Option 1: For Nvidia GTX 1000 Series Users

• Go to Nvidia Control Panel
• Enable Vertical Sync -> Fast Sync
• Go to Overwatch in-game options, disable V-Sync, disable Triple Buffering, Limit FPS – OFF
• Make sure you’re using exclusive fullscreen mode, and not borderless windowed

Option 2: For Nvidia GTX 900 Series Users

• GeForce Drivers Release 367 or newer (get the latest at geforce.com, or update via GeForce Experience)
• Download Nvidia Inspector
• Launch Nvidia Profile Inspector
• Load the profile for Overwatch
• Set Vertical Sync to 0x18888888
• Go to Overwatch in-game options, disable V-Sync, disable Triple Buffering, Limit FPS – OFF
• Make sure you’re using exclusive fullscreen mode, and not borderless windowed

Option 3: Any GPU/Video Card (WDDM Method)

• Must be Windows 7/8/10
• Go to Overwatch in-game options -> disable V-Sync, disable Triple Buffering, Limit FPS – OFF
• Still in Overwatch in-game options -> enable Borderless Windowed

Do I need to do all of these?

• No. Just pick the one that suits you best.

What do these tweaks do?

The first tweak for the GTX 1000 series enables a new feature for Pascal called Fast Sync. It allows smooth, non-tearing display output, without back-pressuring the rendering pipeline. The result is clean, tear-free images without the additional input latency from vertical sync.

The second tweak enables Fast Sync for Maxwell cards. Until it’s officially released as part of a driver update, it will have to be enabled using this workaround.

The last tweak applies to any GPU, and makes use of WDDM (Windows Display Driver Model). WDDM does true triple buffering by default (no back-pressure + buffer flipping, it’s basically fast sync). This way, you get no input latency from V-Sync, but you still get clean images since only the latest fully scanned frame is sent to the display.

Are these compatible with frame-pacing tweaks?

I recommend disabling frame pacing tweaks (like RTSS) so that the game can render as fast as it can.

The post How To Improve Overwatch Game Responsiveness and Smoothness appeared first on Jercouzen.

Be sure to check out my other Black Desert CBT content here:

• Black Desert CBT – English UI Guide/Translation
• Black Desert CBT – Character Creation
• Black Desert CBT – Sorceress Combat Gameplay
• Black Desert CBT – Ranger Combat Gameplay
• Black Desert CBT – Fighter Combat Gameplay
• Black Desert CBT – Giant Combat Gameplay

The post Black Desert CBT – English UI Guide/Translation appeared first on Jercouzen.

Luckily, there are still some tweaks we can apply on a driver level to take the graphics above the maximum possible settings.

First off, we set the game to its highest preset. This is actually stop #5 on the slider. The 6th one is just a custom settings stop.

Mercenary Online In-game Settings

Setting the game to preset 5 will enable pretty much everything, including dynamic shadows, dynamic environment lighting, bloom, ambient occlusion, depth of field, and motion blur.

Antialiasing reduces the jagged stairstep effect the the edge of polygons in-game. Higher values look better, at the cost of performance. While 8xMSAA may look better than 4x, it can degrade performance by as much as 50%, depending on your hardware. CSAA uses coverage sampling to improve quality, without as much performance penalty. For example, 8xCSAA (4 color + 4 coverage samples) may look better than 4xMSAA (4 color samples), but it may not look as good as true 8xMSAA (8 color samples).

The setting I used is 32xCSAA, which is 8 color samples + 24 coverage samples. If this setting lowers performance too much, you can choose whatever gives you the best balance between performance and quality.

* Note that the ‘Depth Texture’ setting under ‘Advanced Settings’ must be disabled (unchecked) to get the best possible quality. This is just a custom extension feature to help lower end systems improve performance. If you want the best quality, or if the game crashes on you, you will want to keep this disabled.

To take our settings further, we need to apply tweaks to our drivers.

First, you’ll need to download Nvidia Inspector.

Once you have that, launch the application, and click the Profile Settings button.

Nvidia Inspector

Look for Quan Qiu Shi Ming(MarsGame.exe) under profiles, and apply the following settings to the highlighted sections.

Nvidia Inspector Profile Settings

Ambient Occlusion – although the game has its own ambient occlusion effects, enabling the Nvidia driver-level implementation will add even more soft shadows. This gives the game even more depth and realism, not to mention it looks great on dark scenarios like zombies/biochem maps.

• Ambient Occlusion compatibility – set to 0x00000020 (Mass Effect)
• Ambient Occlusion usage – set to Enabled
• Ambient Occlusion setting – I recommend setting to Quality, as the difference between that and High Quality is minimal, but the performance improvement is noticeable.

No Nvidia Ambient Occlusion Tweak

With Nvidia Ambient Occlusion Tweak

• Antialiasing – Transparency Multisampling – set to disabled.
• Antialiasing – Transparency Supersampling – set to 8x supersampling. Though normally, Sparse Grid Supersampling does better transparency AA, this feature causes weird discoloration with Mercenary Online.

If your system can’t handle the settings recommended above, feel free to adjust and find a suitable balance of performance and quality based on your hardware’s capabilities.

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The post Dead Island – Forced MSAA via Nvidia Inspector appeared first on Jercouzen.

Here’s a simple tweak that will let you force multisampling (MSAA) or coverage sampling (CSAA) antialiasing, along with transparency antialiasing modes on TERA, using Nvidia Inspector.

Sample screenshot using 32x CSAA with 8x Supersampling

To get the results we want, the default antialiasing for TERA must be turned off. Just go to Options -> Video -> Lighting Enrichment, and lower it to 1. This will preserve all other lighting effects, and disable only the post-process antialiasing.

Set ‘Lighting Enrichment’ to 1 to disable the default AA.

To set the antialiasing override, go to Nvidia Inspector’s profile settings, and select the profile for TERA. If it doesn’t exists on the dropdown list, just add a new profile and add tera.exe to the associated executable.

1. Set Antialiasing Compatibility to StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty
2. Set Antialiasing – Mode to Override any application setting
3. Set Antialiasing – Setting to 32x CSAA / 16x CSAA / 8x CSAA / 8x MSAA, depending or your hardware and preference.
4. Set Antialiasing – Transparency Multisampling to Disabled
5. Set Antialiasing – Supersampling to 8x Supersampling / 4x Supersampling / 4x Sparse Grid Supersampling / 2x Sparse Grid Supersampling, depending on your hardware and preference.

No AA

Default AA

8x CSAA with 4x Supersampling

16x CSAA with 8x Supersampling

32x CSAA with 8x Supersampling

16x CSAA with 2x Sparse Grid Supersampling

16x CSAA with 4x Sparse Grid Supersampling

The post TERA – Antialiasing Tweak with Screenshot Comparison appeared first on Jercouzen.

You’ll need download Nvidia Inspector first, of course.

Then disable antialiasing in-game for Diablo 3. Just hit apply and exit the game.

Then go to Nvidia Inspector, and click on the small cross-tools icon to launch the profile settings.

1) Select the Diablo III profile. (If you don’t have this detected by default, simple create a new profile, and add Diablo III.exe as the associated executable.

2) Manually set the Antialiasing Compatibility flag to 0x004412C1

3) Set Antialiasing – Behavior Flags to None.

4) Set Antialiasing – Mode to Override any application setting.

5) Choose your Antialiasing – Setting. I recommend going 8xCSAA or 16xCSAA, since you can’t really see any difference using 32xCSAA.

6) Set Antialiasing – Transparency Multisampling to Disabled.

7) Set Antialiasing – Transparency Supersampling to 4x Sparse Grid Supersampling. (This is the most GPU intensive part, so you can lower this to 2x if your system experiences slowdown using 4x. And if using 2x Sparse Grid SSAA is still too demanding on your system, you can switch to 8x or 4x Supersampling instead.)

There is also an option to enable Ambient Occlusion for Diablo 3, and you can do that direct via the Nvidia Control Panel.

Alternatively, you can also set it via Nvidia Inspector, by setting the Ambient Occlusing setting to Enabled, and Ambient Occlusion usage to ‘Quality’ (set to ‘performance’ if your system takes a performance hit).

This is what it looks like using the normal in-game post process antialiasing, no ambient occlusion. Notice the aliasing on the palisade walls and spikes, as well as other items on screen. This becomes much more visible while playing as post-process AA introduces a lot of jagged edges when the scene is in motion.

Default ingame AA with no ambient occlusion.

Here’s what it looks like with 16xCSAA, 4xSGSSAA, and ambient occlusion. See how it further smooths out the jaggies on the palisade spikes. The ambient occlusion also adds a lot of depth into the scene, as it creates soft shadows on the objects and environment.

16x CSAA + 4x SGSSAA + Ambient Occlusion.

The post Diablo 3 Tweaks – Improve Antialiasing and Enable Ambient Occlusion appeared first on Jercouzen.

The hop up system basically creates a backspin on the BB, which in turn, generates some lift. This allows the BB to follow a relatively straight flight, as opposed to its natural parabolic trajectory, for as long as it can maintain lift. And that’s why it’s more important for hop up enabled rifles/guns to stay leveled. If you tilt the firing angle left or right, you also change the direction of lift from the hop up, thus veering your BB off target left or right.

To start, we’ll be needing a solid base to hold the rifle in place. A gun/rifle vise would work great, but for those who don’t have it (like me, lol) you can always improvise. You’ll also need small levels, which you can buy at your local hardware stores.

First attach the mounts on your rail interface and adjust it with the scope to see the position you’ll be using the scope at. Once you find the position you’ll be using the scope at, secure and fasten the base of the mount. Then remove the top rings as well as the scope to start leveling the rifle.

Place the level(s) on the rail mount of your rifle and adjust until the bubble centers.

Here you can see I used two. I was also making sure the the rail itself is precise so I put two levels on different sections to check. I actually did this on multiple sections to verify the quality of the rail.

Make sure the rifle is secured once it’s leveled. It’s absolutely important that the rifle will not move when you do the next step, which is leveling the scope.

Place the scope on the base of the mounts and adjust it to the position that you wanted earlier. Then loosely fasten the scope with the top rings. Tight enough to hold it in place, but loose enough to effortlessly rotate the scope in its place.

Then place a level on the top turret and adjust until it centers.

After it’s leveled, fasten the scope by carefully tightening the screws on the mounts. Make sure the scope does not slide out of its leveled position while doing securing it in place.

You now have a leveled rifle scope and you should be ready for the next step, which is to zero in your reticle.

The post How To Level A Rifle Scope appeared first on Jercouzen.

Select the ‘Main’ Profile, as well as your desired frame rate. The frame rate setting would depend on your source video. I used a video captured with Fraps at 29.970 fps so here I selected 29.970 fps. And of course, I selected progressive scan, hence the ‘p’ in 1080p, lol.

I set the reference frames to 3 since the video is mostly full motion, meaning there is little benefit in using lots of reference frames, which will only greatly lengthen the encoding time (though Sony Vegas may sometimes change this automatically). If your source video is animation, however, (or any video with repetitive motion) using more reference frames may help reduce your output file size and/or improve quality.

And as seen on the image, I set my average bit rate to 3.8 Mbps (which I will later explain why). The maximum 135 Mbps is just a ceiling I set based on the maximum Main profile bit rate for level 5 AVC/h.264. It doesn’t have to be this high, but it doesn’t really impact the output file size so I set it to that value. You can adjust this if you want, but don’t set this too close to the average value, as the encoder will limit the bit rate in a certain scene that may require a higher value.

Above I set the sample rate to 48 KHz and the bit rate to 128 Kbps. Later, I will also explain why.

Project settings, set to Best. Simple as that. lol.

Then simply proceed with your render and you’re done!

The above settings should be all you need to render your video with no visible loss in quality compared to a much higher bit rate output. But if you’re interested in learning more about the reasons behind the chosen settings, or if you simply wish a preview of the results, then read on. 😀

The Initial Output

As I’ve mentioned, I rendered two videos. One, using my optimized settings,  resulted in a 7 MB file, while the other, which is basically the same settings except for the average bps set to 20 Mbps, resulted in a 19.1 MB file.

Here is a side by side comparison of screen captures that I did on a specific frame.

The full-sized frames can be seen here:

3.8 Mbps VBR

20 Mbps VBR

YouTube HD

But of course, the real test is on YouTube itself. As can be seen when comparing both clips here:

3.8 Mbps Source uploaded – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUmkw9d48VA

20 Mbps Source uploaded – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWz-f7DC1H4

Wondering how is that possible?

The answer is simple. Since YouTube resamples all videos uploaded, there comes a point where no matter how high your original video quality is, it always gets re-encoded to a certain level. That is why the sample high bit rate source becomes indistinguishable from a lower bit rate source once it gets uploaded to YouTube.

Taking a Closer Look

I downloaded the 1080p videos back from YouTube to see exactly what happened when the videos were re-encoded. I took still frames from the videos for comparison and also used MediaInfo to analyze the video properties.

Here’s a side by side comparison of the still frames from the downloaded YouTube videos.

The left is from the 3.8 Mbps source video, while the right is from the 20 Mbps source. It can be seen quite clearly that the re-encoding process after uploading the videos to YouTube pretty much leveled the quality between the two.

The full sized frames can be seen here:

From the 3.8 Mbps source video

From the 20 Mbps source video

I also loaded the videos on MediaInfo to see the encoding details. Here’s a side by side comparison:

Video Comparison

Left: 3.8 Mbps Source, Right: 20 Mbps Source

Audio Comparison

Left: 3.8 Mbps Source, Right: 20 Mbps Source

Conclusion

The examples I provided clearly show my basis for selecting the settings for both Video and Audio. I also did a lot of tests with different 1080p videos, and the videos re-encoded by YouTube would always range from 3.5 to 3.8 Mbps; the audio averages out at 125 Kbps. The tests also show that YouTube produces the same level of output quality when re-encoding videos, despite a big difference in source video bit rates. And with no visible difference in resulting quality between an optimized bit rate source and a high bit rate source, there really isn’t any reason to go overboard with the bit rates on your videos for uploading, is there? 🙂

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