Questions about the graphic settings

[Limonia]

Hi!

I have some questions about the graphic settings.
I only have kinda limited knowledge regarding things like that, so I don't really understand what all of the settings actually mean.

I just downloaded the newest graphic cards driver and noticed the anti-aliasing is somehow smoother than before, don't know why, but it looks a little bit better.
It looked great before so I don't want to change much as it could get worse, but the edges were sometimes a little too jagged. It doesn't bother me if game uses some low resolution textures here and there if you zoom in but I like to have a good image quality. ^^

My questions:
- Is there a disadvantage if you limit the FPS to 60? My FPS sometimes goes up to 120 (don't even know what that means as my monitor actually only has 60 Hz) but the screen tearing is quite annoying. When I limit it to 60 there's no screen tearing at all.

My graphics card is Nvidia GeForce GTX 760. I've changed some settings in the control panel to see what they do but don't really know if it's actually better like that. The difference is just minimal.
- I changed anisotrope filtering to on and 16x. Is this ok?
- FXAA is on (was already on) and I changed it to 16x CSAA (I didn't see any difference at all using other settings ...).
- Triple buffering is now on, but I also don't see any difference, Vsync is on adaptive.
- I enabled DSR but I don't see any difference.

The ingame settings are on maximum.

As I said, it looked good before besides the anti-aliasing that was somewhat weaker. Should I change all the settings to normal again as it was before or are these settings ok? xD

Thanks for your help. ^^

[Shioban]

There's no point in changing any of those settings.

FFXIV ARR runs under DX9 with Deffered Rendering. Under DX9 Deferred Rendering is unable to run any hardware AA passes. CSAA/MSAA/TXAA have no effect on the aliasing in game as a result of this.

Leading to the reason why FXAA is our only option.

The difference between hardware based AA and software based AA is how it processes itself.

Software AA is a quick screen 'passover' where it basicly antialiases the entire screen in one chunk by blurring it. This method is fast and cheap on performance.

Hardware AA actually (depending on the method) checks the geometry in the scene as well as transparent texture edges and blurs ONLY them. This method takes more processing power but generally looks better.


The hardware AA bug under deferred rendering was fixed in DX10 +, so the DX11 client should be offering some hardware antialiasing options.

[IzumiYuki]

If your screen refresh rate is 60, there is no point going above 60fps. In fact, going above your screen's refresh rate will cause effects such as screen tearing. So, either get a new monitor or limit your fps to your highest screen refresh rate.

If you aren't at max settings right now, it would be a good idea to increase your graphics settings too. With your card, it should be easy to maintain ~60fps at max settings.

[Fenririon]

I am perceiving slight input lag/sluggish camera movement with the fps limited but it's nothing too serious, I've had worse experiences with vsync enabled in ohter games. But I still prefer to keep it off and limit my fps it with Rivatuner Satistics Server instead. I've gotten used to the tearing so that doesn't bother me much.

You should keep your setting at what feels best for you.

[Veerne]

DSR won't do anything unless you go Fullscreen and increase the resolution something above the native. However, FFXIV is not very DSR friendly game so I wouldn't suggest using it. The UI elements get shrunk and squished, badly. It also requires a lot more power from the GPU.

[Demeos]

If you're limiting your fps to 60 with the in-game settings, then disable V-sync on your Gfx card for this game as it will cause screen tearing (I learned this the hard way after fiddling with settings here and there). Triple buffering may help with smoothing out the frame rate (less stuttering) but can also cause a slight delay between using an action and seeing it actually go off.

[raelgun]

DSR won't do anything unless you go Fullscreen and increase the resolution something above the native. However, FFXIV is not very DSR friendly game so I wouldn't suggest using it. The UI elements get shrunk and squished, badly. It also requires a lot more power from the GPU.

With downsampling in FF14 Ive noticed it only makes a noticeable difference when you are panned out and have others near by, test it in a trial, it becomes more distinguishable and lot more nicer in visuals, just looking around your character doesnt make that much of a difference sadly or close ups, mostly due how the lightening works in this game, it masks a lot of stuff.

[Squa11_Leonhart]

If your screen refresh rate is 60, there is no point going above 60fps. In fact, going above your screen's refresh rate will cause effects such as screen tearing. So, either get a new monitor or limit your fps to your highest screen refresh rate.

If you aren't at max settings right now, it would be a good idea to increase your graphics settings too. With your card, it should be easy to maintain ~60fps at max settings.

Tearing occurs at any framerate that isn't synchronised with the monitor, and you see tearing more at low fps than you do as the fps gets higher and higher.