NVIDIA compatibility bits master thread and IQ guide

The full NVIDIA master list

For a long time, I have been considering the idea of a combined thread for all your driver profile customization and game tweaking needs.
Due to the sheer size and scope of this undertaking, I have chosen to simply share the final result as a Google spreadsheet.
The master list itself consists of a very large table, which currently has 573 entries and 13 categories for each entry.

• MSAA+TrSSAA
• MSAA+SGSSAA (Use TrSSAA instead of SGSSAA in OpenGL)
• OGSSAA and post process AA (Includes DSR and ingame SSAA information)
• OGSSAA hybrids (e.g. 16xS+4xSGSSAA)
• DX8 and DX9 HBAO+
• DX10 and DX11 HBAO+
• Custom DX8, DX9 and OpenGL SLI
• Custom DX10 and DX11 SLI
• Essential tweaks (Includes gaming and system optimization tips)
• Reference
• Additional reference
• Tweak guide
• NVIDIA Inspector profile (Extract the .zip archive and import the .nip file using NVIDIA Profile Inspector)

Newcomers to NVIDIA Inspector might want to take a closer look at the "NVIDIA Inspector profile" category in the far right column of the table.
Under this category you will be able to download already customized driver profiles for many games in .nip format, which can be imported using NVIDIA Inspector.
These profiles are mainly intended as templates, and should be further optimized for your particular hardware and personal preferences.

How to customize the driver profiles

All the options exposed by NVIDIA Inspector can be quite overwhelming at times, even for experienced users.
For this reason, I will include a few carefully selected examples of how to set up your NVIDIA Inspector profile, depending on whether you want to force SGSSAA or OGSSAA, enable HBAO+ or alternatively customize an SLI profile.

To make things perfectly clear, I have color coded each aspect of my examples in accordance with the master list spreadsheet.
Red is used for all variables related to antialiasing, green is used in the same way for HBAO+, while blue and yellow are used for respectively DX9 and DX11 SLI profiles.

Far Cry 3 with 4xSGSSAA forced and custom SLI profiles (Full reference)



F.E.A.R. with 3x3 OGSSAA and HBAO+ forced (Full reference)



Mirror's Edge with 8xSGSSAA and HBAO+ forced, and a custom DX9 SLI profile (Full reference)



Painkiller: Hell & Damnation with 8xSGSSAA and HBAO+ forced, and a "special" custom DX9 SLI profile (Full reference)



Just Cause 2 with 2.25xDSR and 4xMSAA enhanced with 4xSGSSAA (Full reference)



NVIDIA Profile Inspector menu



Overview of driver AA modes in different APIs



With the above examples, I have tried to cover most of the basics of how to customize your driver profiles using NVIDIA Inspector.
For more details, you will have to read and follow the instructions in the posts linked under "Reference", "Additional reference" and "Tweak guide" in the spreadsheet.

Since there seems to be a great deal of confusion regarding the various driver AA modes in different APIs, I have also put a small overview table together.
The calculated DSR resolutions in this table are based on a native resolution of 1920x1080 pixels.

Motivation and other threads

My main incentive for starting this thread is to put things in one place and gain some overview.
To demonstrate what I mean, I have made a list of all the major threads created on the topics of custom AA, AO and SLI profiles in the last few years:

2 September 2010
Antialiasing - Kompatibilitätsbits – Sammelthread (3DCenter AA thread)

1 December 2010
Ambient Occlusion im Treiber – Kompatibilitätsliste (3DCenter AO thread)

31 December 2010
Nvidia AA flags (NVIDIA AA flags)

16 January 2011
Nvidia AA guide (NVIDIA AA guide)

21 June 2011
SLI - Kompatibilitätsbits – Sammelthread (3DCenter SLI thread)

29 January 2012
NVidia Anti-Aliasing Guide (updated) (Guru3D AA thread)

21 May 2013
Petition for DirectX 11 Anti-aliasing driver profiles (GeForce DX11 AA Petition)

28 July 2013
NVidia SLI Guide (Guru3D SLI thread)

3 March 2014
HBAO+ Compatibility Flags Thread (Guru3D HBAO+ thread)

14 April 2014
[Sammelthread] HBAO+ Kompatibilitätsbits (PCGH HBAO+ Kompatibilitätsbits)

11 May 2015
Nvidia Profile Inspector introduction and Guide (NVIDIA Inspector guide)

The goal of my thread is not to replace any of the above threads, or in any way negate the excellent work still being done there.
The basic idea is however to gather relevant information from each thread, edit or remove certain problematic entries, and hopefully make it easier for everyone to find what they need.
Since writing game specific tweak guides is a big passion of mine, I will also include useful posts and other relevant information for some games, even if no driver profile customization is needed.

Background information

Ever since NVIDIA released the 8800 GTX back in November 2006, it has been possible to force traditional MSAA alongside Shader Model 3.0 HDR in certain games (e.g. Far Cry and Oblivion).
However doing so required a custom AA profile to hack the driver, and tell it how to render the final image with both HDR and driver AA enabled.
Later on custom DX9 AA profiles also became necessary to force MSAA in games using deferred lighting or shading methods (e.g. Unreal Tournament III and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl).

Then in April 2009, NVIDIA included support for driver forced SSAO (185.68 BETA).
This again required a separate custom AO profile for each game to achieve the optimal shadow depth effect.
And finally with the release of the Fermi architecture in March 2010, it became possible for GTX 480 and GTX 470 owners to enhance ingame DX10 and DX11 MSAA settings with driver SGSSAA or TrSSAA, something that had never been possible before (e.g. Aliens vs. Predator DX11 and Just Cause 2):
GeForce GTX 480/470 with unmatched image quality in modern games (PCGamesHardware.com)

In May of the same year the 256 driver series was released (257.15 BETA), which meant that the traditional driver profile customization tool Nhancer seized to work.
Eventually all the functionalities (albeit not the great user interface) of Nhancer was replaced by the GeForce 3D Profile Manager and NVIDIA Inspector.

Another big milestone to NVIDIA IQ enthusiasts was automatic driver LOD adjustment in DirectX with forced or enhanced SGSSAA, which was finalized in January 2013 (313.95 BETA).
The last major improvements to driver forced AA and AO must be the introduction of the TF2 AA fix in May 2013 (320.14 BETA), and the upgrade from SSAO to HBAO+ in September 2013 (331.40 BETA).

It is also worth mentioning, that NVIDIA brought their official downsampling feature Dynamic Super Resolution (DSR) to the Fermi and Kepler architectures in October 2014 (344.48 WHQL).
Previously this functionality was limited to GTX 980 and GTX 970 users, since the introduction of these second generation Maxwell cards (GM204) in September 2014.

Some final remarks and the changelog

The information in the master list spreadsheet is the result of several years of hard work by various users on especially the 3DCenter, Guru3D and GeForce forums.
This thread would not be possible without the help of the dedicated people from these gaming and hardware communities.
Special thanks go to aufkrawall, Blade II, Blaire, MrBonk, stereo3D and others for their contributions.

Rebuilding all of the contents from existing AA, AO and SLI threads into one coherent database has been a big challenge from start to finish.
In this process I have both modified and removed some of the original entries, as well as added new information as I came across it.
All of this was done to achieve the best possible overall result, while trying to prevent the size of the final master list and the amount of information in it from exploding.

I will try to keep the list as updated as possible, using both the above AA, AO and SLI threads as well as other reputable sites across the web.
Any major additions or changes made to the spreadsheet or the OP will be included in the changelog below.
Finally it should be noted, that I have also posted a version of this thread in the German 3DCenter forums, which will be updated alongside its Guru3D counterpart.

 

Sticky is needed!

 

I also have some suggestions, make the tables a bit smaller as they seem far to big TBH
The one or two title that seems to necessitate that, would be better off wrapping into making that one cell slightly bigger.

Also: People have to memorize what each column means too, which may be confusing.



As well you can actually embed the non-editable document straight to the post using

"[*gs]Paste the document key from "File> publish to web"> At very bottom from either CSV or HTML in the code it generates for you it will say "Key=" grab that key paste it here between the GS brackets; Key ends at the "&"[/gs*]"
(Need to remove the asterisks when putting it in the post too)

 

OK, I have now completely reworked the look and functionality of the spreadsheet
Using "freeze" columns and rows, there is no more confusion regarding which elements you are looking at.

I have also reduced the size of each column to a minimum, without any of the text or numbers wrapping into the next column.
This is the most I can do with such a large table
Finally I added "0x00000030" for HBAO+ in Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons: 3DCenter AO thread (#98)

But I still haven't figured out how to make the table visible in the forum post itself.
I have followed your instructions, but only a blank space is allocated in my forum post above.
The table itself is not showing up.
Perhaps the large size of the table is the reason for this?

Anyway, with my revisions to the spreadsheet I don't consider this a big problem
Viewing it in full screen by clicking the link is the best solution anyway IMO.

 

Yes good Guide SLIknight (GuruKnight) appreciate the time you have put into the guide.

 

You pulled the document key right? Perhaps a sharing permission issue. I still think that's the best way if you can get it to work. So it's just there easy to see

 

Yes this is exactly what I did
But for some reason my spreadsheet ID is a different format than the one you created for the HBAO+ thread (the second version in the below post):
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/23243733/why-are-there-two-different-url-formats-for-google-spreadsheet-documents

I simply can't understand why it isn't working
http://forums.guru3d.com/misc.php?do=bbcode#gs

I don't believe it is a permission problem, since I have set the sharing to "Public" in the spreadsheet.
Maybe a Guru3D forum account issue?

 

I have now completely reorganized the OP, with a big link to the table at the top and clear color code indication of each IQ category.
The other sections of the OP have also been rewritten and moved around.
It should be much more easy to approach now.

If anybody else has any suggestions to improve this thread, please speak up.
I'm open to pretty much anything.

Also, my list of acquaintances here on Guru3D is kinda short since I have been exclusively affiliated with 3DCenter for the last 3 years.
So if anybody feels like it, please spread the word about this thread across these forums

 

Great job GuruKnight! Ya get a thumbs up from me:thumbup:

 

Very cool man, good job! My brain works so much better when things are color coded, i think i will be using this alot

 

Good guide GuruKnight
+1 For the sticky!

 

Holy Batman, that small command line in Batman Arkham Origins perfected my SLI scaling. Now I feel stupid for playing a game 'handicapped' all this time :facepalm:

Oh well, never too late I guess!

 

Very strange!

Oh well, either way the way you reorganized it now looks very good enough!

 

thx for continuing our work in an even more refined format :cheers:

 

Thank you very much for the kind words, everyone
In my continuing efforts to improve the thread, I have made the following corrections/additions to the master list spreadsheet:

1) The title of "Dirt 2" has been changed to "Colin McRae: Dirt 2"
2) The "0x0000000E" profile has been added for HBAO+ in "Colin McRae: Dirt": 3DCenter AO thread (#99)
3) The "0x00000028" profile has been added for HBAO+ in "Call of Duty: Black Ops": Guru3D HBAO+ thread (#855)
4) A preliminary entry has been added for "Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel" (proper AA, AO and SLI profiles will be added as I find them)
5) Finally, a tweak to improve DX11 SLI scaling in F.E.A.R. 3 has also been added as a comment under the "Custom DX10+ SLI" section: F.E.A.R 3 SLI Profile is broken (GeForce Forums)

And again, if anybody has any further suggestions, please don't hesitate to post them here in the thread

 

Today I wrote and added a tweak guide for Battlefield: Bad Company 2 to the master list spreadsheet.
This is especially optimized for DX9 SGSSAA, and can be found here: 3DCenter AA thread (#6069)

I also added a special change log spoiler to the OP of the thread.
From now on any changes made to the spreadsheet or OP will be posted there, and not in a separate post anymore
This is an easier and more user-friendly solution IMO.

 

You should try 4xSGSSAA+ 1.5x1.5 downsampling with BC2. I found that to have the best IQ. Because SGSSAA doesn't AA things like the DoF blur on the terrain off in the distance. Which is super low res and looks bad, but scales with resolution.

I haven't tried using GeDoSaTo with FXAA yet

 

Thanks for this tip
But the game is actually very smooth at 2880x1800 with 8xSGSSAA on my 780 GTX's.
I get around 50-80 FPS on the most demanding MP maps with the settings detailed in my updated tweak guide (~1800 MB VRAM usage):
http://www.forum-3dcenter.org/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=10351667&postcount=6069

Downsampling and 4xSGSSAA should be quite playable on a powerful single GPU setup in BC2 with my tweaked settings

Edit:
Updated my BC2 tweak guide again, it should read much more like a full-fledged guide/report now

 

Bump for sticky

 

Ditto, very useful. Thank you!