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ChaoticMagician
ChaoticMagician
Join Date 04/2008
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Anti-Aliasing help

October 3, 2008 9:43:37 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

What exactly does Anti-Aliasing do? I've tried fiddling around with it, and can't quite figure out which is the best setting. On anything other than "None", all of my ships have a strange sort of glitter that appears around their edges. If I choose "None" then the planets look weird. Any suggestions/explainations as to what's going on?

Much appreciated,

-ChaoticMagician

Note: All graphics settings are enabled and set to "Highest", if that makes any difference.

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ChaoticMagician
the_Monk
Join Date 01/2008
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Reply #1 October 3, 2008 10:18:22 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

 

What kind of video card are you running SINS with?  It could be that your video card isn't quite compatible with SINS.

Also, please make sure you're running the latest driver for your particular video card.

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ChaoticMagician
Annatar11
Join Date 11/2006
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Reply #2 October 3, 2008 10:22:25 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Anti-aliasing basically smooths over edges. The higher resolution you run in, the less noticeable anti-aliasing becomes because the pixels themselves are smaller. So if you're running 640x480 it's a lot easier to notice rough edges when you only have 640 across, than in 1600x1200 when you have 1600 across. Generally speaking, the higher the anti-aliasing the "better" it will look, but the lower performance you'll get. So settle for a setting that doesn't make your FPS crawl. At ~1600x1200 (or the corresponding wide screen resolution), 4x-8x is usually more than enough, at least for me.

When you say strange glitter, do you mean white pixels? It's a graphical artifact, I believe with ATI cards?

In any case, if you post screenshots it might be easier to figure out what's happening Use Print Screen to take a shot, it will tell you in-game where it's saved. If you don't see it (some Vista users don't have their keys work), rebind it to another and then it'll work.

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ChaoticMagician
ChaoticMagician
Join Date 04/2008
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Reply #3 October 4, 2008 11:18:19 AM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

To the monk: the graphics card I'm running is a GE Force 8600 GT with 512 MB on it. All drivers are fully up-to-date.

 

To Annatar11: I can't quite figure out how to get a picture on here (I can get a screen shot just fine, I just can't post it), but you are correct: the glitter effect are white pixels that appear and dissappear randomly around the edges of objects. The thing is that I'm running an NVIDIA card, not an ATI...

 

Would you guys recommend turning anti-aliasing off? I'm currently running at a resolution of 1440x900. Or is that a bad idea?

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ChaoticMagician
the_Monk
Join Date 01/2008
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Reply #4 October 4, 2008 1:29:56 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

 

I would definately try that.  There had been other reports on these forums about (the text especially) being fuzzy in SINS with anti-aliasing turned on.

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ChaoticMagician
Annatar11
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Reply #5 October 4, 2008 2:55:25 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

To Annatar11: I can't quite figure out how to get a picture on here (I can get a screen shot just fine, I just can't post it), but you are correct: the glitter effect are white pixels that appear and dissappear randomly around the edges of objects. The thing is that I'm running an NVIDIA card, not an ATI...

 

Would you guys recommend turning anti-aliasing off? I'm currently running at a resolution of 1440x900. Or is that a bad idea?

You can host them on http://www.imageshack.us, it's free. Just upload it there and it will give you links to the image, the only one you need is the "direct link to image" way at the bottom. But if it's the white pixels, you don't really need to post it, I know what it looks like.

Do you also have the latest Nvidia drivers installed? (The ATI thing was my attempt to go from memory, it's been probably half a year since the last thread on the white artifacts )

As for AA.. if you're fine with how the game looks with AA disabled, then by all means disable it. It's just a visual thing. I imagine if it gets rid of the white artifacts, it might be worth it.

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ChaoticMagician
ChaoticMagician
Join Date 04/2008
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Reply #6 October 4, 2008 7:17:59 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Right, I turned the AA off. Some things look a little worse (Vasari bombing lasers for instance) but there are no more glitters. I'd eventually like to turn the AA back on again, so any info as to what the glittering was caused by and what I can do about it would be much appreciated.

In the meantime, thank you both for your help.

-ChaoticMagician

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ChaoticMagician
Annatar11
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Reply #7 October 4, 2008 8:26:20 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Well, do you have the latest drivers for your card?

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ChaoticMagician
ChaoticMagician
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Reply #8 October 4, 2008 10:03:17 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Yes, I do have the latest drivers installed.

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ChaoticMagician
Annatar11
Join Date 11/2006
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Reply #9 October 4, 2008 10:24:04 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Okay, let me do some digging around to see if there's any solution. In the meantime, you can also drop an email to support@ironcladgames.com about it (you'll need to include your cd key). Toss in a link to this thread and re-iterate that you have the latest drivers, since it's always the first thing to be suggested. You probably won't hear back over the weekend though.

I'll post back if I find something.

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ChaoticMagician
Annatar11
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Reply #10 October 4, 2008 10:25:55 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Haha. First google link seems to have hit gold, even Sins specific!

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/323574

Give that a shot.

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ChaoticMagician
ChaoticMagician
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Reply #11 October 4, 2008 10:56:06 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Thanks! Managed to reduce the glitter by about 95% (although I set AA to 16x). Still, better than nothing, right?

-Chaotic Magician

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ChaoticMagician
Annatar11
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Reply #12 October 4, 2008 11:01:48 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

I'd say that's a pretty big improvement Do lower levels of AA get rid of it completely?

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ChaoticMagician
the_Monk
Join Date 01/2008
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Reply #13 October 4, 2008 11:37:07 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

 

I'm still not convinced that the problem isn't (at least in part) related to driver corruption.

ChaoticMagician,

If you don't mind, I would suggest doing the following:

1.  Navigate to the "Control Panel", "System" and "Device Manager".  Once there "uninstall" your display adapter (video card)

2. Reboot the machine but go into "Safe Mode".  Once in safe mode, go to "Add Remove Programs" and remove the video card driver (if it's still shown)

3.  Reboot again and re-install the latest video driver from the Nvidia site (I believe you mentioned previously that you've got an Nvidia card)

...something I've suggested to others in the past that has worked for some. 

the Monk

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ChaoticMagician
ChaoticMagician
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Reply #14 October 5, 2008 5:01:28 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Okay, update...

To Annatar11: for some odd reason, lower levels of AA make the artifacts worse, so I left it at 16x. It's a bit easier on the eyes than no AA at all.

To the_Monk: followed your procedure to the letter. Unfortunately, it had no effect (positive or negative). Not sure if that's a good or bad thing...

Thanks again for all your help,

-ChaoticMagician

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