Higher Quality AA For Nvidia Cards [Guide]

This will be paraphrased from my posts on other forums for the game. (Ref)

Guide to using Nvidia Inspector with AA Bits (REQUIRED for this to work)
Nvidia Inspector Download Link


General Information:
First Off you need to disable the in-game MSAA

You need to create a NEW Nvidia Inspector profile for the game and add "PinballArcade.EXE" to the profile via the "Add Application To Current Profile Button" (The Folder icon with a Green +)

When you are done your inspector profile should look like this



The game seems to not use Mipmaps or something, because the base texture for table backgrounds flicker/shimmer when the camera moves away from the table or zooms out much at all.

4x4 OGSSAA and downsampling help a bit with it. But not completely. It's not terribly annoying, but an issue none the less. I posted on the Steam forum asking the devs if they can fix it or what.

20C1 is higher quality in motion than 00C1. But is slightly more demanding. But I could downsample from 1440p with 4xSGSSAA with no problems hitting 60FPS
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0x000020C1 - SGSSAA,OGSSAA,OGSSAA-Hybrid(+-SGSSAA)
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Pictures:

NoAA http://i.minus.com/ib2zF0crK1BySY.png
8xMSAA In Game http://i.minus.com/ibytGKsqLzPlfQ.png
8xSGSSAA Enhanced http://i.minus.com/ijYDSoGKU4QTy.png
20C1 8xSGSSAA http://i.minus.com/iSmSv8XtMmUlO.png
4x4 OGSSAA http://i.minus.com/ibfeuYKs5mSA4x.png
16xS http://i.minus.com/ix0EzQsPYuVCH.png
16xS+4xSGSSAA http://i.minus.com/iEMrLiZDfxR6P.png

Does the normal Nvidia control panel setting not override the Pinball Arcade ones?

LMA said:

Does the normal Nvidia control panel setting not override the Pinball Arcade ones?

Click to expand...

Yes, it does.

Timelord ...

thanks

BONKERS said:

20C1 is higher quality in motion than 00C1. But is slightly more demanding. But I could downsample from 1440p with 4xSGSSAA with no problems hitting 60FPS

Click to expand...

It's still not rendering correctly and significantly blurs the table graphics though. The only way I've found to avoid that is to disable post-processing, and 00C1 is the only setting I found which did not alter the color of the graphics as a result of blurring them. (though 00C1 does not render perfectly either)

I'd just force 32xCSAA rather than enable any form of supersampling - at least if you want to keep post-processing enabled.
Hopefully this will be fixed shortly, because the game could look so much better than it does now.

I'm not getting any kind of blurring other than what is typically associated with high quality anti aliasing.


32xCSAA is a waste of processing power and literally offers no more quality over 8xQ MSAA

And it still ONLY processes Geometry, it does nothing for a lot of temporal aliasing(Aliasing in motion over time) or specular aliasing (And the issues it creates)


There is always going to be some measure of blurring with any high quality anti aliasing that processes the whole scene properly.

Though with SGSSAA some of it can be aleviated by using LOD adjustments (Which can cause problems of it's own and counteract the AA)
Or even with minor sharpening from SweetFX if it really bothers you. (Not like many of the textures are high res to begin with so not much detail is lost)

And I am having 0 issues with post processing on my end. With PP on and using any form of AA that isn't just MSAA it looks great aside from the lack of mip-maps that creates aliasing of it's own.

it looks great.

BONKERS said:

I'm not getting any kind of blurring other than what is typically associated with high quality anti aliasing.

Click to expand...

High quality anti-aliasing should not be blurring the image.

BONKERS said:

32xCSAA is a waste of processing power and literally offers no more quality over 8xQ MSAA

Click to expand...

You are mistaken: http://www.nvidia.com/object/coverage-sampled-aa.html

BONKERS said:

There is always going to be some measure of blurring with any high quality anti aliasing that processes the whole scene properly.

Click to expand...

This is common when people enable SGSSAA without using the correct compatibility bits - then it will blur the image considerably. Enabling SGSSAA should not significantly blur the image.

1. No Anti-aliasing
2. 32x CSAA (8xMSAA+24 coverage samples)
3. 8x SGSSAA
4. 8x SGSSAA + Compatibility Bits (0x000000C1)
5. 8x SGSSAA + Compatibility Bits with post-processing disabled

Note the significant blurring and slight darkening of the table art in #3. This is not how supersampling is supposed to look.
The compatibility bits (#4) eliminate the blurring on most of the table objects, but the main art is still blurred significantly.
#5 shows that disabling post-processing eliminates the blur you get when enabling SGSSAA - the table art is just as sharp here as the MSAA and NoAA examples. This is how the table should look in #4 as well, but there is a conflict between SGSSAA and the post-processing option. Maybe someone will be able to find compatibility bits that works around this, but I tried about 20 variations last night and couldn't find anything better than 0x000000C1. In some respects 0x000300C1 was slightly better, but in others, it was worse. (slight darkening of the table art again)

BONKERS said:

Though with SGSSAA some of it can be aleviated by using LOD adjustments (Which can cause problems of it's own and counteract the AA)

Click to expand...

The Nvidia drivers automatically adjust LOD Bias to the appropriate setting for the level of supersampling used. Even forcing -3.000 does nothing for the table graphics.

Nvidia Drivers do NOT automatically adjust LOD unless you ALLOW it to. Using "Driver Controlled LOD Bias"


Also: Just because one AA option is slightly more blurrier doesn't mean it is of poorer quality.

C1 produces much worse aliasing in motion than 20C1 does and leaves the edges much rougher looking than 20C1.

20C1 looks much more realistic and lifelike in pixel and edge quality

BONKERS said:

Nvidia Drivers do NOT automatically adjust LOD unless you ALLOW it to. Using "Driver Controlled LOD Bias"

Click to expand...

Which is the default setting.

BONKERS said:

Also: Just because one AA option is slightly more blurrier doesn't mean it is of poorer quality.

Click to expand...

You can honestly look at the examples posted and say that the image should be as blurred as it is?
Disabling post-processing shows you how SGSSAA should look.

BONKERS said:

C1 produces much worse aliasing in motion than 20C1 does and leaves the edges much rougher looking than 20C1.

Click to expand...

It still doesn't render correctly though, blurring the image, and is a significant performance hit.

how do i do this?
i have an nvidia card but this guide confuses me... where is step 1 open the inspector, step 2 make a new profile... i downloaded the inspector but I don't see any button for adding a new profile

never-mind that last post I poked around the nvidia inspector site and figured it out. you have to click the button by "Driver Version" and then that other menu comes out. looks much better with these settings than just playing the game. for some reason just playing the game with the settings up i get weird equally spaced out jaggies that make the game look like a grid of squares with the jags being the corners. Anyway I was very disappointed when first loading up the game and seeing those, but now with this fix it looks AMAZING! thanks hopefully farsight can make the game look this good out of the box at some point.

Im sure this is a stupid question but my shortcut to the game is listed as steam://rungameid/238260. where is pinballarcade.exe? and how do I add it?

priested said:

Im sure this is a stupid question but my shortcut to the game is listed as steam://rungameid/238260. where is pinballarcade.exe? and how do I add it?

Click to expand...

Assuming the steam default folder is used with Windows 7 the executable should be in the following path:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\PinballArcade

Thanks. Don't know why explorer search didn't find it...

How does this interact with the Nvidia control panel? Once I set this up is there anything I need to change in the control panel or insure something is enabled (or disabled) there? Also, some of the non-bolded items in the example above are different than the default and there are more options than just the ones shown. Do I just change the bolded ones?