Question about AA
Hello lovely Simmers, Here I am once again. I have a question about the AA (Anti Aliasing) in The Sims 3, and it's a fairly simple one (but I can't figure it out for the life of me). I want Nvidia...
Forum Discussion
Hey sorry for late and long reply.
In TS3 AA is called FSAA (Full Screen Anti Aliasing) which is not that high quality.
There are many better alternative.
First is injecting SMAA to the game via Reshade. It does a great job. Reduce most of jagged edge with little performance penalty. Actually this is extremely suitable for many weak graphics cards or IGPU.
Second if you want to use Nvidia Control Panel then go to Manage 3D settings. On the right side click on programs settings then find TS3. If you can't find it then you need to add it manually by clicking "Add" and select TS3W.exe from where you install the game.
Then search for Anti-Aliasing mode and select overide any application setting. Then select Anti Aliasing setting and set it to whatever you want (2x 4x or 8x).
For the best result I also highly recommend you set Anisotropic filtering to 16x , Texture Filtering - Quality = High Quality. These two setting will improve texture in TS3 quiet a lot.
And if you are using GeForce 900 series (Maxwell) or newer I also recommend Multi-Framed Sample AA (MFAA) setting to on. This will improve AA quality by 2x but with little performance tax.
Third If you are using GeForce 900 series or newer you can enable Dynamic Super Resolution in Nvidia Control Panel also. This will effectively render the game at higher resolution and then downsample image to your monitor resolution.
For example if you use 1080p monitor you can enable 4xDSR and you will get "almost" 4K image quality.
Settings that I recommend is only 4x cuz it is round number (1 monitor pixel can fill 4 pixels from DSR) and set DSR smoothness to 0%. There is a technical reason behind this if you want to know then just search on Google. hahaha
Fourth there is a more brute force version of AA if you have powerful enough graphics card.
"SGSSAA or Sparse Grid Super Sampling Anti Aliasing" http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=357956
You must download nvidia inspector here http://www.guru3d.com/files-details...r-download.html
Instruction
1.Open nvidia inspector and select Sims 3 profile.
2.Set anti aliasing compatibility bit to 0x000000C1
3.Set anti aliasing mode to override application setting.
4.Set anti aliasing setting to 8xQ (Multisampling).
5.Set anti aliasing transparency supersampling to 8xSparse Grid Super Sampling.
6.Set texture filtering LOD BIAS (DX) to -1.5
7.Click apply and done !!
I recommend at least GTX 780 Ti , 970 , 1060 for 8xSGSSAA at 1080p. If your VGA card is below this try 4xSGSSAA or 2xSGSSAA with this simple rule.
1.MSAA should be equal to SGSSAA for example 2xMSAA should pair with 2xSGSSAA. This will have better image quality than 2xMSAA with 4xSGSSAA or 4xMSAA with 2xSGSSAA. For in depth reason see this http://naturalviolence.webs.com/sgssaa.htm
2.LOD BIAS for 2xSGSSAA is -0.5 and for 4xSGSSAA is -1.0
I ask in guru3d forum and got answer that compatibility bit for Sims 3 and perhaps Sims 4 is 0x000000C1 or 0x00000041.
Wrong compatibility bit can cause blurry image.
Anyways the SGSSAA is quiet taxing on GPU and I myself stop using it long times ago even with GTX 980 Ti OC cuz I use a lot of reshade and that is already quiet a lot of work for my GPU so I just stick to simple and effective reshade SMAA.
Beware than you should use one method at a time except Reshade SMAA.
8xSGSSAA + 4xDSR together will make The Sims 3 unplayable even with the new $1200 RTX 2080 Ti.
For Reshade SMAA You are free to use with other methods.
In TS3 AA is called FSAA (Full Screen Anti Aliasing) which is not that high quality.
There are many better alternative.
First is injecting SMAA to the game via Reshade. It does a great job. Reduce most of jagged edge with little performance penalty. Actually this is extremely suitable for many weak graphics cards or IGPU.
Second if you want to use Nvidia Control Panel then go to Manage 3D settings. On the right side click on programs settings then find TS3. If you can't find it then you need to add it manually by clicking "Add" and select TS3W.exe from where you install the game.
Then search for Anti-Aliasing mode and select overide any application setting. Then select Anti Aliasing setting and set it to whatever you want (2x 4x or 8x).
For the best result I also highly recommend you set Anisotropic filtering to 16x , Texture Filtering - Quality = High Quality. These two setting will improve texture in TS3 quiet a lot.
And if you are using GeForce 900 series (Maxwell) or newer I also recommend Multi-Framed Sample AA (MFAA) setting to on. This will improve AA quality by 2x but with little performance tax.
Third If you are using GeForce 900 series or newer you can enable Dynamic Super Resolution in Nvidia Control Panel also. This will effectively render the game at higher resolution and then downsample image to your monitor resolution.
For example if you use 1080p monitor you can enable 4xDSR and you will get "almost" 4K image quality.
Settings that I recommend is only 4x cuz it is round number (1 monitor pixel can fill 4 pixels from DSR) and set DSR smoothness to 0%. There is a technical reason behind this if you want to know then just search on Google. hahaha
Fourth there is a more brute force version of AA if you have powerful enough graphics card.
"SGSSAA or Sparse Grid Super Sampling Anti Aliasing" http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=357956
You must download nvidia inspector here http://www.guru3d.com/files-details...r-download.html
Instruction
1.Open nvidia inspector and select Sims 3 profile.
2.Set anti aliasing compatibility bit to 0x000000C1
3.Set anti aliasing mode to override application setting.
4.Set anti aliasing setting to 8xQ (Multisampling).
5.Set anti aliasing transparency supersampling to 8xSparse Grid Super Sampling.
6.Set texture filtering LOD BIAS (DX) to -1.5
7.Click apply and done !!
I recommend at least GTX 780 Ti , 970 , 1060 for 8xSGSSAA at 1080p. If your VGA card is below this try 4xSGSSAA or 2xSGSSAA with this simple rule.
1.MSAA should be equal to SGSSAA for example 2xMSAA should pair with 2xSGSSAA. This will have better image quality than 2xMSAA with 4xSGSSAA or 4xMSAA with 2xSGSSAA. For in depth reason see this http://naturalviolence.webs.com/sgssaa.htm
2.LOD BIAS for 2xSGSSAA is -0.5 and for 4xSGSSAA is -1.0
I ask in guru3d forum and got answer that compatibility bit for Sims 3 and perhaps Sims 4 is 0x000000C1 or 0x00000041.
Wrong compatibility bit can cause blurry image.
Anyways the SGSSAA is quiet taxing on GPU and I myself stop using it long times ago even with GTX 980 Ti OC cuz I use a lot of reshade and that is already quiet a lot of work for my GPU so I just stick to simple and effective reshade SMAA.
Beware than you should use one method at a time except Reshade SMAA.
8xSGSSAA + 4xDSR together will make The Sims 3 unplayable even with the new $1200 RTX 2080 Ti.
For Reshade SMAA You are free to use with other methods.
