306.02-desktop-win8-win7-winvista-64bit-international-beta

Thanks for testing and for the feedback.

As you say the stuttering is likely an issue with certain combinations of hardware (my CPU is rather old for example) but that flag seemed to have completely fixed it for me. I tested it with 8QxAA + 4xTrSAA + High quality AO (an extra setting above the normal one, set through NVIDIA Inspector) as well, VRAM usage was around 1.3 GB, and it made the game noticeably smoother and, thus, more enjoyable to play.

While you're here (I hope you still are!) is there any chance of NVIDIA adding a fix for The Book of Unwritten Tales please as it is the ONLY game I'm come across that doesn't like SLI even when it is forced to Single GPU in the profile I've made. Basically most of the menu text is rendered invisible with SLI systems and the only way to get it to appear is to manually disable SLI in the control panel. I've told the developers about it and they've said they'll look into but couldn't promise that it would be fixed. However, I was wondering if there might be a flag or something that would make the game think that SLI is completely disabled without it actually being disabled if you know what I mean?

Thanks.

 

To be honest, I'm fine with FXAA being included as an option in games as long as there is some kind of anti-aliasing support (it's better than nothing, right)? If it is supported by the game then it doesn't blur the text or HUD which is one of the things I don't like about forcing FXAA through the driver. That method not only blurs MSI Afterburner's OSD making it hard to read but also means that any screenshots taken do not show the anti-aliasing. It's not your fault I know.

 

I didn't play these yet, maybe it'll be more satisfying than what I've seen so far. I doubt it though since the problem is inherent to how it works and I've aleady seen SGSSAA shots of Batman. The only reason FXAA is somehow needed in BF3 for example is because it also slightly helps with transparency aliasing, but only because BF3 doesn't offer any other methods that would be far superior. Since MSAA hardly affects anything enhancing it to SGSSAA is no use and downsampling makes the UI too small. D3D should really dictate AA standards too. I'd rather switch to DX9 and be able to force TrSSAA or SGSSAA than deal with aliasing. FXAA is better than nothing though, that' true.

PS: I'm aware of the problems with defered renderers.

 

Maybe, but FXAA is bugged like hell in Batman AC.

FXAA, flying outside stutters really bad to the point where its almost unplayable.

2-4xAA, flying outside only a minor stutter here and there, its still very annoying though, but a lot better then FXAA.

Ok yes I can lose ~ 10fps on avg with MSAA, but i rather play with MSAA. And speaking of Batman, the game is still a mess in dx11 and physx is meh, when will nvidia start using physx3? this 2.x.x is unoptimized/useless poop

 

FXAA works great in Batman: Arkham City but it is a pretty dark game most of the time anyway.

I'm looking forward to finally being able to see TXAA for myself in Borderlands 2 as it is supposed to be a step up from FXAA from what I've read. If it is as good as it is claimed to be and MSAA/CSAA are going the way of the dodo then I hope that replaces it.

Incidentally, with the increase in the number of games using DX11, why is it that there are no AA compatibility flag for those engines? Games like Max Payne 3, Batman: Arkham City, Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. 2 and Battlefield 3 seem to have no problems including MSAA support even though they're using DX11. Shouldn't it be easier to force MSAA in DX11 games given it is a lot newer than DX9, i.e. doesn't DX11 have native support for MSAA with deferred rendering?

 

Did you miss the part where i said MSAA runs better, less stutters? I guess not

Anyway it doesn't matter, i uninstalled this game loong ago, im not playing such buggy games.

 

In Batman: Arkham City you mean?

I found FXAA gave me less stuttering under DX11 although 4xMSAA obviously looks nicer. That said, I don't think the engine (UE3) has been very well optimized for DX11 as even with PhysX disabled it doesn't run as smoothly for me as, say, Batman: Arkham Asylum does under DX9 with 8xMSAA. Yet DX11 supposedly gives better multi-threaded performance than DX9! :3eyes:

But this is for a game which was originally released with its DX11 path broken (the hitching was absolutely horrendous on my system and made the game unplayable) so I shouldn't be too surprised that it still doesn't run well.

 

Yep Batman Arkham City.

FXAA stuttered, MSAA felt smoother @ dx11. It still stuttered though, but not as bad as FXAA, i didnt bother with dx9, instead i uninstalled it :grin: RIP Batman Franchise.

 

Since it got spammed away i will quote myself for a bump.

 

Couldn't you just add it to the NVIDIA Control Panel profiles section, and in that profile select the Single GPU option? I believe that would solve your issue, if I'm following correctly.

Borderlands 2 does not support TXAA. It was mentioned at the launch of the GTX 680, I know, but unfortunately it did not make it into the game.

We could add MSIA to our FXAA exclusion list, which would solve the text thing. No way around the AA though, and as you correctly point out, there's nothing we can do about that due to the way the tech works.

If a developer includes MSAA it doesn't automatically allow us to make a fully-working bit, and we would probably look at building a MSAA profile for a game lacking AA ahead of developing one for a game that already has 100% functional AA. The DX# has nothing to do with the ease of development - it's entirely dependent on whether the game uses a forward renderer or a deferred renderer. Forward = child's play in comparison to deferred.

If I personally know the answer to a query/question/problem I will answer it. Generally speaking, anything technical is ManuelG's domain, and the best way to bring something to his attention is to use his submission form: http://surveys.nvidia.com/index.jsp?pi=6e7ea6bb4a02641fa8f07694a40f8ac6

 

Fixed.

 

I've seen TXAA in The Secret World and it also blurs, it's better than FXAA though. But no replacement for MSAA/TrSSAA, not to mention SGSSAA.
Forcing MSAA would be against the DX11 spec, the application has to provide it. Unfortunately, the spec doesn't force it to do so, let alone say how to do it. Which means we're stuck with games like BF3 where aliasing and flickering are omnipresent and diminish the game's beauty. Deferred renderers are a different topic, that's not necessarily DX9/11 related.

PS: at least NV cares about image quality. As they do with microstuttering and other things most people just don't notice. So I'm still happy things like TXAA exist because it's better than nothing.

 

As with FXAA, the blur seen when using TXAA will be reduced as new versions are developed. You can follow development of both on Tim Lottes' blog: http://timothylottes.blogspot.de/

 

That's what I'm saying; I've already done that and it does NOT work. The only way to fix the issue so that you can read the text in the menus, i.e. actually see the Load Game, Save Game and Options text, is to actually disable SLI from the control panel, which is obviously not ideal.

I'm actually surprised that it does not work as I always thought forcing Single GPU was the same as disabling SLI but, in the case of this game, it isn't. This is the only game I've come across that actually requires me to disable SLI manually from the control panel in order to play it properly. The game can still be played with SLI as you can guess where the Save Game option is but it would obviously be preferable if it was fixed. I doubt the developers will bother but I was hoping that a driver update or a specific flag will fix it.

Is there a SLI flag which effectively acts as a "Disable SLI" setting?

 

@ AndyB - So Borderlands 2 doesn't support TXAA?

That is a huge, huge disappointment as TXAA was one of the features that was promoted with the GTX 680 but I've yet to see it used in any game some six months after the card was released. The Secret World is not a game that interests me.

Why was it dropped from Borderlands 2?

 

@Andy

Do you happen to know if a future driver will allow us to force Nvidia's implementation of FXAA for Guild Wars 2? The in game FXAA is one of the worst I have ever seen. The blurring is terrible.

PS: I know you probably can't give an answer on this and I understand but can we expect any specific time frame for the next drivers? Not the upcoming WHQL but I would guess the beta after.

Thanks!

 

This Stuttering occurs extremely with 4-Way SLI GTX680. With 2-Way SLI, it is not so problematic.

 

Tons of ideas and features fail to make it into the final version of each and every game, but in 99.9% of cases the features aren't pre-announced. As for the cause in this case, I do not know.

If a game has built-in FXAA, Control Panel FXAA isn't available, so I imagine the answer is that it won't be 'forceable' at any point. You could perhaps try a FXAA injector...

As for the next beta, not a clue. The timetable constantly shifts and we never know for sure until just before release as our guys tend to keep adding features, e.g. "if you we wait another week we can finish up AO, MSAA and SLI profiles for a new awesome game and get the beta driver out just before it launches!"

Even I don't have a 4-way GTX 680 setup, and I doubt many of our driver developers do either, so repro might be a tad difficult there!

 

No TXAA in BL2. There is a core problem in that without DX10.1 or later, there is no support for texture fetch from an MSAA surface,
which means any DX9 based game doing cell shading, will be appling the cell shading in a post process using the resolved depth buffer, and effectively adding back all the aliasing.

So in the future for a cell shaded title, one would need to do the cell shading post process before resolving the MSAA buffer.