[Dragonscoils]

This is probably old news to some and a head-scratcher to others, but I've been fiddling with the settings with my new graphics card and had a few thoughts.

Most of us can run the game with maximum settings in this day and age but when it comes to the anti aliasing this game has some issues and some hard choices.

FXAA - My current preferred method which doesn't say much about the options we have. 2 reasons, it has the best performance, and does the best job at eliminating jagged edges. Big downside is the blurring it causes, most easily noticeable when viewing a starfield and changing settings. However I think FXAA actually making the game look softer is a good thing since there are so many hard edges and low polygon objects it is usually an improvement.

MSAA - This is best if you want to trade more jagged edges for crisp textures. Most people probably use this and it's ok, fairly large performance hit and misses a lot of objects in this game for some reason. The issue with STO specifically is a lighting bug that creates a white outline around characters and objects when using this under many circumstances.

TXAA - This is best if you are looking for a more filmic quality, a slight blur and motion blur added and works well to eliminate shimmering. Usually you won't see a difference between this and MSAA and also has the lighting bug.

I've also been testing out Transparency AA and MFAA, and in this game at least, doesn't seem to make a noticeable difference or just plain isn't implemented.

Feel free to offer opinions, questions or suggestions. I think the performance hit with increasing the renderscale or DSR isn't worth it.

[aceman67]

AMD or nVidia?

Both graphics cards handle the game and the different Anti-Aliasing differently.

Hell, there was a time that playing STO on an AMD card was impossible, as the game would crash after 10-20 minutes. Cryptic said it was a bug on AMD's side, others said it was STO's fault. Insert circle joke here. The fact it showed up right around the time that they made a big patch to the game (but in-between patch cycles for the Radeon drivers) should tell you whose fault it was, and this went on for months.

To be honest, I haven't run into any of the bugs you're describing (some screenshots would be nice). I personally turn AA off unless I'm taking screenshots.

I run an nVidia Geforce 1070 on my Desktop and 1050 on my Laptop, max graphics on both.

[Dragonscoils]

This is what I'm referring to with the lighting bug.

https://www.reddit.com/r/sto/comment...liasing_issue/

BE WARNED this is likely something that you just haven't noticed, yet once you see it you can't unsee it, so maybe you shouldn't look. lol.

And yes it's Nvidia 1050ti. My christmas gift to myself. Had a 750ti before which also handles this game well.

EDIT: Oh, yeah, if you aren't running any AA you certainly won't encounter this lighting bug, except as you say when taking screenshots.

EDIT 2: I'm sure part of the reason this is even noticeable to me is that I sit very close to a large screen HDTV, but hey it's all about meh immersion!

[Gillion]

I've been running FXAA this entire time because when I first started playing I assumed the one on the bottom was the "best" and just rolled with it. Now that I actually (kinda) know what's what I played with the setting... and I still like FXAA the best XD

[Deleted]

I noticed a great deal of the problems with the things you've explained and Anti-Aliasing went away for me when I got my new Dell with a Dell 27" monitor that runs at 2560x1440.

The bigger 2k resolution makes Star Trek Online look great and I use MSAA 8x. So it seems that pumping up the resolution helps a lot.

[Ricwin]

This is what I'm referring to with the lighting bug.

https://www.reddit.com/r/sto/comment...liasing_issue/

BE WARNED this is likely something that you just haven't noticed, yet once you see it you can't unsee it, so maybe you shouldn't look. lol.

I've always run the game on max settings with TXAA x4 and never seen that lighting bug.
Windows Maximized, all other settings maxed, 1080p monitor, always with /renderscale 2 active.
Nvidia GTX 1070 Ti in desktop and GTX 965m in laptop.

[Dragonscoils]

To the last 2 posters, I'm sure that running at a higher renderscale, smaller monitor, and higher resolution this bug is likely imperceptible. However, on a large screen without it it's pretty obvious.

Which is what I meant to say originally is that what choice of anti-aliasing you use is a personal choice based on your current setup.

[aceman67]

I tried to replicate the lighting bug you spoke of, but couldn't.

I tested all AA settings with Lighting 2.0 on and off, but wasn't able to see it.

This is 1080p, Max Graphics, MSAA 8x with Lighting 2.0 off and on.

[Dragonscoils]

As Spock would say....fascinating. It might be the lighting in that location then again might not.

Here's a pretty common location you should be able to replicate, the login screen. This is what I see when using MSAA-



Notice Spock's right arm, Scotty's right arm, and Sulu's entire body (insert joke here).

[Deleted]

Hmm, weird.

I don't want to cause a big fight or something but AMD cards usually have more problems rendering Star Trek Online than Nvidia cards, is your card an old ATI or AMD card?

In my experience AMD has always been cheaper but usually have more problems in games.

Edit: Oh wait, I just read that you do have an Nvidia GeForce 1050.. Hmm, I don't get the same thing as you pictured, but I do see the same thing when I'm at the same place in Club 47 on Earth Space Dock, so it seems to be a specific place this bug happens, at least for me. Or does it happen other places for you as well?

[Dragonscoils]

Hmm, weird.

I don't want to cause a big fight or something but AMD cards usually have more problems rendering Star Trek Online than Nvidia cards, is your card an old ATI or AMD card?

In my experience AMD has always been cheaper but usually have more problems in games.

Edit: Oh wait, I just read that you do have an Nvidia GeForce 1050.. Hmm, I don't get the same thing as you pictured, but I do see the same thing when I'm at the same place in Club 47 on Earth Space Dock, so it seems to be a specific place this bug happens, at least for me. Or does it happen other places for you as well?

Right it seems to depend on the lighting. Some areas of ESD and in space as well. Like I say I probably wouldn't even notice it except that I'm 2 feet away from an HDTV.

[JarekCyphus]

Hmm, weird.

I don't want to cause a big fight or something but AMD cards usually have more problems rendering Star Trek Online than Nvidia cards, is your card an old ATI or AMD card?

In my experience AMD has always been cheaper but usually have more problems in games.

Edit: Oh wait, I just read that you do have an Nvidia GeForce 1050.. Hmm, I don't get the same thing as you pictured, but I do see the same thing when I'm at the same place in Club 47 on Earth Space Dock, so it seems to be a specific place this bug happens, at least for me. Or does it happen other places for you as well?

Same. My first rig with STO was a full AMD setup from a computer I built in late 2005. At launch, I had a ton of issues that I didn't notice when I got an ASUS G72 in Christmas 2009 (didn't notice any issues even in beta). So when the game officially launched that following February, I put my old desktop out to pasture, and stuck rigidly to nVidia/Intel products. Since then (and thanks to my highly itinerant job), I have been using ASUS gaming laptops to great success.

Even at home, my GTX980M on my newer G751JY runs STO maxed out, ported out to a 21:9 external, and it looks great. While I'd like to crank up the renderscale, I'm happy with what I have, especially when streaming. Every once in awhile, they'll push out an update that makes shadows look a little quirky, but for the most part, the game looks and runs great on nVidia, and y'all aren't the first peeps to have reported lighting or shadow glitches on AMD hardware. That's a shame, too, since AMD does try to be at the front of graphical revolutions. Seems they've been slipping in recent years.

- - - Updated - - -

Right it seems to depend on the lighting. Some areas of ESD and in space as well. Like I say I probably wouldn't even notice it except that I'm 2 feet away from an HDTV.

IT sounds crazy, but my GTX980M sometimes expresses artifacts in shadows in ESD and in places like Risa or Q's Winter Wonderland. I doubt that's a specific problem to AMD or nVidia, since they go away if I bump up the renderscale. I used to be able to get around the odd shadow issues when I was still able to use ReShade in this game. Lately, however, I've been unable to do so, since the hooks don't seem to work with the client exe file since the summer. Something about a few of the ReShade/SweetFX injectors bypassed the extremely glitchy shadow bias this game uses, and made the game look a lot better with a minimal (if any) impact on performance. Maybe that's why they found a way to make ReShade harder to hook into STO, or blocked it altogether. I'm still investigating on how to make this work, as I had a custom ReShade setup that looked really awesome on this game.