SKYRIMLE injectSMAA by Andrej Dudenhefner - Alternate AA

[Holymartyr]

Wanted to post this here for people to look at and figure out if they want to use this, instead of the games internal AA.

 

Description [for injectSMAA]

adds "Subpixel Morphological Antialiasing" to an applicationis based on "injectFXAA" (written by "some dude")is supposed to work only with directx 9, directx 10, directx 11, x86 applicationsmay be incompatible with any other form of antialiasingmay be incompatible with overlays (Steam Overlay, MSI Afterburner, Fraps, ...)SMAA is a very efficient GPU-based MLAA implementation, capable of handling subpixel features seamlessly, and featuring an advanced pattern detection & handling mechanism.

https://www.iryoku.com/smaa/

(This description was taking from Andrej's site - link at bottom of this post.)

 

I haven't tried Skyrim with the new 301.24 NVIDIA Beta Driver AA, so I can't offer a comparison as of right now.

 

Also don't know if the new STEP update will use the FXAA injecter (which SMAA is based off of BTW), but once again posting in-case people would like to use this.

 

When using injectSMAA over the default AA in Skyrim, I got an incredible performance boost (upwards of 20~ FPS in certain places in-game).

 

The quality of the AA as well is very, very good imo. Try it out and give it a go! You might like it.

 

Original site link found: here.

[Bealdwine]

Thank you for noting this, I did mention it on the forum some time ago.

The issue then was finding a way to get it working when other mods also use the d3d9.dll, in the case of STEP at the time it was iCCC by TheCompiler.

 

Obviously one solution is to rename the .dll file, but if it is being referenced there should also be an entry in an .ini file for the new name.

 

Example. This enbseries.ini addition works for running injectFXAA alongside an ENB series mod (note the renamed d3d9.dll):

[PROXY]
EnableProxyLibrary=1
InitProxyFunctions=1
ProxyLibrary=d3d9injFX.dll

[Vond]

Sadly doesn't work with RCRN, even if you use ENB aswell as then you need the proxy lib for the RCRN d3d9.dll. I believe they were working on implementing it instead of using FXAA for a later version together with the creator of the SMAA injector, but were waiting on v1.3 (apparently the current one is unstable) however so possibly I'll get to try it out eventually. :)

[Holymartyr]

Ok, thanks for the heads up Bealdwine. Very new to the forums (within the past week or so), decided to become a part of the community to try to help out seeing as there was no direct line to TC himself, and I wanted to try to help other users.

 

One thing I'd like to mention is I've been looking for a workaround for alternate d3d9.dll files for laptops running Nvidia OPTIMUS, and one thing I found that actually worked is by getting a hex editor, going into the TESV.exe file, finding d3d9.dll and rename to something such as d3fx.dll, then renaming the alternate d3d9.dll file to d3fx.dll. It would load the d3fx.dll file, and use the Nvidia powered GPU instead of the intel GPU. (This solution was NOT originally found by me. I found this by someone else on another forum months back. I'm sorry I cannot give you credit, if someone knows who I'm talking about please let me know so I can give him credit)

 

Problem with this is that for some reason, when you rename the d3d9.dll from injectSMAA by Andrej Dudenhefner, the d3d9.dll file no longer works. The game loads, it uses the alternate file ON the Nvidia GPU, but the AA doesn't load for some reason. I've tried to get a hold of Andrej, but to no avail atm.

 

But if you have a normal computer WITHOUT OPTIMUS, then all you have to do is drop the d3d9.dll file from injectSMAA into your TESV.exe folder and the AA looks great. I haven't tried with ENB yet. (I reformat my computer every few months because of how slow windows gets. Keep all the data on seperate HDD and just re-install. So I haven't had Skyrim installed for a while. Works out I guess since the next STEP will probably have everyone re-install from scratch anyways.)

[Vond]

Holymartyr: For ENB there is an injector version, rather than the standard wrapper, that works (was designed especially for) Optimus.

[Holymartyr]

Yes, I have seen that. The problem with that, is the linking of a second d3d9.dll file doesn't work with the injector version. I like what ENB has done, but I'd much rather use SMAA injector over ENB.

 

Still, thanks for pointing that out Vond.

[SIMONTOYOU]

https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=15425

There is an edited d3d9.dll for SMAA in that mod.

Credit, of course, goes to the author: stakado

[Holymartyr]

Hm, when I changed the SMAA file name when I was using a Hex Editor on TESV.exe, the SMAA d3d9.dll AA stopped working. I'll have to mess around with this when I can get off my laptop and back onto my main computer.

[Staind716]

https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=15425There is an edited d3d9.dll for SMAA in that mod.Credit' date=' of course, goes to the author: stakado[/quote']

 

Thanks so much for this. I have been using this with my ENB and am impressed with the quality and performance. Looks very, very nice.

[Bealdwine]

https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=15425There is an edited d3d9.dll for SMAA in that mod.Credit' date=' of course' date=' goes to the author: stakado[/quote'']Thanks so much for this. I have been using this with my ENB and am impressed with the quality and performance. Looks very, very nice.

 

Out of interest do you have any performance data? That and a screen shot might help others here. Have you disabled game & graphics card AA? And which card/CPU does your system run? Thanks :)

[Staind716]

Sorry it took so long to get back with some more info. I have had a few friends trying this also to be able to get a little more data for you from other people besides just myself. These are all average results from several people that I am going to list.

 

As far as performance the hit is extremely minimal. Only 1 or 2 frames which is quite impressive.

 

I contacted Stakado for some more input and he claims that using SMAA set to ultra in the ini (he has ultra on by default) with no other AA enabled is as good as 8x MSAA. He also said he plays his game with only 2x enabled in Skyrim launcher and with the SMAA it is comparable to 16x MSAA. After trying this for myself I have to agree that it does have quality that is very comparable to this.

 

I am playing on a lowly Nvidia 460m with an i7 quad core cpu so this should work for just about everybody. Most of my friends have beefier rigs and they are also very happy with the results.

 

Hmm, I will have to go take a few screenshots with this enabled and disabled so you can see the difference. I'll take some with no other AA enabled and with 2x and maybe 4x with SMAA so you can see the quality for yourself. As soon as I get a chance this evening I will get on that.

 

One of my friends just posted a version of SMAA injector with a regular d3d9.dll and also one for ENB. This is a super easy install and uninstall so I would recommend everyone to at least give it a shot and see what you think of it. Personally, I am so impressed with SMAA that I have added it to several of my other games with great results. This is way better than FXAA and doesn't have that vaseline on the screen look that FXAA is known for. Here's a link if you want to see for yourself. I think TC should give some thought to using this instead of the FXAA because while the performance is the same the quality is far, far better.

 

https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=16233

[Vond]

I was meaning to try using RLwC over RCRN so I could use SMAA (can't with RCRN due to it using FXAA until SMAA releases 1.3, they had stability issues with 1.2), but what's keeping me back is compatability with Transparency Supersampling. From what I've gathered, to use for example 4x Sparse Grid Supersampling, I need to use 4x MSAA aswell. With such settings already, adding SMAA on top of it seems moot. Anyone know if using 2x MSAA via inspector (or just 2x ingame AA) + SMAA would work with a 4x SGSSAA?

[Guciec]

Hello,

I'm new to internet forums, and STEP forums, so please feel free to correct my netiquet via pms.

I'm new in posting screenshots on forums so every know-how advises are most welcome via pms.

 

I created new Skyrim install (High Res Pack included), following STEP guidelines, and I'm going to install full STEP or Skyrim Revisited. But I found SMAA in installing guide so I thought I'll try it out and I did.

 

I used DX9 setting, there is also DX10, but I found in the Internet that Skyrim is running on the DX9.

Presets on the clean Skyrim with SMAA are as follows:

 

AA 8x

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_4kJRACJ1z7QkVzanFmcmV2aTA/edit?usp=sharing

NoAA

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_4kJRACJ1z7cExxbmt5RUNwRE0/edit?usp=sharing

 

Funny thing with SMAA on and AA off, my comp is doing 2 screen shots at a time:

 

Before post processing:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_4kJRACJ1z7c0czYkJpbDdLVXc/edit?usp=sharing

 

NoAA+SMAA, after post processing (raw bmp file is 25% bigger than the 3 above):

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_4kJRACJ1z7MGFOQWJOSFhFQ0E/edit?usp=sharing

 

I haven't established base FPS performance yet, and didn't check on fraps fps counts with different settings, but I might do it if asked.

 

Thanks for reading,

 

Mike

 

Advocem:

I made also SS with AA2x and SMAA turned on, and effect is paradoxically worse than with the SMAA only.

[Aiyen]

It is not a paradox that the quality gets worse.

If you mix AA techniques, they will most likely just work against each other unless they are designed to work together. And MSAA and SMAA are not designed to work together. SMAA is supposed to be somewhere in between FXAA and MSAA in terms of quality.

 

Also be aware that there is quite a big difference between how post processing effects look depending on which software you use to capture it.

 

Just using print screen is just going to capture the original image. Other software is only going to get the last and hence drop the original one.

This means that they can look different, if they both have post processing effects active. For example ENB shots, with the vanilla color correction enabled will look different on shots depending on which software you use.

If you have all effects captured the filesize will naturally increase.

[Guciec]

Thanks for fast response Aiyen.

So generally:

 

1. with which software should I make screenshots for most reliable capture?

 

2. Which post processing is best for use?

 

3. Can one tell conclusively that SMAA is better AA than build in game AA (MSAA???) ?