparse Grid Super-Sampling is known for making most Games Blurry just like FXAA. It's a problem with the Game Engine. It happens in Skyrim aswell.

Blurring
SGSSAA does produce blur in some games just like OGSSAA does in the XxX and xS modes. And once again it has nothing to do with LOD. The xS modes have an auto lod adjustment but that doesn't help you when a game is producing a blurry image due to a conflicting post-processing shader.

http://naturalviolence.webs.com/sgssaa.htm

[PhazeDelta1]

Originally Posted by WhiteLightning

its the anti-aliasing transparency supersampling column

I see the sparse grid supersampling and the regualr supersampling. Which one of those should I use? Also, do I need to enable to Transparancy Multisampling as well?

[Darren Hodgson]

I've been playing Diablo III with 4xMSAA/4xTrSSAA, 16xAF and Ambient Occlusion (the latter makes a huge difference to the game as it looks less washed out and 'flat') at 1920x1200 with the in-game anti-aliasing enabled. The game is extremely laggy/juddery though. So I set AF to application controlled and the game felt much smoother but still lagged and jerked when lots of enemies/effects are on screen.

The game runs at 60 fps even when it lags/judders so I'm not sure whether it's the settings I'm using or the server/engine streaming. I'll test tonight with just AO forced.

[Darren Hodgson]

Originally Posted by Firestorm

I see the sparse grid supersampling and the regualr supersampling. Which one of those should I use? Also, do I need to enable to Transparancy Multisampling as well?

SGSSAA is generally considered to be better as it removes jaggies more effectively but it blurs the textures somewhat unless you set a negative texture LOD. In order for SGSSAA to work, you also need to force at least 2xMSAA as well. Transparency Multisampling does not need to be enabled for SGSSAA and TrSSAA to work (correct me if I'm wrong).

[PhazeDelta1]

Ok. I think I got it.

[applejack]

1920x1080 no AA / AO

1920x1080 4xMSAA + 4xTrSSAA + HQAO

1920x1080 4xMSAA + 4xSGSSAA + HQAO

2880x1620 @ 1920x1080 (DS) + HQAO, no AA.


NV Inspector settings for screen shot #3 (SGSSAA)