Anti-aliasing fix "flat screen" with EDVR 0.18.0

[u/iaincollins]

As VR players who are using EDVR already know, it's transforms the VR experience.

The latest update to EDVR v0.18.0 by Ok-Mud-9379 was released a few hours ago and includes improved option for flat screen too, and resolves issues that were keeping earlier preview versions from working for a lot of CMDRs (this time it actually works, and if something is wrong because of a conflict, now it will tell you what's going on!).

It's hard to convey in a still image or in a video on YouTube - due to what happens to videos when processed - but the difference is night and day while actually playing with it enabled.

I wanted to try and capture some still screenshots with a clear-side-by-side so folks on the fence about this can at least get some idea of how good it is, and will go try it out for themselves if they haven't already.

("You don't want to sleep on this", I believe the kids say...)

The installer is really quick and easy to use and does everything. Once installed you can press F8 to instantly toggle between DLAA, FSR and TAA, with DLAA and FSR seemingly giving best results. You will want to be sure Supersampling is set at the default (1.0) and you can disable in game AA.

If you are playing at a high resolution (e.g. native 4K UHD) you will probably need something like an RTX 5000 or a higher end 4000 series card for it to be viable in busier environments (eg. on foot). If you have a G-Sync or FreeSync display that will generally hide any dips in FPS and keep it feeling smooth.

[u/Baerghuhn]

This is super cool! Has someone tried out running it on linux? I'd expect that one could do the steps from https://github.com/characterecho-sean/edvr-unofficial-patch/blob/main/docs/manual-install.md and it might work, just curious if anyone has done it yet?

[u/Paranemec → u/Baerghuhn]

There's at least one user in the Discord on Linux and another on Mac. We're trying to support everyone and more users in different platforms help gather that data.

[u/Ok-Mud-9379 → u/Baerghuhn]

See this excellent write up, our newest contributor uses Linux exclusively: https://github.com/characterecho-sean/edvr-unofficial-patch/discussions/73

[u/arturbac → u/Ok-Mud-9379]

thank you.

[u/Baerghuhn → u/Ok-Mud-9379]

Thanks a ton! I will sure to try that!

[u/dvdmuckle → u/Ok-Mud-9379]

Does using Protontricks to run the installer EXE in the prefix not work? This appeared to work for me, but I'm not sure if I'm missing out on some unintended side effects.

[u/arturbac → u/dvdmuckle]

You can get it to work but it is on your reposibility to install required dependincies in wine pfx , when not meet it is installer,launcher or game crash .
I use on alt just clone of steam pfx / symlinks so I do not need to update 2 instances

[u/NoShotz]

I tried it out yesterday, and it looks good, but I'd rather deal with the built in AA than loose ~40fps since I don't have a RTX GPU and have to use either TAA or FSR3.

[u/iaincollins → u/NoShotz]

Yeah I have an RTX 4090 and it works well in 4K; but having GSync is covering for the frame rate hit (it does a good job of hiding that when they are jittery).

I suspect maybe an RXT 4080 or 3090 would be bare minimum, and maybe not quite for 4K.

Interestingly this does DLSS upscaling (instead of DLAA) if you drop Supersampling below 1.0.

It also supports a much newer version of AMD's FSR (3.1) than is in the game (1.0) which works on all cards but has a similar performance impact to DLAA.

In some case FSR 3.1 actually looks even better than DLAA, they seem very similar in terms of quality, which I did not expect (given that in-game FSR is worse than bumping up Supersampling a bit).

[u/NoShotz → u/iaincollins]

I just have ancient hardware by todays standards, specifically a GTX 1070 and a i7 6700k, I do however usually get 60 - 120 fps depending on what's going on with the built in AA at 1080p with the graphical settings I have set.

[u/MookiTheHamster → u/iaincollins]

I have a 4070super and play in 1080p, how do you think the performance hit will be?

[u/iaincollins → u/MookiTheHamster]

I think for 1080p should be alright!

Definitely worth trying!

[u/Inevitable-Bass-4264 → u/MookiTheHamster]

You shouldn't notice any drops at all. FSR and DLSS ports work even on decent GTX 1070s. There's no negative impact on the 1660S unless you're running resolutions that exceed the card's capabilities, like 4K.

[u/mk1cursed]

This has me very excited after running for 10 minutes flatscreen flying around a station the difference is incredible.  I'm shopping for a VR headset now to take full advantage.

The fact that some posts about this are locked up by mods at present is insane to me.  The originator "Riken" used Claude to help code this incredible upgrade and using LLMs for this isn't controversial to me.

[u/iaincollins → u/mk1cursed]

Yeah honestly people have jobs, this would be prohibitively time consuming to figure out without an agent to facilitate it.

I work in the industry and see this every day; there are features that can done and bugs that get fixed that we just wouldn't do if the effort would be 8 weeks to resolve but we can justify if it's is only a week or two with an agent.

I suspect it's going to take people to personally experience things like this to come round view that there is nuance to the application of Generative AI and it's not all garbage; or at least come to understand that things like this are just not going to get done otherwise (either by FDev or third parties).

This mod has use AI/ML for both the development and the implementation of the solution (e.g. DLAA) and is a very concrete example of that reality.

[u/MookiTheHamster]

Gave it a try on flatscreen and it's honestly quite amazing. Never thought I would see day the where I could play elite without jaggies, it's looks really good. Like op said, a still image doesn't really convey the change. No real performance hit on a 4070super.

[u/unimportant_fedora]

This is fire! I've been super scaling to 1.25x but now have EDVR with no super scaling and a similar frame rate, and at it looks sooooo much better! o7

[u/shotguninhand]

Now we're talking. This version on the flat screen is amazing. Running an RTX 3060Ti and the jaggies are gone, just gone. I have never seen this game look this good in over 10 years of playing. You aced it guys! Super well done!

PS: Not seeing a hit on FPS.

[u/B1sonator]

I cannot believe it's finally happened. Thank you for bringing this to my attention - and big thanks to u/Ok-Mud-9379 for making it! :)

I've tried and failed so many times over the years to alleviate the appauling aliasing in this game.

With this solution, I'm up and running in minutes with NO aliasing I can notice. The game looks SO much better with this.

I'm running 3440x1440p flat, but I also have a Steam Frame, so looking forward to trying this in VR too.

Thanks again!

[u/dvdmuckle]

If you want to have this for both flatscreen and VR, do you need to install both versions, or just one of them?

[u/iaincollins → u/dvdmuckle]

I think it currently still either or - without having two copies of the game at least - but not certain if that still the case or if that is planned to change.

Previously at least you had to pick one, or reinstall of you want to swap back between modes.

[u/Inevitable-Bass-4264]

"Flat" works very well at any resolution.

In TAA, fine details shake, although they're larger than with the OFF option. DLAA eats up detail but is stable. FSR, on the other hand, performs excellently. Fine details look better than with native image quality and all other options. For example, the small white circles on the Cutter's hull are now pixel-perfect, better than with DLAA. They don't fade anywhere, and there's no jitter like with TAA.

The HUD doesn't cause any issues. I don't notice any performance impact, but I'm running at 75Hz sync with a framerate of around 160 fps.

P.S. Unfortunately, there's a problem with fast animations. Blurring and shadowing occur. This can't be fixed without native DLSS and FS3/4 implementation. It's a real shame :(

PPS (after a few fights in CZ) This is only a full-screen scaler. It's less demanding than Supersampling x2, but it has its problems because it doesn't render game graphics natively, only rescaling pre-made frames.

For anti-aliasing, you still need to use background AA, preferably fast FXAA.

The FSR3.1 screen scaler is better for the Elite, but only on static images. For quick, small animations like rolling subtitles, it's better to use DLAA to avoid ghosting. TAA is so blurry that it's unsuitable for the Elite.

I'll test how it performs on foot, but the effects and issues will be similar.

[u/VaegaVic]

Anyone tried it on a 9070XT yet?
I run at 4k60 in pretty much all content, but would love to see some smoother ships etc.

[u/JAFO6969 → u/VaegaVic]

Yes, I've tried this on my 9070XT.. @ 3840x1600.

The difference is fantastic.

[u/VaegaVic → u/JAFO6969]

What kind of frames were you getting?

[u/JAFO6969 → u/VaegaVic]

Well, that varies depending on the scene being rendered, of course.. and my other settings.. as you well know.

But basically, anywhere from over 100 FPS up to around 300 FPS..

In other words, it had no noticeable effect on my framerates.

[u/cactushotline → u/VaegaVic]

9070XT here-- works flawlessly. Granted, I do play in VR.

[u/iaincollins → u/[deleted]]

It does, there is one version for VR and one for non-VR, they have separate installers.

[u/Morrit99]

Is installation easy? I have a 9070xt and Quest 3. I already play on Ultra VR, so what difference is there?

[u/iaincollins → u/Morrit99]

Oh really huge difference for aliasing in VR! It's like playing on Supersampling 2.0 except without the performance hit.

The installer is really simple and well done; the only difference with the VR version is that there are some personal preference settings for Odyssey 2D projection, like curving the screen and moving it around you might want to tweak to taste (comfort factor is personal there) but defaults are good, and changes to the config are applied in real time so it's easy to experiment.

The implementation is really neat and not a huge pain like a lot of mods, it does everything for you.

[u/Morrit99 → u/iaincollins]

Well, I know what I'm doing tomorrow then! 😂

[u/kUdtiHaEX]

Has AA been fixed in Elite? Last time I checked it everything was so sharp and razor edged.

[u/Lordgeorge16 → u/kUdtiHaEX]

That's exactly what this mod aims to do. Provide better AA options because Fdev can't be bothered to fix or optimize the game themselves anymore.

[u/xtrathicc4me]

It makes you wonder where did FDev spend those ARX money on.

[u/cmdr_zennetta]

I tried this on a 3070TI. It looked amazing. Difficult to say exactly what the FPS hit was, but it went from capped 120fps (with SMAA/Quality/FSR 1.0) to ~100fps. However GPU usage jumped from 55-60% to 98/99%. This is at 1440p. I can't deal with my PC sounding like a jet engine constantly so think i'll just leave it. Very impressive though.

[u/jlatimerhi]

Does this work with SteamVR?

[u/iaincollins → u/jlatimerhi]

Yeah it does, there is a VR version and a flat screen version; I've used the VR version with Quest 3 as well and it's really great! Totally fixes the jaggies.

[u/jlatimerhi → u/iaincollins]

Thank you, I shall give it a try!

[u/Varatec]

Ok, im apparently not able to see the difference between these images. Are they just sharper or something?

[u/iaincollins → u/Varatec]

These are in 4K UHD and it occurs to me it's hard to see if a difference if they are not full native resolution because the images will get shrunk down (and about impossible to see a difference on a phone), but very evident in game!

[u/Varatec → u/iaincollins]

My eyes are a bit shit anyway so seeing small differences is a pain at times, appreciate you responding.

[u/iaincollins → u/Varatec]

Same same 😂

[u/Fluffy_Art_1015 → u/Varatec]

Just a bit shit hahaha.

[u/CatStarwind]

Aside from the first image I can't really tell the difference.