Hi, has anyone come to a conclusive point on this feature? The game says not to use it unless your graphics are messed up. Some people claim it is superior and should be used over the games default. I understand that it uses Direct X instead of Open GL. Is there any downsides to using the alternate renderer? If it is sharper and superior than the default open GL than why is that? Also, if it's sharper and superior than why is DX support not enabled by default? Thanks for your time.
The superiority of the compatibility renderer doesn't come from its using Direct X. It comes from its having retained the Catmull-Rom Bicubic scaling algorithm that used to be standard in all Enhanced Editions until patch 2.0.
Now it only exists within the compatibility renderer, and only for backgrounds. I logged a Redmine feature request to bring it back for everything as an option, so hopefully we won't have to switch renderers for it in the future.
I'm not aware of any downsides to the renderer; at least I have not experienced any.
I tried it and I honestly can't notice a difference. Both modes look a little blurry to me at 4K on a 65 Inch TV. I bump the sharpness up on my TV about 20 clicks from where I normally have it and everything looks nice and sharp.
I have to use the UI scaling feature or else it is so small I can't use it properly. I don't like the nearest neighbor option. All of the character models look pixelated with it on. The slight blurring Beamdog did on this seems to have really helped. The sprite outlines are a bit of a wash for me. In some ways characters stand out a little less naturally but at the same time, character edges are less aliased and pixelated. I prefer to turn the sprite outlines on for the more crisp characters. I usually zoom the camera in 2 clicks from it's default position. I also turn anisotropic filtering on 16X and enable FXAA in the graphic control panel. Nvidia has a down sample option that can be used to sharpen the image that works really well on this game. So you can render the game at 4X your monitors native resolution and then down sample it back down to your native res. The problem is you have to use the down sampling on your desktop in order for it to work since BGEE doesn't have a resolution option in the graphics menu.
He posted comparison screenshots. To me the difference is apparent. Granted, any scaling is going to be blurry to an extent; however Catmull-Rom Bicubic is much more advanced--and produces a more accurate picture--than most other filters (and especially comparatively "crude" filters like Nearest Neighbour or Bilinear.)
Siegfriedm
Member Posts: 4
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try using the compatibility renderer. It uses a different (and much more advanced) scaling algorithm.
Now it only exists within the compatibility renderer, and only for backgrounds. I logged a Redmine feature request to bring it back for everything as an option, so hopefully we won't have to switch renderers for it in the future.
I'm not aware of any downsides to the renderer; at least I have not experienced any.
I have to use the UI scaling feature or else it is so small I can't use it properly. I don't like the nearest neighbor option. All of the character models look pixelated with it on. The slight blurring Beamdog did on this seems to have really helped. The sprite outlines are a bit of a wash for me. In some ways characters stand out a little less naturally but at the same time, character edges are less aliased and pixelated. I prefer to turn the sprite outlines on for the more crisp characters. I usually zoom the camera in 2 clicks from it's default position. I also turn anisotropic filtering on 16X and enable FXAA in the graphic control panel. Nvidia has a down sample option that can be used to sharpen the image that works really well on this game. So you can render the game at 4X your monitors native resolution and then down sample it back down to your native res. The problem is you have to use the down sampling on your desktop in order for it to work since BGEE doesn't have a resolution option in the graphics menu.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/858756/#Comment_858756
He posted comparison screenshots. To me the difference is apparent. Granted, any scaling is going to be blurry to an extent; however Catmull-Rom Bicubic is much more advanced--and produces a more accurate picture--than most other filters (and especially comparatively "crude" filters like Nearest Neighbour or Bilinear.)
http://support.baldursgate.com/issues/30519
Your mileage may vary.