NS2 ... blurry
zombiehellmonkey
Join Date: 2007-08-31 Member: 62093Members, Squad Five Blue
Join Date: 2007-08-31 Member: 62093Members, Squad Five Blue
<div class="IPBDescription">why is the game so blurry?</div>I've been looking at my screenshots of NS2 and comparing them with other games and noticed that NS2 is considerably ... blurry. At first I thought it was just the screenshot, so I went in-game to look around and confirmed that objects begin to look slightly fuzzy at near-medium distance. I don't know whether this will be eventually fixed, but as an experiment, I took a screenshot into photoshop and applied a sharpening filter - Game looks a hundred times better.
<img src="http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/16/2012072000013nofilter.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
<img src="http://img833.imageshack.us/img833/4992/2012072000013sharp.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
<hr />
Oh yeah, my graphics card is a HD6970. All game graphic settings are maximum at 1680x1050, graphics card set to use application settings.
<img src="http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/16/2012072000013nofilter.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
<img src="http://img833.imageshack.us/img833/4992/2012072000013sharp.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
<hr />
Oh yeah, my graphics card is a HD6970. All game graphic settings are maximum at 1680x1050, graphics card set to use application settings.
Comments
Yes, everything is checked.
BLOOM ON
<img src="http://img831.imageshack.us/img831/9269/2012072400001bloomon.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
BLOOM OFF
<img src="http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/1930/2012072400002bloomoff.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
SHARPENING IN PHOTOSHOP
<img src="http://img842.imageshack.us/img842/476/2012072400003sharpen.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
I suppose the high blurriness comes from the combination of FXAA + Bloom + Fog + Atmospherics (where existent).
Personally I play with Bloom, Fog and Atmospherics deactivated, because I can't stand the fuzzy look they create.
ALL EFFECTS ON
<img src="http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/8271/2012072400003allon.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
BLOOM, FOG, AA OFF
<img src="http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/2363/2012072400004bloomfogaa.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
PHOTOSHOP SHARPENING (ALL EFFECTS ON)
<img src="http://img859.imageshack.us/img859/5324/2012072400004sharpen.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
Yes I know this, the sharpened image is to show how blurry the original is. If the original screenshot is sharp, then sharpening wouldn't have much effect on the image except blast the pixels. I'm not saying that post-processing should be applied in real-time, but the rendering should be looked into.
<a href="http://media.bestofmicro.com/1/4/278680/original/rage_vehiclecombat.jpg" target="_blank">Screenshot from Rage</a> - Can you tell me that NS2 is sharper than this?
Not saying this completely fixes the issue, but you can try it out and see what you think.
<a href="http://www.assembla.com/spaces/fxaa-pp-inject/documents" target="_blank">http://www.assembla.com/spaces/fxaa-pp-inject/documents</a>
YOU TAKE THAT BACK! What an insult!
I still cant play that game because of the HORRID quality of textures! Even with all the config tricks and the "sharpening" filter released by them.. they just used terribly compressed images that wash out, so only the player models look decent. <b>The only time Rage textures look good are from far away.</b>
I mean.. there are like whole forums and threads dedicated to how ugly rage textures are... UWE has amazing attention to detail and i have a hard time finding an ugly texture. (the placeholder skyboxes and infestation might be about it)
I dont always "go fanboy".. <i>but when i do it's about quality of textures!</i>
Relevant image of Rage that sums up my experience, all settings maxed, 1080p:
<img src="http://i.imgur.com/wWrn0.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
On topic: Yea you bring up a good point. Interesting. Wonder if a sharpening filter could be passed through the rendering..
On topic though, it is the Anti Aliasing that makes the game blurry.. Toggle it on/off and check out the difference. It might do it's job of smoothing the pixels out but it makes everything kinda blurry. Idk though, I've seen games do much worse..
<a href="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/CZpbZtjHoi4buQSvf4b_Ngxc_tqRbNyM3X9cNgwhoAv_cT5ohY4EPumThcTivp73znky3uhOfgE" target="_blank">1</a>
<a href="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/bv6vCQUcKrCfRmjeZOHN4mgJMAhZHbyg7ixiW5Ojca0ZZqoOg_l2c2Q_GsbBgYmxfyJ5EjjsXcg" target="_blank">2</a>
All of this in not very important though.
I think it should be very easy to do a post-processing mod, just look how alien vision is activated, and add a shader that is always on.
Yeah, I know the settings may be over the top, but the framerate loss is not too bad, and besides I won't ever play a game like this, as this is just to demonstrate what NS2 COULD look like with a 'lil tweaking.
<img src="http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/7825/ns2settings2.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
<img src="http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/3487/2012072400013.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
<img src="http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/3157/2012072400012.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
<img src="http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/4369/2012072400011.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
<img src="http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/5084/2012072400010.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
<a href="http://i.imgur.com/wWrn0.jpg" target="_blank">http://i.imgur.com/wWrn0.jpg</a><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I can remember that you could change the texture resolution in the config file which incredibly sharpened up the textures... tho you would need like 4gb graphic memory to make it run :P (which i, and i bet 99,99% out there dont have)
Even tho you had areas with such ugly resolutions, you cant really compare it with ns2 - there is no repeating or seamless textures - it looks like the complete world is painted by hand. I found this megatexture technology kinda cool.
Whatever.
Enough offtopic
That... that actually looks really nice.
There is
- FXAA
- MLAA (performance/quality hit seems to be not as good especially under dx9)
- <a href="http://www.iryoku.com/smaa/" target="_blank">SMAA </a>(im not sure if this project is still alive, i tried out the smaa 1x injector and it does look similar to the current fxaa in ns2 with less blur, tho injectors suck -wonder how T2x looks)
Wish i had a nvidia kepler gpu... wonder how TXAA looks.
I don't think you're achieving your goal. See below.
<!--quoteo(post=1953360:date=Jul 24 2012, 12:23 AM:name=zombiehellmonkey)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (zombiehellmonkey @ Jul 24 2012, 12:23 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1953360"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If the original screenshot is sharp, then sharpening wouldn't have much effect on the image except blast the pixels.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
But that's just not true. Sharpening tends to look better in stills EVEN if the screenshot is already sharp. Sharpening ups the contrast, and makes lines look more defined and concept-arty and specular pops out a little more clearly, which is needed in stills.
There is some blurriness on edges in NS2 because of the way AA is implemented(edge detection AA in post process). Short of super-sampling, it's either this or no AA in a deferred renderer.
On your sharpened shot I see some aliasing on edges(you've undone some of the AA) and I see some hints at moiré patterns on the floor(the floor is too sharp and would shimmer in real time, you're "blasting the pixels" as you say).
<!--quoteo(post=1953360:date=Jul 24 2012, 12:23 AM:name=zombiehellmonkey)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (zombiehellmonkey @ Jul 24 2012, 12:23 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1953360"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><a href="http://media.bestofmicro.com/1/4/278680/original/rage_vehiclecombat.jpg" target="_blank">Screenshot from Rage</a> - Can you tell me that NS2 is sharper than this?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Can you tell me it's not already sharpened? I see more aliasing in there than I'd except at 6x or 8x AA.
The textures are horribly blurry, but that's just a texture quality issue.
That's an opinion.
I think it looks retarded.
It's like the classic "brown = realistic".
I don't think the "sharper" style looks better at all. It ruins the atmosphere.
It's not like the game is being gaussed, christ. You're still going to have no problem picking out a moving skulk.
It's not like the game is being gaussed, christ. You're still going to have no problem picking out a moving skulk.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I don't shoot aliens in reallife. If I had to, I would tell my mates not to light smoke but use normal flashlights, because I couldn't see anything. I know what the atmosphere is aiming for, but you can blur everything over the top.
EDIT: I mean it's cool when you like it. The best way would be to add another form of AA sometime, so you could choose, right?
Run those same screen-caps through Photoshop's Gaussian blur with the default low setting. That's blurry. Saying you "can't see" makes you seem pretty weak, considering you'd have to be, say, not wearing your glasses. It's not nearly as blurry as this thread makes it out to be.
A still image can have a lot of sharpness its fine but when things move if things are overly sharp you get a massive amount of noise and lower temporal cohesion.
To see a perfect example of this just look a frame from any film on its own it looks very blurry but in motion it looks great, same thing applies here.