No antialiasing?

[Groen90]

I've only looked at the menu for now, but even at 1920x1080 the edges are all pixelated... I don't mind playing like this but if there's a way to enable it, you know, would look better.

[Oddar]

There are some threads deeper in the forum with solutions using either Nvidia Inspector or SweetFX.

[rim6o]

There seem to be *some* AA implemented in Styx but it doesn't seem enough. There's no need to resort to 4rd party tools like SweetFX. Try forcing 8x AA in your driver setting control panel.

[Groen90]

I might have overestimated the issue a little bit, I couldn't play right away and just took a quick look through the options... after playing for a bit I can say it's not so bad, I can barely notice it, but on the title screen those edges look like... staircases... I'll try enabling some antialiasing through the catalyst control thing then, if it gets annoying.

[astrix]

I've played with forced FXAA and it look good, for the moment. I have been looking in the games settings files and find among others, this line "SettingValues=(Key="MaxMultiSamples",CurrentValue=5,LastValue=5,bModified=False)" .. and this "SettingDescs=(Key="MaxMultiSamples",DisplayKey=,Values=("1","2","4","8","16","32"),DisplayValues=,Type=SettingType_Bool,Category=SettingCategory_Video,bCanCycle=True,bAutoUpdate=False)"

when i count to five i get to 16xMSAA! This is certainly NOT enabled...

I don't bother dissecting and experimenting with the settings files more bot in most games with unreal engine an AA flag is needed (nvidia) to use MSAA either by in game setting or forced.

If anyone have a working AA key to use with nvidia inspector it may solve the isssue and make forcing AA possible...

I have heard "of orcs and men" profile works for SLI, but what about AA? ... well, going with FXAA as for now. Does not make the game blurred :)

[himmatsj]

This game has built in AA. The jaggies are really hard to be seen at 1080p

[astrix]

Originally posted by himmatsj:

This game has built in AA. The jaggies are really hard to be seen at 1080p

it's quite obvious jaggies on the start screen.. and I play at 1440p! in game it is not so obvous because of much dark scenes I guess. I am trying different AA bits now and one from another thread here for enabling SGSSAA, 0x080000C1, is working but maxing out my 780 Ti ... also some color issues, so no go. I am trying out 0x000100C5 now which is promising, but have to compare with no bit again to make sure ;) ... This game IS lacking a nvidia profile so we have to do the best of it...

(I think it's fun, to find games made with same engine (unreal 3) and try their bits... Every bit I have tried have had some PROs but most CONs :D )

EDIT: For now after a bit playing around I have settled with making a profile for the game but leave it defaul... that is about exatly the same as having no profile at all! This game is rather demanding at full settings/1440p! It draw about 85-90% of my 780 Ti! ^^

[Drowning witch]

Picture of settings for the newbies.

http://i.imgur.com/dVhdY1A.jpg

On my gtx 660, this + SMAA from bolotaurs sweetfx 64bit edition is extremely playable at 1680x1050. 4x was too laggy.

better gpu's could set 4x multi and sparse grid sampling or more (always set both values the same)


this is what the game looks like with the above mentioned settings. of course, imgur does jpeg compression so colors look worse than they actually are in game.

http://imgur.com/de96ZjO
http://imgur.com/K4taa10
http://imgur.com/j1MruIf
http://imgur.com/nfslovA

[astrix]

Originally posted by Drowning witch:

Picture of settings for the newbies.

http://i.imgur.com/dVhdY1A.jpg

On my gtx 660, this + SMAA from bolotaurs sweetfx 64bit edition is extremely playable at 1680x1050. 4x was too laggy.

better gpu's could set 4x multi and sparse grid sampling or more (always set both values the same)

sweetfx is great for advanced users who want to tinker with a lot of color settings etc. FXAA on nvidia is far better AA IMO than SMAA (AMD post fx AA) and FXAA can easily be enabled in STYX game profile - you have to make a profile in nvcp by adding the executable since no profile from nvidiaexist. SHAME!

i have 780 Ti. Tried the SGSSAA bit (tried many bits that was disclosed in threads eg. here and other bits from similar UE3 games..) and even 4x SGSSAA maxed my card and made the game stutter in places. All other efforts (except sweetfx or mods), adding AA bits and overriding ingame AA, WHITCH IS THERE^^, made the game look no better/worse and made so huge perf jump it was not worth it.

tl;dr
want easy postFX aa in Styx turn on FXAA in nvcp!

[rim6o]

Anti-aliasing on AMD in styx
6850, cat 14.9, win 7 x64
1920x1080

Today I've learned about AMD's post processing* AA called Morphological Filtering (MLAA)
http://m.hardocp.com/article/2010/11/02/amd_morphological_aa_performance_iq_review/1
http://m.hardocp.com/image.html?image=MTI4ODU5NjgwNkpEc1pGSzFiQUVfMV8xX2wuZ2lm
and while I was at it I grabbed some shots for comparison. * means it's applied just before the image gets to your display so it should always work regardless of the game or any other stuff, even in vintage DirectX games.

My conclusions:
- the alleged built-in AA of STYX (FXAA?) does not work at all (on my system)
- MLAA does not work for STYX on my system which is especially baffling considering *
- on Radeon 6850 supersampling (SSAA) or even adaptive- as well as edge-detect method are out of question due to performance impact ; it handles MSAA 8x fine with VSync disabled though

Here's a lossless image slices comparing:
MSAA 8x
MLAA only
Styx built-in AA (FXAA?) ; or any at all?!
MLAA + MSAA 2x
https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=66CF2646234394FC!29831&authkey=!AIZwWfGhfA4VlmA&v=3&ithint=photo%2cpng

Originally posted by jogibeard:

I've played with forced FXAA and it look good, for the moment. I have been looking in the games settings files and find among others, this line "SettingValues=(Key="MaxMultiSamples",CurrentValue=5,LastValue=5,bModified=False)" .. and this "SettingDescs=(Key="MaxMultiSamples",DisplayKey=,Values=("1","2","4","8","16","32"),DisplayValues=,Type=SettingType_Bool,Category=SettingCategory_Video,bCanCycle=True,bAutoUpdate=False)"

Could you provide the file path for the particular config file and how you actually alter the settings?

[astrix]

Originally posted by rim6o:

Originally posted by jogibeard:

I've played with forced FXAA and it look good, for the moment. I have been looking in the games settings files and find among others, this line "SettingValues=(Key="MaxMultiSamples",CurrentValue=5,LastValue=5,bModified=False)" .. and this "SettingDescs=(Key="MaxMultiSamples",DisplayKey=,Values=("1","2","4","8","16","32"),DisplayValues=,Type=SettingType_Bool,Category=SettingCategory_Video,bCanCycle=True,bAutoUpdate=False)"

Could you provide the file path for the particular config file and how you actually alter the settings?

Steam\SteamApps\common\Styx\StyxGame\Config

the file DefaultSettings.ini

I have no idea where the actual config file used is, I guess this is only a template. I have not tried locating the actual config file just saw these lines and guessed they ment there was some MSAA going on based off of it... I have tried (nvidia) AA bits for many games with same engine then trying to force different kinds of AA but the end result have always been either too heavy on system and/or different problems regarding lighting, shading, physics etc.

I guess we have to take this game as is, maybe sweetfx or GeDoSaTo can help? Some time since I played the game but now, after latest driver from nvidia, I can force downsampling through my drivers^^ ... anyway GeDoSaTo does the same and some say it's better i dont know.

[rim6o]

@jogibeard
Yesterday I've discovered that there's a Styx profile in ...\My Documents\My Games\Styx\...

As for AA, as you can see on my AMD graphics the built-in Styx AA does not work but the forced 8x MSAA works and looks great.

[astrix]

Originally posted by rim6o:

@jogibeard
Yesterday I've discovered that there's a Styx profile in ...\My Documents\My Games\Styx\...

As for AA, as you can see on my AMD graphics the built-in Styx AA does not work but the forced 8x MSAA works and looks great.

Hehe first place I looked for the conf file yesterday after reading tour post was in My Documents, but I've reinstalled (completely) my computer since I played the game and havent started it yet so guess thats why I didn't find anything there :) .. I play a lot with The Witcher 2 config there - the games configurator is BS... ^^

AAnyway lol. Do you force it through some catalyst control panel? For nvidia I have to make a profile for the game, which is "default" since nvidia haven't gotten their act together and made a real profile which contain a lot of useful info making the game work with AA etc... (like they with the latest driver came up with a profile for "how to survive" and now it's looking/playing muuch better) then use 3. party app like nvidiaInspector to tweak the profile.When I tried forcing different AA (except FXAA) through driver, end result was rubbish.

How does the game play? Very often a screenshot "lie" that is it looks nice or improved but when actually playing the game you notice shimmering/scintillating/bleeding etc. Anyway glad you found a way to improve on the games AA. It deserves it. The graphics is somewhat old/simple so some nice AA give it a mich nicer look. This game would have benefited great from some sort of SSAA on top of whatever is there plus a profile from nvidia/AMD? to make it work!

BTW: I HAVE tried forcing AA that did NOT work, the end result being much worse than the game is now meaning there IS AA going on, only weak MSAA i guess, like turning on 2xMSAA in wow, but it's there... (i belive *cough*)



EDIT: (much to read huh?) .. Took a close look at your screenshot and your forced 8xMSAA looks like a (very) improved version of the original. That is the MLAA is blurring somewhat the whole scene. Again interested in how you forced the AA if it was just plain driver forcing? And how did the game play afterwards much regarding the performance!

[rim6o]

The exact path seems to be
C:\Users\<yourusername>\Documents\My Games\Styx\StyxGame\Config

How I forced the AA:
Plain AMD CCC (standard driver settings), profile for c:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Styx\Binaries\Win64\StyxGame.exe
(because I'm on 64-bit Win 7)

Performance impact:
Without forcing any AA Styx ran maxed-out with vsync at 40+ FPS. After forcing MSAA 8x I had to disable Vsync and even this don't save me from occasional drops to 30 FPS. These are my estimates because MSI afterburner does not work for FPS display with Styx. All in all the change didn't bring the performance to an uncomfortable level for me. Ballpark guess: drop in performance by 20%.

Inadvertent graphical effects, glitches, image quality:
Huge increase in image quality as demonstrated by the image comparison posted above.
No shimmering.
Artifacts in a form of occasional ~4x4 bright pixel flashes (white, pink). Acceptably rare and usually at certain locations).

[astrix]

Originally posted by rim6o:

The exact path seems to be
C:\Users\<yourusername>\Documents\My Games\Styx\StyxGame\Config

How I forced the AA:
Plain AMD CCC (standard driver settings), profile for c:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Styx\Binaries\Win64\StyxGame.exe
(because I'm on 64-bit Win 7)

Performance impact:
Without forcing any AA Styx ran maxed-out with vsync at 40+ FPS. After forcing MSAA 8x I had to disable Vsync and even this don't save me from occasional drops to 30 FPS. These are my estimates because MSI afterburner does not work for FPS display with Styx. All in all the change didn't bring the performance to an uncomfortable level for me. Ballpark guess: drop in performance by 20%.

Inadvertent graphical effects, glitches, image quality:
Huge increase in image quality as demonstrated by the image comparison posted above.
No shimmering.
Artifacts in a form of occasional ~4x4 bright pixel flashes (white, pink). Acceptably rare and usually at certain locations).

I have a 780 Ti so this game with physx on, no fps monitoring as you said but I used gpu monitor running on my phone, used approx 40-50% GPU maxed as-is. (60 FPS vsync)

When I tried forcing AA, even with a "working" AA bit I found on guru3d.com, the game started using 80-90% GPU with 8x msaa, SGSSAA applied did max my GPU and made the game look awful except no AA lol. That intro screen is, as far as I played the game and remember, about the worst/best place to study the impact of AA because you have this "frozen" scene with buildings in contrast to skies, you are focusing on Styxs ears ;) etc. Playing the game is a different story remembering the thing bothering me most was pixel crawling on some straight lines eg. some shelves with glassbottles. When applying FXAA it did blur the image somewhat BUT while lurking inside the caste in the shadows I did not find it distracting...

[rim6o]

The menu is not really the most demanding. If you see aliasing there you'll also going to see aliasing and shimmering on distant characters while playing for example. This particular case I find the most severe. This happens because guards usually stay in well lit areas. And so they are well lit :) and with high contrasting elements.