Gaming How to Enable AA in Dead Space 2

I feel compelled to quote this. Don't have Dead Space 2, but I've gone through the same process with RadeonPro to soften the edges in GTAIV.
I believe it works from approximately Catalyst 10.10e and up.

 

No decent AA is a deal breaker for me.

Completely avoided GTA4 for that reason, only relented when i saw it for a few pounds in the steam sale.

Lack of AA REALLY puts me off.

This is why i do not even bother to look at graphics card benchmarks when no AA is applied. What true PC gamer does not enable AA when it's available; and if you don't have the grunt, that's when you know its upgrade time.

 

Hey, it has PC exclusive features - mouse and keyboard support!

 

Just to let everyone know:

Apparently you can also use the flag '0x00411245' to allow AA with higher quality shadows but the performance impact is quite large. I'll try it tomorrow.

 

Your loss then, this is a brilliant game.

Personally I'd rather have more ports of this quality than say 100% perfect ports that i can count on one hand.

 

The MLAA testing was done with a HD 6850

 

I'm not massively bothered about AA. If i'm playing a game properly I don't even notice jaggies. I tend not to dick about, staring a shadows. I mustn't be a "true PC gamer".

 

That's no excuse, games are becoming more and more photo realistic and adult in nature and jaggies can really distract from the feeling of immersion.

I don't want jaggies to remind me i'm playing a game, I want an immersive experience.

And jaggies wouldn't stop me from buying a 'good' game.

 

ITT: No true Scotsman fallacy, people looking for reasons to justify not parting with $60 they'll waste on food/beer anyway, and people complaining that, because a PC exclusive feature they want in this game isn't included because devs don't see the PC as a large enough market to bother with, they are not going to buy the game (I hope you see the inherent problem there).

Dead Space 2 looks amazing. Particularly when you consider it is a DX9 game. It looks better than many, I'd go so far as to say most, DX10 games. I spent the better part of a day dicking about with nvidia inspector before realizing that the jaggies were only noticeable if I was hunting around the screen for them and that I had just missed out on 5 hours of playing the game because I was trying to get these superfluous things to work.

In the end I wised up and used the in-game AA and high quality shadows. My mind was blown and bricks were shat.

The reason Dead Space 2 has no AA support is an engine limitation due to the game's light-rendering method. So that game-defining light that made DS1 and now DS2 so atmospheric is what is costing us PC gamers our precious AA DS2 uses the same engine as DS1, so both the AA and the mouse lag that people encountered are engine-born problems that have their own work-around solutions.

Would it be nice if developers spent more time on PC games? YES. But, as someone who works in the industry, I can tell you that devs aren't looking to spend time (time=money) on a PC release when PC sales look like garbage. I bought the CE for DS2 for me and my wife because I want to pump PC sales as much as I can afford on titles I love.

Essentially forgoing games because they lack things you think a true PC game (see NTS fallacy above) is essentially signing the death warrant on PC gaming. Until the PC market puts money where its mouth is, you won't get what you want.

 

"Do the jaggies in Dead Space 2 annoy you?" No, they didn't until you pointed this fact out.

What really annoys me is the quality of your guide.

Give a version number for the NVidia Inspector version you are using.

Take screenshots that cover the process from the point where you've extracted the NVidia Inspector and have double clicked the executable.

And have those screenshots show the whole screen, not just a tiny snippet.

This is really front page material? Bit-Tech, you're slippin'

For the record my Forceware is 266.58, the Inspector version is 1.9.4.2, and I am running a GTX 470.

Also maybe screenshots before and after the pic taken in the same spot might help!


EDIT: Ahhh, the version for inspector must be 1.9.4.4. You link to the wrong one on Guru3D. The prior one has none of the fields you show in the screenshot, maybe saying SettingValueHex rather than just value, and a screenshot showing no headings on the columns would help too. I'll try out the setting that allows high shadows and report back.

 

I didn't notice much difference, other than with the hack I'd get about 3-4c cooler temps and about half the fps (avg~150fps before avg~75fps after), but then I have always been too immersed in DS2 to really notice anything until *spoiler alert*
The chapter towards the end which has walls covered in UV reactive blood (or some substance) and looks like a CSI crime scene. Such a beautifully terrifying level.

All screenshots are 999x561, and have a direct link to the 2048x1152 image at the bottom.

WITH HACK


WITHOUT HACK


WITH HACK


WITHOUT HACK



WITH HACK


WITHOUT HACK


WITH HACK


WITHOUT HACK



http://yfrog.com/gowith1j
http://yfrog.com/6bwith2j
http://yfrog.com/5bwith3j
http://yfrog.com/59with4j
http://yfrog.com/jowithouthack1j
http://yfrog.com/f3withouthack2j
http://yfrog.com/4bwithouthack3j
http://yfrog.com/0awithouthack4j

 

Weird. I find that it's the other way around: The more photo realistic the games become, the less immersed I get. I'll get distracted buy a really well done texture and model and thinking "that's really well done" or "that's really pretty". The more realistic the games look, the more they feel like Oblivion NPC's to me; e.i. they live so far down the Uncanny Valley that you need 2 weeks supply, a local guide and a blood hound just to find them.

 

I'm with erratum on this - jaggies really ruin a game for me, and yes I can see them on the move.

 

I can't believe it's such an issue to people when there are workarounds, let alone, video gaming isn't just about iq. The sound of this game was the best bit last time.

 

I can, this is Bit-Tech, when it comes to PC gaming everything is an issue to everyone.

 

I'd have to agree, certainly these days. In the past i would have been more forgiving, using early DX9 cards would often mean that enabling AA/AF to any significant effect would kill your framerates.

I can also forgive the ageing source engine for not offering the same graphics quality as more recently designed game engines, however at least you can ramp up the in-game AA/AF and tweak texture quality.

 

Cheers for the spot. Have amended the link.

If you want larger screen shots you can click the images, they link to larger ones. Granted they are still only cut outs but they show everything that is relevant.

 

why not just link to the guy who made it

http://www.orbmu2k.de/

jaggies do ruin a game imo.. if you don't think so, you probably also hate crysis

 

This
"The reason Dead Space 2 has no AA support is an engine limitation due to the game's light-rendering method. So that game-defining light that made DS1 and now DS2 so atmospheric is what is costing us PC gamers our precious AA DS2 uses the same engine as DS1, so both the AA and the mouse lag that people encountered are engine-born problems that have their own work-around solutions."

So DS2 looks the same as DS1 (which looked fantastic) something not pointed out in the article. Which means it looks like a computer game! maybe the devs shouldn't have used the engine they did but then maybe that decision is based on cost and s 'console first' attitude?

And given that I'm using an pre 6xxx series card this article is mostly fubar anyway!

 

If I'd spent €45 on it and found jaggies like that I'd be seriously disappointed. Jaggies ruin games for me, hence why I don't play consoles. My main issue with jaggies is that they "move" as you change perspective, highlighting the jaggie even more. There's no excuse for poor IQ like that in a modern PC game.