Zoom mode in the game. What is “GPU scaling” in the AMD video card driver settings? Vsync and frame tearing

IntegerScaler - free program for scaling games by an integer factor. For example, in resolution Full HD(1920x1080) on a 4K monitor (3840x2160), each logical pixel is displayed as a square group of four (2x2) physical pixels of the same color.

Such scaling without loss of quality can be useful for both modern 3D games, and for older games and games based on pixel graphics ( pixel art ). See, for example, games "SimCity 2000"(1993) (native resolution - 640x480), upscaled to 4K using IntegerScaler.

How to use: switch the game to windowed mode and press Alt + F11 when active window games. If Alt + F11 for a specific game does not work, make the game window inactive, enable deferred scaling using Ctrl + Alt + F11 or the “Scale after 5 seconds” option in the IntegerScaler menu and make the game window active again.

See also To remove blurry images on web pages, use the extension for Firefox and Chrome.

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 plain background (black by default).

An integer scale factor that ensures maximum screen filling is calculated automatically and recalculated when the size of the scaled window changes when the game resolution changes.

Scaling does not apply to expanded ( maximized) windows.

Scaling is automatically turned off when closing the scaled window, and is 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 (neither minimized nor maximized) state.

Interface

The user interface of the program consists of two parts:

• keyboard shortcuts (hot keys) to control scaling;
• icon in the notification area ( system tray) with menu.

Keyboard shortcuts

Pressing a combination Alt keys+ F11 enables scaling for active this moment window. Pressing it again turns off zooming, regardless of which window is active.

Pressing the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Alt + F11 enables zooming with a delay of 5 seconds. This allows you to enable scaling even in games that block third-party keyboard shortcuts from being processed while the game window is active: just press the keyboard shortcut while Not active game window and within 5 seconds switch to the game window. The “Scale after 5 seconds” item in the program menu serves the same purpose.

The program also turns off zooming when you press the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Alt + Delete.

Menu

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

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

Autoscaling

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

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

Command Line Options

The following are supported optional options command line:

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 (without 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 Limits the area of ​​mouse pointer movement to the client area (window area excluding frames and title bar) of the game window. -resize WxH Resizes the game window so that the client area (the area of ​​the window excluding the frames and title bar) of the window has in WxH format, where W and H are the required width and height in pixels, respectively. For example, 1920x1080. Useful for games that do not resize the window to match the in-game resolution or set the window to the wrong size. -locale

LANGUAGE

• Overrides the program interface language. 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 Runs IntegerScaler with hotkeys (keyboard shortcuts) disabled.-scale

[DELAY]

Applies scaling half a second after IntegerScaler starts (if no delay is specified) or with a delay specified in milliseconds. This example redefines the background to gray, redefines the interface language to English, disables hotkeys, and applies scaling 3 seconds (3000 ms) after running IntegerScaler: IntegerScaler_64bit.exe -bg gray-clipcursor -resize 1920x1080 -locale en 3000

-nohotkeys -scale Parameters can be specified in the field "An object" on the tab "Label" in the properties of the shortcut (*.lnk) of the executable file (*.exe). You can create a shortcut using the item "Create shortcut" clickable executable context menu

right click

mouse on the executable file.

Parameters are indicated separated by a space after the path to the program executable file. The parameter value is indicated 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

• standard Windows program
• "Screen Magnifier": 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 automatically selected to fill the screen as much as possible.

Game Compatibility

See the table for compatibility of 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.) and windowed modes, the keyboard shortcut Alt + Enter may work.

HiDPI mode

It is important to ensure that the game runs in HiDPI compatible ( DPI-aware) mode. This is easy to determine: the size of the game window is physical pixels (dots) must correspond to the resolution selected in the game settings. For example, a game window running in Full resolution HD, with a system scale of 200% 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 not formally compatible 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 occur due to 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 in the file’s context menu).

Windows 10

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

Windows 10 (legacy versions)

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

Windows 7

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

Mouse

Subjective mouse pointer speed in games using systemic the mouse pointer can increase in proportion to the scale factor.

Administrator mode

To scale games running as administrator, IntegerScaler should also be run as 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 higher - there is a function DWM composition always on.

Previous versions available via version history (see below).

System requirements

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

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

• An excellent thing, it actually draws one pixel of the game on 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

• see also
• "" - an article about the essence of the issue, potential and partial solutions and progress.
• - an extension for Firefox that disables blur for images displayed at an integer scale. - corrects dimensions address bar and search fields in Windows Explorer

• Version history 2.11 (2019-12-09)

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

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

Scaling

Phaser has a special scale object that has several useful methods and properties. Change your preload() function to look like below:

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) provide alternative content within the block . This content will be rendered in both browsers, older ones that do not 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 maintains the ratio, so the pictures will not be distorted, as with the previous value. There may be black bars around the edges of the screen, but we can all live with that.
• RESIZE - creates an element that can be used to render graphics through scripts (usually JavaScript is used). For example, it can be used to draw graphs, make photo compositions, or even perform animations. You can (and should) provide alternative content within the block . This content will be rendered in both browsers, older ones that do not support canvas and browsers with JavaScript disabled."> with available width and height so you can place objects in 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 through scripts (usually JavaScript is used). For example, it can be used to draw graphs, make photo compositions, or even perform animations. You can (and should) provide alternative content within the block . This content will be rendered in both browsers, older ones that do not 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 through scripts (usually JavaScript is used). For example, it can be used to draw graphs, make photo compositions, or even perform animations. You can (and should) provide alternative content within the block . This content will be rendered in both browsers, older ones that do not support canvas and browsers with JavaScript disabled."> the way we want it so that it does not remain black all the time. The stage object has a backgroundColor property for this. We can change the value using 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 from this tutorial with yours and play with it to understand how it works:

Following

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

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

So, today we will figure out what these or those graphic settings mean in computer games.

U Nvidia And AMD There is software For automatic settings schedules according to technical specifications your computer. The programs do their job well, but often manual setting brings much more benefits. Still, we are PC boyars, we should have freedom of choice!

If you're new to game graphics, this tutorial is made especially for you. We'll break down the main items in any Graphics Settings menu in your games and explain what they do. 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 vibrant and attractive graphics in order to record cool videos and take spectacular screenshots.

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

BASICS

Permission

A pixel is the basic unit of a digital image. This is a color dot, 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 your aspect ratio 16:10 , the resolutions will be slightly different: 1920x1200, 2560x1600 etc. Ultrawide monitors also have different resolutions: 2560x1080, 3440x1440 etc.

Frames per second (FPS)

If you 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 refreshes 60 times per second, so does a game at 60 FPS produces exactly that many frames in the same period of time.

The more you load your video card with processing beautiful, detailed game scenes, the lower your FPS. If the frame rate is low, they will be repeated and the effect will be stuttering and freezing. Esports athletes are hunting for the highest possible performance FPS, especially in shooters. A regular users Often they are content with playable indicators - this is about 60 frames per second. However, 120-144 Hz monitors are becoming more affordable, so the need for FPS is also growing. There is no point in playing at 120 hertz if the system only runs 60-70 frames.

Since most games do not have a built-in benchmark, third-party software is used to measure frames per second, e.g. ShadowPlay or FRAPS. However, some new games with 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 game's rendering resolution 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 visualize the game with a higher screen resolution (this option is available, for example, in Shadow of Mordor), it will look much better, but the performance will be noticeably lower (downsampling).

Upscale and downscale

Performance

Resolution affects performance the most because it determines the number of pixels the GPU can process. This is why 1080p console games often use upscaling to produce 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 resolution impacts performance.

Tests were carried out in the Shadow of Mordor benchmark:

Vsync and frame tearing

When the display's refresh cycle is out of sync with the game's rendering cycle, the screen may refresh while switching between finished frames. The effect of frame breaking is when we see parts of two or more frames at the same time.

Unpleasant frame tearing

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

Adaptive Vsync

It also happens that the frame rate of the game drops below the refresh rate of the monitor. If the game's frame rate is exceeded, vertical sync locks it to the monitor's refresh rate and, for example, on a 60 Hz display it will not exceed 60 frames. But when the frame rate drops below the monitor's refresh rate, Vsync locks it to another synchronized value, e.g. 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 whenever the frame rate drops below the refresh rate. This feature can be enabled in the panel Nvidia control— it is mandatory for those who constantly turn on vertical sync.

G-sync and FreeSync technologies

New technologies help solve many problems that 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 stuttering would disappear. Such technologies already exist, but they require a compatible video card and display. Nvidia has the technology G-sync, while AMD has FreeSync. If your monitor supports one of these and it fits installed video card, problems solved.

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 developers call this situation aliasing. If monitor resolutions were much higher, the problem would seem negligible. But until new display technologies appear or are too expensive, we have to compensate for the “staircase” with anti-aliasing.

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

Visual anti-aliasing

Take a look at the pixel of the tiled roof. It is orange in color. There is also a pixel of bluish sky. When placed side by side, they create a rigid, 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 at the same location. Some of them will be orange, some will be "sky". If you take the value of all four pixels, you will get something in between - if you build the entire scene using 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 each frame at two or more times the original screen resolution. Even with our top-end graphics cards, resolution supersampling 2560x1440 seems impractical. Fortunately, there are alternatives:

Multisampling (MSAA): More efficient than supersampling, but still power hungry. It was standard in older games and is explained in the video 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 is applied as a post-processing filter to the entire scene after it has been rendered. FXAA also captures places that are missed when enabled MSAA. Although the fast approximation method itself also misses a lot of irregularities.

Morphological method (MLAA): it is typical for AMD video cards and also skips the rendering stage. MLAA processes the frame, looking for aliasing and smoothing it out. As Nicholas Vining explained to us: “Morphological smoothing works with the morphology (patterns) of roughness at the edges of models; it calculates the optimal way to remove ladders for each type of irregularity by dividing the edges and teeth into small sets morphological operators. And then uses specific blend types for each individual set.” Turn on MLAA in the Catalyst control panel.

Advanced Subpixel Morphological Anti-Aliasing (SMAA): another type 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 Antialiasing (TAA or TXAA): TXAA was originally developed for Nvidia-level GPUs Kepler and later. But then not so specific forms of temporal smoothing appeared, which are usually referred to 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 “crawling ladder” in motion.

Nicholas Vining explains: "The idea TAA lies in the expectation that two consecutive frames will be very similar, because the user in the game does not move so fast. So since objects on the screen have moved slightly, we can pull data from the previous frame to complement the areas that need smoothing.”

Multi-Frame Anti-Aliasing (MFAA): appeared with the release of graphics processors Maxwell from Nvidia. Whereas MSAA works with stable patterns, MFAA allows you to program them. Nvidia explains the technology in detail in the video below (which we've talked about before and you'll see very soon).

Deep Learning Supersampling (DLSS): latest technology Nvidia, available only in some games and with video cards GeForce RTX. According to the company: " DLSS uses neural network to identify multi-dimensional 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 copes with the task better and more efficiently than TAA, but the technology needs to be prepared separately for each game. If you don't train it properly, many places will end up blurred.

What do the numbers mean?

In anti-aliasing settings you often see values: 2x, 4x, 8x, etc. These numbers tell you the number of color samples used and, as a rule, the higher the number, the more accurate the anti-aliasing will be (and will require more system resources).

But there are exceptions. So, CSAA tries to achieve smoothing at the level MSAA with fewer color swatches. That's why 8xCSAA actually only uses four color swatches. There are also 8QxCSAA- This anti-aliasing 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 a few old anti-aliasing methods: MSAA, FXAA And TXAA. The results, as expected, show that FXAA requires the least resources, while MSAA And TXAA greatly affect the average frame rate.

Results of anti-aliasing testing in Batman: Arkham City (on two Nvidia GTX Titan SLI):

Which smoothing method should I use?

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

Clean-shaven smoothed Batman

Overriding anti-aliasing settings

In theory, graphics settings in games shouldn't matter. You can simply open the Nvidia and AMD control panel and change everything there to your liking. Unfortunately, in reality everything works differently. Although you can override the settings for any game, positive results are not guaranteed.

Nicholas Vining explains: "Very often, setting overrides don't work because deferred rendering breaks many common anti-aliasing techniques." Alex Austin from Cryptic Sea also noted that some anti-aliasing methods do not work with video 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's important to note that this is a post-processing filter that applies to all objects in the scene. So it can fix jagged edges of textures, but also capture some of the extra stuff. An example of this is the menu in BioShock Infinite, the letters of which have become slightly smoothed.

The menu has suffered slightly

Supersampling using dynamic super resolution technology (DSR) from Nvidia or virtual ultra-high resolution technology from AMD is more reliable. From Nvidia DSR is turned on 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 scaled down to fit your screen resolution. It will turn out beautiful, but resource-intensive. In addition, there may be problems with the interface 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 the texture (by the way, pixels on 3D models are called texels). After all, you are watching the model on different distances and from different angles. Therefore, when you need to find out the color of a pixel, filtering finds a point on the corresponding texture, takes several samples from nearby texels and averages them. The simplest method filtering - 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 arose 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 disappears into the horizon, you will see only a couple of pixels, and special detail is not needed there. Therefore, to improve performance without losing quality, the game will load a lower resolution texture called MIP- texture.

So, when we look at our road, we don’t particularly want to see where one MIP- the image ends and another begins, because their quality differs and the transition will hurt the eye. Bilinear filtering does not interpolate (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

Trilinear filtering works, but textures still appear blurry. This is why anisotropic filtering was invented, which significantly 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 directly behind it as a texture. Light shines 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 right in front of you, perpendicular to your view, the result will be sane. What if you look at it from an angle? It turns out blurry. Now imagine that the texture of the brick wall is angled away from the window. The beam of light will turn into a long trapezoid, covering much more vertical space on the texture than horizontal space. This is the area that needs to be sampled per pixel. Roughly speaking, this is how anisotropic filtering works. She scales MIP- textures in one direction according to the angle at which you are viewing the 3D object.

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

What do the numbers mean here?

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

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

Performance

Anisotropic filtering doesn't impact performance as much as anti-aliasing, so it's rarely added to the settings menu these days (it's enabled by default). Using the BioShock Infinite benchmark, we noticed a decrease in the average FPS for 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 are meaningless if filtering is poor.

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 did, but in some cases the changes will significantly improve performance.

Decreasing and increasing texture quality has a significant impact on performance and visual quality. In the BioShock Infinite benchmark, we set all settings to maximum and only changed the quality of the textures. Here are the results (using two Nvidia GTX Titan SLI):

Noticed a 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 greater, because our test bench is quite powerful. Does not exist fast way Determine the ideal graphics quality settings for your system. This is the case when you need to test with pens. We recommend trying out software tips from Nvidia and AMD first, and then improving the quality of textures, lighting and shadows by checking the average FPS.

Global shading (Ambient occlusion)

Global illumination is distributed evenly across every object in the scene. For example, on a sunny day, when even in the shadows a certain amount of light is scattered. To add depth to the scene, the technology is combined with directional lighting, because without it the picture turns out flat.

Intimate shading

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

SSAO (blocking ambient light in screen space)

Almost the same as global occlusion used in real-time rendering. This technology has become commonplace in games in recent years, and was first seen in . Sometimes the technology looks a little stupid, as if the surrounding objects “shine” in the darkness. Other times it's perfect for adding depth to a scene. All major engines support SSAO, and the implementation of the technology depends on the game and its developers.

There are also improved variations SSAO as HBAO+ And HDAO.

HDRR technology (High dynamic range rendering)

HDR was all the rage among photographers a few years ago. Range here refers to the brightness of an 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 visible as the brightest areas. An image with low dynamic range is clearly visible in the highlights, but in the shadows all detail is lost, or vice versa.

HDR rules

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 displays. There is no standardized method for measuring contrast, but LED- monitors often provide a contrast ratio of 1000:1.

Bloom effect

Notorious for its excessive popularity among game developers, bloom- the effect attempts to simulate the way bright light spreads along the edges of models, making light sources appear brighter than they actually are. It works, but bloom is often implemented so crookedly that regular desk lamp glow stronger than a nuclear explosion. Luckily, you can turn it off in most games.

Below you can look at a screenshot from the game Syndicate- the clearest (literally) example of a crooked implementation bloom- effect.

Who blew up a supernova on the street? :)

Motion blur

It's very simple - it's a filter that simulates sharp frame movement, like in a movie. Many gamers prefer to turn it off. And not only because it affects performance, but also for reasons of comfort. Blur sometimes looks beautiful, such as in racing games (if 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 farthest points that appear in focus. For example, if we are shooting a portrait with a small DOF, the person's face will be sharp, and the hair at the back will start 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 very nice.

Based on materials from PC Gamer

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

Default this setting almost always on. But why is it needed and when should it be turned on?

What is GPU scaling used for?

This option is needed to automatically adjust the resolution of the image displayed on the monitor by one or another application.

For example, when you launch a particular game, and by default it is set to a resolution and aspect ratio that is not supported by your monitor, then the video card driver with the GPU scaling option enabled will fix it itself. this situation and optimizes the image output as much as possible so that not only does not appear, but also that there are no black bars on the sides of the screen.

When should you enable GPU scaling?

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 at