Blurry white track lines at a distance

[Shovas]

What's up with the blurry white track lines at a distance? Is there a fix?

This is different than the usual aliased white track lines issue. It seems that white track lines are purposely blurred at a certain distance. Reminds me of having a low anisotropic filtering setting.

 

[jgf]

This is often the anisotropic filter setting in the vid drivers (there may also be a setting in the game, but I always use the driver tweaks).

 

[The Iron Wolf]

It's a combination of many things - track LOD settings, AA settings, driver settings, ReShade settings. I think you could sharpen them in some cases but it will make image more aliased.

IIRC you are running DXVK, so I am not sure if driver settings apply, but. Make sure you disable trillinear filtering optimization and set texture filtering to high quality.

In dxvk.conf:
* make sure anisotropic filtering is at 16.
* try different AA settings. sampleRateShading/sampleRateShadingRatio settings. Those settings make image less aliased but image gets more blurry, and not everyone likes it.
* try different negative bias clamp settings - those affect white lines you mention

Lastly, you can always sharpen image using ReShade. I use iMMERSE Pro Clarity effect for that.

 

[Shovas]

Thanks for the tips. I'll keep messing with settings.

Added a video to show it clearly and how distracting it is. It changes shape, clarity, and intensity depending on the angle to the camera and since it's often in the center of the screen it can be very distracting.

 

[The Iron Wolf]

Thanks for the tips. I'll keep messing with settings.

Added a video to show it clearly and how distracting it is. It changes shape, clarity, and intensity depending on the angle to the camera and since it's often in the center of the screen it can be very distracting.

finally got to my PC so can answer more precisely. I have to admit that I notice the issue you describe but didn't fight this problem to much, as my brain is triggered more by aliased image and less by some areas blurry. So, in video driver (Nvidia):

* Texture filtering - Quality: High Quality

dxvk.conf
I suggest turning off AA temporarily, so set d3d9.forceSwapchainMSAA = 0
d3d9.samplerAnisotropy = 16

And then play with:
d3d9.clampNegativeLodBias = True
and
d3d9.samplerLodBias value.

I believe this will also be affected by track settings, so if some LodBias value works better, try other tracks to confirm

 

[Shovas]

Crystal clear track lines for days with d3d9.clampNegativeLodBias = False but even with 4x aa at a 45deg angle or more the aliasing on the white lines can interact and create shimmering. It's enough to be a problem anyway.

I finally saw that massive shimmering with 0x aa and d3d9.clampNegativeLodBias = False. That's crazy. 4x AA eliminates almost all shimmering except for the aliased lines.

What a shame. So close.

I did confirm that 0 AF brought the blurry white line closer so it's definitely related... I tried up to 1024 AF but nothing more than 16 had an effect (which some research confirms). If I could just get more AF it would be solved on the original settings, I think. Is it possible to get higher than 16?

 

[The Iron Wolf]

ah those white lines and shimmering, how much time spent to deal with that Reading your observations, it seems you did not investigate:

d3d9.forceSampleRateShading
dxvk.forceSampleRateShadingFactor
d3d9.samplerLodBias

all those will affect image, but it will always be a balance of shimmering vs blurriness.

I think to some extent what you are seeing is outside of our control. It is possible that those things are controlled in video driver/hardware. I also remember I had better image quality in GTR2 with AMD card, but performance was worse than Nvidia, that's why I actually switched to Nvidia. Another interesting thing... I personally actually like how little blurriness and shimmering there is in motion in GTR2 compared to newer games, not in screenshots, but during actual use. Especially in VR, shimmer, aliasing, blurriness is super irritating to me. Are you happy with image quality, shadows, lines, walls in AMS2 for example @Shovas? Just curious.

 

[Shovas]

d3d9.forceSampleRateShading
dxvk.forceSampleRateShadingFactor
d3d9.samplerLodBias

I did spend a few hours on all the params, reviewed the manual, CrewChief.ini, ReShade for hints on what might help. I tried tiny changes and extreme changes to all the params I could see in that might be applicable in dxvk.conf, including those.

Should I seeing obvious visual changes with these settings?

I think to some extent what you are seeing is outside of our control. It is possible that those things are controlled in video driver/hardware.

It's such a shame because it's so clearly connected to whatever is happening with 0x vs 16x AF. At 0x the blurry white lines are right in front of you and at 16x they're clearly further down the track.

I also had the thought if much higher AA would clear up the minimal aliasing and shimmering I still see with the white lines... but no graphics card can really handle more than 8x without fps suffering so...

If not AA then improved supersampling either by SGSSAA or DSR would probably improve the situation. On that note, I went back to my vanilla GTR2 drop (truly vanilla now) and I prefer the clarity of the white lines and the image in general and that seems to just be down to my nvidia profile settings for gtr2 and I think particularly to whatever nvidia's own SGSSAA is doing vs DXVK's. Does that sound right? You often say you prefer DXVK's image?

Another interesting thing... I personally actually like how little blurriness and shimmering there is in motion in GTR2 compared to newer games, not in screenshots, but during actual use. Especially in VR, shimmer, aliasing, blurriness is super irritating to me. Are you happy with image quality, shadows, lines, walls in AMS2 for example @Shovas? Just curious.

Yes, absolutely, a stable, clean image is so important. ACC is what I think of when I think of an unstable, unclear image. iRacing has last-last gen graphics but at least it's stable and clean. AMS2 is better than ACC but I have other issues with AMS2, namely the limited draw distance of shadows that you can see being painted in 50 feet ahead *facepalm*

 

[The Iron Wolf]

Yes, facepalm is how I feel as well. It all looks awesome in screenshots, but what infuriates me the most is shadows - aliased, flickering, how, why? Oh well.

Anyway, Manual cannot cover all the satellite tools such as ReShade or DXVK so I leave deep details out of the manual - CCGEP alone is huge already. For deep reshade/dxvk help you may need to join their discords, google etc, those are huge topics out of scope of CCGEP manual.

But let me tell couple of things:
d3d9.forceSampleRateShading enables DXVK "SGSSAA". It will not look identical to DX9 SGSSAA, but I have no problem with it. Difference between False and True is huge. Did you read comments in dxvk.conf? Just asking, it's all there.

dxvk.forceSampleRateShadingFactor controls the behavior of DXVK "SGSSAA". I think this might be useful for someone who tries to make parts of the image sharper.

You mentioned that you like bias clamp disabled. I suggest try enabling it, but adjust d3d9.samplerLodBias to see if you can find perfect behavior. I am afraid however, this will be per track.

What I like about DXVK is:
* Memory usage. My fork of DXVK reduces 32bit memory pressure in GTR2, one of the biggest problems in GTR2.
* performance - in VR I get like 2x almost compared to DX9
* I like clamp setting - nvidia removed it from dx9 years ago
* Depth buffer is more precise in Vulkan - even less flickering at far distances
* DX9 is dead. But my DXVK fork I can keep tweaking for GTR2 as I learn more

 

[Mick Leahy]

Far be it for my opinion to carry any weight, whatsoever, compared to you two chaps who have put in so much work into GTR2 and so generously shared your findings, but I find that, if push comes to shove, those older DX9 games provide a cleaner and more balanced experience than the later ones. I think that AMS 1 is, at present, the best simulation available. I just wish my driving abilities were up to it! Anyway, keep up the good work.

 

[Shovas]

Far be it for my opinion to carry any weight, whatsoever, compared to you two chaps who have put in so much work into GTR2 and so generously shared your findings, but I find that, if push comes to shove, those older DX9 games provide a cleaner and more balanced experience than the later ones. I think that AMS 1 is, at present, the best simulation available. I just wish my driving abilities were up to it! Anyway, keep up the good work.

You're absolutely right. It's very possible for modern titles to have clear, stable images but for some reason it seems to have come "by default" on older titles.

I've been watching Digital Foundry quite a bit and they're always going on about image stability and the troubles modern titles are having with it.

It seems like many graphics processes (like shaders) are operating either asynchronously, or temporally, or on a 2D image without access to the 3D (like ReShade), and as far as I understand it because they're not "first class" processes and operating "after the fact" it lends to more unstable and unclean images.

 

[The Iron Wolf]

image without access to the 3D (like ReShade)

Have you actually withnessed instability in ReShade with all effects? My understanding is it's not the tool issue, it's issue of technique used. For example, by default iMMERSE MXAO calculates only 1/4th of pixels every frame and that creates "unstable" image as image moves, especially noticeable in VR when you move your head. But you can set it to 100% and that produces crispy clear image, again. I don't know why modern games produce so much shimmer in the image, but I know that most instability in ReShade comes from optimizations like mentioned above.

Also, ReShade does not operate entirely on 2D image. The beauty of depth access is that it has partial access to visible geometry in the image.

 

[sunalp2]

This from Zwiss. It's worked for me.

About BIAS:
-----------
My rules of the thumb are:
All bias settings should be zero UNLESS you need more detail in the distance.
With roads I usually use -4, or the white lines are too blurry. But spec and bump maps should always be between 0 and -1, or you get TOO MUCH detail, resulting in sparkling, and you eyes going crazy.
That's also the problem with fences, trees and powerlines: they are best kept at bias=0 or you get sparkling, flickering...
..................
Fix in 3dSimEd

 

[IMC '67]

I've come to the conclusion over the years that the ideal track object material bias setting is -0.5 for the best compromise between bluriness and flickering. Road surfaces can for some reason take larger negative values but if the white lines are separate files, these should be kept at higher values.

Equally important is to make sure that any .dds track graphic files has been saved generating mipmaps or you'll get a lot of flickering. As an example, check out the crazy flickering on the advertising banner just to the right of the car in front...

 

[Shovas]

dxvk.conf
I suggest turning off AA temporarily, so set d3d9.forceSwapchainMSAA = 0
d3d9.samplerAnisotropy = 16

And then play with:
d3d9.clampNegativeLodBias = True
and
d3d9.samplerLodBias value.

I'm seeing no difference in the blurry white track line at Lausitzring immediately exiting the garage at all no matter what combination of values I set for clampNegativeLodBias=true and samplerLodBias

What visual effect should I expect from samplerLodBias changes?

The only thing that changes the blurry white track line is samplerAnisotropy, higher values push out the distance at which it is blurry, but 16 is still too close

 

[Shovas]

Have you actually withnessed instability in ReShade with all effects?

The one I remember was ray tracing shadows. Just like real RTX when the card isn't fast enough the shadows only some frames later

Immerse Pro RTGI I think

 

[jgf]

I'm fairly certain 16x is as high as AF goes, never seen any mention of higher settings, and all my vid cards have maxed at 16. LODBias is involved with how far away mips come into play, but all these settings interact to an odious degree, and are also system dependent; I think it's often a matter of trial and error to get something acceptable.

 

[roby13]

I'm seeing no difference in the blurry white track line at Lausitzring immediately exiting the garage at all no matter what combination of values I set for clampNegativeLodBias=true and samplerLodBias

What visual effect should I expect from samplerLodBias changes?

The only thing that changes the blurry white track line is samplerAnisotropy, higher values push out the distance at which it is blurry, but 16 is still too close

That's exactly my experience with AF also. Never understood why it can't be applied to the whole scene.

 

[Shovas]

I think it's important to clarify that it appears to come down to how tracks implement things

It's not just about local settings, sometimes the track has been made in such a way to exaggerate flaws

It seems you can have the right graphics settings and tracks can still screw it up

 

[The Iron Wolf]

I'm seeing no difference in the blurry white track line at Lausitzring immediately exiting the garage at all no matter what combination of values I set for clampNegativeLodBias=true and samplerLodBias

What visual effect should I expect from samplerLodBias changes?

The only thing that changes the blurry white track line is samplerAnisotropy, higher values push out the distance at which it is blurry, but 16 is still too close

To be clear, I never said I solved this via video settings. I suggested to try samplerLodBias and what I would expect it would move blurriness closer/farther out, but you say it has no effect - I was wrong. The key thing, however, even if it did, it would need to be adjusted per track. I never tried, but what @sunalp2 / Zwisss say is spot on - track needs adjusting in 3DSimED.

I am maybe being too literal - you said ReShade causes instability, but no, it is not ReShade, it is some effects, like RTGI. They are too heavy to be calculated in one frame, so there's delay. Just trying to point out ReShade itself does not introduce shimmering/flickering, but some effects configured in certain way do. This exchange, however, was useful for me, I wonder if that's exactly what happens in modern games. Shimmering is not visible on screenshots, but very annoying (to me) in motion.