Nvidia and AMD Anti-Aliasing and SweetFX Guide

[Aldotsk]

Oh look, it's trying to be witty. .-.

You are giving me too much credit if you are claiming that I am being witty

Nothing of other games was actually mentioned except about me just showing my expression of opinion on how I feel about SweetFX and the computer specs. But somehow it escalated to something unrelated soooo yeah.

Salt is real.

[A. Zerran]

Once again taking my statements out of context. SweetFX by itself is nothing too special, it increases color saturation and provides different types of lighting color, but when you mix it with SGSSAA at resolutions higher than 1080p, then it can make a moderate difference. Sizustar wasn't appearing to record in 60 FPS because YouTube doesn't allow you to post videos in 4k at 60 FPS...not yet at least. In order to post 60 FPS videos on YouTube, you have to record the game at 60 or higher with good capture software (like Shadowplay or DxTory), and then post it at 1080p, then YouTube will show the game being at 60 FPS if you play it in HD (720p) or Full HD (1080p). Sizustar was playing PSO2 at 4k however, and that is quite a feat. My PC can mostly handle PSO2 with DSR at x4.00 (4k) but only when using V-Sync with Triple Buffering, and even then there's a couple of massive drops in framerate every now and again. But Sizustar's machine outclasses mine, so obviously it will run better for Sizustar. You can't really tell if the game is running at 60 FPS very well without paying close attention since 4k recorded games on YouTube can't be watched at 60 FPS.

That's all beside the point. Statements like "4k is nothing" or "SweetFX runs bad even on monster hardware" without anything to validate them are plain awful. This forum is about tweaking PSO2's Anti-Aliasing, color saturation, and overall textures while playing the game (and not just for screenshots), not to argue things that have no basis or sources. PSO2 at 4k with SGSSAA is objectively better looking than practically anything on the PS4 right now, and one day I hope to achieve this as well. I'll stick with DSR x4.00 for now, but with no SGSSAA until I get maybe a 970 or a 980.

Okay, that's it. Just done. If I do anything else that involves Anti-Aliasing in PSO2, I'll post it here. I don't like these kinds of arguments. They go nowhere. Please, let's stick to the topic.

[Aldotsk]

Well that argument seems more reasonable explanation than previous posts with personal attacks. Anyways that's at least the better reasonable statement that I wanted to read.

I am aware of what the thread is about. At least I wanted to hear your side of the point why you wanted to strain your performance that high was all.

[A. Zerran]

Well that argument seems more reasonable explanation than previous posts with personal attacks. Anyways that's at least the better reasonable statement that I wanted to read.

I am aware of what the thread is about. At least I wanted to hear your side of the point why you wanted to strain your performance that high was all.

You still acted like you know a lot about something you don't. You wasted a lot of our times here. And if you were aware of what this thread was, why did you start to derail it? Why did you say things that you couldn't confirm with other than "it's common knowledge"? It isn't common knowledge. It's just conjecture that's coming from your opinion. And it honestly sounds like you don't have any knowledge in this field, considering you went out and accused me of not having my specified hardware. Don't. It's no better than whatever you claimed we did. And I'm not as young as you might think.

[A. Zerran]

I messed around more with Nvidia Inspector, and I managed to get SGSSAA and SweetFX without going below 60 FPS. But it required me to turn off Ambient Occlusion and knock down Anisotropic Filtering x8 and at High Performance. It also means no MFAA.

SGSSAA x4 with LOD Bias at 1.0 + SweetFX, no other enhancers:

Spoiler!

I still don't think I should really do this, considering Magatsu is pretty intensive with SGSSAA. I'm fine with using my other configuration of SMAA + FXAA and Anisotropic Filtering with Ambient Occlusion.

[aryayudhaprakasa2]

Won't Gameguard will kick u out if you use sweetFX, will it?

[HentaiLolicon]

not really, I tried this last year. Got kicked by GG on 1st attempt, managed to work it out on 2nd and had it worked beautifully. But, on 3rd time, i messed something up and I got a monochrome rendering :| so I had to remove sweetFX

[KLMS1]

Won't Gameguard will kick u out if you use sweetFX, will it?

Guess.

[Killerwing]

So, given there has been lots of pointless stuff that I just saw being dragged on, regarding A.Zerran's questions related to the AA and FPS issues and questions he had, so I will drop in my two cents on this matter.

Keep in mind that I have been doing many Inspector tests of my own, so I'm not completely ignorant of what I speak of.

I personally never bothered with SweetFX for PSO2, especially given how much of a hassle it can be when it comes to work, but also because trying to take screenshots in PSO2 with SweetFX means that the HUD cannot be removed from the picture, unlike the default options of PSO2. And since I'm not interested in restarting PSO2 just for the sake of turning SweetFX on and off, I have no interest in using it.

Now, as for the main advertised SGSSAA settings that are on the front page.

I will make note that I was able to generally have an FPS around 90 to 120 with those settings, PLUS an extra Ambient Occlusion setting I had discovered at some point, though it was clear the AO added extra strain on the FPS.

HOWEVER, the big detail?

I'm running a machine with an i7 processor and a GTX 970 from EVGA, one of their highest factory overclocked 970s in fact. And even with that my FPS was limited around that.

If I get to that kind of FPS with that strain I put on the settings, this means that A.Zarren with his i3 and a GTX 960 won't be able to achieve as high as I would be able to.

With the SGSSAA settings, I can only surmise he might be able to maintain 60 FPS decently.

Another detail is that while you can force MFAA in the Inspector and NVIDIA Configuration window, I am not certain it actually does work in PSO2. Turning on the option to force MFAA on may not necessary apply the MFAA that you'd desire.
If I recall correctly on things I read on the matter, you'd need a game that is compatible with MFAA.
And given PSO2's age, it's obvious it isn't a compatible game for that.

Bottom line of this: You may have attained a limit that you didn't think you had A.Zarren. You'll have to make due with what you have.

Be careful with overclocking as well. It can burn out your card more easily than you'd think. I tried some small overclocking on my GTX 970 and it burnt out after only 9 months of having bought it. Replaced it with a GTX 980 TI, and obviously, it gives me way more power to use for AA boosting.

Also, another source of NVIDIA Inspector settings would be the japanese player Lavendy who has a blog of their own. https://lavendy.net/pso2es/
Obviously it's in japanese, so some Google Translate help may be required. However there are some very strong, though potentially demanding settings that can be downloaded from that blog.
I'm now running one of those settings, the 2nd highest ones in the list in fact now
I could have run the highest settings, however doing so limited my game's FPS at around 90. With the 2nd highest settings instead, my FPS generally stays around 120 now.

And remember, that's with an i7 processor combined with a GTX 980 TI. That's some huge power there.

And here's an extra screenshot to show that crisp quality.

Spoiler!

(Game is played in 1080p resolution. Not bothering to go bigger, no point in it.)
This is the kind of quality I now run with, smoothly nearly all the time(I tend to get some FPS drops whenever I use my Photon Blast. Dunno why it does that.)

[A. Zerran]

@Killerwing.

Where did I say I was using an Intel Core i3? I said I was using an AMD FX 6300, and considering it's unlocked and meant to be overclocked, what should stop me from doing that? And did you read what kind of GTX 960 I have? It's the type that's meant to be overclocked. I understand basic voltage and advanced overclocking, so I'm not going to end up destroying my stuff any time soon.

You seem to have missed a few details. You can turn off SweetFX without restarting PSO2. Press Delete. You can bind a different key if you prefer, but the default is Delete. Assuming you're using RadeonPro's SweetFX, in which case Gameguard won't mess with you. It didn't mess with me so far, anyway. And there's a trick to getting it to work. Before you start RadeonPro, go to your PSO2 folder, and dig through it until you find the Gameguard folder and Gameguard.des file. Delete them. Start up RadeonPro and go through the triggers of getting to PSO2 Tweaker. Then, use the Fix Gameguard option in the Tweaker. Then launch the game. Presto, SweetFX works. If this doesn't work the first time, delete the same folder and file again, restart your PC, then only open RadeonPro first when you log in to your desktop.

The default Anti-Aliasing chops my framerate a lot despite being very lazy, so I'd rather not use it. I'm comfortable using SMAA + FXAA and Anisotropic Filtering at this point, as well as RadeonPro's HBAO. No framedrops and the game looks much better this way.