Need assistance with graphics settings

[Aria Athena]

I want to get rid of this, which looks like some kind or sharpening effect,

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3015294986

but the only way I found how is with DLSS, or AA to be precise.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3015295367

The thing is, I hate those options, the blur they add really annoys me. Is there a way to make the image, well, no so terrible, without any kind of AA? I can't figure out what is causing it. I initially thought it's sharpening, but no matter what I've changed, either in-game or from nvidia control panel, the issue persists.

[Aria Athena]

Take two, go

[_Fell]

The shadows are undersamepled and TAA fills in the gap causing the shadow noise. they are rendered in screen space and not a classic shadow map, so they kinda tie in with your resolution, hence DLSS improving the shadow noise at higher qualities

[katzenkrimis]

You sure that's not just a resolution problem, because I can't see that happening with 2k or 4k on max settings.

I never have that problem in video games. And I only play 2k, max settings.

[Nats]

Dont use the AMD FSR setting it blurs the image quite a lot. Turn it off. Everything else set to High/Ultra if you can.

[_Fell]

thats what im saying, it is a resolution based problem. https://www.reddit.com/r/♥♥♥♥♥♥♥/comments/11qkcz0/could_my_graphics_issues_be_related_to_taa/

[dulany67]

All I can do is tell you what I have.

1440 highest settings with TAA and sharpening at 80 in the AMD software. But I find that TAA looks bad in resolutions lower than 1440.

[Aria Athena]

Originally posted by Nats:

Dont use the AMD FSR setting it blurs the image quite a lot. Turn it off. Everything else set to High/Ultra if you can.

FSR 1 is terrible, but I can't even stand DLSS quality, in this case at least. I do have everything at max, apart from DoF and AA, which are off.

Originally posted by dulany67:

All I can do is tell you what I have.

1440 highest settings with TAA and sharpening at 80 in the AMD software. But I find that TAA looks bad in resolutions lower than 1440.

I'm playing at 1080p and any kind of AA really bothers me. I think I tied DLAA with high sharpening, but it was through the control panel. I'll give it a try, see how it looks.

Originally posted by _Fell:

thats what im saying, it is a resolution based problem. https://www.reddit.com/r/♥♥♥♥♥♥♥/comments/11qkcz0/could_my_graphics_issues_be_related_to_taa/

This looks like the exact same issue and their solution was also AA.


Seems that if I don't want AA or DLSS, I'm stuck with it, which is not ideal tbh. It appears quite often during dialog close-ups too.

[-VG- Napster]

Originally posted by Aria Athena:

I want to get rid of this, which looks like some kind or sharpening effect,

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3015294986

but the only way I found how is with DLSS, or AA to be precise.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3015295367

The thing is, I hate those options, the blur they add really annoys me. Is there a way to make the image, well, no so terrible, without any kind of AA? I can't figure out what is causing it. I initially thought it's sharpening, but no matter what I've changed, either in-game or from nvidia control panel, the issue persists.

i have 2 possible solutions bu to be clear right from the start
you either need some form of Antialaising or Upscaling.

one involves some kind of antialiasing in this case DLAA
the other one is based on upscaling DLDSR+DLSS without Antialiasing
read into both try both then decide wich one you like best.

first of all i would recommend using DX11 in larian launcher (as i only tested it with DX11)

MAKE 100% sure geforce experience if installed does NOT autooptimize the game or applies any filters.

1) i assume using this settings with DLAA on DX11 potentialy already fixes it.
(latest gpu driver recommended)

Make sure game is set to fullscreen

Graphic settings General
put every setting to its highest value

Graphic settings Lighting
put every setting to its highest value

Graphic settings Post Process
Turn off DLSS
Turn off FSR1
Turn off FideltyFx Sharpening (checkbox)
Turn Antialiasing to DLAA (i think this option requires nvidia RTX gpu)
Ambient Occlusion ON
Depth of field OFF
God rays on
Bloom on
subsurface scattering on.

check your image quality now in game.
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2) < if you want to see if you still can get extra quality out while maintaining performance

This is the more performance demaning option and the differences maybe minimal until you look very closely thats also why we use DLSS here to mitigate the performance hit in this case DLSS will not scale up from 720p to a 1080p image instead it will use a higher resolution wich in the end will make DLSS look actualy great and better than a normal 1080p image

open nvidia control panel
Manage 3d Settings

Look for DSR - Factors
there should be 2 entries in the drop down field that state
1.78x DL < uses tensor cores (this is DLDSR requires RTX gpu)
2.25x DL < uses tensor cores (this is DLDSR reguires RTX gpu)
Enable both of them.
your screens will start flahsing for some seconds.
DSR-Smoothness let it at 33% < can be adjustet afterwards to your liking do not go below 33%

(this should get the same or very close to the same as a 4k image quality downscaled to 1080p with 50% less performance cost compared to standard DSR)

After that start the game
Switch to the highest resolution wich should be 2880x1620
Make sure youre in Fullscreen
and enable DLSS Quality
Disable Antialaising

check image quality ingame

this will make DLSS scale from a higher resolution wich means it will look a lot better in general

IMPORTANT alt tabbing maybe annoying when you do this as you may need to reset the resolution everytime you tab out.
wich means you tab back in you need to set it to 1920x1080 and then switch it back to 2880x1620 as otherwise the game maybe displayed distorted.
to fix this you would have to change your windows desktop resolution to 2880x1620 before you start the game that should fix alt+tabbing issues completly.

[Aria Athena]

Originally posted by -VG- Napster:

snip

I had already tried option 1 and looked rather blurry to me, but option 2 seems to work very well. Took me a while, because I had to go through a few hoops to get the dsr - factors option to appear, but it was worth it.

I don't notice any blur, the issue with the shadows is fixed, performance hit was minimal and alt-tabing is not an issue either (without increasing desktop resolution, which looked horrible).

Finally the game looks good and my eyes have stopped bleeding.

[Fortigan]

Originally posted by Aria Athena:

Originally posted by -VG- Napster:

snip

I had already tried option 1 and looked rather blurry to me, but option 2 seems to work very well. Took me a while, because I had to go through a few hoops to get the dsr - factors option to appear, but it was worth it.

I don't notice any blur, the issue with the shadows is fixed, performance hit was minimal and alt-tabing is not an issue either (without increasing desktop resolution, which looked horrible).

While I'm glad you found something that works for you, if you have a similar problem in the future it's VERY helpful if you actually post system specs and what graphic settings you are using. It's difficult to recommend solutions when we don't know what your system is capable of, what brand of GPU you are using, or even what setting you used to produce the results you don't like.