Posted: 19 May 2013, 17:59
After picking up Re-Volt again after years, i'm completely hooked. I've had plenty of fun racing online in RVHouse, downloading custom tracks and cars, and just browsing the forums. I figured i'd do something back for the community in the form of a little guide.<3
When i was mucking about in the settings for revolt, i noticed anti-aliasing didn't work as intended, nor does it have any specific settings ( other than off/on). Thankfully, you can force anti aliasing through the Nvidia control panel/inspector or AMD's Catalyst control center. Seeing how i'm currently using an Nvidia based GPU, i'll be looking into a Nvidia specific solution. I could whip up an AMD guide if you'd like, but i'd have to do some testing on my other rig.
What is antialiasing and why do i want it?
Anti-aliasing is a type of rendering techniques that helps eliminating sharp edges from 3d models and the likes( often referred to as "jaggies"). Said "jaggies" are especially noticable on low resolutions and/or new-skool TFT/LCD screens. While some people find aliasing a charming side-effect of retro-computing, some people prefer having their game look as smooth as can be.
Look at this fabulous teddy bear. As you might notice, the aliased one looks amazingly sharp and pixelated, whereas the anti-aliased one is smoothed out.
Requirements:
- An Nvidia based Graphics Card, preferably one that packs a bit of a punch (ie. a GT 8600 or up. For reference, i use a GTX 560ti, which is rather overkill for re-volt.)
- The Nvidia inspector, which can be found Here. You can also force anti-aliasing through the control panel, but these settings tend to go lost after a driver update.
Procedure:
Re-volt has not been officially listed as a game( as of this writing.), so you'll have to add it yourself. Click the "Create Profile" button and type in a name of your choosing( although simply naming it Re-Volt is likely the least confusing name
).
Now that the profile has been added, it needs to be associated with a game. You can do so by clicking the "Add application to current profile" button and selecting the "revolt.exe" that's located in whichever folder you installed revolt in ( for 64-bit systems, this is typically "C:\Program Files (x86)\Acclaim\ReVolt\revolt.exe"
Now that you've set up the inspector, it's time to decide on which form of anti-aliasing you wish to force upon re-volt. Take in mind that some types affect the image quality in different ways, and have different impacts on performance, so feel free to try out different options and just stick with whichever setting suits your fancy.
SSAA is likely the most demanding type of anti-aliasing, as it effectively draws everything twice( or more) the size and then scales it down. This includes the HUD/interface, which might or might not be desirable. This method may lead to a slight loss in texture quality, but seeing how Re-Volt generally uses low-resolution textures, this is negligible.
MSAA used to be the most commonly used form of "pre-processed" anti-aliasing. It is moderately GPU-intensive, but leaves the HUD alone. You can combine SSAA and MSAA for even better results.
SGSSAA, otherwise known as Sparse Grid transparency Supersampling Anti-Aliasing, originated as an unintended glitch in some older geforce drivers. Although its intended use was to stricly supersample transparency in textures, this variant would supersample the entire screen, much like the SSAA method would. This feature is about as GPU-intensive as straight up SSAA would be, although some performance increases can be found across the board. This feature should be used in conjunction with MSAA.
CSAA is nowadays the most commonly used form of "pre-processed" anti-aliasing, as it is considerably less taxing than MSAA, yet yields similar results.
FXAA is different from the other methods, as it is essentially a shader applied on the entire window, which uses some maths to determine what needs smoothing. This method tends to be way less taxing, however, this method tends to cause a bit of blurring. This method may lead to a slight loss in texture quality, but seeing how Re-Volt generally uses low-resolution textures, this is negligible. FXAA can be used in conjunction with the other anti-aliasing methods, but this is usually very taxing on your system and usually not worth the result. Also, upon testing this setting, it didn't work for me through the driver settings.
The anti-aliasing setting can typically be set from x2 to x16. Personally, i noticed setting it to x4 or higher usually achieves the desired result. I currently have it set to "2x2SS/x8MS" which is effectively a 32x anti-alias. The undocumented all caps "AA_METHOD_*" settings can achieve some ridiculous results, but do take in mind some settings might bring your game to a crawl or crash it.
There are some different forms of anti-aliasing, but they are only availible on newer cards and/or only work on certain games, so i won't be talking about those in this guide.
In order to force MSAA,CSAA or SSAA, simply set the "Antialiasing - Mode" to "Override any application setting." and pick an anti-aliasing type and setting of your choosing. Be sure to apply your changes
It works slightly differently when you intend on using SGSSAA aswell. Enable both MSAA and set the sparse grid supersampling to the same setting MSAA is set at
Enjoy your Anti-Aliased Re-Volt!
If you have any questions or comments regarding Anti-aliasing, or this guide, feel free to contact me by posting a reply or sending me a PM.
No Anti-Aliasing Look at the cars, arcade cabinet and palm tree, just to name a few.
Anti-Aliasing (32x CSAA) Jaggies begone!
When i was mucking about in the settings for revolt, i noticed anti-aliasing didn't work as intended, nor does it have any specific settings ( other than off/on). Thankfully, you can force anti aliasing through the Nvidia control panel/inspector or AMD's Catalyst control center. Seeing how i'm currently using an Nvidia based GPU, i'll be looking into a Nvidia specific solution. I could whip up an AMD guide if you'd like, but i'd have to do some testing on my other rig.
What is antialiasing and why do i want it?
Anti-aliasing is a type of rendering techniques that helps eliminating sharp edges from 3d models and the likes( often referred to as "jaggies"). Said "jaggies" are especially noticable on low resolutions and/or new-skool TFT/LCD screens. While some people find aliasing a charming side-effect of retro-computing, some people prefer having their game look as smooth as can be.
Look at this fabulous teddy bear. As you might notice, the aliased one looks amazingly sharp and pixelated, whereas the anti-aliased one is smoothed out.
Requirements:
- An Nvidia based Graphics Card, preferably one that packs a bit of a punch (ie. a GT 8600 or up. For reference, i use a GTX 560ti, which is rather overkill for re-volt.)
- The Nvidia inspector, which can be found Here. You can also force anti-aliasing through the control panel, but these settings tend to go lost after a driver update.
Procedure:
Re-volt has not been officially listed as a game( as of this writing.), so you'll have to add it yourself. Click the "Create Profile" button and type in a name of your choosing( although simply naming it Re-Volt is likely the least confusing name
).Now that the profile has been added, it needs to be associated with a game. You can do so by clicking the "Add application to current profile" button and selecting the "revolt.exe" that's located in whichever folder you installed revolt in ( for 64-bit systems, this is typically "C:\Program Files (x86)\Acclaim\ReVolt\revolt.exe"
Now that you've set up the inspector, it's time to decide on which form of anti-aliasing you wish to force upon re-volt. Take in mind that some types affect the image quality in different ways, and have different impacts on performance, so feel free to try out different options and just stick with whichever setting suits your fancy.
SSAA is likely the most demanding type of anti-aliasing, as it effectively draws everything twice( or more) the size and then scales it down. This includes the HUD/interface, which might or might not be desirable. This method may lead to a slight loss in texture quality, but seeing how Re-Volt generally uses low-resolution textures, this is negligible.
MSAA used to be the most commonly used form of "pre-processed" anti-aliasing. It is moderately GPU-intensive, but leaves the HUD alone. You can combine SSAA and MSAA for even better results.
SGSSAA, otherwise known as Sparse Grid transparency Supersampling Anti-Aliasing, originated as an unintended glitch in some older geforce drivers. Although its intended use was to stricly supersample transparency in textures, this variant would supersample the entire screen, much like the SSAA method would. This feature is about as GPU-intensive as straight up SSAA would be, although some performance increases can be found across the board. This feature should be used in conjunction with MSAA.
CSAA is nowadays the most commonly used form of "pre-processed" anti-aliasing, as it is considerably less taxing than MSAA, yet yields similar results.
FXAA is different from the other methods, as it is essentially a shader applied on the entire window, which uses some maths to determine what needs smoothing. This method tends to be way less taxing, however, this method tends to cause a bit of blurring. This method may lead to a slight loss in texture quality, but seeing how Re-Volt generally uses low-resolution textures, this is negligible. FXAA can be used in conjunction with the other anti-aliasing methods, but this is usually very taxing on your system and usually not worth the result. Also, upon testing this setting, it didn't work for me through the driver settings.
The anti-aliasing setting can typically be set from x2 to x16. Personally, i noticed setting it to x4 or higher usually achieves the desired result. I currently have it set to "2x2SS/x8MS" which is effectively a 32x anti-alias. The undocumented all caps "AA_METHOD_*" settings can achieve some ridiculous results, but do take in mind some settings might bring your game to a crawl or crash it.
There are some different forms of anti-aliasing, but they are only availible on newer cards and/or only work on certain games, so i won't be talking about those in this guide.
In order to force MSAA,CSAA or SSAA, simply set the "Antialiasing - Mode" to "Override any application setting." and pick an anti-aliasing type and setting of your choosing. Be sure to apply your changes
It works slightly differently when you intend on using SGSSAA aswell. Enable both MSAA and set the sparse grid supersampling to the same setting MSAA is set at
Enjoy your Anti-Aliased Re-Volt!
If you have any questions or comments regarding Anti-aliasing, or this guide, feel free to contact me by posting a reply or sending me a PM.
No Anti-Aliasing Look at the cars, arcade cabinet and palm tree, just to name a few.
Anti-Aliasing (32x CSAA) Jaggies begone!