NVIDIA Graphics Cards

Found this and thought it might be useful for some. I use an ATI card but it can still be handy. You can download a PDF from rFactor central

Ok people.everyone usally thinks the higher the framerate the better and smoother your
graphics are.,?
Well.not always true.Maybe in FPS shooters but not rFactor.Ever been racing on the ovals
and have the
white lines go jagged and disapeer?and come in and out..Prolly cause your monitor is not
in Vertical sync with your
video card.Or your settings for your video card need tuned up!Besides that when you
make your video card run 150-300 frames it's working the hell out of it and getting hot.Me
my self has always been the one to run alot frames.With my 8800GTX 768mb.Well not any
more.Here is what i found to work great. But may vary with some cards.

Make sure you have updated drivers at www.nvidia.com go to download drivers.top left on
page. OK,

First off,Right Click on your desktop and go to Nvidia Control Panel.And find out what
resoulution you should be running, under Display.Go to--- Change Flat Panel Scaling---
You should see something that says --Native resolution: that is what yourmonitor should
be at,. Then make sure the circle s slected.----Use my displays built in scaling--------Then
slect theHertz:::Under Display,Change Resolution.Note that if you have a CRT monitor,
you may have to look on the back of it at the sticker to see the hertz you should be
running.And of course always 32 bit color.

Now got to -------3D Settings --------then to ----Manage 3D Settings----- Put every thing on::
NOTE::: If not sure what your video card is capable of i would recomend using the settings
highlighted in black first until you actully get on the track with 10+ cars.And Texture
Filtering can be set to performance or high performance to increase framerates.But
sufffers loss of overall quality.
Anisotropic filtering--------App controlled
Antialiasing - Gamma corr.----------ON
Antialiasing Mode---- Override any application...If you don't like to swicth this from game
to game then go 6x with the rfactor config.But it is a 20-30% increase in quality verses
rFactors in game...
Antialiasing Setting----------8x (If you expeirence problems try 4x)
Antialiasing- Transparency----------Multisampling (leave off for lower end V.cards)
conformant texture clamp--------Use Hardware
Error reporting---OFF
Extensin limit---OFF
Force mipmaps----bilinear-------(None for lil better performance)
SINGLE DISPLAY PERFORMANCE
Texture filtering-Anisoptropic sample optimization---ON (leave off for lower end V.cards)If
Framerate decreases.
Texture filtering- Negative LOD bias----CLAMP
Texture filtering - Quality--- Quality
Texture filtering- Trilinear optimization ---- OFF
Threaded optimization-----Auto
Triple buffering-----ON
VERTICAL SYNC-----------FORCE----ON ---- (if you go under 60 FPS and begin to lag at all
then Vsync may not be for you.I would suggest to FORCE Vsync OFF and use the in game
AUTO DETAIL FPS under display settings.And try to set it where you think your video card
maxes out.then drop it 10.This will act like Vsync but allow you to hit over 60 FPS Versus
having the Vsync on.And may clear up any lagging issues.)

Now open your rFactor Config.

Resolution should be your native.
Refresh Rate should be. What your monitor is set at.
Shader Level. Quality (DX9)
VSynce /on Checked
Widesceen UI / Checked (if you have WideS.)
Anti Aliasing: Level 6 (for high end cards) Run 2x for low end cards

Click ok and Load your game up: Now go to SETTINGS in your game.
I myself run everything at FULL besides shadows,,,is at medium,., and blur OFF.,. With
Anisoptropic Filtering at 8x.
With MID- Range video cards i would try to get the texture and circut detail as high as
possible .If having to run other on Medium.And when cars get in your screen is when you
will notice FPS drop for some.... Ctrl + F in game shows FPS..

I Have found that my video Card will only raise about 2-5 degrees in temp with my
settings like this!Versus 10-15 degrees, Over 2- 5 hours time.!

Now Guys this is just what i run at.But is the Basic Princibles on what you should follow
when setting your video card up.If you try my settings and its not performing well start
with Antialiasing and decrease, then anistropic,mipmaps,sampleoptimization etc.,.,., and
another thing if you are on crt monitors try going down in res.

My personal specs to give a idea of what els i have are::

Windows Vista x64 - 4 Gigs DDR2 800 mhz. - MSI MOBO - Dual Core 2.5 ghz - 8800 GTX
768mb 384 bit - 250 HD -
650 watt power supply - XtremeGamer X-Fi sound card - ExtemeAirFlow Case and Zalman
Heatsink with memory cooler fans. - 22" Samsung Wide Screen 1680x1050 60 Hz.

Note::: Will work best on these cards. I hope this helps a lot better
than 1.0!!????
GeForce 8800 Ultra
GeForce 8800 GTX
GeForce 8800 GTS 512
GeForce 8800 GTS
GeForce 8800 GT
GeForce 8600 GTS
GeForce 8600 GT
GeForce 8600 GS
GeForce 8500 GT
GeForce 8400 GS
GeForce 8400 SE
GeForce 8400
GeForce 8300 GS
GeForce 7950 GX2
GeForce 7950 GT
GeForce 7900 GTX
GeForce 7900 GT/GTO
GeForce 7900 GS
GeForce 7800 SLI
GeForce 7800 GTX
GeForce 7800 GT
GeForce 7800 GS


I hope this will help a lot of people and better your expeirence online and make you a
better racer! ZooMin_Michigan Racer......................

INFO____________About V card SETTINGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Transparency antialiasing
This setting helps improve the aliasing (jaggedness) of images with transparent
textures, such as grass, chainlink
fences,oval Nascar tracks. etc It can be set to Off, Multisampling and
Supersampling. If you want improved image quality when using AA, selecting
Multisampling provides an improvement with minimal performance hit, while
Supersampling provides the most noticeable image quality improvement, but has
a
greater performance hit. If you don’t use AA in games, or just want the best
performance, set this to Off. Otherwise enable these for a slight performance hit
but a
nice improvement in AA quality
Conformant texture clamp
Conformant Texture Clamping refers to a method the Forceware drivers use to
determine the way texture boundaries appear. You should note firstly that this
setting
only affects OpenGL games, and secondly you should choose whether to enable
or
disable this setting based on whether you see any visual anomalies in a
particular
game. That is, initially set Conformant Texture Clamping to On for optimal visual
quality and performance. Then if in a particular OpenGL game you notice laggy
behavior or strange lines in textures for example you can set this option to Off to
see
if things improve
Negative LOD Bias
LOD is the Level of Detail, and in some games you can alter the LOD Bias to
sharpen
details on screen. In such cases, you should set this setting to Allow, however
note
that altering LOD Bias can introduce aliasing (jaggedness to lines and edges).
Since
Anisotropic Filtering can also improve the sharpness of images without adding to
aliasing, you should change this setting to Clamp for games in which you use any
level of Anisotropic Filtering for better image quality overall.
Anisotropic filtering
When the ’Application Controlled’ box is unticked, the possible sample rates of
Anisotropic Filtering here are Off, 2x, 4x, 8x and 16x. Depending on your
particular
Nvidia graphics card, some of these modes will not be available to you. In
general,
the higher the sample rate of Anisotropic Filtering used, the clearer textures (the
2D
images on the surface of all 3D objects) remain as they fade into the distance,
especially when viewed at sharp angles. However the higher the level of
Anisotropic
Filtering is applied, the lower your graphics performances are. The precise
performance and visual impact depends on your graphics hardware and the
resolution of the game in question.
Force mipmaps
The available options here are None, Bilinear and Trilinear. For games which
don’t
support mipmaps a
sequence of textures which improve the way textures appear you
can force Bilinear or Trilinear texture filtering to further improve image quality. In
general, None is the recommended option as it provides the best performance
and
the least possibility of visual anomalies. However, if you want to try to improve
texture
quality, you can choose Bilinear here for a slight improvement at minimal
performance
cost. Trilinear further improves texture quality but can reduce performance even
more
than Bilinear.
Anisotropic sample optimization
This option can be set to On or Off, and the default value is dependent on the
setting
you have chosen under Image Settings. If set to On, it uses an optimized texture
sampling technique resulting in slight drop in image quality in return for faster
performance. If you want the highest quality graphics set this option to Off,
otherwise
set it On for best performance
Trilinear optimization
This option can be set to On or Off, and the default value is dependent on the
setting
you have chosen for the Image Quality setting (See Image Setting above). The
option
may be disabled (greyed out) if you’ve chosen High Quality under Image
Settings.
Enabling Trilinear Optimization will result in better performance, but can reduce
the
quality of textures slightly. In general it is recommended that you enable Trilinear
Optimization (set it to On), however if you want the highest quality graphics
and/or
you are experiencing texture glitches you should set this option to Off.
Antialising settings
When the ’Application Controlled’ box is unticked, the possible sample rates of
Antialiasing here are Off, 2x, 2xQ, 4x, 4xG, 4xS, 6xS, 8xS. You can also select
Transparency and Gamma Correct Antialiasing (See below) to add to these
modes,
but not in this section. Depending on your particular Nvidia graphics card, some
of
these modes will not be available to you. In general, the higher the sample rate of
Antialiasing used, the smoother jagged lines in games will appear, but the lower
your
performance. The precise performance and visual impact depends on your
graphics
hardware and the resolution of the game in question.
It is important to note that on Nvidia graphics cards, any Antialiasing modes
ending in
’Q’ stand for Quincunx Antialiasing a
form of Antialiasing which provides a higher
level of visual quality for a lower level of performance loss. For example, the 2xQ
(Quincunx) mode offers similar visual improvements to 4x Antialiasing, with a
performance level similar to that of 2x Antialiasing. Any Antialiasing modes
ending in
’S’ provides greater subpixel
coverage, meaning the quality of Antialiasing provided
is better, however performance may be lower. For example, 4xS Antialiasing
looks
better than 4x Antialiasing, but also performs slightly worse. Note that any ’S’
mode
Antialiasing setting only works in Direct3D games. Finally, any ’G’ mode
(Gaussian)
Antialiasing mode provides better image quality than the equivalent standard
Antialiasing sample rate, but at a lower performance level. The Transparency
Antialiasing and Gamma Correct Antialiasing descriptions are found further
below and
only work on the 7800 series cards or newer.
If you want to select your level of Antialiasing in each particular application
(without
using Profiles see
above), tick the ’Application Controlled’ box. This will mean thatthe level of
antialiasing is determined by your application’s inapplication
antialiasing
settings (if such settings exist in the application). If you want to guarantee the
fastest
performance in all application you should untick the ’Application controlled’ box
and
manually set the Antialiasing slider to Off, and also ensure Antialiasing is set to
1x or
Off in all the applications you use. If you want to set a global Antialiasing mode in
the
Forceware Control Panel, make sure the ’Application Controlled’ box is unticked
and
select it here once
again make sure that any inapplication
Antialiasing settings are
set to 1x or Off to prevent problems or conflicts
Vertical synchronization
Vertical Synchronization (also called Vertical Sync or VSync) is the
synchronization of
your monitor and graphics card’s abilities to draw a certain number of frames per
second (or FPS) on the screen. This is referred to as the Refresh Rate, and is
measured in frequency per second (Hz). Different monitors can achieve different
refresh rates at various resolutions, for example some monitors provide 85Hz
refresh
rate at 1280x1024 – this means the screen is redrawing itself 85 times per
second at
this resolution. If Vertical Sync is enabled, your maximum FPS cannot exceed
your
monitor’s refresh rate at your chosen resolution, and your FPS may in fact be
reduced
overall. If Vertical Sync is disabled, your FPS will improve, and it can now also
exceed
the refresh rate cap, however you may notice some screen "tearing" – the top
portion
of the screen being slightly out of alignment with the bottom. This causes no
damage
to your monitor, and in general it is strongly recommended that Vertical sync be
disabled in all games to improve performance. Since almost every current game
has
the option to enable or disable VSync in the ingame
settings, I recommend you tick
the ’Application Controlled’ box here, and manually set the VSync in each game.
This
prevents conflicts between games and the Forceware drivers. Note that if you
insist
on forcing VSync to On here, try enabling Triple Buffering to improve overall
performance when VSync is enabled (See Triple Buffering below).
Triple buffering
If set to On, this setting allows your overall performance to improve when Vertical
Synchronization (VSync) is enabled in games. Therefore if you want to enable
VSync
whether
in the ingame
settings or in the Nvidia Control Panel, it is recommended
you enable Triple Buffering as well. However note that using Triple Buffering may
cause problems for graphics cards with lower Video RAM, so disable this option
if
you’re experiencing problems such as mouse lag in games. Note further that this
option only works for OpenGL games at the moment.
Well i hope this explains things in a little better MANNER!!!!!!! and NP