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View Full Version : Two Noob questions: AA and on-screen messages



GunSlingerAUS
Mar-19-2013, 00:34
Hey folks

Firstly, I'm LOVING the work you've done on the patch. So much so that I'm writing a two page article on it for Australia's biggest gaming mag!

There are two remaining issues that are niggling me though - the huge onscreen message box, and the horrific lack of antialiasing in CLOD.

1.) I'm finding the text messages are filling about 30% of my screen space. They're also overwriting my radio comms menus, which makes it very hard to read what each comms option is. Is there a way to make this message box much, much smaller?
2.) I game at 1920 x 1080 on a projector, and the large size exaggerates jaggies. Every other game I play looks find with 4XAA, but IL2's AA is absolutely woeful. I've tried using NVIDIA Inspector to force 4xMSAA with 4XSGSSAA, but it won't let me assign a profile to launcher.exe, as that exe is associated with another program/profile. I deleted that other profile, but still no go - but I doubt NVIDIA Inspector would work anyway, as the game seems to need a form of post-processing AA. So I then tried SweetFX and SMAA Injector, and the latter gave me a decent reduction in jaggies. It's still far from perfect though, and it's especially noticeable on mid-range bogies, which look more like a collection of creeping pixels than an aircraft. What's the best way to get decent AA working?

If you guys can help on these two issues I think I'll be in simming heaven. I'm already having a fine old time, but the AA is really bugging me. Hope you can help, and thanks once again for your amazing effort.

Alice
Mar-19-2013, 00:54
You can try the nVidia settings in this thread by Mastiff: http://theairtacticalassaultgroup.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3135&highlight=mastiff

Yeah, the nVidia Inspector launcher.exe thing. A bunch of games use that and it can be awkward to make a profile for a specific game. I made a shortcut to that launcher in the Cliffs folder, named it differently, and browsed to it in the nVidia CP. I then profiled it. It seems to work ok.

SweetFX and FXAA should probably not be used together (although some may with success); they are competing solutions after all.

And, the patch is pretty sweet isn't it ;).

GunSlingerAUS
Mar-19-2013, 04:25
Thanks for the link, but it suggests using the NVIDIA control panel to force Anti-Aliasing. I've read dozens of posts, and seen for myself, that this method simply doesn't work with IL2 CLoD, as it's based on Multi Sample Anti Aliasing (MSAA). For some reason MSAA doesn't work with the game, so forcing it won't make a lick of difference. This is why most people instead use SMAA or FXAA, both post-processing methods of AA that do work, but ultimately don't look anywhere near as good as true MSAA.

Thanks anyway - my quest continues!

Salmo
Mar-19-2013, 06:50
Right-click the text message box & change the box option to show the border & title (like a normal windows window). This will allow you to grab the title bar with the mouse & move the window around & resize the window on the screen. I place various windows in the upper & lower corners of my screen.

Royraiden
Mar-19-2013, 08:46
A few of us raised the AA concern on the patch/mod thread, hopefully the team will be able to make some sort of improvement there in the future.As you said even with Sweetfx,planes that are mid to long range appear jagged as hell making it hard to identify.Now with the canopy feflections spotting distant planes is a lot easier but in order to know what plane im going after I have to get really close and as soon as the jaggies are gone I can identify the plane.

ATAG_Naz
Mar-19-2013, 09:17
Hi Gunslinger

A good tutorial on the Cliffs Information windows is here mate;

http://theairtacticalassaultgroup.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3273&highlight=information+windows

Which gaming mag do you write for?

ATAG_Colander
Mar-19-2013, 12:10
Right-click the text message box & change the box option to show the border & title (like a normal windows window). This will allow you to grab the title bar with the mouse & move the window around & resize the window on the screen. I place various windows in the upper & lower corners of my screen.

Also, the font size can be changed.

And as a side note, changing the game resolution will set these windows back to default.

GunSlingerAUS
Mar-19-2013, 21:18
Thanks for the awesome advice guys. I've now got my chat windows looking much better, but the jaggies are still a bit of a bummer. Oh well, fingers crossed they can figure out why IL2 CLoD is the only game on PC that doesn't support anti-aliasing, which is truly bizarre in this day and age. it'll be a huge leap forwards in terms of graphics if they can nail that feature.

Re: my mag - it's PC PowerPlay, and we're doing a small feature on Team Fusion in an upcoming issue.

Mastiff
Mar-19-2013, 23:43
Thanks for the awesome advice guys. I've now got my chat windows looking much better, but the jaggies are still a bit of a bummer. Oh well, fingers crossed they can figure out why IL2 CLoD is the only game on PC that doesn't support anti-aliasing, which is truly bizarre in this day and age. it'll be a huge leap forwards in terms of graphics if they can nail that feature.

Re: my mag - it's PC PowerPlay, and we're doing a small feature on Team Fusion in an upcoming issue.

Hi Gun try these setting if you can.


http://theairtacticalassaultgroup.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3135

ATAG_Headshot
Mar-20-2013, 00:29
Mastiff's settings really help if you have an nVidia card