Windows 10 DWM Issue - LM, Please fix the Anti-Aliasing in v5.2 before release.

[PilotRaider14]

Hello everyone,

This is a little long so please bare with me...

I've been doing some more research on the subject of Antialiasing for P3D and I think I've narrowed down the issue to Desktop Window Manager or DWM in Windows 10...

Basically DWM is for Windows Store apps compatibility, it also runs the Windows Start Menu and their new UI Control Panel.

One thing that used to fix the issues with jaggies back then was to disable Desktop Composition. Since their newest update, the ability to disable Desktop Composition has been removed.

There's no way to disable it through the performance UI options under control panel anymore. It can no longer be found in the properties menu either for any executable file like it used to.

Now what we see is "Fullscreen Optimizations" but disabling that doesn't fix the issue with jaggies.

See images below:








DWM can still be disabled these days but doing so basically breaks much of the functionality in Windows 10 now. It's also an issue that concerns games/apps that use FullScreen Exclusive Mode/FSE Mode.

Microsoft is basically pushing this new method for displaying games because someone at Microsoft believes it's better to be able to Alt+Tab faster out of a game... what a joke honestly... I would start a petition, but not sure how many of you would even sign onto it or if it would even be accepted by MS.

Now, I understand that P3D doesn't use FSE mode and that's fine because the AA was working properly before, but now we get jagged AA regardless. So it's like the DWM is a permanent overlay that's screwing things up.

I'll also link the following video which talks more about the use of FullScreen Exclusive Mode and DWM:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FSzofnsmW4&t=915s

Here are some images that I took before all these weird Antialiasing issues started.

These were taken at either 4x MSAA or 8x MSAA.







This is basically a follow up to one of my older threads concerning the Anti-Aliasing, link provided: https://www.prepar3d.com/forum/viewtopi ... 2&t=140489

If Microsoft won't cooperate and give us the ability to disable DWM anymore, then I hope LM can find a workaround fix for this issue with v5.2.

@Aviator1979 sent me this link but it's not a complete fix, it improves visual quality slightly but not fully: https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/5653 ... e-grid-aa/

I've been watching P3D youtube videos from the last few weeks and I notice that the majority of flight simmers are having the jaggies now... some people unfortunately do not notice it until they look very closely or they don't have a comparison model as to how it used to look for them to realize there's something wrong with the quality.

Excuse the long rant, but being an avid simmer myself, I just really hope this issue will be fixed because it's not just affecting P3D but XP11 and DCS World as well.

For reference these are the specs for my sim rig...

Windows 10 Pro x64 20H2
LG GL850 GSync 2K Monitor 144Hz Capable, set to 60Hz.
Maximus Formula XII Motherboard
10900K 5.0GHz
EVGA GTX 1080Ti FTW3
32GB DDR4 RAM @ 3200MHz
970 EVO 1TB NVME
EVGA 850W SuperNova G3 PSU
H115i AIO

What are your thoughts on the issue?

Thanks everyone.

[Beau Hollis]

Is this issue tied to a specific windows or driver version? I just tested on a box with Win10 v1909 and latest graphics drivers and don't see the issue.

You may want to try enabling variable refresh rate and disabling v-syc in the display settings. Under the hood, this flags the swap chain to "allow-tearing" which his a hint to the OS that we want the old-style exclusive full screen with screen tearing. The tearing-enabled swap chain is the closest thing to the old exclusive full screen mode that DirectX12 supports.

Another work-around you might try is disabling auto-fill view in full screen options. Then, before going into full screen, you could manually resize the app window to leave a pixel or two of space along one edge. You might also need to disable the black out desktop option.

Basically, windows makes the full screen determination based on if a borderless window fills the entire display and is on top of all other windows. You can fake this out by either not filling the display, or placing a small floating window somewhere on screen.

Unfortunately swap chain behavior in full screen seems to do different things between window versions. We have had to work around issues in the past where, for example, v-sync caused major FPS issues on multi-monitor systems in full screen because of some odd swap chain behavior in windows.

[Aviator1979]

We use currently the highest 8xSSAA setting to improve and mask the best we can but those taxi and runway lines on certain airports are really pain for the eyes. Its the shimmering thats really bad, the jaggies on the aircraft and other objects are nihil for me personally but its really the airport markings on certain airports. I buy a new card soon and hope that will fix it 2 monitors connected with 2 display port cables.

[PilotRaider14]

We use currently the highest 8xSSAA setting to improve and mask the best we can but those taxi and runway lines on certain airports are really pain for the eyes. Its the shimmering thats really bad, the jaggies on the aircraft and other objects are nihil for me personally but its really the airport markings on certain airports. I buy a new card soon and hope that will fix it 2 monitors connected with 2 display port cables.

I second this, we're already maxxing out the AA but it is the runways, taxiways and some aircraft that aren't being rendered correctly with AA. I don't know why it's so difficult for some people to spot this problem, but trust me, it is there.

I don't think a new graphics card will fix it Aviator1979, and I say that because I just received my Alienware Area 51m R2 with a 2080 Super and it looks exactly the same as on my 1080Ti Desktop.

I'm about to make a video here shortly to describe the issue in better detail, it seems posts and pictures don't make any justice.

[Aviator1979]

Thanks here also the 2080 super from old gtx titan. Greets

[PilotRaider14]

Is this issue tied to a specific windows or driver version? I just tested on a box with Win10 v1909 and latest graphics drivers and don't see the issue.

You may want to try enabling variable refresh rate and disabling v-syc in the display settings. Under the hood, this flags the swap chain to "allow-tearing" which his a hint to the OS that we want the old-style exclusive full screen with screen tearing. The tearing-enabled swap chain is the closest thing to the old exclusive full screen mode that DirectX12 supports.

Another work-around you might try is disabling auto-fill view in full screen options. Then, before going into full screen, you could manually resize the app window to leave a pixel or two of space along one edge. You might also need to disable the black out desktop option.

Basically, windows makes the full screen determination based on if a borderless window fills the entire display and is on top of all other windows. You can fake this out by either not filling the display, or placing a small floating window somewhere on screen.

Unfortunately swap chain behavior in full screen seems to do different things between window versions. We have had to work around issues in the past where, for example, v-sync caused major FPS issues on multi-monitor systems in full screen because of some odd swap chain behavior in windows.

Thanks for your reply Beau, the first thing I did was try what you suggested but unfortunately it did not work. You mention you're on 1909, this is on 20H2 so not sure if it has something to do with it. I used 4X MSAA since this was working properly before, even when I use 8X SSAA the issue is still there.

In short, we just want these lines to be fixed they're a really big annoyance when it comes to take off and landing. It seems the AA only works up to 10 feet from the aircraft. I expanded the size of these images so you can get a better view of what's going on.





Thank you so much.

[PilotRaider14]

My quick video has been uploaded regarding this issue:

https://youtu.be/BF1PS6ZGYiM

Thanks in advance for watching.

Hopefully this explains the issue better.

[MPO910]

Is this issue tied to a specific windows or driver version? I just tested on a box with Win10 v1909 and latest graphics drivers and don't see the issue.

You may want to try enabling variable refresh rate and disabling v-syc in the display settings. Under the hood, this flags the swap chain to "allow-tearing" which his a hint to the OS that we want the old-style exclusive full screen with screen tearing. The tearing-enabled swap chain is the closest thing to the old exclusive full screen mode that DirectX12 supports.

Another work-around you might try is disabling auto-fill view in full screen options. Then, before going into full screen, you could manually resize the app window to leave a pixel or two of space along one edge. You might also need to disable the black out desktop option.

Basically, windows makes the full screen determination based on if a borderless window fills the entire display and is on top of all other windows. You can fake this out by either not filling the display, or placing a small floating window somewhere on screen.

Unfortunately swap chain behavior in full screen seems to do different things between window versions. We have had to work around issues in the past where, for example, v-sync caused major FPS issues on multi-monitor systems in full screen because of some odd swap chain behavior in windows.

Hi Beau!

Since a couple of weeks/maybe days I am seeing this too. As I use VR I thought it had something todo with VR. But it does not.

I noticed this jaggies also on taxilines, simobjects but also in the outside view watching the plane its "CarrierName". The boundaries of the model are ok, but the names of the carrier, like EMIRATES or DELTA are very jaggie and aliasing seems broken for these.

Can the issue be "texture layer" depending?

It is important to use 20H2 as I am pretty sure the latest recent windows updates/combined with Nvidia 461.92 driver seems to have these issues.

My prior MS 1909 build was not showing this. It is also regardless which P3D Version I use 5.X (every version I have) shows this.

Regards
Marcus

[PilotRaider14]

If you check out one of my older videos which is from P3D V4.1 and go to the 5:00 timestamp when I'm landing, you will notice that the issue I'm describing is NOT there. That video was recorded using my older 7700K/1080Ti but if I go back and load this up it will now have the jagged runways...So something changed that broke the AA in Windows 10.

Link:

https://youtu.be/VwcDtjQaJLY

[PilotRaider14]

These screenshots are from my old videos, and thankfully I even made these videos because it shows that the Antialiasing was working normally before. This was with 4x MSAA with no transparency enabled in P3D V4.1 and V4.3. You can see there isn't any jaggies on the runway lines, perfectly smooth as it should be.

[PilotRaider14]

Still doing more research on the subject and also tried going back a few windows versions, all the way down to version 1703 but to no luck... It seems that someone over at Microsoft decided to patch up all the older versions and removed the ability to disable Desktop Composition DWM.

This appears now in the properties menu for programs instead of "Disable Desktop Composition":



My last bet would be to try Windows 7 (if I can get it working on NVME). If it still has the DWM disable feature available and P3DV4 works, then this will be all Microsoft's doing. Since I can't use v5 due to the lack of DX12 in Windows 7.

What an annoyance this is...

[PilotRaider14]

An update, I got Windows 7 working on my older Z170 motherboard. Unfortunately didn't return any positive results.

Loaded up P3DV3 and the AA still looked pretty bad. I was able to toggle Desktop Composition but unfortunately it didn't fix the problem.

I was even given a replacement motherboard for my Z490 Maximus Formula XII and it too did not fix the problem. I loaded up the sim with the original in-box BIOS and it still looked the same. Updated the BIOS and the NVIDIA graphics driver but it didn't fix the AA.

I'm running out of ideas, this is so frustrating!

Code: Select all

Windows 7 Pro - Check
Disable Desktop Composition - Check
Disable FullScreen Optimizations - Check
Run as Administrator vs Normal - Check
Windows 8.1 Pro - Check
Windows 10 Pro - Check
MSCONFIG Basic Startup - Check
NVIDIA Drivers - Check
Monitor Swap - Check
Cables Swap - Check
Location Swap - Check
New 2080S Laptop - Check
P3D Version - Check
BIOS Downgrade - Check
BIOS Upgrade - Check
NVIDIA Inspector - Check
NVCP Settings - Check
Motherboard Swap - Check
Reset CMOS - Check
Reseated CPU and GPU - Check
Update Monitor Firmware LG GL850- Check
8700K Setup - Check
The list goes on...

The only thing I can think of now is the Intel vulnerability patches or MEI Firmware that have gone out to all Skylake and higher CPU's... Could those have affected Anti-Aliasing? Unless Microsoft or NVIDIA did sneak in a patch to all their old drivers and OS versions that messed everything up... Or this really is just P3D having bad AA implementation on its own... I'm a computer engineer but unfortunately not a graphics engineer, otherwise I would've looked into this immediately, since it does stick out like a sore thumb.

Please open the image below in a new tab, that is P3DV5.1 HF1 now with 4xMSAA selected inside P3D and 8xMSAA being enhanced with NVCP, does that look normal to you...? Hopefully it does not. That spikey PMDG 737NGXu fuselage looks horrendous!!

[MPO910]

This came with one of the updated of MS or Nvidia....I have had several earlier P3D version and this wasn't so bad before I started recognizing this. I fly in VR mainly....and VR makes everything look bigger in the HMD and that's why I noticed it. I can't imagine this is P3D related. But maybe I'm wrong.

Yes P3D AA always had some jaggies....but this is different and much uglier.

I've noticed when I see those jaggies and bent my head right or left with the HMD left on my head....this gets less...head up to straight again....the jaggies return heavy again

Marcus

[PilotRaider14]

This came with one of the updated of MS or Nvidia....I have had several earlier P3D version and this wasn't so bad before I started recognizing this. I fly in VR mainly....and VR makes everything look bigger in the HMD and that's why I noticed it. I can't imagine this is P3D related. But maybe I'm wrong.

Yes P3D AA always had some jaggies....but this is different and much uglier.

I've noticed when I see those jaggies and bent my head right or left with the HMD left on my head....this gets less...head up to straight again....the jaggies return heavy again

Marcus

Opened a support ticket with PMDG to show them the AA effect on their NGXu and here's their response:



So a Microsoft Update? Could it be that they also released this update for Windows 7 and that's why it also looked the same? When I checked the installed updates on Windows 7 there was some that I couldn't remove, majority of which I didn't remember installing. Very strange how Microsoft does things if this holds to be the case.

[ryanair007]

Is this issue tied to a specific windows or driver version? I just tested on a box with Win10 v1909 and latest graphics drivers and don't see the issue.

You may want to try enabling variable refresh rate and disabling v-syc in the display settings. Under the hood, this flags the swap chain to "allow-tearing" which his a hint to the OS that we want the old-style exclusive full screen with screen tearing. The tearing-enabled swap chain is the closest thing to the old exclusive full screen mode that DirectX12 supports.

Another work-around you might try is disabling auto-fill view in full screen options. Then, before going into full screen, you could manually resize the app window to leave a pixel or two of space along one edge. You might also need to disable the black out desktop option.

Basically, windows makes the full screen determination based on if a borderless window fills the entire display and is on top of all other windows. You can fake this out by either not filling the display, or placing a small floating window somewhere on screen.

Unfortunately swap chain behavior in full screen seems to do different things between window versions. We have had to work around issues in the past where, for example, v-sync caused major FPS issues on multi-monitor systems in full screen because of some odd swap chain behavior in windows.

The problem happens only on p3d since version 5.0 (looks like AA is not working like it should ) especially on 1080 p displays .
On 4k displays its less visible but the problems remains I made several teste with a Nvidia cards and Amd cards with different screens and on P3d always the same problem with AA .
all the other games i use has no problem with AA works normally for example on ( x-plane or MFS 2020 ) . Lm please fix this problem when i use the setting AA 8 x msaa looks like 2 x msaa ( disabling full screens optimization helps a but the problem remains )

My specs
Windows 10
3 samsung ssd 1to
Rtx 3090
64 ram
i9900k 5.2 gtz

Regards Marco