[MOD] SweetFX "light" + Nvidia control panel tweaks

astaldion · Post by **astaldion** » Mon, 2. Dec 13, 18:27

I have been experimenting with SweetFX and the nvidia control panel as well. You guys can tell me, what you think about it. Mainly i have enabled Anisotropic Filtering x16, which considerably boost the texture quality (cockpit, cap ships, stations [inside and outside]) (and FXAA to polish pixels at the cockpit and other ships.) outdated: forget about the FXAA setting in the control panel, i have enabled FXAA over SweetFX itself.

Then i enabled SweetFX with a very low vibrance of -0.1 to remove the strong "colorful" look and produce an improved and realistic optic. Pretty strong lumasharp to counter the effects of FXAA and to improve sharpness of textures. And in the end i enabled the S-curves function to improve the general lightning.

Btw you can enable/disable SweetFX with "F12" ingame and take bmp screenshots with the "Print" key.

Screenshots:

Sun color less strong, check textures of asteroids, cockpit and freighter:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/106 ... 1/orig.png
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/106 ... weetFX.png

Check stations, roboters, ships textures (especially floor):
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/106 ... 2/orig.png
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/106 ... weetFX.png

Face, laptop, sheet textures and general lightning:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/106 ... 3/orig.png
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/106 ... weetFX.png

Check textures of cockpit, station, asteroids and planet.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/106 ... 4/orig.png
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/106 ... weetFX.png
[/u][/b]

Improved lightning and shadows:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/106 ... 5/orig.bmp
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/106 ... weetFX.bmp

Download:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/106 ... _light.zip

Installation:
Read the "SweetFX light Readme.txt" in the zip archive.

EDIT:

// Set to 1 for ON or 0 for OFF
#define USE_SMAA_ANTIALIASING 0 //[0 or 1] SMAA Anti-aliasing : Smoothens jagged lines using the SMAA technique.
#define USE_FXAA_ANTIALIASING 1 //[0 or 1] FXAA Anti-aliasing : Smoothens jagged lines using the FXAA technique

You can change the SweetFX antialiasing setting yourself in the "SweetFX_settings.txt". Currently i have enabled FXAA, but you can also disabled it, if you prefer an even sharper image (although a bit more pixelated). You can also enable SMAA instead, but you have to turn off X-Rebirths ingame antialiasing or SMAA won't work.

Jimby · Post by **Jimby** » Mon, 2. Dec 13, 19:11

Wow, the details just Pop. Nice work. Definitely going to try this tonight.

Koritnaciino · Post by **Koritnaciino** » Mon, 2. Dec 13, 19:33

What about FPS effect?

Koritnaciino · Post by **Koritnaciino** » Mon, 2. Dec 13, 20:05

Is not working for me with HD7800 series. I can start the game. Also in catalyst I didnt find FX setting. Any help here please?

astaldion · Post by **astaldion** » Mon, 2. Dec 13, 20:16

Fps are almost the same (maybe 1 fps less from time to time). I am using a i7 4770k (oc @4.2, ht off) and an old Geforce 560Ti-448 (oced). I am not sure, why other players have such performance issues with X-Rebirth (even with similar cpus as mine), my four core are running with 50-80% utilization, my GPU with almost 100% all the time and frames are between 30 and 60. For SweetFX i am just using function that are very performance friendly (unlike HDR, Bloom and some other SwFX functions).

Is not working for me with HD7800 series. I can start the game. Also in catalyst I didnt find FX setting. Any help here please?

Sad to hear that, Unfortunately i am using both intel and nvidia equipment, so i can't help you. Not sure if FXAA will work with AMD cards, but SweetFX should. Have you installed SweetFX properly? You should have six additional files and one more folder called "SweetFX" in your "XRebirth" folder.

Btw you can enable/disable SweetFX with "F12" ingame and take bmp screenshots with the "Print" key.

Zakuak · Post by **Zakuak** » Mon, 2. Dec 13, 20:33

Very cool astaldion!

I'll take this for a spin this evening.

I like things a bit sharper as you have done so this should be great for me!

astaldion · Post by **astaldion** » Mon, 2. Dec 13, 20:38

Thanks Zakuak. It was my intention to create a sharper image, with improved texture quality, corrected colors and better lightning, but not "overdoing" it, as most SweetFX sets used to be. So basically you will have a similar optic to the original game with some improvements.

I really tried to enable SweetFXs SMAA, but it will only work if i disable ingame AA altogether. Unfortunately SMAA works very good on screenshots, but you will see a vast difference to "conventional" MSAA, when your image is "moving".

ICO_hr · Post by **ICO_hr** » Mon, 2. Dec 13, 20:57

WOW, mate you're using more sharpen than me.

Thane> · Post by **Thane>** » Mon, 2. Dec 13, 21:51

It looks like the anisotropic filtering setting is down in the normal shots and/or its raised for the SweetFX shots.

astaldion · Post by **astaldion** » Mon, 2. Dec 13, 22:29

I used sharp_strength around 0.3 to 0-4, but increased it to 0.5 to counter the effects of the FXAA.

@Thane:
Not sure if you can enable Anisotropic filtering ingame (greyout for me), but yeah, the original screenshots are without SweetFX, ani filtering and FXAA (the way x Rebirth looks for me on highest settings without SweetFX or Control panel tweaks) and the other screenshots are with all of them enabled.

kuplo · Post by **kuplo** » Mon, 2. Dec 13, 22:41

astaldion wrote:
Screenshots:

Sun color less strong, check textures of asteroids, cockpit and freighter:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/106 ... 1/orig.png
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/106 ... weetFX.png

.

Maybe it's just me but...
The sun seems a lot brighter in the SweetFx screenshot than it does in the Original screenshot.

I'm definitely looking for something that will tone down the sun, and or replace it alltogether with just a simple planet with some magma in pools on the surface as it literally hurts my eyes when I have to be in that sector as much as it does to simply view a web site page that has a completely white background (yeah I know this doesn't bother most people but it makes me want to put on sun glasses to view white backgrounded web pages as does the sun in this game).

kuplo · Post by **kuplo** » Mon, 2. Dec 13, 23:02

Okay, so I tried this....

For some reason it now lists my GPU as the Intel HD 4000 instead of my Nvidia 660m and it now lists 2 as...
Intel HD 4000 #1
Intel HD 4000 #2

Switching between the two of them simply makes the game appear either on my laptop display or choosing the other option makes it appear on my external monitor.

Prior to installing this mod (yeah I played shortly before installing this mod) I only had the Nvidia 660m listed as the GPU choice.

I don't know if it's now actually using the HD 4000 but I suspect that it is since FPS is now substantially lower than it was prior to installing this mod.

Any suggestions, short of uninstalling this mod?

Thanks

iforgotmysocks · Post by **iforgotmysocks** » Tue, 3. Dec 13, 14:50

I am just looking for a way to enable AF.

Any suggestions?

Thurmonator · Post by **Thurmonator** » Tue, 3. Dec 13, 15:18

turn it on in your video card control panel. Don't use the 'application setting'.

iforgotmysocks · Post by **iforgotmysocks** » Tue, 3. Dec 13, 18:51

Thurmonator wrote:turn it on in your video card control panel. Don't use the 'application setting'.

Thanks! ~.~ I didn't even think about that way. xD

jeroll3d · Post by **jeroll3d** » Tue, 3. Dec 13, 20:53

astaldion wrote:Thanks Zakuak. It was my intention to create a sharper image, with improved texture quality, corrected colors and better lightning, but not "overdoing" it, as most SweetFX sets used to be. So basically you will have a similar optic to the original game with some improvements.

I really tried to enable SweetFXs SMAA, but it will only work if i disable ingame AA altogether. Unfortunately SMAA works very good on screenshots, but you will see a vast difference to "conventional" MSAA, when your image is "moving".

Please, if possible, post in here you configuration - FX -

Zakuak · Post by **Zakuak** » Tue, 3. Dec 13, 21:08

worked out nice Astaldion, thanks for the files!

I had my AS at 16x already in NV CP and you injection pushed my visuals right where I like em...somewhere close to "WOW" factor given what the game can deliver....

Found myself a few times last night just staring at certain scenes or ship textures think "niiiice".

good work

astaldion · Post by **astaldion** » Tue, 3. Dec 13, 22:30

// Set to 1 for ON or 0 for OFF
#define USE_SMAA_ANTIALIASING 0 //[0 or 1] SMAA Anti-aliasing : Smoothens jagged lines using the SMAA technique.
#define USE_FXAA_ANTIALIASING 1 //[0 or 1] FXAA Anti-aliasing : Smoothens jagged lines using the FXAA technique

These are the first three lines of the "SweetFX_settings.txt" file.

Just edit "#define USE_SMAA_ANTIALIASING 1" to enable SMAA, but you will have to put the ingame antialiasing to off or SMAA won't work.

For AMD users:

And i have realized (lol), that i could as well use the SweetFXs FXAA (third line), so i have set the "#define USE_FXAA_ANTIALIASING" to "1" and reuploaded the file from the OP. You can also change these two numbers yourself, just edit the SweetFX_settings.txt. You can even do this live, just minimize your game, change these settings and go back in the game. You can disable and enable SweetFX with "F12", once you are back ingame and can immediately see the difference (helped me, finding the proper settings).

I can't guarantee, that this will work for everyone, but it works for me.

Pimpace · Post by **Pimpace** » Tue, 3. Dec 13, 23:17

Thanks Dude! Works great, much better visuals. Also I don't get it, but I got better frame rate.

astaldion · Post by **astaldion** » Tue, 3. Dec 13, 23:29

Pimpace wrote:Also I don't get it, but I got better frame rate.

Seriously?

oO ^^

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[MOD] SweetFX "light" + Nvidia control panel tweaks

[MOD] SweetFX "light" + Nvidia control panel tweaks

Re: [MOD] SweetFX "light" + Nvidia control panel tweaks