NVidia Texture Filtering Presets - Wait what...?

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ball2hi
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NVidia Texture Filtering Presets - Wait what...?

Post by ball2hi » 03 Feb 2021, 23:47

In case you aren't sure what I'm referring to:
(Texture filtering - Quality)
Image

I believe these presets have changed before no? It used to be something like "Performance / Balanced / Quality" and it now has become "High Performance / Performance / Quality / High Quality".

Monitors:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07VP9GS1Q/ (Primary)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B017EVR2VM/ (What the hell, why is this priced at over +1000$?)
RTX 2080
Ryzen 3800X

So I've noticed an extremely odd phenomenon over several months of switching back and forth. In most games, switching from High Quality to Performance or High Performance generally gives me a pretty noticeable FPS increase. In the case of Overwatch, I get anywhere between 60 to 100 extra FPS, and in some less complex scenarios I get almost 150 extra FPS. But here's the odd thing, even though my FPS is much higher than when using High Quality, it's visually less smooth. Each notch between High Performance and High Quality is a trade off between framerate and fidelity, with High Performance having the least fidelity and High Quality having the lowest frame rate.

Okay so, maybe I thought it had to do with the fact that having so much frame-rate might be causing tears that are impacting fidelity. Nope. Even if I cap my frames 2 (or 3) FPS below my refresh rates, there is a **very** stark difference between high motion fidelity across every game I've tested this on (Overwatch, Left4Dead 2, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive). Turning on VSync the difference is still pretty stark between the presets, so idk what's up. My GPU % usage between the two presets is negligibly different at best.

deama
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Re: NVidia Texture Filtering Presets - Wait what...?

Post by deama » 04 Feb 2021, 07:55

Did you run the games you experienced a difference in, in fullscreen exclusive?

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ball2hi
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Re: NVidia Texture Filtering Presets - Wait what...?

Post by ball2hi » 04 Feb 2021, 15:47

deama wrote:
04 Feb 2021, 07:55
Did you run the games you experienced a difference in, in fullscreen exclusive?
Yes, but still leaving fullscreen optimizations on (IE. Not disabling them via checkbox or regedit).

deama
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Re: NVidia Texture Filtering Presets - Wait what...?

Post by deama » 05 Feb 2021, 04:31

ball2hi wrote:
04 Feb 2021, 15:47
deama wrote:
04 Feb 2021, 07:55
Did you run the games you experienced a difference in, in fullscreen exclusive?
Yes, but still leaving fullscreen optimizations on (IE. Not disabling them via checkbox or regedit).
Hmm, perhaps those texture settings interfere with how the DWM manages the game? Try running the games in just windowed mode and try changing the texture settings like you did before, see if that makes a difference.
Perhaps the high quality one adds some sort of motion blur, can you check the differences to make sure there's no smoothing "effect" being added?

Also, have you got RTSS? Could you use it on whatever game you're going to test on, but set the framerate to 0 and scanline sync to 0, then for the profile of the game, go to Setup, then under FCAT properties click enable frame color indicator and make sure it's set to 2 bars.
Go back into the game and look on the left side, you should see 2 bars, how do they look like to you? They should both be looking transparent and you should be able to see some parts behind them, there should be no flickering on those bars. Here's an example of what they should look like:
https://i.imgur.com/g4SAoQW.jpg
I think they will be flickering for you at first, so try capping the framerate to your monitor's hz.

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ball2hi
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Re: NVidia Texture Filtering Presets - Wait what...?

Post by ball2hi » 05 Feb 2021, 20:07

deama wrote:
05 Feb 2021, 04:31
Hmm, perhaps those texture settings interfere with how the DWM manages the game? Try running the games in just windowed mode and try changing the texture settings like you did before, see if that makes a difference.
Perhaps the high quality one adds some sort of motion blur, can you check the differences to make sure there's no smoothing "effect" being added?

Also, have you got RTSS? Could you use it on whatever game you're going to test on, but set the framerate to 0 and scanline sync to 0, then for the profile of the game, go to Setup, then under FCAT properties click enable frame color indicator and make sure it's set to 2 bars.
Go back into the game and look on the left side, you should see 2 bars, how do they look like to you? They should both be looking transparent and you should be able to see some parts behind them, there should be no flickering on those bars. Here's an example of what they should look like:
https://i.imgur.com/g4SAoQW.jpg
I think they will be flickering for you at first, so try capping the framerate to your monitor's hz.
I'm not entirely sure what I am looking for here. They're flickering like crazy at uncapped. Capping 2 or 3 FPS under minimizes the flickering but is still pretty severe and finally most of the flickering once I've capped is located in the bottom.

What exactly are these 2 bars trying to show me here?

Switching to borderless window seems to drastically reduce flickering at 162 cap, and instead makes it look like their alternating being on and off.

deama
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Re: NVidia Texture Filtering Presets - Wait what...?

Post by deama » 05 Feb 2021, 23:51

ball2hi wrote:
05 Feb 2021, 20:07
deama wrote:
05 Feb 2021, 04:31
Hmm, perhaps those texture settings interfere with how the DWM manages the game? Try running the games in just windowed mode and try changing the texture settings like you did before, see if that makes a difference.
Perhaps the high quality one adds some sort of motion blur, can you check the differences to make sure there's no smoothing "effect" being added?

Also, have you got RTSS? Could you use it on whatever game you're going to test on, but set the framerate to 0 and scanline sync to 0, then for the profile of the game, go to Setup, then under FCAT properties click enable frame color indicator and make sure it's set to 2 bars.
Go back into the game and look on the left side, you should see 2 bars, how do they look like to you? They should both be looking transparent and you should be able to see some parts behind them, there should be no flickering on those bars. Here's an example of what they should look like:
https://i.imgur.com/g4SAoQW.jpg
I think they will be flickering for you at first, so try capping the framerate to your monitor's hz.
I'm not entirely sure what I am looking for here. They're flickering like crazy at uncapped. Capping 2 or 3 FPS under minimizes the flickering but is still pretty severe and finally most of the flickering once I've capped is located in the bottom.

What exactly are these 2 bars trying to show me here?

Switching to borderless window seems to drastically reduce flickering at 162 cap, and instead makes it look like their alternating being on and off.
It shows the frame pacing, if the two bars a fully transparent then all the frames are being shown as fluidly as possible. You ideally want them transparent all the time to get the smoothest experience.

I'm not entirely sure what I am looking for here. They're flickering like crazy at uncapped. Capping 2 or 3 FPS under minimizes the flickering but is still pretty severe and finally most of the flickering once I've capped is located in the bottom.
So I assume you ran this in fullscreen exclusive? If you capped it and it's at the bottom, I think that might be a tear zone, if it's small than it's a tear line, if it's big then I just call it a tear zone, it's a part of the screen where it isn't smooth.
If you use scanline sync and configure it well, you shouldn't get any tearlines or any tear zones or anything, this is barring the game isn't crap, and if you have enough hardware to handle it, as even if you can push out 200fps, capping it to your hz (e.g 144) might still cause some flickering as it's not quite enough.
Switching to borderless window seems to drastically reduce flickering at 162 cap, and instead makes it look like their alternating being on and off.
I sometimes get this, I forgot why, I think it's due to the game not liking borderless windowed mode, or it's not doing it correctly. I generally found out that borderless windowed doesn't work too well and instead you should set it to windowed and use a 3rd party program to put it into borderless mode, like e.g. an autohotkey script.

So, try and get it to not flicker and be nice and transparent, then just play around with the texture filtering options and see if it changes.
You should be able to just use scanline sync in fullscreen exclusive mode. The scanline sync value depends on your monitor and in some rare cases the game, but for me I use 1280 on a 1440p monitor.

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ball2hi
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Re: NVidia Texture Filtering Presets - Wait what...?

Post by ball2hi » 06 Feb 2021, 02:09

deama wrote:
05 Feb 2021, 23:51
...
Well, I decided to turn Vertical Sync back on with an FPS cap of 163(165hz) while running G-Sync. It seems to have for the most part eliminated the flickering or tearing and it's minimal at best, but I've ran this configuration before.

Even though however I use this configuration, there is still a stark difference between 'Performance' and "High Quality' in terms of visual fluidity. The bars aren't looking like they're doing anything different between the two.

deama
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Re: NVidia Texture Filtering Presets - Wait what...?

Post by deama » 06 Feb 2021, 03:02

ball2hi wrote:
06 Feb 2021, 02:09
deama wrote:
05 Feb 2021, 23:51
...
Well, I decided to turn Vertical Sync back on with an FPS cap of 163(165hz) while running G-Sync. It seems to have for the most part eliminated the flickering or tearing and it's minimal at best, but I've ran this configuration before.

Even though however I use this configuration, there is still a stark difference between 'Performance' and "High Quality' in terms of visual fluidity. The bars aren't looking like they're doing anything different between the two.
Then that means it's probably nothing to do with framerate pacing, probably some sort of visual effect, maybe it adds some sort of motion blur or some sort of effect to make it smoother at the cost of resources?
You said that GPU usage is the same, what about CPU usage and RAM? Also, are you able to check VRAM of GPU too?

deama
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Re: NVidia Texture Filtering Presets - Wait what...?

Post by deama » 06 Feb 2021, 04:51

I just did some tests myself on return to castle wolfenstein, but I couldn't tell a difference between high performance or high quality.

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ball2hi
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Re: NVidia Texture Filtering Presets - Wait what...?

Post by ball2hi » 06 Feb 2021, 13:15

deama wrote:
06 Feb 2021, 03:02
Then that means it's probably nothing to do with framerate pacing, probably some sort of visual effect, maybe it adds some sort of motion blur or some sort of effect to make it smoother at the cost of resources?
You said that GPU usage is the same, what about CPU usage and RAM? Also, are you able to check VRAM of GPU too?
Doing a quick test this morning with CSGO. I didn't notice any huge % difference between RAM, CPU, and GPU usage between Performance and High Quality. Still, High Quality provided better fluidity during motion. Unfortunately I didn't keep an eye on VRAM but I have a heck-ton of it. Mind you, these tests were done with 163FPS VSync/GSync.

Something else I want to add that perplexes me. Both my monitors, while drastically different panels are both 1440p & 165hz GSync. Having **any** sort of dynamic content (like task manager) on my secondary monitor affects my fluidity of my fullscreen exclusive games. Probably even borderless Unreal-engine/DX12 games as well. I am confused as to why this is still a problem with both monitors being the same refresh rate and it still persisting through several different Windows 10 updates even though there was supposed to be a big patch that remedied or band aided this.

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