Tip: Better graphics without framerate loss

[hitchface]

Hey guys,

I stumbled upon this while I was tweaking FSX (mandatory for a good gaming experience). Some options that are available in-game, like anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering, can actually be forced via your video card drivers. Turn those settings off in game (in the case of texture filtering, just set it to bilinear or trilinear) and then force them through the drivers. Not only can you get higher anti-aliasing/anisotropic samples in some cases, but your options are much more varied. For example, you can set the 'aniso' filtering on transparent surfaces separately, force threaded optimization, force mipmaps in games that don't natively support them, and a whole bunch of other stuff.

This is all available through the latest drivers for an nVidia 7600GS, though all graphics solutions should have this type of menu available.

The results: In FSX, I was able to apply x4 anti-aliasing with a negligible performance hit, whereas it was unplayable if the option was enabled in-game. x8 anisotropic filtering was also applied (x16 available) with no performance hit. Similar impacts were seen in Call of Duty 4, though the anti-aliasing sample was reduced to x2 to recover some performance. There was a swath of other stuff done, but those two settings tend to be the most popular, so there ya have it.

Word of caution: Some newer games with new features like depth of field and motion blur may have conflicts with special driver options. In CoD4, the depth of field option caused problems related to one of my changes, and I experienced major artifact action where there would normally be a blurred area of vision. I haven't narrowed down which option caused the issue yet, but disabling depth of field cured the artifacts. Be aware that the finer adjustments may incur conflicts.

Everything (in the case of nVidia) is easily reversible, and controlled by drop-down menus with descriptions for each setting. Very easy to use, highly recommended. MAKE SURE that your video card is set to use the options that you chose, as opposed to application-specific. Otherwise none of your changes will take place.

[Ahura]

Hmmm...I don't think I like the word Force at all.

[hitchface]

Thats just what the utility uses for the word, and what common terminology would be.

Even enabling the settings in-game could be called "force anisotropic filtering". This is simply allowing the video card to work on its own terms.

[perkster]

hitchface, I have MS FSX on the newer rig in my sig.. on the 8600 its a bit choppy on relatively high settings but im not sure how to optimise the graphics to the smoothness and frame rates. Do you know optimum settings? i.e which of the settings you can cut back on without it looking awful yet boosting performance? there are so many things you can adjust its hard to get the right balance.

[hitchface]

You should be able to get some really nice performance out of FSX with your rig, especially compared to mine. One thing that really helps is to dive into the fsx.cfg file. Make a backup copy to keep somewhere, and then find the entry in it (it opens in wordpad) called [BufferPools]. It should look like that, square brackets and all. It should look like this in your .cfg file:

[BufferPools]
PoolSize=1000000

If it isn't there, just create it right at the bottom of the page. Change the number to something higher, like 5000000. This allocates more of your video memory to 'remember' textures in your vicinity, so that when they come on screen again, it doesn't have to regenerate them. This trades off some of your video memory, but is greatly helpful when there are a lot of autogen objects, like in a city.

I have to go for now, but I'll post back within a few hours with my in-game settings as well as my video card driver settings.

EDIT: I'm starting a new thread in Gaming and Benchmarks about good reference settings and tips for FSX. Some of it can be found in a tweak guide, other stuff will just be a detailed explanation of the sliders. It might take me a while to get it all typed up, but keep your eyes open for it.

[perkster]

thanks hitchface, look forward to it. it plays 2004 a dream just struggles with max settings on FSX, should have bought the 8800GTX then wouldn't have any issues

[hitchface]

FSX Optimization thread is up. Enjoy the read.