Howto: Enable anti-aliasing in "full-screen" and without flickering

[Yirg]

To get this game to look nice you really need to enable anti-aliasing. The problem is that doing so usually results in flickering issues that can only be overcome in windowed mode, but this mode normally comes with an ugly title bar and borders. The following steps allowed me to get the game to work with full Anti-Aliasing, without any flickering and without any borders, just like full-screen mode. My card is an AMD HD 7850 and I'm using AMD Catalyst version 13.4.

The first step is to create a batch file that switches to the game's native 640x480 resolution, launches the game in a window, remove the title bar and moves the window a few pixels so there are no visible borders. Once you quit the game, the batch file sets the monitor to high resolution again (you'll need to define the exact values that match your monitor).

Download NirCmd from the bottom of this page:
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/nircmd.html

Extract it to a folder on your desktop

Create a batch file TLJ.cmd in the same folder. If Windows doesn't show file extensions, now is the time to enable it, otherwise you're likely to end up with some other extension (e.g. TLJ.cmd.txt).

Edit the file in Notepad and copy the following commands (without the hyphens) to it:

-------------------------------------------------------
nircmd.exe setdisplay 640 480 32
start steam://rungameid/6310
nircmd.exe wait 1000
nircmd.exe win -style process game.exe 0x00C00000
nircmd.exe win move process game.exe -2 -2
nircmd.exe waitprocess game.exe setdisplay 1680 1050 32
-------------------------------------------------------

Change the resolution values (1680 1050) in the last line to the values you normally use (e.g 1920 1080)

In Catalyst Control Center configure Anti-Aliasing as follows:

Under Gaming, click 3D Application Settings then click "Add..."
Browse the folder where the game is installed (e.g. C:\SteamLibrary\SteamApps\common\The Longest Journey\game.exe)
Define the settings as below:

-------------------------------------------------------
Anti-Aliasing Mode: Override
Anti-Aliasing Samples: 8x
Filter: Standard
Anti-Aliasing Method: Multisampling
Morphological Filtering: Off
Anisotropic Filtering Mode: Override
Anisotropic Filtering Level: 16x
Texture Filtering Level: High Quality
Syrface Format Optimizations: Off
Wait for Vertical Refresh: Off, unless app specifies
OpenGL Triple Buffering: Off
Tessellation Mode: Use app settings
Maximum Tessellation Level: Use app settings
-------------------------------------------------------

Edit the game preferences.ini file in Notepad and change its content so that the lines under the [DirectX] section are the same as the ones below. Alternatively, just overwrite the entire content with what's below, if you don't care about the other settings.

-------------------------------------------------------
[Preferences]
AudioDevice=autodetect
SfxVolume=1.000000
VoiceVolume=1.000000
MusicVolume=1.000000
bool_Subtitles=1
bool_AprilHighRes=1
bool_ShadowsOn=1
bool_AllowFastForward=0
[DirectX]
int_BitDepth=32
bool_ShadowsOn=1
bool_IsDoubleBuffer=1
bool_ForceSingleBuffer=0
bool_StartFullscreen=0
-------------------------------------------------------

This file is normally located in C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Roaming\The Longest Journey\
If you can't find the file, create it in this folder. Here too you'll need file extensions to be displayed to ensure that the file is created with the correct name.

Once done, just double click the TLJ.cmd batch file to launch the game :-)

Good luck!

[KAZ MILLER]

This didn't work for me and now I can't seem to get my version of the game out of window mode

[minefield]

Any word if this works with Nvidia cards?

[Yirg]

I'd assume it does (given that the very same issue is reported on those cards). Why not simply try? It's not that complicated...

[Opulent Device]

I just got this game, and after a few minutes of playing decided to try this fix. I followed all of the steps, but when I try to run the TLJ.cmd folder it only changed my computer's resolution and launches steam but not the game. What am I doing wrong?

[Yirg]

That's odd. Maybe try to replace:

call steam.exe -applaunch 6310

...with:
start steam://rungameid/6310

[Opulent Device]

That did the trick, thanks!

[Yirg]

Cool. I updated the script in the original post with this change.

[Demodulated]

Thanks very much for this guide. Note that antialiasing will only work on the 3D models and not the 2D backgrounds.

[Demodulated]

The 2D backgrounds are insanely gorgeous. This is one of the best looking (and best written) adventure games of all time!

[jakebgone]

You're all insanely gorgeous!

[E_Dreamer]

I get the same problems I've found every time I've tried to get AntiAlias to work on this game, and an Nvidia card - initially it looks gorgeous but some of the graphics don't show properly, such as the egg rolling from it's nest in the Prologue.

I've seen several solutions so far that promise to work for AMD but none so far that actually work for NVidia cards - has anyone found otherwise ?

Also of course the particular AA options from Catalyst given above are somewhat different on the NVidia settings, although they do share some in common. Perhaps it's an issue there, but if it is I haven't found an answer yet trying to tweak them

[Demodulated]

I seem to remmeber having issues with textures or models disappearing if I used very high antialiasing values like 32x or quincunx or MSAA. Try just 4x antialiasing and see if that works.

[E_Dreamer]

Thanks, will do...

[E_Dreamer]

No luck for me, even with AA at the minimum x2 and AF switched off. Thanks for the quick reply anyway

[malienvictor2004]

I figured out how to resolve the flickering issue when Anti-aliasing is on in Catalyst without having to go thru the trouble of running it in window mode. Run the configure.exe that is in the game folder and check force single buffer and it won't flicker in full screen.