GTR2 and Downsampling with NVIDIA DSR

[Shovas]

I've never played around with DSR before but after seeing some videos and getting to understand what's really happening I can see how it might be a really good way to improve the graphical clarity of GTR2.

But I just tried it and (1) unless I use Borderless Gaming the image is larger than the screen can fit, and (2) if I use Borderless Gaming to shrink it down to my screen size then the mouse positioning gets all wonky and I can't properly click the right things.

Edit: Change the resolution of Windows itself to 4K after enabling DSR in NV Control Panel, change the Scale to 100% (otherwise mouse doesn't track properly), and then borderless windowed mode will just start working normally for GTR2.

Has anyone done this before? Any tips and tricks?

Edit: Okay, I can see it working in fullscreen mode. Hard to tell the difference to be honest between 4K-to-1440p vs 1440p-native-with-aa-tweaks. One thing I think I notice is mirrors look much better when downsampling I'm assuming because they're rendering at a higher resolution with dsr.

Here's the video that got me down the DSR rabbit hole:

 

[Durge Driven]

Best looking GTR2 I have seen since Nvidia removed clamp is AMD Vega @1440p
But I am going with YES

GTX970 DSR @ 4K ( click twice )

 

[The Iron Wolf]

Best looking GTR2 I have seen since Nvidia removed clamp is AMD Vega @1440p
But I am going with YES

View attachment 562748

View attachment 562749

I know what you mean about removal of clamp, very frustrating. But trust me, you can't beat DXVK image quality. In my fork of DXVK I have SGSSAA like AA exposed, and, memory usage improvements (part of fixes requires CC plugin, currently in Beta).

And, great track choice, this track looks amazing in GTR2.

 

[Durge Driven]

Raw 4K link ( click once )

https://postimg.cc/4YxBHf6F

 

[Shovas]

Raw 4K link ( click once )

https://postimg.cc/4YxBHf6F

I downloaded the original image to view the 4K: Nice! Even with jpg artifacting I can tell from zooming in it's super sharp.

 

[Shovas]

View attachment 562748

What track is this?

 

[Durge Driven]

What track is this?

oi mate don't quote me kk lol

Suzuka International Circuit 2012 v1.01[PBB

The track is set for the Autobacs Super GT 1000km Pokka Summer GT series.

 

[Shovas]

oi mate don't quote me kk lol

Oops didn't realize it quoted me lol

 

[Shovas]

So, is there no way to run GTR2 in windowed mode using DSR?

I just don't use fullscreen mode. I like my alt-tabbing

Edit: Change the resolution of Windows itself to 4K after enabling DSR in NV Control Panel and then borderless windowed mode will just start working normally for GTR2.

 

[NEChris]

Where would you need DSR for? With the AA compatibility set to 0x004412C1 (Diablo III) and 8x MSAA + 8x SGSSAA the image quality is excellent at 1020p with a high FPS.

 

[Racker2]

How does this compare to "image scaling"?

 

[Shovas]

How does this compare to "image scaling"?

Image Scaling, from what I'm seeing, takes a low resolution image and upscales it to a high resolution image.

What we want, because GTR2 is so easy on GPUs these days, is to take a high resolution image and downscale it to our native resolutions: When you do it this way, the GPU has more image information to work with behind-the-scenes and so it can produce a better lower resolution image than, say, trying to anti-alias over that lower resolution image.

Here's the video that got me down this rabbit hole, you'll see the benefits are very clear and impressive:

But it may depend on the game and just how much benefit you get might be more or less depending on a lot of variables.

I noticed when I upgraded to 1440p that I no longer needed anti-aliasing enabled in Far Cry 3, for example, I wasn't noticing jaggies anywhere. So, it seemed I could get more FPS by disabling AA.

 

[The Iron Wolf]

@Shovas are you on nVidia or AMD?

 

[Shovas]

@Shovas are you on nVidia or AMD?

NVIDIA

 

[The Iron Wolf]

NVIDIA

Did you try SGSSAA? It blurries the image slightly, but it is the best way to get rid of aliasing of transparent surfaces in gMotor on nVidia. Slightly higher quality can be achieved via my fork of DXVK, but it requires very recent hardware and a bit tricky setup.

That said DSR or SSAA and similar approaches have advantages - sharper, clearer image, so indeed it has advantages My guess it is more of a personal preference, I do not like aliased gridlines and fences, and in my experience only SGSSAA gets rid of that.

 

[Shovas]

Did you try SGSSAA? It blurries the image slightly, but it is the best way to get rid of aliasing of transparent surfaces in gMotor on nVidia. Slightly higher quality can be achieved via my fork of DXVK, but it requires very recent hardware and a bit tricky setup.

That said DSR or SSAA nand similar approaches have advantages - sharper, clearer image, so indeed it has advantages My guess it is more of a personal preference, I do not like aliased gridlines and fences, and in my experience only SGSSAA gets rid of that.

So is that "Antialiasing - transparency supersampling" because yeah I've used that to good effect:

^ GTR2 nvidia profile inspector settings

Same here, the aliased lines on the road drive me crazy, and I try to minimize the shimmering of fences, etc., as much as possible.

 

[The Iron Wolf]

So is that "Antialiasing - transparency supersampling" because yeah I've used that to good effect:

View attachment 563223

^ GTR2 nvidia profile inspector settings

Same here, the aliased lines on the road drive me crazy, and I try to minimize the shimmering of fences, etc., as much as possible.

Yes that's pretty much the best combination for fixing gridline aliasing, except that AFAIK Antiliasing - Setting is best to keep 8xMSAA in your case.

In my observation, no matter how much you increase resolution and downsample (that's what DSR does) it won't help with gridlines, they will still get jaggies. Now, if you mix DSR and SGSSAA, that I never tried, but from VR experience, yes, it might help slightly.

If you still use my plugin, checkout the manual on how to enable DXVK - that is the best image quality I ever seen. Also, I am continously customizing DXVK for GTR2 needs to improve perf and quality (it is OSS luckily).

 

[GeekyDeaks]

If you still use my plugin, checkout the manual on how to enable DXVK - that is the best image quality I ever seen

I missed that bit when I did my install and setup. Are you referring to this setting?

dxvk.forceSampleRateShading = True

Awesome mod btw...

 

[The Iron Wolf]

I missed that bit when I did my install and setup. Are you referring to this setting?



Awesome mod btw...

yes, just make sure you enable MSAA as well. Also checkout Discord linked in the manual, there's a lot of changes in Beta version of the plugin and I post beta version there.

Those 3 settings work together:
d3d9.forceSwapchainMSAA
dxvk.forceSampleRateShading
dxvk.forceSampleRateShadingFactor

And, don't forget:
d3d9.forceD32FS8DepthStencil
to get best possible flickering fix.

 

[dwightyone]

@The Iron Wolf : Yep, so far I'm doing the eyes per each car (and per livery) for all the cars i downloaded - then FFB per car - taking an age - haven't even raced it much yet. Once done and once I've narrowed down the best car and track combos for optimum FPS I will then try DXVK myself and get some feedback back.

Just to add- what I've noticed is you need a slightly different mix of AA for monitor racing compared to VR. On my triples I must use the in-game AA to get rid of the shimmering on the white lines no matter what - and then use enhance setting Nvidia inspector (Antialiasing - transparency supersampling + 4xMSAA) also. VR is different and don't need or use in-game AA.