Horrible Dots on Trees when using Anti Aliasing

[Sean]

When I use anti aliasing there are horrid dots on transparent textures such as trees whenever there is light behind them. It actually destroys the visiuals of the game. I've had a similar problem in Arma before and I know it's caused by anti-aliasing being applied to transparent textures. A quick way to fix this is to use FXAA or by adding an option to remove alpha to coverage. Is there any way to use FXAA in this game?

[F'tangg]

you can force an override using your driver software usually, or with third party programs like Radeon Pro, but forcing tis kind of AA may make other parts of the game look blurry, especially menu fonts and some livery textures. You may find that less distracting than the checkerboard transparencies though.

[F'tangg]

I tried out a few settings and most of the AA settings in-game will get rid of the alpha issues on my 270X. They only appear with AA off!

[Sean]

None of the forcing seems to work for me. It just uses the in-game type regardless. I'd take blurry over DOTS any day! I also have a 270x, They're there for me with any AA, but really only noticeable on less than 4x MSAA....which is what I need to use if I want 60FPS.

[F'tangg]

So I've had another look into this. There's an option in the hardware_settings_config.xml in My Games/DiRT Rally to enable aoit (adaptive order independent transparency). This gets rid of the dots and makes treetops look a little out of focus which is less distracting than the dots, BUT it KILLS your frame rate on a 270x, like, cuts it down to 30 average, 21 in places.

So many AMD users are reporting this issue. Since they're sponsoring the game you'd think they could shed some light on why this appears to happen on all graphic settings. AA improves it slightly, but doesn't get rid of it entirely.

[Wolfmann Mike]

Dots like that could be artifacts from OverHeating... i would use something like GPU-Z (google it and download from download.cnet.com), and check you temps by Alt+Tabbing out of game after a few minutes of racing.

This could be your issue, as AA takes up more resources, and thusly makes your card hotter.

[F'tangg]

引用自 *~DJ Limerick~*：

Dots like that could be artifacts from OverHeating... i would use something like GPU-Z (google it and download from download.cnet.com), and check you temps by Alt+Tabbing out of game after a few minutes of racing.

This could be your issue, as AA takes up more resources, and thusly makes your card hotter.

Nope, it's an issue with how the transparencies are being processed. The dots are uniform in a grid, basically an alpha mesh, not random artifacting caused by GPU issues.

These meshes are visible the moment the track loads on any trees and foliage, and appear regardless of graphics settings (unless you turn the object detail so low that transparency is disabled).

Furthermore, I've yet to hear anyone with an nVidia card complain about this, but plenty of AMD users, so clearly it's an AMD driver issue (I doubt the hardware can't handle it!)

I appreciate how it might sound like artifacting without seeing it for yourself, but it definitely isn't.

[Wolfmann Mike]

yeah, i usually air on the side of caution if no mention of temperature is there... good to know, but bad that it happens to AMD users...

I have an old GTX 480, had it on Ultra with medium undergrowth (or what they call it) and objects, but the heat on the card with GTX 480 archetecture is so it gets hot and runs hot, not much air conditioning so i turned down to High for everything and it looks a bit less stunning but i don't get any stutter from heat issues.

was running 92 degrees C sometimes...

[Sekiguchi]

I have the same issue (hd7880). I actually thought this was "normal", good to know it isn't supposed to look like that.

[F'tangg]

引用自 *~DJ Limerick~*：

yeah, i usually air on the side of caution if no mention of temperature is there... good to know, but bad that it happens to AMD users...

I have an old GTX 480, had it on Ultra with medium undergrowth (or what they call it) and objects, but the heat on the card with GTX 480 archetecture is so it gets hot and runs hot, not much air conditioning so i turned down to High for everything and it looks a bit less stunning but i don't get any stutter from heat issues.

was running 92 degrees C sometimes...

Just out of curiosity I ran GPUz and CoreTemp, ran through a long stage in Wales and checked the temps:

GPU: Max Temp 68 degrees C, Max Load 86%
CPU: Max Temp was core 0 at 63 degrees

[Rygar]

引用自 RealWeaponX：

引用自 *~DJ Limerick~*：

yeah, i usually air on the side of caution if no mention of temperature is there... good to know, but bad that it happens to AMD users...

I have an old GTX 480, had it on Ultra with medium undergrowth (or what they call it) and objects, but the heat on the card with GTX 480 archetecture is so it gets hot and runs hot, not much air conditioning so i turned down to High for everything and it looks a bit less stunning but i don't get any stutter from heat issues.

was running 92 degrees C sometimes...

Just out of curiosity I ran GPUz and CoreTemp, ran through a long stage in Wales and checked the temps:

GPU: Max Temp 68 degrees C, Max Load 86%
CPU: Max Temp was core 0 at 63 degrees

This happens on my Amd card too. Im wondering if their has been an official acknowledgement of the issue from codemasters?

Have they said they are trying to fix it?

[NETSCAPE]

I just got a R9 390 and this looks HORRID now. I had a gtx 760 and had no issues.

[Siph!]

I have the same issue on GTX780.

[GPCB]

my problem is like this -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqbJji6JPs4

[pierre_riv]

Hi everyone! I've fixed the dotted trees by setting Multisampling to 8xMSAA in the game.
Works fine for me on AMD GPU.

[Paul Kelleway]

Hi, I also had this issue with a Radeon 6870, there is an AA setting in the graphics options and at 8x it seems to eliminate it completely but frame rates are too slow. I found a nice balance using the 4xAA setting. The AA setting is not where you might think, its under "screen resolution" if i recall correctly (not in advanced graphics options as you would expect).

Anyway, I have everything set on high except crowds, mirrors and Anistropic filtering which are all set on low. This gives me an average of 50FPS using the in game system test with a lowest of 34FPS. If you are running on a large screen (like me 42inch via HTMI) then obviously these things will be much more apparent than if running on a 24 or 26 inch monitor. Hence why 4K is now being taken up by gamers running large screens.

Anyway my system is:
AMD Phenom 11 965 BE
8GB 1333MGHZ atock ram
Radeon 6870 1GB
Asus M5A78l-M Motherboard

All at factory settings, nothing overclocked.