Unable to force SSAA, unacceptable shimmering and jaggies.

[nyubi]

Hi guys.

I have tried everything I know, but I am unable to force SSAA on the game (ME1 LE in this case, but tried ME3 LE as well with the same results).

I tried the Nvidia Control Panel override with global settings and also program specific ones to no avail.

With the original trilogy Nvidia Profile Inspector with the right AA compatibility bits worked wonders, managed to set the desired SSAA on all 3 games (4x-8x and also the transparency supersampling SGSSAA 4x-8x) and it looked great, no shimmering edges, nice smooth lines, no jaggies.

With this game nothing seems to work, the graphics looks exactly the same, no matter what I try to set outside the game.

It seems like it's all been blocked, as if the game doesn't allow any external override.

This is very disappointing as this was the main reason I've been looking forward to the Legendary Edition... to max out the graphics and relive the trilogy.
By far my favourite games ever, but it's just simply not enjoyable this way.

Has anyone managed to resolve this and if yes how and with what type of hardware?
I've got a 1080ti by the way with the latest driver.

I still have the original ME3 installed and Nvidia Profile Inspector still works great on that game, so I am completely out of ideas.

Any suggestion is much appreciated, I am thinking about requesting a refund if possible. :(

Thank you.

[Ausanan]

Origineel geplaatst door Aleque:

Origineel geplaatst door Ausanan:

Have you tried Reshade? You can use that to apply SMAA as well as other AA options. I used that with forcing AA in the Nvidia control panel and it worked for me.

Does it really work for you? And yes, I tried Reshade with FXAA, TAA and SMAA modules. It doesn't seem to do much. Same with Nvidia settings.

Can you please be so kind and tell me exactly how you did it, step by step? Which Reshade modules do you run? Have you tweaked their settings? Which exact Nvidia settings have you changed? And also on ME2 Normandy by the cook, do the edges really look smooth in the background without flickering?

Sorry, those are a lot of questions and you don't have to reply if you don't want to. But I am a bit desperate and frustrated by this.


As far as I understood (from the topics below), Nvidia settings are not working because Origin / launcher dominates and prevents any changes to the exe, or something like that.

A bit about my system: GTX 1070 gpu with latest drivers, Win 10 fully updated.


---

Btw here are other topics that also struggle with this:

https://www.resetera.com/threads/psa-if-you-are-bothered-by-aliasing-do-not-play-mass-effect-2-or-3-legendary-edition-on-pc-play-the-fully-modded-original-releases-instead.434480/page-2

https://www.resetera.com/threads/improve-anti-aliasing-in-mass-effect-2-and-3-on-pc.431633/

https://answers.ea.com/t5/Mass-Effect-Legendary-Edition/Anti-aliasing-and-flickering-jagged-edges/td-p/10363851

Yes it works for me. For the Nvidia Control Panel you need to select the individual game .exe's inside the legendary edition folder. Make sure any settings you select are set to "Override Application Settings".

As for Reshade. The only additional package i selected on install other than the default one was called "Ashtray" If I recall correctly. In the brief description of the package it will specifically mention that it includes Anti Aliasing options.

Then in-game when configuring Reshade. The only options I selected were "SMAA" and "LumaSharpen". Though you could also enable "FXAA" as well if you want. I've personally left them at the default values but you can play around with them.

NOTE:
I have completely disabled DoF in all three games, and the AA in the games seems to be linked to the DoF. So if you have DoF still enabled. I'm not sure how big the difference may be.

[Aleq]

Origineel geplaatst door Ausanan:

Origineel geplaatst door Aleque:

Does it really work for you? And yes, I tried Reshade with FXAA, TAA and SMAA modules. It doesn't seem to do much. Same with Nvidia settings.

Can you please be so kind and tell me exactly how you did it, step by step? Which Reshade modules do you run? Have you tweaked their settings? Which exact Nvidia settings have you changed? And also on ME2 Normandy by the cook, do the edges really look smooth in the background without flickering?

Sorry, those are a lot of questions and you don't have to reply if you don't want to. But I am a bit desperate and frustrated by this.


As far as I understood (from the topics below), Nvidia settings are not working because Origin / launcher dominates and prevents any changes to the exe, or something like that.

A bit about my system: GTX 1070 gpu with latest drivers, Win 10 fully updated.


---

Btw here are other topics that also struggle with this:

https://www.resetera.com/threads/psa-if-you-are-bothered-by-aliasing-do-not-play-mass-effect-2-or-3-legendary-edition-on-pc-play-the-fully-modded-original-releases-instead.434480/page-2

https://www.resetera.com/threads/improve-anti-aliasing-in-mass-effect-2-and-3-on-pc.431633/

https://answers.ea.com/t5/Mass-Effect-Legendary-Edition/Anti-aliasing-and-flickering-jagged-edges/td-p/10363851

Yes it works for me. For the Nvidia Control Panel you need to select the individual game .exe's inside the legendary edition folder. Make sure any settings you select are set to "Override Application Settings".

As for Reshade. The only additional package i selected on install other than the default one was called "Ashtray" If I recall correctly. In the brief description of the package it will specifically mention that it includes Anti Aliasing options.

Then in-game when configuring Reshade. The only options I selected were "SMAA" and "LumaSharpen". Though you could also enable "FXAA" as well if you want. I've personally left them at the default values but you can play around with them.

NOTE:
I have completely disabled DoF in all three games, and the AA in the games seems to be linked to the DoF. So if you have DoF still enabled. I'm not sure how big the difference may be.

I did as you instructed. Reshade with LumaSharpen and SMAA (previously also used FXAA and TAA). And the Nvidia settings that you suggested. Plus a bit more from this guide: https://www.reddit.com/r/masseffect/comments/nd4725/put_that_gpu_to_work_turn_on_supersampling/


Here is what it looks like:

My Nvidia settings: https://www.dropbox.com/s/6uw83lz7h8q040r/NVIDIA_SETTINGS.png?dl=0

In-game recording: https://www.dropbox.com/s/354yisqpt8ucsuq/EDGES.mkv?dl=0

And I even used a special config file to remove DoF, improve shadows, etc. (the 2k version), from here: https://www.nexusmods.com/masseffectlegendaryedition/mods/50?tab=files

I just don't know what to do. Some people say it's impossible to fix, and others, like yourself, say that you have fixed it. I'm not sure what to believe. Are you running 4k or higher? Because I run on a 1440p monitor. And I even tried DSR (4k resolution on 1440p monitor) and the edges that do flicker and shimmer keep doing so no matter the setting.

Couldn't it be that my ME2.exe is not being affected by any of these settings for a reason? Because when I do force it to "run as admin" or even make its shortcut elevated using Winaero Tweaker the game doesn't start from the launcher, where you select one of the three games.

EDIT: more info on the subject https://forums.guru3d.com/threads/nvidia-anti-aliasing-guide-updated.357956/page-244#post-5912331

EDIT2: I also just wrote a mail directly to BioWare

[nyubi]

This first one goes back a little earlier, I just didn't see the last page, sorry and didn't wanna lose all this...

[Damn right, had to buy it too, somebody else might have gotten it wrong... :)

Interesting thing about the DX stuff, I just do not want to and am not willing to give up on this completely,

I have a friend who's an expert in UE3 and 4 and programs is C++, might be worth a shot to pick his brains and try to bribe him to spend some time on this if the "only the launcher has been updated to DX11" thing is true as Herr Brot mentioned it, but I'm afraid that all 3 games might have been updated to DX11 which is a bloody shame.

It's very hard to let something as great as SGSSAA (and even MSAA) go without putting up a 'fight', I can't understand why they decided to drop the support on this...]

Aleque I've got a 4K screen and it doesn't make things better... ok the native resolution is higher, but still all I can see is the jagged edges and weird lines.

I think all these FXAA, TAA, etc... 'injection' mods are only attempts to cover up the whole thing instead of solving it, I just can't enjoy it.

I'm so glad that after a few weeks this whole thing kicked off at several sources... that doesn't guarantee, that something's gonna be done, but it proves that it's not just me being so hard to please...

And thanks everyone for trying to solve this, work has been 'holding me back from fun' recently, it was a real joy to rejoin the discussion and see this many comments.

[Aleq]

Here is another suspicion I have, why this game refuses to inherit settings from Nvidia Control Panel, namely AA settings, etc. After reading several posts, and after my own experience, it turns out, that this game cannot be launched "as administrator".


Also, this is the first game ever that didn't work on my Windows 7 partition (I use a super-admin account). I seriously never seen a game do that. Lucky for me I have a Windows 10 partition and the game launched without problems... except the flickering edges, ofcourse. So I think therefore, that Windows 7 is much better at launching programs as they are, with full rights and full access to files etc. But due to EA's DRM / protection, I think they prevented this (modifying the files of the game) to avoid piracy. I'm not an expert, but this is my theory at least.

By the way I just watched a streamer on Twitch who was playing ME2 on console and this problem was also really bad there. Some edges and textures in the background of Citadel and the space prison level were flickering so bad, like disco lights, that it made my own flickering look good, in comparison. So I don't think this problem is PC exclusive.

I just think that a lot of people play this game without any expectations and they don't really care about these little things. But for those of us who have been looking forward to playing this remastered game it's a problem.

I just don't understand, why they updated it to DX11 from DX9, if it causes more problems than it solves. (DX11 also seems to have fewer of these AA flags, whatever that means). As I said, I am no expert, but I guess the reason they updated to DX11, is because they could add some fancy lighting, high-res textures or something, but the problem is of course the flickering edges. And I don't think they took THAT into account.

I would really appreciate it if your friend could take a look at this. I'm willing to bribe him as well, if he could make this work somehow - or at least make it look better.

As I previously mentioned, somewhere on the Internet, I had a similar problem with Alien Isolation. Some background edges were jagged and flickering, and you could especially see that if you were moving around. But some guy managed to fix it with a mod. I know that it's a different story with MELE, but maybe something similar can be done here. Here is a link to Alien Isolation mod: https://www.reddit.com/r/alienisolation/comments/508aet/alias_isolation_an_antialiasing_mod/


Aleque I've got a 4K screen and it doesn't make things better... ok the native resolution is higher, but still all I can see is the jagged edges and weird lines. <-- I'm kind of glad, that I'm not the only one, but it still sucks, dude. And I know exactly the feeling. I play on 1440p monitor and I tried DSR (4k) but it doesn't help. It only makes my game lag, and I still see the jaggies.

I think all these FXAA, TAA, etc... 'injection' mods are only attempts to cover up the whole thing instead of solving it, I just can't enjoy it.<-- Yes, that is my impression as well. Reshade, DSR, Nvidia settings - nothing seems to work. The only thing that seems to help a little is removing DoF. So when I talk to the cook in ME2, the outline of my character's back doesn't look as weird. But the jaggies are still there.


Also, I think you should write a mail to BioWare: contact AT bioware dot com, and tell them about this problem. I already did. They need to know that they must fix this, or at least look into this and let us know the things we need to know to fix it ourselves.

And here is a list with some of the topics I found with this exact issue:

https://answers.ea.com/t5/Mass-Effect-Legendary-Edition/Anti-aliasing-and-flickering-jagged-edges/td-p/10363851

https://www.reddit.com/r/masseffect/comments/nd4725/put_that_gpu_to_work_turn_on_supersampling/ <-- someone appears to make it work but I doubt it, because I tried this and it doesn't work

https://www.resetera.com/threads/improve-anti-aliasing-in-mass-effect-2-and-3-on-pc.431633/

https://www.resetera.com/threads/psa-if-you-are-bothered-by-aliasing-do-not-play-mass-effect-2-or-3-legendary-edition-on-pc-play-the-fully-modded-original-releases-instead.434480/

Really hoping that someone with proper knowledge can help us fix it.

[nyubi]

I've managed to get in touch with my friend and a first thing he's suggesting is to try and use Renderdoc...

https://renderdoc.org/

This will put an overlay in the game when it starts (if we manage to start it with it) that should tell us if the new games are actually DX9 or DX11.

I can't do this at the moment, because in my drunken rage last time I've uninstalled ME LE and reinstalled Andromeda and I just don't have the time to wait for a reinstall right now.
(Will do it tomorrow though).

I know this is not much, but if the game starts with this it will definitely tell us the DX version.
No guarantee, but worth a shot.

Also he is just as confused that the games wouldn't start in administrator mode, there must be some *sh1tty* sorcery going on with those new .exe files...

Something more to look into... See you soon, will keep you updated.

[Aleq]

Origineel geplaatst door nyubi:

I've managed to get in touch with my friend and a first thing he's suggesting is to try and use Renderdoc...

https://renderdoc.org/

This will put an overlay in the game when it starts (if we manage to start it with it) that should tell us if the new games are actually DX9 or DX11.

I can't do this at the moment, because in my drunken rage last time I've uninstalled ME LE and reinstalled Andromeda and I just don't have the time to wait for a reinstall right now.
(Will do it tomorrow though).

I know this is not much, but if the game starts with this it will definitely tell us the DX version.
No guarantee, but worth a shot.


Also he is just as confused that the games wouldn't start in administrator mode, there must be some *sh1tty* sorcery going on with those new .exe files...

Something more to look into... See you soon, will keep you updated.

I have installed RenderDoc. What exactly should I be looking for and where?

This is the current log when running the program with ME2 (Legendary): https://pastebin.com/RdfrNrn2


EDIT: More similar topics:

https://www.reddit.com/r/masseffect/comments/noenkb/mass_effect_legendary_edition_pc_antialiasing/

https://nordic.ign.com/news/46344/mass-effect-legendary-edition-update-includes-even-more-visual-improvements <-- "https://nordic.ign.com/news/46344/mass-effect-legendary-edition-update-includes-even-more-visual-improvements" <-- "the engine won't support TAA afaik. you're right even with the higher res it doesn't look as clean as modern games generally do."

https://www.resetera.com/threads/mass-effect-legendary-edition-pc-performance-thread.425798/page-7#post-65385521 <-- Search for "jaggies" and "aliasing"

[nyubi]

Origineel geplaatst door Aleque:

Origineel geplaatst door nyubi:

I've managed to get in touch with my friend and a first thing he's suggesting is to try and use Renderdoc...

https://renderdoc.org/

This will put an overlay in the game when it starts (if we manage to start it with it) that should tell us if the new games are actually DX9 or DX11.

I can't do this at the moment, because in my drunken rage last time I've uninstalled ME LE and reinstalled Andromeda and I just don't have the time to wait for a reinstall right now.
(Will do it tomorrow though).

I know this is not much, but if the game starts with this it will definitely tell us the DX version.
No guarantee, but worth a shot.


Also he is just as confused that the games wouldn't start in administrator mode, there must be some *sh1tty* sorcery going on with those new .exe files...

Something more to look into... See you soon, will keep you updated.

I have installed RenderDoc. What exactly should I be looking for and where?

This is the current log when running the program with ME2 (Legendary): https://pastebin.com/RdfrNrn2


EDIT: More similar topics:

https://www.reddit.com/r/masseffect/comments/noenkb/mass_effect_legendary_edition_pc_antialiasing/

https://nordic.ign.com/news/46344/mass-effect-legendary-edition-update-includes-even-more-visual-improvements <-- "https://nordic.ign.com/news/46344/mass-effect-legendary-edition-update-includes-even-more-visual-improvements" <-- "the engine won't support TAA afaik. you're right even with the higher res it doesn't look as clean as modern games generally do."

https://www.resetera.com/threads/mass-effect-legendary-edition-pc-performance-thread.425798/page-7#post-65385521 <-- Search for "jaggies" and "aliasing"

So sorry to leave you without an answer for so long.

I simply can't deal with this now due to personal reasons.

My mum's been taken to the hospital with blood clots in her lungs, so this here is my least concern now, but I appreciate all your comments and willingness to try to solve this.

I'll get back into the loop as soon as I can, just wanted to say that I'm not sh1tt1ng on everything, but life got in the way...

Wishing you all good health, take care.

[FoureyesZero]

Running the game at 1440p it looks great just increase the resolution.

[Aleq]

Origineel geplaatst door nyubi:

Origineel geplaatst door Aleque:

I have installed RenderDoc. What exactly should I be looking for and where?

This is the current log when running the program with ME2 (Legendary): https://pastebin.com/RdfrNrn2


EDIT: More similar topics:

https://www.reddit.com/r/masseffect/comments/noenkb/mass_effect_legendary_edition_pc_antialiasing/

https://nordic.ign.com/news/46344/mass-effect-legendary-edition-update-includes-even-more-visual-improvements <-- "https://nordic.ign.com/news/46344/mass-effect-legendary-edition-update-includes-even-more-visual-improvements" <-- "the engine won't support TAA afaik. you're right even with the higher res it doesn't look as clean as modern games generally do."

https://www.resetera.com/threads/mass-effect-legendary-edition-pc-performance-thread.425798/page-7#post-65385521 <-- Search for "jaggies" and "aliasing"

So sorry to leave you without an answer for so long.

I simply can't deal with this now due to personal reasons.

My mum's been taken to the hospital with blood clots in her lungs, so this here is my least concern now, but I appreciate all your comments and willingness to try to solve this.

I'll get back into the loop as soon as I can, just wanted to say that I'm not sh1tt1ng on everything, but life got in the way...

Wishing you all good health, take care.

Sucks to hear, dude. I wish that your Mom will get well soon.

[stulli_das_brot]

a short explanation why i think this won't be fixed: just because there is nothing to be fixed. the effects we are talking about are not a bug or an AA/rendering issue. imho what we are seeing simply is the gameengine at work. doing the exact same thing it already did in ME original. but: ME original featured an ingame 4×msaa (and of course driver-enforced 8×msaa(including modes using additional color-samples like qmsaa)+8sgssaa/, which is (even without (sg)ssaa) so much more powerfull than MELE's postfx. so...we didn't see these effects in MEO just because this fundamentaly superior AA-solution(s) did a much better job than (temporal)fxaa/taa ever could. dsr seems to be working (confirmed...fraps-counter changes size when switching dsr-factor)...but as i understand ONLY if your win desktop-resolution = ME's render-resolution and your game is running in fullscreen. and yes: looks like all 3 games are running in dx11 mode (+launcher). this seems to be necessary due to gameengines completely new (global)illumination-system which requires dx11 features. hbao+(now being an essential part of this illu-system) does not require dx11 and in MEO/dx9.0c easily can be forced via NV-inspector. one last thing: for all dx11 games not using deferred rendering, there is no technical reason for nvidia to not support them with compatibilty flags. it's just nvidias policy to not provide aa-flags for dx11 games. for those who are interested: there is (or was, don't know the actual standing) a petition trying to change this. can find it (think so) on 3dguru's website

[Lilith]

Origineel geplaatst door nyubi:

Hi guys.

I have tried everything I know, but I am unable to force SSAA on the game (ME1 LE in this case, but tried ME3 LE as well with the same results).

I tried the Nvidia Control Panel override with global settings and also program specific ones to no avail.

With the original trilogy Nvidia Profile Inspector with the right AA compatibility bits worked wonders, managed to set the desired SSAA on all 3 games (4x-8x and also the transparency supersampling SGSSAA 4x-8x) and it looked great, no shimmering edges, nice smooth lines, no jaggies.

With this game nothing seems to work, the graphics looks exactly the same, no matter what I try to set outside the game.

It seems like it's all been blocked, as if the game doesn't allow any external override.

This is very disappointing as this was the main reason I've been looking forward to the Legendary Edition... to max out the graphics and relive the trilogy.
By far my favourite games ever, but it's just simply not enjoyable this way.

Has anyone managed to resolve this and if yes how and with what type of hardware?
I've got a 1080ti by the way with the latest driver.

I still have the original ME3 installed and Nvidia Profile Inspector still works great on that game, so I am completely out of ideas.

Any suggestion is much appreciated, I am thinking about requesting a refund if possible. :(

Thank you.

they changed to dx11 and how rendering of lighting works now , its impossible to force msaa in this game without the devs writing a hack work around for it. This game should have launched with TAA not the fxaa it is currently still using. Since for the past 10 years people still do not understand msaa is not compatible with deferred rendering of lighting and has issues with dx11 in general you can not force it to work cause the info is no longer there in the buffer to grab from. The original mass effect games never supported msaa btw they had fxaa you had to change how the driver was handling things to force msaa, and to the guy above you have no idea what your talking about TAA is superior to msaa all day and night ever day of the week considering taa is a reconstruction filter that uses post aa to fix pixel info and can use supersampling or a msaa buffer in addition to it and most taa solutions do use supersampling.

[stulli_das_brot]

"TAA is superior to msaa all day and night ever day of the week considering taa is a reconstruction filter that uses post aa to fix pixel info and can use supersampling or a msaa buffer in addition to it and most taa solutions do use supersampling."
wow. when did this magic moment happen? but seriously: (long answer)dealing with aliasing-effects as a signal-to-noise ratio problem, your superduper fxaa has only one job: add more noise. a sorry, i forgot: talking about taa (as i said: a pimped fxaa + temporal component=taa right?) meaning: adding a temporal noise to an (after soften/edge detection) allready blurry frame. but of course you are right: adding temporal probably would be very effective on edge-flicker by adding so much noise (clearly visible blurry) making the whole frame so noisy that a (~) diskret signal (clraely visible as flicker etc) becomes invisible by being blurred. no problem: just add another postfx like lumasharpen....and there it is: this blurry/crispy/synthetic-postfx look we all do love so much. ms/ss on the other side: being designed to determin the exact color of each pixel needed to create the illusion of a curve from an object looking like a stairway (depending on resolition). by doing so, ms/ss adds an exactly calculated noise on all edges (including edges of transparent textures), using the signal-to-noise ratio to create the illusion of curve. in this process, edge flickering is eliminated on the fly (depending on the angles between the object-edge, the ms/ss grid and your monitors columns/rows (being the only physical parameter, max/min/target signal-to-noise ratio is defined by this one). at this point, downsampling/dsr behaves as ogssaa, so the supesampling-grid and the monitor's columns/rows always are parallel, making it difficult to handle vertical/horizontal texture-edges even on highest dsr-factors...leading directly to the effects being subject of this thread.
short answer: never, not in 22.7 billion years, not in this universe and in no other universe, postfx-aa is even close to ms/ss's capabilities.
second: how could a supersampling-grid (except dsr) posibly work with a softening-algorithm? ok. enough.
at one point you were completely right: it is a fact that ME1 had no ingame msaa. nearly could not believe this. i was sure that there is an ini-command setting "maxmultisamples"....but you're right, no ingame msaa.