Track detail blurred - advice to fix

[Assiduous]

Hello fellow AC enthusiasts!

I'm hoping for some advice about optimising my AC graphics details. I am trying to address noticeable bluring of the track texture, like the LOD falls away too quickly - see in the screenshot there is more detail in the backdrop than the road just before the rise. 8->16x AF helps a bit, but its expensive and does not fully address the issue. The issue is rather pronounced on LA canyons and Black Cat County in the drivers seat perspective even with 16xAF. i'm after tips on whether there are other tricks to address this. It's like we need a way to tune at what distance the next LOD kicks in beyond a certain distance. Adjusting the MIP LOD bias setting in CSP is too heavy handed as it effects all distances, so you cause texture shimmering issues up close and it's also very hard on your frame rate.

thanks.

 

[Playerone11]

Ah, same question here...
I get very blurry track marking strips and hope to find a solution here.

I just can't imagine that we are the only one dealing with this issue but that it is relatively easy to fix - using the right setting

Anybody any idea pls?

 

[Michael Krone]

Would this help?

 

[Assiduous]

Thanks Michael - it sounds promising but i don't see that option in my version of content manager - what version are you running? Are you in full or free version?

 

[Michael Krone]

Mine is the full version and its the latest recommended.

I do think the free version has this option tho.

 

[Johnr777]

That’s LOD, which controls when objects appear and disappear out of view If their originals values are set correctly.

Maybe try checking your nVidia settings, there’s an option there for “performance” and another for “quality” as well as trilinear filtering that might help.

 

[Assiduous]

Ok its there in the latest CSP 0.1.66, however this version is buggy for me. If it works just like the LOD but only for track textures then I fear it will cause shimering up close.

Update: i'm now running 0.1.60 and have tested moving the track LOD slider around but saw no impact / change at all. Perhaps this isn't working yet.

See attached, I have selected the problematic object with objects inspector. Need to move this LOD transition much further away, but without increasing LOD in the foreground.

How can we do this?

@Johnr777 there is no option in AMD Radeon Settings for trilinear filtering. I did try forcing high quality texture filtering but could not see any improvement.

 

[Neilski]

objects inspector

Oooh, what's that? Looks very handy. (Sorry, total noob here when it comes to this stuff.)

 

[Assiduous]

It's one of the python apps that comes with Custom Shaders Patch i believe. Allows you to select and see parameters of render objects and textures in game.

 

[Assiduous]

I copy Pheonix77's recent helpful post on this issue below...

"It's nothing to do with LOD's, I think you're thinking of Mip Maps.
The road textures are 8192 along the road, by 2048 across... there's more than enough resolution.
The textures also include 8 MIPS, which somewhere, your Assetto config isn't displaying correctly."

"I think a few pages back, there was a discussion regarding turning off AF in AC... And forcing x16 in the Nvidia Control Panel (more efficient).

The best way to do the centrelines would be to have separate, full res, roadlines as separate objects.
However with around 115km's of roads, this would result in around 300,000 polys to do this."

So Pheonix77 indicates it is likely a configuration issue. @Playerone11 what is your configuration? I'm running @ 1080p on an AMD R9 270 on Radeon Software 20.4.2 under Windows 7 64 bit. Turning CSP off doesn't change things, nor does changing any of the settings in Radeon Software Forcing AF does not help either. Next on my list of things to try is an updated driver.

 

[Playerone11]

@Assiduous
my config is a RTX2080ti with nvidia 456.71 under windows 10/64. I know that there are a lot of variables but was hoping for a more common problem-solution.

 

[Assiduous]

As am I. I've seen reports of this issue on reddit and the official assetto corsa forum, so we are hardly the first to encounter this issue, but no solutions are offered other than make sure AF is turned up. I've confirmed that 0-2-4-8-16x AF is being applied and makes a difference. Updating and factory refreshing drivers hasn't helped me. If it wasn't for Phoenix77's assertion that a MIP level is not applying correctly i'd assume it was a game engine limitation but I think such an experienced track creator would know.

Multiple different installations and hardware configurations showing up this issue makes me doubt a reinstall is going to fix things.

I'm stumped. Anyone got a clue as to what might prevent a MIP level from displaying? @Phoenix77

 

[Phoenix77]

@Assiduous It's definitely not just you, but from the numbers... It's reasonably rare!

This page gives some information on Anisotropic (texture) filtering

TweakGuides.com - Gamer's Graphics & Display Settings Guide

A central resource for PC optimization information.

tweakguides.bidecraft.com

Basically the screen image is built up from the pixels in the texture, using pixels from the Mips as the distance increases. (dependent on the angle)

You will need x16 AF, and Tril-linear to get crisp lines... The issue is obviously more prominent because of the centrelines, not present on a race track.

From your screenshot... It looks like your GPU is using x4 AF... or at the distance of the blur, is only using 1 or 2 Mips. At a rough guess, somewhere between those green lines is where Mip 1 or 2 is being used to build the image. so, to me, it looks like it's using some level of the Mips.

Just a few random ideas, do you have a global/program specific preset applied in your Graphics Card control panel... Forcing, for example a certain AF level? or High Performance, which may be using Bi-linear filtering, instead of Tri-linear (Basically as @Johnr777 said) over which AF is being applied?

Have you tried reseting your video settings in CM back to default? In case you've changed something somewhere, causing the issue, or making it more pronounced.
(Make a profile beforehand to keep your current settings to back track)

Probably a last resort option, as this will probably lose game settings / Skins / Apps / Mods etc...
Verify Integrity of Game Files in Steam - Replacing/repairing any files that Content Manager/CSP may have changed, or in case a file has gone corrupt and isn't getting used or used incorrectly.
I really doubt this will help things, but you never know, some real funky things can happen!

Other than this, I have no idea... Hope you figure out what it is!

 

[AmazingReflex]

I read somewhere about setting MIP LOD Bias to -1.

I get the issue where cars that are close up are crystal clear but as soon as they are about 10m ahead they start to reduce detail. I will try messing around with some of these LOD settings to see if I can get better results.

 

[Overnight76]

I'm also having this issue.
Does anyone got it resolved?

 

[Assiduous]

Unfortunately, i'm still unable to find a solution to this. As far as i can tell it's track specific. i don't have this problem on Fat Alfie's tracks. See my comparison pic attached of LAC (top), Feldberg (middle), Black Cat County (bottom).

Very high detail, 4xAA, 8x AF. MIP LOD bias 0, Filter SOL.

 

[ZaksonPL]

Dear all!

I would like to refresh this topic today as after installing CSP 1.70 I've stumbled upon this striped s**t:

Any ideas how to mitigate it?
While I used CSP 1.66 these were not present....

Thanks and Regards

 

[Michael Krone]

Imo, you should go back to 166.. Anything newer than that has ALL kinds of problems.

Even my controls/inputs were all messed up with the newer versions.

 

[ZaksonPL]

Imo, you should go back to 166.. Anything newer than that has ALL kinds of problems.

Even my controls/inputs were all messed up with the newer versions.

And so I did..... still I would like to know what went wrong on 1.70.... :|

 

[Phoenix77]

Unfortunately, i'm still unable to find a solution to this. As far as i can tell it's track specific. i don't have this problem on Fat Alfie's tracks. See my comparison pic attached of LAC (top), Feldberg (middle), Black Cat County (bottom).

Hi, probably not the best comparision, simply because LA Canyons is over 115km's of road, and ALL resources were obviously stretched out over 900km². You also chose the only 4 lane section of road... Where I slightly abused the textures (to save using another large texture, just for one section) vs a 2 lane section of FBR.

Ideally the centrelines would be additional 'floating objects' with a more detailed map...
However, over 115km's of road, that would result in a good quarter of a million extra polys.

Pacific Coast, at 'only' 23km's will be able to have it the... ideal way

The only real option is Aniosotropic Filtering maxed (x16), not in AC's settings... In Nvidia's Control Panel or equivalent AMD settings (depending what card you're using) as it's more efficient than AC's AF.

Obviously on a normal race track, you won't have these centrelines right in your face.

Imo, you should go back to 166.. Anything newer than that has ALL kinds of problems.

Even my controls/inputs were all messed up with the newer versions.

Bear in mind Michael, if you're using Sol, especially 2.0.2... I think the minimum recommended version, for Sol 2.0.2 is 0.1.68 if I remember correctly.

And so I did..... still I would like to know what went wrong on 1.70.... :|

Ilya and crew are changing so many things, there's always the possibility of causing knock on effects... Just part of the updating process... Changing one thing, results in the serious potential of breaking something else. The same applies to altering/updating any mod, tracks, cars.... anything.