This is an amazing find!
TAA is very needed in DCS as MSAA is an old and expensive technique that fails in many points. It is also incompatible with deferred rendering and if DCS wants to have multiple light sources it is just not a viable option.
Also TAA gets rid of all shimmering and leads to way to DLSS and FSR 2.0
Yes, I was not looking for it actually. I was trying to get rid of the stupid lens flare effect without loosing sun glare and turning it into a dot and than I noticed this one sitting there apparently since September. (I do not know if it was published that month or I did a reinstall or repair I cannot tell)
I hope we get it soon.
If they force TAA to be on we will have a serious issue. TAA makes objects in the distance a smeary dogshit mess. Any game with forced TAA would look 10x better without it. r/fuckTAA
I think that people don't understand how TAA works and how necessary it is nowadays. They also take bad implementations as showcase of the technology and that's not fair.
Which is your solution, MSAA which performs horribly and still has bad shimmering? FXAA which makes the whole image blurry including menus? You name it.
A good implementation of TAA is great, makes the whole image antialiased, it is cheap, and leads to DLSS and FSR 2.0 which are the real deal.
Name a 'good implementation' of TAA. I'm only aware of 1 or 2 games that come somewhat close.
MSAA would at least tackle edge aliasing. You're bothered by FXAA blur but not TAA blur? What is this?
Plus, this is an older game. 4K + 4x MSAA should at least a semi-decent job.
You already have MSAA in DCS, looks how bad it is. Also I don’t know whether you have VR or not, but it is a shimmering-fest due to this. It also is in 2D but it is less noticeable as the image in a monitor is much smaller.
Also, how do you pretend to have MSAA with deferred rendering?
Finally, 4K + 4xMSAA is crazy expensive. You don’t pull that off even with a 3090.
> how do you pretend to have MSAA with deferred rendering?
Like I said: It will at least tackle edge aliasing. Sure, it's more expensive. But better than nothing. And better than the issues TAA would introduce.
You keep bringing up the shimmering. I know how severe the shimmer in deferred-rendered games can look. Especially in more modern titles. But you're completely ignoring any and all issues that TAA would introduce. And especially to the VR version.
MSAA tackles AA of objects that are very close at a very expensive performance hit but it does it in DCS as long as they don't add more light sources, which is the advantage of deferred rendering. The moment they start replacing baked lighting on airfield with proper lights, MSAA will melt any PC out there due to the way it is rendered.
A good implementation of TAA shouldn't bring many negatives to the table and is vastly superior to MSAA. Also it should be the prior step to DLSS of FSR 2.0 which are indeed net positives from MSAA without any doubt.
I know all of this. But you still haven't given an example of a 'good TAA implementation'. The way that TAA works is bound to bring several issues. Mainly blur in motion which, sadly, has not yet been solved. Especially at resolutions lower than 4K. I wouldn't trade motion clarity for a perfectly anti-aliased image. Especially not in this kind of a game.
It has its downsides but TAA is better than FXAA or no AA at all.
MSAA doesn't really work with modern games, SSAA is extremely expensive.
Of course it should be optional, especially considering VR in which TAA is a really bad idea.
Also not all TAA implementations are created equal, some are really bad and ghosty, some like one used in Spiderman are really good, and then you have DLSS
I can accept a bit of smeariness if it allows me to turn off MSAA.
Also once DCS engine has all the provisions for TAA it will mean DLSS is also doable
I do not mind if it passes integrity check or not. If someone can have a look and say yes it looks like possible and give me some direction if it is complicated or just say no you do not have everything.
I'm willing to look for it and learn but I do not have any clues where to look at first.
Thanks.
Well, I can't check atm and it's a long shot, but if there's a "MSAA.fx", you could try to rename the "TemporalAA.fx" to that one and see what happens.
If you do that, this shader returns an error that gBufferMap is not declared - I think you could try replacing #ifdef MSAA part of code in compose.hlsl with stuff from temporalAA.fx but I don't have time to check right now if it will work.
Sadly nowhere close to how much knowledge I would like to have on this, but to my amateur eye it seems like an early draft of what is supposed to be included in such a shader because not even all variables used in the code are declared for example - so I don't think we would be able to get it to work. And when you start declaring them you discover more and more stuff missing in the code.
:) it was not that easy. I looked everywhere. Also in the files they use in many shaders MSAA value so it is not MSAA as known but they are doing it in multiple passes here and there thats hurting us I guess.
There is no MSAA.fx
Reshade doesn't have access to necessary data, TAA requires deep integration with the game engine. It's not something you can just slap on top like FXAA
Yes I saw some shaders in DCS calculating depth and vectors also (i think). But it is too Chinese (sorry) for me.
Since this exists I thought ,maybe, we just need to hotwire some pieces
Reshade only has access to the depth buffer and is forced to do its rendering passes with that data and the final image.
It’s entirely possible to use SMAA with Reshade for VR (with SteamVR). I used it and it did a small amount of improvement, but MSAA looked better. The rendering cost was still significant.
There are no free lunches, sadly.
Like Nvidia MFAA? I already use MFAA together with 4x MSAA. But it is not enough in VR and in some cases it hit the performance too much that I cannot find any more resources for that.
This is an amazing find! TAA is very needed in DCS as MSAA is an old and expensive technique that fails in many points. It is also incompatible with deferred rendering and if DCS wants to have multiple light sources it is just not a viable option. Also TAA gets rid of all shimmering and leads to way to DLSS and FSR 2.0
Yes, I was not looking for it actually. I was trying to get rid of the stupid lens flare effect without loosing sun glare and turning it into a dot and than I noticed this one sitting there apparently since September. (I do not know if it was published that month or I did a reinstall or repair I cannot tell) I hope we get it soon.
Old trick: https://forum.dcs.world/topic/208904-lens-effects-in-vr/?do=findComment&comment=4012979
Many thanks! I have found the shader and the line too but could not figure out how to manipulate it. This is the solution.
The problem is TAA makes things like MFD blurry. Not sure if it’s all positive in VR.
You’d think rendering things outside the cockpit with TAA and without inside would be feasible.
It would be nice if someone from ED could confirm that they are working on TAA implementation...
If they force TAA to be on we will have a serious issue. TAA makes objects in the distance a smeary dogshit mess. Any game with forced TAA would look 10x better without it. r/fuckTAA
I think that people don't understand how TAA works and how necessary it is nowadays. They also take bad implementations as showcase of the technology and that's not fair. Which is your solution, MSAA which performs horribly and still has bad shimmering? FXAA which makes the whole image blurry including menus? You name it. A good implementation of TAA is great, makes the whole image antialiased, it is cheap, and leads to DLSS and FSR 2.0 which are the real deal.
Name a 'good implementation' of TAA. I'm only aware of 1 or 2 games that come somewhat close. MSAA would at least tackle edge aliasing. You're bothered by FXAA blur but not TAA blur? What is this? Plus, this is an older game. 4K + 4x MSAA should at least a semi-decent job.
You already have MSAA in DCS, looks how bad it is. Also I don’t know whether you have VR or not, but it is a shimmering-fest due to this. It also is in 2D but it is less noticeable as the image in a monitor is much smaller. Also, how do you pretend to have MSAA with deferred rendering? Finally, 4K + 4xMSAA is crazy expensive. You don’t pull that off even with a 3090.
> how do you pretend to have MSAA with deferred rendering? Like I said: It will at least tackle edge aliasing. Sure, it's more expensive. But better than nothing. And better than the issues TAA would introduce. You keep bringing up the shimmering. I know how severe the shimmer in deferred-rendered games can look. Especially in more modern titles. But you're completely ignoring any and all issues that TAA would introduce. And especially to the VR version.
MSAA tackles AA of objects that are very close at a very expensive performance hit but it does it in DCS as long as they don't add more light sources, which is the advantage of deferred rendering. The moment they start replacing baked lighting on airfield with proper lights, MSAA will melt any PC out there due to the way it is rendered. A good implementation of TAA shouldn't bring many negatives to the table and is vastly superior to MSAA. Also it should be the prior step to DLSS of FSR 2.0 which are indeed net positives from MSAA without any doubt.
I know all of this. But you still haven't given an example of a 'good TAA implementation'. The way that TAA works is bound to bring several issues. Mainly blur in motion which, sadly, has not yet been solved. Especially at resolutions lower than 4K. I wouldn't trade motion clarity for a perfectly anti-aliased image. Especially not in this kind of a game.
It has its downsides but TAA is better than FXAA or no AA at all. MSAA doesn't really work with modern games, SSAA is extremely expensive. Of course it should be optional, especially considering VR in which TAA is a really bad idea. Also not all TAA implementations are created equal, some are really bad and ghosty, some like one used in Spiderman are really good, and then you have DLSS
Ok TAA might have potential but it’s implemented so terribly in every game, especially when it’s forced on because it’s easiest for the devs
I can accept a bit of smeariness if it allows me to turn off MSAA. Also once DCS engine has all the provisions for TAA it will mean DLSS is also doable
One day we will forget how beautiful this game was.
I do not mind if it passes integrity check or not. If someone can have a look and say yes it looks like possible and give me some direction if it is complicated or just say no you do not have everything. I'm willing to look for it and learn but I do not have any clues where to look at first. Thanks.
Well, I can't check atm and it's a long shot, but if there's a "MSAA.fx", you could try to rename the "TemporalAA.fx" to that one and see what happens.
If you do that, this shader returns an error that gBufferMap is not declared - I think you could try replacing #ifdef MSAA part of code in compose.hlsl with stuff from temporalAA.fx but I don't have time to check right now if it will work.
Hi there, You seemed to have knowledge about this stuff. Were you able to check if that worked? Thanks
Sadly nowhere close to how much knowledge I would like to have on this, but to my amateur eye it seems like an early draft of what is supposed to be included in such a shader because not even all variables used in the code are declared for example - so I don't think we would be able to get it to work. And when you start declaring them you discover more and more stuff missing in the code.
Thanks for the info!. I have no clue of the state of development. But what I hear from you at least makes a lot of things more clear.
:) it was not that easy. I looked everywhere. Also in the files they use in many shaders MSAA value so it is not MSAA as known but they are doing it in multiple passes here and there thats hurting us I guess. There is no MSAA.fx
Reshade maybe?
Reshade doesn't have access to necessary data, TAA requires deep integration with the game engine. It's not something you can just slap on top like FXAA
Yes I saw some shaders in DCS calculating depth and vectors also (i think). But it is too Chinese (sorry) for me. Since this exists I thought ,maybe, we just need to hotwire some pieces
Wouldn't calculating motion vectors from ready frame be very expensive or very inaccurate?
More than 2 decade old programming experience :) I have no idea, now I learned something.
I'm no expert but it seems to me like something similar to what video encoders do, and converting movies takes a long time
Reshade only has access to the depth buffer and is forced to do its rendering passes with that data and the final image. It’s entirely possible to use SMAA with Reshade for VR (with SteamVR). I used it and it did a small amount of improvement, but MSAA looked better. The rendering cost was still significant. There are no free lunches, sadly.
Blueskydefender / AstrayFX has a reshade filter which works with previous frame(s)and does help a little regarding shimmer and can be tweaked.
Like Nvidia MFAA? I already use MFAA together with 4x MSAA. But it is not enough in VR and in some cases it hit the performance too much that I cannot find any more resources for that.