GTR2 and Downsampling with NVIDIA DSR

[Shovas]

It was still breaking GTR2 in windowed mode although there's a funny workaound: Once DSR is enabled you can set windows to render itself at 4k so I did that and then windowed mode GTR2 just started working.

It's not quite as nice as my 8xS AA + 8xSGSSAA, though. Some shimmering. Some jaggies. That was default 33% smoothing. Trying 50% now... nah. It's definitely higher resolution as I can tell by the tiny MSI Afterburner overlay and GTR2Config.exe accepted 4k windowed no problem. But I'm seeing image artifacting that I would expect from 1440p when my previous nvidia inspector profile settings were not working (8xS AA + 8xSGSSAA). Are these not applied to the 4k image?

Even though it's 4k I would expect there's still some benefit to AA...

I don't know I'm brand new to this.

...

Oh wait I loaded up npi and my aa settings were back to defaults. Testing reimporting my saved AA settings...ah yep that for sure cleaned up the 4k image.

Still, this isn't enough of an improvement for me and it nearly doubles my gpu usage.

I guess I was happy with the resolution of most everything except mirrors and it doesn't look like the mirrors get upgraded when you use DSR.

I wonder if what's happening is my use of supersampling is effectively doing what DSR is doing.

 

[Spinelli]

It was still breaking GTR2 in windowed mode although there's a funny workaound: Once DSR is enabled you can set windows to render itself at 4k so I did that and then windowed mode GTR2 just started working.

It's not quite as nice as my 8xS AA + 8xSGSSAA, though. Some shimmering. Some jaggies. That was default 33% smoothing. Trying 50% now... nah. It's definitely higher resolution as I can tell by the tiny MSI Afterburner overlay and GTR2Config.exe accepted 4k windowed no problem. But I'm seeing image artifacting that I would expect from 1440p when my previous nvidia inspector profile settings were not working (8xS AA + 8xSGSSAA). Are these not applied to the 4k image?

Even though it's 4k I would expect there's still some benefit to AA...

I don't know I'm brand new to this.

...

Oh wait I loaded up npi and my aa settings were back to defaults. Testing reimporting my saved AA settings...ah yep that for sure cleaned up the 4k image.

Still, this isn't enough of an improvement for me and it nearly doubles my gpu usage.

I guess I was happy with the resolution of most everything except mirrors and it doesn't look like the mirrors get upgraded when you use DSR.

I wonder if what's happening is my use of supersampling is effectively doing what DSR is doing.

I'm not sure what's going on if not using Fullscreen mode. I set almost all my games to true fullscreen mode (not fullscreen windowed, or fullscreen bordered or anything like that). I also make sure to disable "fullscreen optimizations" (right-click .exe of program and check disable fullscreen optimizations). What WIndows calls "optimizations" here actually tries to make your full-screen game work better as if it was running true full-screen mode while also being able to quickly alt-tab out of game as if running the game in Wndowed mode. It's trying to combine the best of both. It often works fine but some times causes issues, reduces performance, or causes stutters, etc. It's pretty good now (unlike earlier years/builds of Win 10) but still not always perfect...especially with older games, sometimes even preventing them from working properly altogether.

Enable DLDSR 2.25x in NV control panel. Set DLDSR smoothing (or rather, sharpening filter reduction) to 50%. Set AA in NV control panel to just regular 2x or 4x MSAA. Load up GTR2 graphics setting and select the new 2.25x resolution, refresh rate, etc.

After that, it should look awesome.

I'm going to go do DLDSR 2.25x + 2x/4x MSAA VS 4x/8x MSAA + 4x/8x SGSSAA tests right now and report back.

Also, don't rely on screenshots. If I remember correctly, only Nvidia's Shadowplay captures DSR/DLDSR working in pictures (and maybe videos too). Take this with a grain of salt though because I read it a while ago and it could be wrong.

 

[Spinelli]

Shovas, looks like you're right. I just tested GTR2 with 8x MSAA + DLDSR 2.25x (3440x1440 -> 5120x2160) VS 8x (MSAA + SGSSAA) (native 3440x1440) - Diablo 3 AA compat bits for both - and the SGSSAA, overall, gets the win. There are a few lines on the road here and there that look higher resolution and sharper with the DLDSR but, overall SGSSAA wins, and fairly noticeably. As you said, the shimmering and aliasing is improved (ie. reduced) with the SGSSAA mode. I think even 4x (MSAA+SGSSAA) was superior.

I could watch these games all day when running DLDSR and especially SGSSAA.

 

[Shovas]

Thanks for comparing them and sharing the results. I think what you're saying matches my experience.

So it looks like in my case the improvements are so small the gpu usage becomes the important factor for me. I mean it's only 30% vs 50% and I could run 50% gpu all day but I'm just not seeing the visual improvement to justify it.

Next I want to figure out dxvk.

 

[Spinelli]

I forgot to say. It seems strange DLDSR doubled your GPU usage compared to native res + 8x(MSAA+SGSSAA). 8x(MSAA+SGSSAA) should be way more GPU intensive.

I guess I was happy with the resolution of most everything except mirrors...

Don't the GTR2 Anniversary mod pack and/or the HQ mods pack come with higher res mirror files? I can probably find them later when I'm home and send them.

 

[Shovas]

Don't the GTR2 Anniversary mod pack and/or the HQ mods pack come with higher res mirror files? I can probably find them later when I'm home and send them.

Yes, I've tried them before. I try to stick to vanilla installation as I do modding quite a bit and want to ensure I'm working on the most common base that everyone would have if they wanted to use my mods. But I should see if there's a way to get those mirrors into vanilla.

 

[Spinelli]

Yes, I've tried them before. I try to stick to vanilla installation as I do modding quite a bit and want to ensure I'm working on the most common base that everyone would have if they wanted to use my mods. But I should see if there's a way to get those mirrors into vanilla.

It' very easy. It's the same as all ISI engine based sims (RF1, AMS, GTR, R07, GTL, etc.). It's just an image file you drop into a folder.

 

[Spinelli]

Yes, I've tried them before. I try to stick to vanilla installation as I do modding quite a bit and want to ensure I'm working on the most common base that everyone would have if they wanted to use my mods. But I should see if there's a way to get those mirrors into vanilla.

Here you go: https://www.racedepartment.com/downloads/highresolution-mirrors-by-speed1.54567/
That will allow you to get the high-res mirrors in your vanilla install. Rename whichever file you decide to use to mirror.bmp and I place it in the GTR2\GameData\Teams folder.

 

[Shovas]

Here you go: https://www.racedepartment.com/downloads/highresolution-mirrors-by-speed1.54567/
That will allow you to get the high-res mirrors in your vanilla install. Rename whichever file you decide to use to mirror.bmp and I place it in the GTR2\GameData\Teams folder.

Ah, funny, I had just now extracted HQ Anni Patch mirrors and tried them out. Totally worth the upgrade. Thanks for uploading the other one, though. The latest Anni has 1K mirrors so I'll try out that one's 2K mirrors.

Edit: They're good, too. Can't tell the difference between those and HQ, though. They're both good enough for me.

 

[Racker2]

is anyone using DXVK with GTR2?

 

[The Iron Wolf]

is anyone using DXVK with GTR2?

I am using DXVK but only my own version with Crew Chief plugin. With vanilla game I get game not to shutdown correctly with DXVK (I don't know if that is still true). Another problem with vanilla game and DXVK, DXVK will sometimes get stuck in 16bit full screen.

So as part of Crew Chief GTR2 Enhancemnets Plugin I made some fixes in game so that it shuts down correctly with DXVK and also I created special version of DXVK with fixes and features for GTR2 specifically and added VR capability. I made it so that you won't need to use GTR2Config anymore (ever) so no more issues with wrong resolutions. Also, I made GTR2 specific memory usage fixes, so you would get lower memory usage with DXVK for GTR2.

To me, DXVK is a must in GTR2, but that is because I race large grids in VR, and I implemented Vulkan VR in GTR2, so VR works faster via my fork of DXVK. In 2D, DXVK is not always faster, but I still find visual quaity higher DX9 and is easier to configure (no need for nvinspector), so DX9 is past from my perspective.

There's only one limitation with DXVK - in OpenXR VR Reshade does not work. But Reshade works with DXVK in 2D and OpenVR no problem.

 

[Spinelli]

Is DXVK so you can use Linux?

 

[The Iron Wolf]

Is DXVK so you can use Linux?

yes, that's how it started and that's primary goal of the devs. However, it is written so well that sometimes, not always, it is faster than native DX9 even on Windows. Also, it is open source, which makes it easier to make game specific tweaks, and opens new opportunities that are not available in DX9, for example 32bit floating point depth buffer and Vulkan AA.