Quote from BuddhaBing :

With ATI, you're not forced into making a compromise because their anisotropic filtering does not result in smeared textures

This is in full contrast to my observations!
I spend a half hour today trying to find exactly this usable compromise for LFS on a 9800 XT and the results are still below expectation.

Vain

Quote from BuddhaBing :

Texture shimmering is not seen in static screenshots, it only becomes apparent when the scene is in motion. Don't take my word for it, read the section about Negative LOD Bias in the nHancer link I provided previously "...[b]ut if the scene is moving, the textures start to shimmer." So, all your test shows is that mipmap LOD bias settings affect texture sharpness. Yes, that's exactly what it's supposed to do.

Texture shimmering is a result of the changing moire pattern on the texture when viewed at an angle. It doesn't matter if the moire pattern is static in a picture, it's still quite visible. This moire pattern can be seen on the guardrail in both my pics with NLB set to "Allow" and reetp's pics. It's also quite noticeable on the fence with a heavy Mip bias.

Quote from BuddhaBing :

The point that you seem to be taking pains to ignore is that the reason you have to adjust mipmap LOD bias settings with nVidia cards in the first place is that nVidia's anisotropic filtering results in texture smearing. Unfortunately, sharpening textures through negative mipmap LOD biases results in texture shimmer when the scene is in motion. So, you're forced to find a compromise between smearing and shimmer and that compromise varies from game to game and even track to track sometimes.

To that, I submit the following quote from Anandtech's article on the 6800 Ultra:

Quote from AnandTech :

....both ATI and NVIDIA will show the same fluctuations in anisotropic rendering quality. We would have liked to see ATI alter their implementation rather than NVIDIA, but there is something to be said for both companies doing the same thing.

http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=2023&p=8

Surely if one company's way is wrong, and they're both doing the same thing, they're both wrong!

Quote from BuddhaBing :

With ATI, you're not forced into making a compromise because their anisotropic filtering does not result in smeared textures. This means that you don't have to adjust mipmap LOD bias settings at all. You get crisp, detailed textures with no smearing and no shimmering at the same time.

I'm sorry, I must be seeing things, I thought for sure I saw some [b]HORRIBLE[/b] texture shimmering (moire) on the fence in one of reetp's pics. Also note that the only pic I posted that shows texture smearing was due to having the NLB set to "Clamp". Clearly, with this set to "Allow" instead, I don't get [b]ANY[/b] texture smearing, and the result looks practically identical to what ATI produces. You seem to be hung up on the fact that there's a useless option in the Nvidia drivers.

I'm not telling you one is better than the other, I'm telling you they're the same. With Mip bias in effect, both cards produce awful texture shimmering. With Mip bias not in effect, both cards produce a clear image with no texture smearing.

Sorry for getting a bit off topic, but as far as I understand, there are then different settings for LFS to make the visual quality as good as possible? And this is different if you use ATI or nVidia?

What might then be the best (quality) settings for a high-end nvidia/ATI card?

I am using atm:
nVidia 7800GT with:
8xS antialiasing
16x anisotrophic filtering
"high quality" image setting
transparency antialiasing : supersampling
In LFS:
User LOD 1.00
Dust LOD 1.00
Mirror LOD 0.30
Screen affects LOD: NO
Track LOD reduction: NO
Mip bias -2.00
hi-res shadows
no simple stuff
Enable dither YES
Enable mip filter: YES
No compressed skins
No half sized textures
Hardware vertex shading: ON
Z-buffer depth: 24
Simple track: OFF
Haze effect: YES

And it looks like this: (tv view and incar view)

Hyperactive :

Your screenshots show problems typical of using a negative mipmap LOD bias. I've highlighted some areas where the problems are particularly noticeable below:

http://members.shaw.ca/sjdickson1968/LFS_test_a.jpg
http://members.shaw.ca/sjdickson1968/LFS_test2_a.jpg

These areas probably seem to flicker a bit when you're driving. This is texture shimmering.

You can get rid of texture shimmering by setting the Negative LOD bias setting in your video card driver to 'Clamp' as shown in the following screenshot:

http://members.shaw.ca/sjdickson1968/LFS_bias_clamp.jpg

The downside to doing this with nVidia cards is that you may start to notice smearing of textures in the mid-distance.

One other thing I noticed is that there is a lot of aliasing in your second screenshot, the one taken in-cockpit. Are you sure your AA was set to 8xS for that screenshot?

There are none so blind as those who will not see.

Forbin, do pay attention, I will say this only once more. Either you get it or you don't and if you don't get it by the end of this post, you never will.

First, to refresh your memory about texture smearing look at these two screenshots again:
ATI:http://members.shaw.ca/sjdicks ... 960x32_4x8x_highlight.jpg
nVidia: http://members.shaw.ca/sjdicks ... 960x32_4x8x_highlight.jpg
Does this look to you like ATI and nVidia are "both doing the same thing"? Does one of those screenshots look more "wrong" to you than another?

With those images fresh in your mind, let's move on.

With ATI, there is no need to use a negative mipmap LOD bias since ATI's anisotropic filtering does not produce texture smearing artefacts (see the screenshot above). Read that sentence over again until you completely understand it.

nVidia's anisotropic filtering does produce texture smearing artefacts (see the screenshot above) so you are forced to either live with the smearing or use a negative mipmap LOD bias and put up with the resulting texture shimmering.

You said yourself that you see texture smearing on your nVidia card when the bias is set to 'Clamp', right? You chose to use a negative LOD bias setting instead which means that you end up with some texture shimmering. Well, guess what? If you had an ATI card, you wouldn't see any texture smearing in the first place so you wouldn't have to use a negative LOD bias and therefore wouldn't get any texture shimmering either.

It's quite simple really: nVidia forces you into a compromise. ATI doesn't.

And on that note, I'm done. Enjoy your nVidia card.

Quote from BuddhaBing :

Your screenshots show problems typical of using a negative mipmap LOD bias.

Well no shit!!! He's using a Mip bias setting of -2 in LFS.

Quote from BuddhaBing :

You can get rid of texture shimmering by setting the Negative LOD bias setting in your video card driver to 'Clamp' as shown in the following screenshot:

http://members.shaw.ca/sjdickson1968/LFS_bias_clamp.jpg

The downside to doing this with nVidia cards is that you may start to notice smearing of textures in the mid-distance.

Well of course!!! Using a broken option produces a broken image. All he has to do is reduce his Mip bias to 0 and it'll look like the best ATI can produce.

@BuddhaBing: I don't think you looked at the screenshots reetp posted. Take a look at his ATI-1280x1024-LOD(allow)-mip(-4).jpg, then take a look at my NVIDIA-1280x1024-negative_LOD(allow)-mip(0).jpg. Do you see any difference whatsoever? Disregarding the fact that a different FOV setting was used and he has haze enabled, the images are practically identical. There is no compromise here.

I would not be surprised if the ATI drivers are hard coded to the same mode the Nvidia drivers are in when NLB is set to "Allow". Clearly ATI knows it looks like garbage when set otherwise so they took out the option altogether.

Also note that setting NLB to "Clamp" produces smearing, yet setting it to "Allow" and reducing the Mip bias to "0" does not. Surely these two options should do the same thing, but they do not. They produce a VERY different image. In fact, I would not be surprised if the "Clamp" setting TURNS OFF AF!

I've provided you with proof that there is no difference in image quality between ATI and Nvidia. You can take it or leave it. I'm done with this argument.

Not to beat a dead horse or anything, but if anyone still has questions on the matter, this may help:

http://www.firingsquad.com/har ... uality_showdown_august06/

I think this part of their conclusion says it best, though:

Quote from Firingsquad :

....let’s be honest, with differences so small, are you going to go for the card that gives you the best value?

Catalyst A.I. is a neat function. The "standard" setting is the usual filtering speedup and lowers image quality. "Advanced" analyses the textures and should improve IQ but it eats up some CPU cycles.

Here is mine from the same position on NVIDIA.

One with and one without haze:

WITH HAZE
WITHOUT HAZE


Antialialising: 8xS

Anisotropic: 16x