How to set AA in FS9 and FSX for Nvidia's 2xx.xx drivers (now with working Transparency AA!)

[greggerm 312]

Yeah, I've looked into the FIBER_TIME_FRACTION as well as the TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT entries, but before I change anything I am going to revert to my old drivers/GPU settings to see if I can get things back to normal. In all honesty I am trying to keep as much the same as possible right now. If I can revert to the old drivers and settings and I find things are back to normal, I'll at least know the new driver's aren't fully optimized and then begin adjusting the configuration files in an attempt to improve things under the 200-series drivers. (*I already backed up and destroyed my FSX.CFG file so that under the 200-series drivers it could be rebuilt. Sadly, no effect.) On my old settings, I use a less-potent AA setting as well, the more standard multisample 8x. I'm going to want to get apples-to-apples under the new drivers and have all my settings equal before I start ramping up the demands on the GPU with additional AA settings. I trust a 260 GTX isn't exactly a slouch when it comes to the 8xS and Transparency AA settings indicated on the leadoff post, right? -Greg

[greggerm 312]

Followup to my post just above:Looks like the placebo effect reared it's ugly head...After doing some head-to-head testing with equal time, weather, and airplanes, I have found no difference in blurry performance between my original setup and the new 2xx.xx driver setup detailed in this thread. I guess my mind's eye thought that the blurries I was seeing were somehow worse or otherwise abnormal, when in fact they were just about the same. Things look good! I've found that the Transparency AA only seems to work when you use a "MIXEDSAMPLE" mode for overall antialiasing. I used to use just straight "multisample" on my previous setup, and when using a "MULTISAMPLE" option in the nVidia Inspector, the transparency AA settings seem to go unused. This is no problem for me, because I like the "MIXEDSAMPLE" modes better anyway! Thanks for the heads up to this info. Getting transparency AA working has certainly improved the overall image quality. -Greg

[Rezabrya 0]

I am having many problems now. I had been running a much much older driver and using Nhancer. Today I updated to the newest driver and used this method. My AA is very sporadic now. I did all the steps in this thread and it worked perfectly, but then I started another flight and it was all jaggy and looked terrible. I don't know why this is happening.Now it seems that any time I go into a multiplayer game, my AA gets disabled. I really am lost.

[jjjallen 37]

Ryan? :(

I would like to pipe in as I just got mine today. Upgraded from a GTX285. The Gigabyte (2 fan) 460 1gig is the best GPU I've had in a long time (and it looks really cool). Cool, quiet, small, OClocks easily.My first impressions in FSX was much better AA with the same settings (no nHancer, 258.96). Very smooth play and 10+ more frames on average. I will give it a work out tomorrow in PNW near Seattle.Lovely card for 230 bucks.jja

[Rickie Welsh 27]

Hi everyone, but in particular Ryan. I have a highend PC with Nvidia 8800gts 512 card, and i carried out your instructions to the letter and I was amazed at the transformation, no jaggies, everything smooth as silk, did a flight from ksfo - ksan and the arrival was excellent scenery was static, however this evening, ( I am in the UK), I loaded up the 737ng at KORD - KJFK and when I transferred the window to my other monitor the scenery went haywire. I tried KJFK, KLAS and had the same scenario. These four airports are addons from FSDreamTeam. I then tried MS KATL and everything was fine. Can anyone enlighten me why the Dreamteam software is behaving like this, bearing in mind that I also have Aerosoft airports installed but have not tried them as yet with this new setup. Many thanks. richard welsh.

[trisager 2]

Does anyone know what exactly is the difference between (1) using the AA_MODE_SELECTOR_OVERRIDE setting, and (2) checking the AA box inside FSX and using AA_MODE_SELECTOR_ENHANCE? I've tried both, and at a quick glance they look and perform about the same.

[Tabs 2,790]

Does anyone know what exactly is the difference between (1) using the AA_MODE_SELECTOR_OVERRIDE setting, and (2) checking the AA box inside FSX and using AA_MODE_SELECTOR_ENHANCE? I've tried both, and at a quick glance they look and perform about the same.

Enhance should be slightly more efficient with how it applies AA - the FSX engine has some optimizations to exactly where it puts AA (basically invisible to the user) vs. the override method, which just brute forces it on everything it can possibly go on within the scene. Probably not much of a performance difference either on a modern card.

[dazz 69]

No surprise since FSX starvates most graphics cards. Ryan, I got my 460 and it's a great overclocker. just in case you want to check that thread in the videocard section, another guy got it up to 880MHz. I posted my results too (870/1740/4400@1.075V) but it went over 85C in furmark so it's back to stock clocks now

Enhance should be slightly more efficient with how it applies AA - the FSX engine has some optimizations to exactly where it puts AA (basically invisible to the user) vs. the override method, which just brute forces it on everything it can possibly go on within the scene. Probably not much of a performance difference either on a modern card.

[Drebin8 17]

Just wondering if there was a link or attachment with the first post that maybe disappeared? I don't seem to see the guide. Thanks.Drew Bingham

[Tabs 2,790]

Just wondering if there was a link or attachment with the first post that maybe disappeared? I don't seem to see the guide. Thanks.Drew Bingham

The forum upgrade appears to have erased my entire post basically.... lets give it a few days to see if they recover it (the Avsim tech manager said he was going to be cleaning up import errors for the next few days) and if that doesn't happen I'll rewrite it...

[trisager 2]

Found Ryan's original post in Google's cache:This post addresses an issue that has cropped up with the release of Nvidia's 2xx.xx driver series. They have changed the way profiles work yet again and as a result, nHancer no longer works for creating FS profiles that use the hidden AA modes like 8xS that make the sim look its best. Martin Korndörfer, the developer of nHancer, is working on nHancer 3.0, but had a series of misfortunes befall him during a move including the destruction of his PC, that have delayed it, there's currently no word on when we can actually expect its release.Here's how I enable AA in FS9 and FSX with the latest drivers - this process effectively does the same thing nHancer did for the older drivers, just in a less pretty/streamlined way.1. Get the latest drivers installed. (258.96 as of this writing) If you're moving up from the earlier series, I suggest using Guru3D's Driver Sweeper http://www.guru3d.com/category/driversweeper to make sure the old ones are fully gone. Uninstall all the components from the control panel, DO NOT reboot when it tells you to, then run Driver Sweeper. Clean with the Nvidia Graphics and PhysX profiles, and then let it reboot. Install the new driver after it does.2. Download Nvidia Inspector here:http://download.orbmu2k.de/download.php?id=513. Open up your standard Nvidia control panel that comes with the driver. Select "Manage 3D settings" on the left side, then select the Program Settings page. These are your game specific profiles. FS9 and FSX should show up in the list.4. Set the following options in both profiles:Anisotropic Filtering: 16XPower Management: Prefer Maximum PerformanceTexture Filtering - Negative LOD Bias: ClampTexture Filtering - Quality: High Quality (this disables several of the other texture filtering options, setting them to Off even though they may still show On while grayed out)5. Now run Nvidia Inspector. Click the button that looks like two gears to the far right side of the "Driver Version" line. This brings up the profile editor. This isn't as pretty as nHancer, but it will let give us access to the same hidden AA modes nHancer did.6. In the profile list, FS9 and FSX are listed as "MS Flight Simulator 2004" and "MS Flight Simulator X"Here's the settings to make within the editor:For FS9:a. Antialiasing - Behavior Flags: AA_BEHAVIOR_FLAGS_NONEb. Antialiasing - Mode Selector: AA_MODE_SELECTOR_OVERRIDEc. Antialiasing - Setting: AA_MODE_METHOD_MIXEDSAMPLE_8X (This is the 8xS mode we're all familiar with, if you want 8xSQ, that's the next one down in the list, AA_MODE_METHOD_MIXEDSAMPLE_8X_SKEWED_8TAP. The normal multisample AA settings are the ones that start with AA_MODE METHOD_MULTISAMPLE, these do not have a supersampling componet and will not eliminate shimmering the way the MIXEDSAMPLE (aka "Combined" in nHancer lingo) ones do. Be advise that many of these AA modes listed here don't actually work or will cause strange issues. If you can run it, just stick to the 8xS one.)d. Press Apply ProfileFor FSX: (make sure the AA box is checked inside FSX)a. Antialiasing - Behavior Flags: AA_BEHAVIOR_FLAGS_NONEb. Antialiasing - Mode Selector: AA_MODE_SELECTOR_ENHANCEc. Antialiasing - Setting: AA_MODE_METHOD_MIXEDSAMPLE_8X (This is the 8xS mode we're all familiar with, if you want 8xSQ, that's the next one down in the list, AA_MODE_METHOD_MIXEDSAMPLE_8X_SKEWED_8TAP. The normal multisample AA settings are the ones that start with AA_MODE METHOD_MULTISAMPLE, these do not have a supersampling componet and will not eliminate shimmering the way the MIXEDSAMPLE (aka "Combined" in nHancer lingo) ones do. Be advise that many of these AA modes listed here don't actually work or will cause strange issues. If you can run it, just stick to the 8xS one.)d. Press Apply ProfileThe difference is in step B - FSX will work with the ENHANCE mode and the in-sim AA box checked, FS9 will not.As an aside because I know this will be asked about:NickN has some predefined files for import using the Nvidia GeForce SLI tool up at simforums. I do not set some of the options that appear in his profiles for specific reasons - many of them such as the single/multi-display performance mode setting and triple buffering are specific to OpenGL applications and do nothing in FS, which is a Direct3D app. The gamma correction AA option causes shimmering problems around the beveled edges of our J41 cockpit, so I leave that off as well. His method also necessitates replacing ALL of your profiles first in order to get FS working - if you play other games besides FS, this is major pain to have to go through and make settings again on all of your other profiles. His method also sets the global default profile to the same settings as the FS profiles, which is unnecessary and causes problems if you play other games. I think this is some sort of holdover fix he had from an old driver version that didn't apply the application specific profiles correctly. The recent drivers have no issues with applying the profiles and there is no need to override the global profile like this.

[Cras 6]

PMDG, you guys are just awesome. Your planes are awesome, and your forums are awesome. I have learned more information on getting my FSX setup to run fast and stable from you guys here, be it your own ideas or by hosting threads where everyone can get together and figure things out, without PMDG, the flight sim world would be much much darker. Thank you.

[RickDamm 0]

hi all ... am experiencing a strange issue with this setup .....the nvidia inspector setup looks very good in fsx window mode ...........but does not effect fsx fullscreen mode ..... ???does anyone have the same problem ????how can this be fixed ???thanks for help ....rick

[aceridgey 330]

@ryanHow do we stop using the "in game " AA option in FSXit causes incopatibility with fullscreen and ivao, and i would like it unchecked but still using AAthe nhancer used to be able to do thatall the best

[Tabs 2,790]

Ah, let me test in fullscreen guys - I fly windowed exclusively, so I may not have seen an issue there...