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Alucard_LV0 Jan 28, 2019 @ 5:34pm
FXAA+TAA or SMAA, what do you prefer?
I play in 1440p with 110% resolution, so I don't have jagged edges of any sort. I was just wondering what do you guys prefer, I find FXAA+TAA really blurry, and a lot of the reflections like those of the bloodstains on the floor disappears entirely. With SMAA instead textures just pop out and looks so sharp (I have textures set to 6 GB). What do you guys think? also do you recommend using some kind of reshade?
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Showing 1-11 of 11 comments
Nine Jan 28, 2019 @ 5:37pm 
I went with just TAA. SMAA makes textures look a lot cleaner but the way it messes with the lighting in some areas was hurting my eyes.
#1
Barbarian Jan 28, 2019 @ 5:37pm 
FXAA+TAA+ Lumsharpen default value (Reshade) = Much crisper and better image. Screen space reflection + subsurface scattering off.
Last edited by Barbarian; Jan 28, 2019 @ 5:38pm
#2
凹口凸口凹口凸 Jan 28, 2019 @ 5:42pm 
Fxaa-taa.
#3
Kapteeni Moukku Jan 28, 2019 @ 5:45pm 
I use TAA with reshade smaa / little bit of sharpen to combat the TAA blur.

TAA is necessary in this game imo, the aliasing is really really bad without it. The hair especially.
#4
TiredTyrant Jan 28, 2019 @ 5:46pm 
Best guide I've seen

Originally posted by BONKERS:
Resident Evil 2 uses sharpening at all times even without AA enabled. Giving a false impression of just how much the TAA aggresively filters the image compared to without AA. (Making it seem like you are losing more information than you actually are) The sharpening is no doubt intended only to be used when TAA is enabled but it is not disabled with AA disabled.

The sharpening can be disabled via a hex edit or a small patch from someone on the WSGF linked at the bottom. But I wouldn't recommend disabling it if you are going to use TAA.

Anti Aliasing recommendation
I would recommend using a light sharpening pass on top of the in game sharpening with TAA+FXAA with Reshade for the least performance heavy option to improve IQ to bring high frequency levels similar to without AA (And sharpening disabled) without going overboard.


If you have the option and extra headroom I would also recommend you also use downsampling on top. DSR/VSR have a much better resolve filter than the in game resolution scaling (probably a basic linear resolve). But the in game resolution scale is a lot sharper than DSR by default. And with sharpening on top it will look just that much sharper.

I can't stress enough how much downsampling on top makes a difference in this engine with the TAA, much like RE7. If your GPU can handle it 150% resolution scale in game or 2.25x DSR (Which is equivalent to 150% in game as 2.25x is 1.5 of each axis. Resulting in an actual 225% difference in resolution) is a good middle ground for performance and image quality (whether you want 60FPS or only have a card capable of a stable 30 at this resolution)

(In some examples below I use Reshade FXAA with tuned settings over the TAA+FXAA option in game as that FXAA doesn't do as good of a job cleaning up the edge quality for what the TAA misses. I would only use this if you are downsampling using DSR or VSR and not the in game resolution scale.
http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/127961)

Options to disable or lower to improve IQ and or performance so you can use some Downsampling or Resolution scaling.
  • Screen Space Reflections - SSR in the RE engine is some of the worst out there, with low quality noisy output filtered with an even poorer reconstruction filter that causes smearing and ghosting artifacts. It sucks up performance for making image quality worse (Except for with full bodies of water). RE2:R should have an option for "Reflections:Water Only" similar to the Variable setting in RE7. But it doesn't.

    Example comparison http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/127625
    Example of ghosting/smearing effect http://u.cubeupload.com/MrBonk/re220190115205043888.png (Look at the surface of the walls near the doors. They are a smeared mess because of SSR)

  • Volumetric Lighting and Shadow resolution - turn these down one notch (Possibly 2 for Shadow res) if you are hurting for performance. In RE7 at 1620p on a GTX 980 (1060 equivalent) this made 1620p at a stable 60FPS possible along with disabling SSAO.

  • Lens distortion - it makes the image blurrier for no reason other than to make the image FoV slightly more camera like. Especially the Chromatic Aberration.
    http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/127626

  • Ambient Occlusion - Turning this off completely if you absolutely need to will help out with performance a lot in your quest for better image quality. Similar example, turning SSAO off helps achieve a solid 60FPS in Re7 at 1620p on a 980/1060.


____________________________________________________

Image quality comparisons

We want the No AA image without the built in sharpening as our baseline of how the game should look. (As it should be disabled without TAA enabled. But it isn't)

And a couple interactive comparisons
http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/127959
http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/127960
http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/127956
http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/127957
http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/127958

As you can see, the in game sharpening is highly aggressive in order to compensate for the equally aggressive TAA. But when it's still enabled without AA enabled, it causes a false impression that the final TAA option in the game is much blurrier than it is actually intended to be .
As the sharpening+No AA causes a hugely disproportionate impression of how the game actually looks without AA.
______________________________________

In regards to interlacing


I've tried the interlaced rendering mode all the way up to about 2376p and honestly it just doesn't look that good. The TAA can't really effectively cleanup what looks to be maybe half vertical resolution or something there abouts (it's not real field rendering). This leads to increased moire and specular and vertical shimmering. 2.25xSSAA+TAA/FXAA/Sharpening looks better in motion than 4.84xSSAA+TAA/FXAA+Interlaced rendering while taking up similar levels of GPU power on a 2080.
Without AA enabled and downsampling it looks almost as bad as no AA.

However, if you have a lower end GPU using downsampling as high as possible plus TAA+Interlaced will produce a better looking image that is much sharper than native res+TAA still.

__________________________________________________
Use this as a springboard for your own ideas.

Don't bother trying to force AA from your GPU control panel, as with Nvidia GPUs this is impossible under DX11. Anything you see is a placebo. The functionality doesn't exist. MSAA will not work, MFAA will not work (requires MSAA in game). FXAA will, but that's redundant.

If you hate the TAA that much and want to use just SMAA or FXAA. Disable the in game sharpening first via this from the WSGF http://www.wsgf.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=174169#p174169 It will look much nicer. Though be wary that this game has an insane amount of aliasing from every possible source in the engine and basic Post Process Edge AA will not do much in motion. Even with downsampling on top , significant temporal aliasing issues persist greatly.
#5
Alucard_LV0 Jan 28, 2019 @ 6:00pm 
Originally posted by Barbarian:
FXAA+TAA+ Lumsharpen default value (Reshade) = Much crisper and better image. Screen space reflection + subsurface scattering off.
Does reshade impact performance in any way? And I really never used it on my own, I only used pre-configured presets for various games, is it difficult to set up? Is there like a tutorial somewhere that I can follow or is it really that simple?
#6
Alucard_LV0 Jan 28, 2019 @ 6:02pm 
Originally posted by TiredTyrant:
Best guide I've seen

Originally posted by BONKERS:
Resident Evil 2 uses sharpening at all times even without AA enabled. Giving a false impression of just how much the TAA aggresively filters the image compared to without AA. (Making it seem like you are losing more information than you actually are) The sharpening is no doubt intended only to be used when TAA is enabled but it is not disabled with AA disabled.

The sharpening can be disabled via a hex edit or a small patch from someone on the WSGF linked at the bottom. But I wouldn't recommend disabling it if you are going to use TAA.

Anti Aliasing recommendation
I would recommend using a light sharpening pass on top of the in game sharpening with TAA+FXAA with Reshade for the least performance heavy option to improve IQ to bring high frequency levels similar to without AA (And sharpening disabled) without going overboard.


If you have the option and extra headroom I would also recommend you also use downsampling on top. DSR/VSR have a much better resolve filter than the in game resolution scaling (probably a basic linear resolve). But the in game resolution scale is a lot sharper than DSR by default. And with sharpening on top it will look just that much sharper.

I can't stress enough how much downsampling on top makes a difference in this engine with the TAA, much like RE7. If your GPU can handle it 150% resolution scale in game or 2.25x DSR (Which is equivalent to 150% in game as 2.25x is 1.5 of each axis. Resulting in an actual 225% difference in resolution) is a good middle ground for performance and image quality (whether you want 60FPS or only have a card capable of a stable 30 at this resolution)

(In some examples below I use Reshade FXAA with tuned settings over the TAA+FXAA option in game as that FXAA doesn't do as good of a job cleaning up the edge quality for what the TAA misses. I would only use this if you are downsampling using DSR or VSR and not the in game resolution scale.
http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/127961)

Options to disable or lower to improve IQ and or performance so you can use some Downsampling or Resolution scaling.
  • Screen Space Reflections - SSR in the RE engine is some of the worst out there, with low quality noisy output filtered with an even poorer reconstruction filter that causes smearing and ghosting artifacts. It sucks up performance for making image quality worse (Except for with full bodies of water). RE2:R should have an option for "Reflections:Water Only" similar to the Variable setting in RE7. But it doesn't.

    Example comparison http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/127625
    Example of ghosting/smearing effect http://u.cubeupload.com/MrBonk/re220190115205043888.png (Look at the surface of the walls near the doors. They are a smeared mess because of SSR)

  • Volumetric Lighting and Shadow resolution - turn these down one notch (Possibly 2 for Shadow res) if you are hurting for performance. In RE7 at 1620p on a GTX 980 (1060 equivalent) this made 1620p at a stable 60FPS possible along with disabling SSAO.

  • Lens distortion - it makes the image blurrier for no reason other than to make the image FoV slightly more camera like. Especially the Chromatic Aberration.
    http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/127626

  • Ambient Occlusion - Turning this off completely if you absolutely need to will help out with performance a lot in your quest for better image quality. Similar example, turning SSAO off helps achieve a solid 60FPS in Re7 at 1620p on a 980/1060.


____________________________________________________

Image quality comparisons

We want the No AA image without the built in sharpening as our baseline of how the game should look. (As it should be disabled without TAA enabled. But it isn't)

And a couple interactive comparisons
http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/127959
http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/127960
http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/127956
http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/127957
http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/127958

As you can see, the in game sharpening is highly aggressive in order to compensate for the equally aggressive TAA. But when it's still enabled without AA enabled, it causes a false impression that the final TAA option in the game is much blurrier than it is actually intended to be .
As the sharpening+No AA causes a hugely disproportionate impression of how the game actually looks without AA.
______________________________________

In regards to interlacing


I've tried the interlaced rendering mode all the way up to about 2376p and honestly it just doesn't look that good. The TAA can't really effectively cleanup what looks to be maybe half vertical resolution or something there abouts (it's not real field rendering). This leads to increased moire and specular and vertical shimmering. 2.25xSSAA+TAA/FXAA/Sharpening looks better in motion than 4.84xSSAA+TAA/FXAA+Interlaced rendering while taking up similar levels of GPU power on a 2080.
Without AA enabled and downsampling it looks almost as bad as no AA.

However, if you have a lower end GPU using downsampling as high as possible plus TAA+Interlaced will produce a better looking image that is much sharper than native res+TAA still.

__________________________________________________
Use this as a springboard for your own ideas.

Don't bother trying to force AA from your GPU control panel, as with Nvidia GPUs this is impossible under DX11. Anything you see is a placebo. The functionality doesn't exist. MSAA will not work, MFAA will not work (requires MSAA in game). FXAA will, but that's redundant.

If you hate the TAA that much and want to use just SMAA or FXAA. Disable the in game sharpening first via this from the WSGF http://www.wsgf.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=174169#p174169 It will look much nicer. Though be wary that this game has an insane amount of aliasing from every possible source in the engine and basic Post Process Edge AA will not do much in motion. Even with downsampling on top , significant temporal aliasing issues persist greatly.
Thanks for the super detalied response! :)
#7
Schlendi | #LV426 Jan 28, 2019 @ 6:07pm 
I've tested all modes and FXAA+TAA is the best option for me. SMAA and FXAA are looking way too sharp and TAA only looks too blurry. Playing at 1080p with 100% resolution scaling.
#8
Alucard_LV0 Jan 28, 2019 @ 6:07pm 
Originally posted by Devils Never Cry:
I went with SMAA. its a bit of an issue with rain as things sparkle but damn the gore looks grim with it on haha and the water on the floor reflections look much better. cant go back to TAA/fxaa everything just looks a bit bland.

SMAA also works much better with a sharper image i found closer to 4k you can get the better
Thats exacley how I feel. I'm curious about reshade too because tbh as Nine said above, in some areas like the sewers it makes walls sparkle a bit too much.
#9
kijib Oct 29, 2022 @ 3:01pm 
Image quality 200%, aliasing off
#10
Seamus Oct 29, 2022 @ 3:24pm 
Any particular reason you necro'd this three years later?
#11
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Resident Evil 2 > General Discussions > Topic Details
Date Posted: Jan 28, 2019 @ 5:34pm
Posts: 11

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