Bug 1.26.11 - texture filtering

[BlackRainbowFT]

Hey.

I noticed that Junk Yard's texture are considerably higher-res than before (which is great!). But because of that I've noticed some serious aliasing/moiré effect around the chain-ball (EDIT: I mean on the playfield, near the ball.)
I tried changing the settings in the config menu and nothing changes (I do have anisotropic filtering set to 16x).

I also tried forcing texture filtering options in the nvidia control panel and nothing seems to affect how the game looks.

Odd, huh?

My specs:

OS Version: Windows 7
Graphics Card: NVIDIA Geforce GTX 680
Ram: 18Gb
Display Mode: Full Screen/Windowed/Full Screen Windowed
Display Resolution: “1920*1080”

On a side note: the issue where the game would crash after returning to the desktop/alt-tabbing/etc is fixed!!!

 

[Darkmiss]

I'll check it again, but I didn't notice anything like that.

 

[LMA]

GTX 570 latest driver.
Windows 8.1

The antialiasing or mipmapping on Junkyard has big stripes pattern in it as the camera moves up and down the other tables look fine. The graphics settings are on full.

Since Highspeed update the mipmapping setting defaults back to off sometimes. I have to launch the configurator before launching the game every time to check it.

 

[AshleyAshes]

The word you're looking for here is 'Moire'.

 

[Rhandos]

GeForce GT 650M, newest driver v335.23

+1, something weird is happening with texture filtering since the update.

Before the update, switching from anisox16 to linear in the TPA Confing Utility made a difference like day and night in the game. One setting was blurry, one sharp. I think it was added back in the beta and the correct setting depended on what graphics card manufacturer you had. Now I can't see any difference at all, even when comparing screenshots. I'm not sure if this means one setting got fixed or if the correct setting no longer works.

I also get noticable tearing on Junk Yard. It's like a colum based grid

(random google image for illustration) that's fixed to your screen and doesn't move with the camera or change with distance. It happens on all texture filtering settings and with AA off, x8 and x16. Impossible to screenshot but very noticable in-game.

 

[mpad]

I notice it only when the cam moves in attract mode. A little moire should be normal.
I don't really know how it was before on other tables, but on jy it's quite noticeable around the crane area.
When I play and the table view is fixed no problems.
Did you try playing around with graphics card override settings?

 

[netizen]

Make sure you have mipmapping set to OFF, otherwise you are using the lowest possible textures and any moire and aliasing will be emphasized.

 

[Gozer]

Make sure you have mipmapping set to OFF, otherwise you are using the lowest possible textures and any moire and aliasing will be emphasized.

Are you referring to the texture filtering setting? Wouldn't anisotropic x16 give the best texture filter?

EDIT:

I should also note that I have been seeing this moire effect in TPA since it launched on PC.

I just compared anisotropic x16 vs none and I see no difference. The moire effect is never diminished. The moire effect stands out a lot more on Junkyard. It's even in the blueprint area on the playfield.

 

[Adam]

I have this issue too. It's pretty noticeable on Pin*Bot.

 

[Alex Atkin UK]

I haven't checked recently but I did check myself in the past and I found the higher the anisotropic setting, the clearer the textures on the upper playfield. That is basically where you should be able to see the difference.

 

[LMA]

On a GTX 570 it looks like horizontal window blinds are opening and closing. Some tables run in slow motion too, had this since Highspeed but it's worse since Junkyard.

 

[lio]

Same here on a GTX670 - however on my system (win 8 x64 with varying versions of then up-to-date nvidia drivers) the texture filtering option never worked for me, not just in 1.26.11 - no visible difference regardless of the settings - it seems I can't even force different settings on TPA via the nvidia control panel which works fine for me in other games, but TPA always looks the same.

 

[MonkeyGrass]

Yep, Junkyard looks like (wait for it...)




JUNK on PC


The blueprint area is all moire'd out and illegible. None of the texture filtering works at all.

Another *fine* release from our friends at FS. Come ON guys. You've been doing this for several years now. It's supposed to get better, not worse, over time.

Too many platforms, too much fragmentation, and zero consistency across devices. I just don't understand this business model. Mobile users will forgive (and eventually pass on) somewhat buggy games - your'e typically only playing for short periods on a small screen while waiting at the dentist or getting your oil changed. Heck the avg life of a mobile device is less than two years. Those of us with consoles (10 year life), PC gaming rigs (3-4 yrs avg life), and pin cabs (lifetime) expect a little bit more out of this game than what you get from a $5 mobile app that runs on disposable $200 hardware platforms. And the real irony is - the iOS and Android ports are far better than anything that runs on real hardware! WTF?

It's like the entire model is backwards at FS.

This game is not going to succeed if FS doesn't figure out that they continue to disappoint, frustrate, and infuriate the hardcore pinheads (which ought to be the target market for this game). I posted something about the new "Mega-Patch" and how much it improved play and table art on the PS3 at Pinside. I was nearly beheaded and run out of the room for even suggesting that TPA has matured and is growing into a truly playable platform. Nobody wants to hear it, or even give it a chance anymore after the repeated letdowns. For the most part, true pinheads want NOTHING to do with this game. And these are the guys who will gladly spend several thou$and on real pins, hyper-pins, and PC gaming rigs IF THE GAME IS RIGHT. So instead of multiple bug-filled versions, why not concentrate on getting at LEAST ONE right?

smh

 

[AshleyAshes]

Moire is a pretty common issue when applying sharp fine patterns to being scaled down by more than a 2:1 ratio. As such, the display resolution has a huge impact on moire. It's quite minimal on my 2560x1440 display for example. Meanwhile it's pretty terrible on my 1360x768 TV and HTPC. I don't think it's fair to blame farsight, most game designers would simply AVOID such textures or they'd be seen at a distance in a game. TPA on the other hand has to get you pretty close and the details and desktop resolutions will vary, so this issue hardly surprises me, it's just such a common issue in computer graphics.

 

[MonkeyGrass]

Moire is a pretty common issue when applying sharp fine patterns to being scaled down by more than a 2:1 ratio. As such, the display resolution has a huge impact on moire. It's quite minimal on my 2560x1440 display for example. Meanwhile it's pretty terrible on my 1360x768 TV and HTPC. I don't think it's fair to blame farsight, most game designers would simply AVOID such textures or they'd be seen at a distance in a game. TPA on the other hand has to get you pretty close and the details and desktop resolutions will vary, so this issue hardly surprises me, it's just such a common issue in computer graphics.

Except, that it looks much better on Android/iOS (with minimal graphic chips/drivers) than it does on a dedicated gaming PC with a real video card. That's not source resolution, I believe it's more of the fact than none of the post-processing, aliasing, or texture filtering is actually working on PC.

 

[Megahurtz]

Super weird that even forcing filtering and AA options through your driver doesn't seem to make any difference. Could one of you experiencing this problem post some screenshots?

I thought the playfield on Junkyard actually looked quite a bit sharper than what the pc releases usually look like.

 

[lio]

AA and post processing settings work just fine - just the texture filtering options don't make any difference...
And yes, the Junkyard playfield texture looks sharper than anything before however the crisp texture also adds moire the further away from the camera the object is due to having more pixels/details on the texture than the screen resolution can show.

 

[lio]

I just took 2 screenshots (deleted my nvidia specifig game profile first so it should not be interfering with the game settings):

1. 1920x1200, Post Processing ON, 8x Anti Aliasing, 8x Anisotropic
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1305732/PBA/TPA_PP_8xAA_8xAnisotropic.jpg
2. 1920x1200, Post Processing ON, 8x Anti Alaising, Texture Filtering Disabled
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1305732/PBA/TPA_PP_8xAA_NoTextFilter.jpg

Switching between these two screenshots seems to show the tiniest bit of a difference on the plastics in the second half of the plafield but no other difference whatsoever - certainly not what I would expect between filtering off (as you can clearly see it is at least linear filtering going on at any time) and 8x Anisotropic.
It does not matter what I set the game options to (None, Linear, Aniso 4x, Aniso 8x, Aniso 16x), the result looks the same - just like when I try to force higher texture filtering through the driver's game profile.
Also since my post on may 30th I upgraded video card drivers to the most recent one but the situation stays unchanged.

 

[Alex Atkin UK]

I just got the new mount for my monitor so I can swivel into portrait and now its MUCH more obvious and I agree, the texture filtering on Junk Yard does not seem to be working correctly.

The playfield is very hard to read due to aliasing which is not what I would expect running the game on top settings on a GTX 660.