Graphic settings in computer games - a detailed analysis. What is “GPU Scaling” in AMD Graphics Driver Settings? Scaling in games

If you go to the settings of the AMD Radeon video card driver, then in the display settings section you can find the option “GPU scaling”. By the way, Nvidia also has this option, it's just called a little differently.

By default, this setting is almost always enabled. But why is it needed and when should it be included?

What is GPU scaling for?

This option is needed to automatically adjust the resolution of the image displayed on the monitor by a particular application.

For example, when you launch a particular game, and by default it has a resolution and aspect ratio that is not supported by your monitor, then the video card driver with the scaling option enabled at the GPU level will correct this situation and optimize the image output as much as possible, so as not only not to appeared, but also that there were no black bars on the sides of the screen.

When should GPU scaling be enabled?

This should be done in cases where there are problems with launching games, when a signal is sent to the monitor, or if the picture on the monitor is not on

Scaling is responsible for how your game will look on screens of different sizes. We can make the game scale to each screen automatically during the preload stage so we don't have to worry about it in the future.

Scaling

Phaser has a special scale object that has several useful methods and properties. Modify your preload() function as follows:

Function preload() ( game.scale.scaleMode = Phaser.ScaleManager.SHOW_ALL; game.scale.pageAlignHorizontally = true; game.scale.pageAlignVertically = true; )

scaleMode has several options that determine how the Element can be used to render graphics via scripts (usually JavaScript). For example, it can be used to draw graphs, make photo compositions, or even perform animations. You can (and should) give alternative content within a block . This content will render in both browsers, old ones that don't support canvas and browsers with JavaScript disabled."> will scale:

• NO_SCALE - do not scale anything.
• EXACT_FIT - scale with full filling of empty space vertically and horizontally, without respecting the aspect ratio.
• SHOW_ALL - scales the game, but keeps the ratio, so the pictures will not be distorted, as in the previous value. There may be black bars around the edges of the screen, but we can all live with that.
• RESIZE - creates The element can be used to render graphics via scripts (usually using JavaScript). For example, it can be used to draw graphs, make photo compositions, or even perform animations. You can (and should) give alternative content within a block . This content will render in both browsers, old ones that don't support canvas and browsers with JavaScript disabled."> with available width and height, so you can put objects into the game dynamically; this is advanced mode.
• USER_SCALE - allows you to do dynamic scaling, size calculation, scale and ratio yourself; again, this is an advanced mode.

The other two lines of code in the preload() function are responsible for the vertical and horizontal alignment of the element. The element can be used to render graphics via scripts (usually using JavaScript). For example, it can be used to draw graphs, make photo compositions, or even perform animations. You can (and should) give alternative content within a block . This content will render in both browsers, old ones that don't support canvas and browsers with JavaScript disabled."> , so it will always be centered no matter the screen size.

Changing the background color

We can also make the background of our element The element can be used to render graphics via scripts (usually using JavaScript). For example, it can be used to draw graphs, make photo compositions, or even perform animations. You can (and should) give alternative content within a block . This content will render in both browsers, old ones that don't support canvas and browsers with JavaScript disabled."> the way we want, so that it does not remain permanently black. The stage object has a backgroundColor property for this. We can change the value using the CSS syntax for colors. Add this line after the three recently added:

Game.stage.backgroundColor = "#eee";

Compare your code

You can compare all the code in this tutorial with your own and play with it to see how it works:

Following

We learned how to scale our game, so let's move on to the third lesson and find out .

IntegerScaler is a free program for scaling games with an integer coefficient. For example, in resolution Full HD(1920×1080) on a 4K monitor (3840×2160), each logical pixel is displayed as a square group of four (2×2) physical pixels of the same color.

Such lossless scaling can be useful for both modern 3D games and older games and games based on pixel art ( pixel art). See, for example, games Sim City 2000(1993) (native resolution - 640×480) scaled to 4K using IntegerScaler.

How to use: switch the game to windowed mode and press Alt + F11 while the game window is active. If Alt + F11 for a particular game doesn't work, make the game window inactive, enable delayed scale with Ctrl + Alt + F11 or the "Scale in 5 seconds" item of the IntegerScaler menu and make the game window active again.

See also Use the extension for Firefox and Chrome to fix image blur on web pages.

Functionality

The program simulates full screen mode for games running in windowed mode. The scaled image is displayed in the center of the screen. The space around the image is filled with a solid background (black by default).

An integer scaling factor that provides maximum screen fill is calculated automatically and recalculated when the size of the scalable window is changed when the resolution is changed in the game.

Scaling is not applied to expanded ( maximized) windows.

Scaling is automatically turned off when the scaled window is closed, and also temporarily turned off when the scaled window is minimized or maximized to the entire desktop, and automatically turned on again when the window returns to its normal (not minimized or maximized) state.

Interface

The user interface of the program consists of two parts:

• keyboard shortcuts (hot keys) for zoom control;
• notification area icon ( system tray) from the menu.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Pressing the Alt + F11 key combination enables zooming for the currently active window. Clicking again turns off zooming, regardless of which window is active.

Pressing the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Alt + F11 turns on the zoom with a delay of 5 seconds. This allows you to enable zoom even in games that block processing third-party keyboard shortcuts when the game window is active: just press the keyboard shortcut while not active game window and switch to the game window within 5 seconds. For the same purpose, the “Scale in 5 seconds” item of the program menu serves.

The program also disables scaling when pressing the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Alt + Delete .

Menu

Clicking on the icon displays a menu that allows you to enable zoom, view information about the program, follow links to related web pages, or exit the program.

The program interface supports Russian and English languages, the language is selected automatically based on the operating system interface language.

Autoscaling

It is possible to automatically apply scaling to user-defined games. Each game is specified and identified by the full path to its executable file (*.exe). These paths should be specified each on a separate line in a text file called auto.txt in the IntegerScaler folder.

There is no user interface for editing this list, so you must use a third-party text editor such as Windows Notepad. It is not recommended to use national characters in the paths to game files, otherwise autoscaling for the corresponding games may not work.

Command line options

The following are supported optional command line options:

bg COLOR

Overrides the background color that fills the screen space around the scaled image. Supported values:

• gray - gray;
• white - white;
• arbitrary color in the format R,G,B (no spaces), where R , G and B are integers in the range 0-255 corresponding to the red, green and blue components of the color, respectively, for example, 64,128,192 .

The default is a black background.

Clipcursor Restricts the area of ​​mouse pointer movement to the client area (window area excluding borders and title bar) of the game window. -resize WxH Resizes the game window so that the client area (window area excluding borders and title bar) of the window has the specified dimensions in WxH format, where W and H are the desired width and height in pixels, respectively. For example, 1920x1080 . Useful for games that don't resize the window to match the in-game resolution or set the wrong size. -locale LANGUAGE

Redefines the language of the program interface. Supported values:

• en - English;
• ru - Russian.

By default, the operating system interface language is used if it is Russian, and English in any other case.

Nohotkeys Starts IntegerScaler with hotkeys (keyboard shortcuts) disabled. -scale [DELAY] Applies scaling half a second after IntegerScaler starts (if no delay is set) or with a delay set in milliseconds.

In this example, the background is redefined to gray, the interface language is changed to English, hotkeys are disabled, and scaling is applied 3 seconds (3000 ms) after IntegerScaler starts:

IntegerScaler_64bit.exe -bg gray -clipcursor -resize 1920x1080 -locale en -nohotkeys -scale 3000

Parameters can be specified in the field "An object" tab "Label" in the properties of the shortcut (*.lnk) of the executable file (*.exe). You can create a shortcut using "Create Shortcut" context menu of an executable file, invoked by right-clicking on the executable file.

Parameters are specified with a space after the path to the program's executable file. The parameter value is specified with a space after its name. The order in which the parameters are specified does not matter. The parameters can be used individually, independently of each other.

Bit depth

For the program to work necessary use its version, the bitness of which (32 or 64 bits) matches the bitness of Windows.

Differences from Magnifier

IntegerScaler compares favorably with the standard Windows Magnifier program:

• only the significant part of the window is displayed - without frames and title bar;
• the space around the image is filled with black, as in full screen mode;
• the image is automatically centered on the screen without the need for precise mouse positioning;
• the scale factor is selected automatically to fill the screen as much as possible.

Game Compatibility

See the table for compatibility information for some games with windowed mode and IntegerScaler.

windowed mode

The program is compatible with overwhelming majority games that support window (windowed) mode, and does not work with games running in full screen mode.

If the game settings do not explicitly switch between full screen ( full screen) and windowed modes, Alt + Enter may work.

HiDPI mode

It is important to make sure that the game is running in HiDPI compliant ( DPI-aware) mode. It is easy to determine this: the size of the game window in physical pixels (dots) must match the resolution selected in the game settings. For example, a Full HD game window at 200% system scale on a 4K monitor should not occupy the entire screen, but approximately 1/4 of the screen (1/2 horizontally and 1/2 vertically).

For games that are formally incompatible with HiDPI, you need to disable DPI virtualization ( DPI scaling) in the properties of the executable file (*.exe) so that the game window is properly sized and free from blurring that may result from the scaling that Windows automatically applies to HiDPI-incompatible applications.

You can disable DPI virtualization for a particular game in the properties of its executable file (the "Properties" item of the file's context menu).

Windows 10

Item "Properties" → tab "Compatibility" → section "Parameters" → button "Change high DPI settings" → section "Override high resolution scaling" → checkbox "Override high resolution scaling mode. Scaling in progress” → “Application” item of the drop-down list.

Windows 10 (Legacy)

Item "Properties" → tab "Compatibility" → section "Options" → checkbox "Override high resolution scaling mode. Scaling in progress” → “Application” item of the drop-down list.

Windows 7

Item "Properties" → tab "Compatibility" → section "Options" → checkbox "Disable image scaling at high screen resolution".

Mouse

Subjective mouse pointer speed in games that use systemic mouse pointer, can grow in proportion to the scale factor.

Administrator mode

To scale games running as an administrator, IntegerScaler must also be run as an administrator.

Aero in Windows 7

For scaling to work in Windows 7, Aero mode must be enabled ( DWM composition). The program automatically tries to enable Aero if it is disabled. This does not apply to Windows 8 and above - there is a function DWM composition always enabled.

Previous versions are available through the version history (see below).

System requirements

• Windows 7+ (32/64 bits).
• The program does not require installation or any additional libraries.

Reviews

• Cool stuff, I've been wanting something like this for a long time.
  Andrey

• Great thing, it actually draws one pixel of the game in 4 monitors.
  Jack Alligator

• Finally I can easily play my games in FHD on my UHD monitor without getting any headache. It even runs fine with accelerated 3D-Games like Anno 1440, which could run in UHD, but with much too tiny menus, and in FHD of course blury text. It seems to run very well, not even any performance issues so far. Thank you very much!
  Passatuner

• Thanks a lot! Works, perfectly and even scales by the amount of times compared to my desktop resolution just to be able to fit the screen as much as it can without breaking aspect ratio! Doom 2 now finally feels like it should on a big screen! Love those huge pixels.
  HiCZoK

• So useful in preserving detail in sprite-based games when displaying at higher resolutions. Amazing software, you are doing great work for people who hate the in-built scaling of displays/gpus.
  Daniel

• IntegerScaler is really impressive, I've been looking for an app that does this for years now.
  Ben

• Works really well and the games do look awesome!
  Simone

Canard PC review IntegerScaler review published in issue #395 (June 2019) of the French paper magazine Canard PC. see also

• "" - an article about the essence of the issue, potential and partial solutions and progress.
• - an extension for Firefox that disables blurring for images displayed with an integer scale.
• - fixes the size of the address bar and the search field in Windows 7 Explorer when the scale is more than 188%.

Version history 2.11 (2019-12-09)

• Support for resizing the game window and limiting the area of ​​movement of the mouse pointer using the -resize and -clipcursor command line options, respectively.

On the site PC Gamers an interesting analysis of graphic settings in computer games appeared, where all popular tools, filters and image processing mechanisms are described in detail. We have translated it into Russian so that you can customize your games yourself, get rid of lags and enjoy beautiful graphics.

So, today we will figure out what certain graphic settings mean in computer games.

At Nvidia and AMD there is software to automatically adjust the graphics according to the specifications of your computer. The programs do their job well, but often manual configuration brings much more benefit. Still, we are PC boyars, we should have freedom of choice!

If you are new to game graphics, this guide is for you. We will decipher the main items in any "Graphics Settings" menu in your games and explain what they affect. This information will help you get rid of lags and freezes in your favorite game without losing a beautiful picture. And owners of powerful computers will understand how to set up the most juicy and attractive graphics in order to record cool videos and take spectacular screenshots.

Let's start with the fundamentals, and then go through the fine-tuning within a few sections on anisotropic filtering, anti-aliasing, and post-processing. To write this guide, we used the information received from professionals: Alex Austin, designer and programmer Cryptic Sea, Nicholas Vining, CTO and Lead Programmer Gaslamp Games and from representatives of Nvidia. We note right away that we are writing the article in simple words, omitting detailed technical details to make it easier for you to understand the mechanisms of operation of different technologies.

BASICS

Permission

Pixel is the basic unit of a digital image. This is the color point and resolution is the number of columns and rows of dots on your monitor. The most common permissions today: 1280x720 (720p), 1920x1080 (1080p), 2560x1440 (1440p) and 3840 x 2160 (4K or "Ultra-HD"). But this is for format displays 16:9 . If you have an aspect ratio 16:10 , the resolutions will be slightly different: 1920x1200, 2560x1600 etc. Ultra-wide monitors also have a different resolution: 2560x1080, 3440x1440 etc.

Frames per second (FPS)

If we imagine that the game is an animated video, then FPS will be the number of images shown per second. This is not the same as the display refresh rate, measured in hertz. But these two parameters are easy to compare, because just as a monitor at 60 Hz is updated 60 times per second, so a game at 60 FPS produces exactly that many frames in the same period of time.

The more you load the graphics card with processing beautiful, detailed game scenes, the lower your FPS. If the frame rate is low, the frames will repeat and you will get a stuttering and stuttering effect. Esportsmen hunt for the highest possible performance FPS, especially in shooters. And ordinary users are often content with playable performance - it's somewhere around 60 frames per second. However, monitors at 120-144 Hz are becoming more affordable, so the need for FPS is also growing. It makes no sense to play at 120 hertz if the system pulls only 60-70 frames.

Since most games do not have a built-in benchmark, third-party software is used to measure frames per second, for example, shadow play or FRAPS. However, some new games DX12 and Vulkan may not work correctly with these programs, which was not observed with older games on DX11.

Upscaling and downsampling

Some games have a "render resolution" setting or rendering resolution- This option allows you to maintain a constant screen resolution while adjusting the resolution at which the game is played. If the rendering resolution of the game is lower than the screen resolution, it will be scaled up to match the screen resolution (upscaling). In this case, the picture will turn out terrible, because it will stretch several times. On the other hand, if you render the game at a higher screen resolution (such an option exists, for example, in Shadow of Mordor), it will look much better, but the performance will be noticeably slower (downsampling).

Upscale and downscale

Performance

Resolution has the biggest impact on performance as it determines the number of pixels processed by the GPU. That's why 1080p console games often use upscaling to play cool special effects while maintaining smooth frame rates.

We used our Large Pixel Collider(supercomputer from PC Gamer) by enabling two of the four available graphics cards GTX Titan to demonstrate how much resolution affects performance.

The tests were carried out in the Shadow of Mordor benchmark:

V-sync and frame tearing

When the display refresh cycle is out of sync with the game's render cycle, the screen may be updated as it cycles between rendered frames. It turns out the effect of tearing frames when we see parts of two or more frames at the same time.

Unpleasant frame breaks

One solution to this problem was v-sync, which is almost always present in the graphics settings. It prevents the game from showing a frame until the display has completed its refresh cycle. This causes another problem - a delay in the output of frames when the game is able to show more FPS, but is limited by the monitor's hertz (for example, you could have 80 or even 100 frames, but the monitor will only allow 60).

Adaptive V-Sync

It also happens that the frame rate of the game drops below the refresh rate of the monitor. If the frame rate of the game is exceeded, vertical sync ties it to the refresh rate of the monitor and it, for example, on a display with 60 Hz will not exceed 60 frames. But when the frame rate drops below the monitor's refresh rate, the vertical sync ties it to another synced value, for example, 30 fps. If the frame rate constantly fluctuates above and below the refresh rate, stuttering occurs.

To solve this problem, Nvidia's adaptive v-sync disables sync every time the frame rate drops below the refresh rate. This feature can be enabled in the Nvidia Control Panel and is a must for those who constantly enable V-Sync.

G-sync and FreeSync technologies

New technologies help to solve many problems, which are often based on the fact that displays have a fixed refresh rate. But if the display frequency could be changed depending on FPS, frame breaks and slowdowns would be gone. Such technologies already exist, but they require a compatible graphics card and display. Nvidia has the technology G-sync, while AMD has freesync. If your monitor supports one of them and it matches the installed video card, the problems are solved.

Smoothing (Anti-aliasing, anti-aliasing)

If you draw a diagonal line with square pixels, their sharp edges will create a “staircase effect”. It turns out ugly, and the developers call this situation aliasing. If the resolutions of monitors were much higher, the problem would seem miserable. But until new display technologies appear or are too expensive, you have to compensate for the "ladder" with anti-aliasing.

There are enough tools for this, but it is easier to explain with the example of supersampling (SSAA). This technology renders frames at a higher resolution than the screen and then compresses them back to its size. On the previous page, you could see the effect of smoothing when reducing the frequency in Shadow of Mordor with 5120x2880 before 1440p.

Visual smoothing

Take a look at the tiled roof pixel. He is orange. There is also a blue sky pixel. Being close, they create a hard jagged transition from the roof to the sky. But if you render the scene at four times the resolution, instead of one pixel of the orange roof, there will be four pixels in the same place. Some of them will be orange, some will be "heavenly". It is worth taking the value of all four pixels, as you get something in between - if you build the whole scene according to this principle, the transitions will become softer and the “staircase effect” will disappear.

This is the essence of technology. But, it requires a lot of resources from the system. It has to render every frame at a resolution two or more times greater than the original screen resolution. Even in the case of our top-end graphics cards, supersampling with 2560x1440 seems inappropriate. Fortunately, there are alternatives:

Multisampling (MSAA): More efficient than supersampling, but still power hungry. In older games, it was the standard, and its essence is explained in the video that you will see below.

Advanced Multisampling (CSAA): more efficient version MSAA from Nvidia for its video cards.

Advanced Multisampling (CFAA): also an upgrade MSAA, only from AMD for its cards.

Fast approximation method (FXAA): instead of analyzing each individual pixel, FXAA superimposed as a post-processing filter on the entire scene after it has been rendered. FXAA also captures places that are skipped when turned on MSAA. Although the fast approximation method itself also misses a lot of bumps.

Morphological method (MLAA): it is peculiar to AMD video cards and also skips the rendering stage. MLAA processes the frame, looking for aliasing and smoothing it. As Nicholas Vining explained to us: “Morphological smoothing works with the morphology (patterns) of bumps at the edges of models; it calculates the best way to remove ladders for each kind of bump by splitting edges and serrations into small sets of morphological operators. And then uses specific blend types for each individual set." Turn on MLAA You can in the Catalyst Control Panel.

Enhanced Subpixel Morphological Anti-Aliasing (SMAA): another kind of post-processing that combines details MLAA, MSAA and SSAA. This method can be combined with SweetFX, and many modern games support it natively.

Temporal Anti-Aliasing (TAA or TXAA): TXAA was originally developed for Nvidia-level GPUs. Kepler and later. But then less specific forms of temporal smoothing appeared, which are usually denoted as TAA. With this method, the next frame is compared with the previous one, after which irregularities are detected and eliminated. This happens with the support of various filters that reduce the "creeping ladder" in motion.

Nicholas Vining explains: “The idea TAA is to expect that two consecutive frames will be very similar, because the user in the game does not move so fast. So once the objects on the screen have moved slightly, we can get the data from the previous frame to fill in the areas that need smoothing.”

Multi-frame anti-aliasing (MFAA): appeared with the release of GPUs Maxwell from Nvidia. Whereas MSAA works with stable templates, MFAA allows them to be programmed. Nvidia representatives explain the technology in detail in the video below (we have already talked about it before and you will see it very soon).

Deep Learning Supersampling (DLSS): Latest Nvidia technology, only available on select games and graphics cards GeForce RTX. According to the company: “ DLSS uses a neural network to determine the multidimensional features of a rendered scene and intelligently combine details from multiple frames to create a high-quality final image. DLSS uses fewer samples than TAA while avoiding algorithmic difficulties with transparencies and other complex scene elements."

In other words, DLSS performs the task better and more efficiently than TAA, but the technology needs to be prepared separately for each game. If you do not train it properly, many places will be blurry.

What do the numbers mean?

In the anti-aliasing settings, you often see values: 2x, 4x, 8x, etc. These numbers tell you how many color swatches are used, and in general, the larger the number, the more accurate the anti-aliasing will be (and require more system resources).

But there are exceptions. So, CSAA tries to achieve smoothing at the level MSAA with fewer color swatches. So 8xCSAA actually uses only four color swatches. There are also 8QxCSAA- This dithering method increases the number of color samples to eight to improve accuracy.

Another example of smoothing

Performance

We used the benchmark Batman Arkham City to test some of the older anti-aliasing methods: MSAA, FXAA and TXAA. The results, as expected, show that FXAA requires the least amount of resources, while MSAA and TXAA greatly affect the average frame rate.

Anti-aliasing test results in Batman: Arkham City (on two Nvidia GTX Titan SLI):

What smoothing method to use?

Depends on your graphics card and personal preferences regarding performance and visual quality. However, if frame rate isn't an issue, the choice is clear: FXAA the most efficient. If you have a video card RTX and your game supports DLSS- try it, because it was not in vain that you paid for a new and very effective technology. In older games, you will have to tweak the settings back and forth to find the perfect combination of performance and attractive appearance. If your system is powerful enough, you can test supersampling instead of the options built into the games.

Clean-shaven smoothed Batman

Overriding anti-aliasing settings

Theoretically, graphics settings in games should not matter. You can just open the Nvidia and AMD control panel and change everything there to your liking. Unfortunately, in reality, things work differently. Although you can override the settings for any game, a positive result is not guaranteed.

Nicholas Vining explains, "Very often overriding settings doesn't work because of deferred rendering, which breaks many common anti-aliasing techniques." Alex Austin of Cryptic Sea also noted that some anti-aliasing methods do not work with graphics card panel settings. So, you need to test. Try disabling anti-aliasing in the game and set it in the control panel, then go back to the game and check the result.

We noticed that MLAA from AMD works better from the control panel. But it is important to note that this is a post-processing filter that is applied to all objects in the scene. Therefore, it can fix jagged edges of textures, but also capture something superfluous. For example, the menu in BioShock Infinite, whose letters have become slightly anti-aliased.

The menu is a little "suffered"

Supersampling using dynamic super-resolution technology (DSR) from Nvidia or AMD's virtual ultra-high resolution technology is more reliable. Nvidia DSR is enabled in the "Manage 3D Settings" section, where it can be set up to 4x. And AMD's virtual ultra-high resolution is enabled in the "Display" tab. By activating any of these settings, you will run the game in a higher resolution, which will be reduced to fit the screen resolution. It will turn out beautifully, but resource-intensive. In addition, there may be interface problems in some games, or the technology may not want to work at all.

Bilinear and trilinear filtering

Texture filtering monitors how 2D images are superimposed on a 3D model. A pixel on a 3D model will not necessarily correspond to a pixel on a texture (by the way, pixels on 3D models are called texels). After all, you are watching the model at different distances and from different angles. Therefore, when you need to know the color of a pixel, filtering finds a point on the corresponding texture, takes several samples from nearby texels and averages them. The simplest filtering method is bilinear filtering, which selects the four closest texels to find the color of the desired pixel.

The world is falling apart

Appeared MIP- texturing and with it came a new problem. Let's say you're standing on a surface of cracked concrete. If you look straight down, you'll see a large, detailed concrete texture. But when you look into the distance, where the road goes into the horizon, you will see only a couple of pixels, and special detail is not needed there. Therefore, in order to improve performance without losing quality, the game will load a lower resolution texture called MIP- texture.

So, when we are considering our road, we don’t particularly want to see where one MIP- the image ends and the other one starts, because their quality is different and the transition will hurt the eye. Bilinear filtering does not interpolate (do not smooth) transitions, so they are noticeable with this type of filtering. The problem is solved using trilinear filtering, which smoothes the transition between MIP- textures, using samples of each of them.

Anisotropic filtering

The trilinear filtering works, but the textures still appear blurry. That's why anisotropic filtering was invented, which greatly improves the quality of textures when viewed from an angle.

Anisotropic filtering dominates

To understand how this works, imagine a square window - a 3D model pixel - with a brick wall right behind it as a texture. Light comes through the window, creating a square shape on the wall. This is our sampling area and it is the same in all directions. Using this technology, samples are taken in the case of bilinear and trilinear filtering.

If the model is directly in front of you, perpendicular to the view, the result will be sane. What if you're looking at it from an angle? It results in blur. Now imagine that the texture of the brick wall is tilted away from the window. The beam of light will turn into a long trapezoid, covering much more of the vertical space on the texture than the horizontal. This is the area that needs to be sampled for the pixel. Roughly speaking, this is how anisotropic filtering works. She scales MIP- textures in one direction corresponding to the angle from which you observe the 3D object.

Conceptually, this technology is not so easy to understand. If you still have questions after our explanation, take a look at Nvidia's own explanation for more information on the topic (in English).

And what do the numbers mean here?

Anisotropic filtering in the settings of modern games is not so common, but where it is, it can be set in the range from 2x to 16x. Nvidia explains that these numbers refer to the steepness of the corner that the filtering will be applied to:

"Anisotropic filtering operates with anisotropy levels between 1 and 16, defining the maximum degree that a MIP- texture. But it is usually offered to the user in 2x magnification: 2x, 4x, 8x and 16x. The difference between these settings is the maximum angle at which filtering will work with the texture. For example, 4x will filter textures at angles twice as steep as 2x, but will apply 2x filtering to textures that are in the 2x range to optimize performance. This will reduce the load on the system even with the maximum anisotropic filtering settings.”

Performance

Anisotropic filtering doesn't affect performance as much as anti-aliasing, so it's rarely added to the settings menu these days (it's on by default). Using the BioShock Infinite benchmark, we noticed a decrease in the average FPS by only 6 frames in comparison between bilinear and anisotropic filtering. This is a negligible difference, given the significant improvement in picture quality. After all, high quality textures do not make sense with poor filtering.

Another example of the victory of anisotropic filtering over other methods

Graphics quality settings

Quality settings largely depend on the game itself. In general, they increase and decrease the complexity of game effects and assets (resources, digital objects). Going from low to high settings can affect a bunch of variables. For example, by increasing the quality of shadows, you can increase their resolution, enable soft shadows, or change the distance at which shadows are visible. You won't know exactly what you've done, but in some cases the changes will significantly improve performance.

Decreasing and increasing texture quality significantly affects performance and visual quality. In the BioShock Infinite benchmark, we set all the settings to the maximum and changed only the quality of the textures. Here are the results (using two Nvidia GTX Titan SLIs):

Notice the jump between low and high settings? More than ten frames per second. It doesn't seem like much. But on other systems, the difference can be much larger, because our test bench is quite powerful. There is no quick way to determine the ideal graphics quality settings for your system. This is the case when you need to test with pens. We recommend that you first try the software tips from Nvidia and AMD, and then improve the quality of textures, lighting and shadows by checking the average FPS.

global shading (Ambient occlusion)

The global illumination is evenly distributed over each object in the scene. For example, on a sunny day, when a certain amount of light is scattered even in the shade. To add depth to the scene, technology is combined with directional lighting, because without it the picture is flat.

intimate shading

Global shading attempts to improve this effect by determining which parts of the scene should be illuminated more or less. It doesn't cast hard shadows like a directional light, but rather darkens the overall interior and crevices, adding soft shading.

SSAO (obstruction of ambient light in screen space)

Almost the same as global shading (ambient occlusion) used in real-time rendering. In recent years, this technology has become commonplace in games, and for the first time it could be seen in . Sometimes the technology looks stupid, as if the surrounding objects “shine” with darkness. Other times it adds depth to the scene perfectly. All major engines support SSAO, and the implementation of the technology depends on the game and its developers.

There are also improved versions SSAO as HBAO+ and HDAO.

HDRR technology (High dynamic range rendering - highly dynamic rendering range)

HDR was in vogue among photographers a few years ago. The range here refers to the brightness of the image and determines how dark or bright it can be. The goal of the technology is to make the darkest areas of the scene as detailed and distinguishable as the bright ones. An image with a low dynamic range is clearly visible in the highlights, while in the shadows all the detail is lost, or vice versa.

HDR rocks

In the past, the range of dark and light in games was limited to eight bits (256 values). But with the advent DirectX 10 128-bit became possible HDRR. Although, the technology is still limited by the contrast of the displays. There is no standardized method for measuring contrast, but LED- monitors often give out a contrast ratio of 1000:1.

bloom effect

Notorious for being overly popular with game developers, bloom- the effect tries to mimic the way bright light spreads around the edges of the models, making the light sources appear brighter than they really are. This works, but bloom is often implemented so crookedly that ordinary table lamps glow more than a nuclear explosion. Luckily, it can be turned off in most games.

Below you can see a screenshot from the game Syndicate- the brightest (in the literal sense) example of an implementation curve bloom- effect.

Who blew up a supernova on the street? :)

Blur (motion blur)

Everything is very simple - this is a filter that imitates a sharp movement of the frame, as if in a movie. Many gamers prefer to turn it off. And not only because it affects performance, but also for reasons of comfort. Blurring sometimes looks nice, for example, in racing games (if it is implemented correctly). But usually we turn it off.

Depth of field (DOF)

For photographers, depth of field refers to the distance between the nearest and furthest points that appear in focus. For example, if we are shooting a portrait with little DOF, the person's face will be sharp, and the hair at the back will begin to blur and the background will be completely blurred. On the other hand, if DOF will be too big, the person's nose will be detailed at the same level as all the objects behind it - not too pretty.

Courtesy of the PC Gamer website