Framework: Questions,suggestions & missing options

@LuciferHawk:
(Again) thank you for the awesome Mediator, a few things I noticed {ReShade 0.19.2 Public Beta with Framework}
- when I activate Ambient Occlusion & Deband, AO isnt working
solution: via Effect Ordering, place AO above Deband
- when I edit the McFX_settings.cfg and manually activate AO, games will crash
- Ambient Light isnt working in opengl-based games (Quake 4, Doom 3)
- In The McFX Suite {Framework - McFX_settings.cfg} I miss these options (which were available in the MasterEffect.h):
#define AO_TEXSCALE
#define AO_SHARPNESS_DETECT
#define AO_BLUR_STEPS
#define AO_FADE_START
#define AO_FADE_END
Especially the absence of AO_FADE_END is causing a major FPS drop in games with big outdoor areas.

Something else: Is it possible to have the Anamflares vertical positioned instead of horizontal ?

The performance is very good while using the shaders in most games although when I use this (especially the GEMFX shaders) the framerate dives from 60 to 30fps in Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, especially the Ambient Light & Motion Blur shaders causing this, the others shaders like SweetFX etc, doesnt have this fps impact in Black Flag (besides the SweetFX SMAA shader which causes a fps drop too). I dont have a clue whats causing this.

Is it possible to make the layout of your Mediator bigger, all values are sitting very close to each other, its easy to make a mistake this way, while changing values on the fly.

Is there a way to dynamically limit the bloom output, while using the same settings, for example night time in Black Flag could use more bloom than during full bright daylight.

Thanks!

DeMondo wrote: - when I activate Ambient Occlusion & Deband, AO isnt working
solution: via Effect Ordering, place AO above Deband

That sounds shader specific but I will see what I can find out

DeMondo wrote: - when I edit the McFX_settings.cfg and manually activate AO, games will crash

Is there an error message? In the current version AO and 2 other shader get an additional entry for values in the configuration files that might create conflicts. This is already fixed for the upcoming release.

DeMondo wrote: - Ambient Light isnt working in opengl-based games (Quake 4, Doom 3)

I use "cube" to test ogl and there it works. Is there any feedback you get? Please try with "cube" game which is free to download.

DeMondo wrote: - In The McFX Suite {Framework - McFX_settings.cfg} I miss these options (which were available in the MasterEffect.h):
#define AO_TEXSCALE
#define AO_SHARPNESS_DETECT
#define AO_BLUR_STEPS
#define AO_FADE_START
#define AO_FADE_END
Especially the absence of AO_FADE_END is causing a major FPS drop in games with big outdoor areas.

If this is something Marty recently added then it might have not yet been implemented by him in the Framework. He either will answer here himself or I'll let him know.

DeMondo wrote: Something else: Is it possible to have the Anamflares vertical positioned instead of horizontal ?

Yes, will put it on the to do list.

DeMondo wrote: The performance is very good while using the shaders in most games although when I use this (especially the GEMFX shaders) the framerate dives from 60 to 30fps in Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, especially the Ambient Light & Motion Blur shaders causing this, the others shaders like SweetFX etc, doesnt have this fps impact in Black Flag (besides the SweetFX SMAA shader which causes a fps drop too). I dont have a clue whats causing this.

We are currently discussing improvements to performance of the smart shader including the two you mentioned. Stay tuned

DeMondo wrote: Is it possible to make the layout of your Mediator bigger, all values are sitting very close to each other, its easy to make a mistake this way, while changing values on the fly.

Currently only by changing the font size of windows. Automatic creation of elements on screen gets complicated when allowing arbitrary size.

DeMondo wrote: Is there a way to dynamically limit the bloom output, while using the same settings, for example night time in Black Flag could use more bloom than during full bright daylight.

Yes, in the Ambient light shader you need to have adaptation activated and then you can control exactly that with the related adaptation multiplier in ambient light settings. The higher the related value, the more the adaptation algorithm will influence the e.g. bloom result depending on scene brightness.

DeMondo wrote: Thanks!

You are welcome

Thank you LuciferHawk for your detailed answer, much obliged!

LuciferHawk wrote:
- Is there an error message? In the current version AO and 2 other shader get an additional entry for values in the configuration files that might create conflicts. This is already fixed for the upcoming release.


A few parts of the log I received [after manually activated AO in the McFX_settings.cfg]:

C:\Games\Assault on Dark Athena\System\Win32_x86\/ReShade/CustomFX_settings.undef(22): warning: Unexpected text in #control line ignored
from file C:\Games\Assault on Dark Athena\System\Win32_x86\/ReShade\Common\PerformanceCheck.h, line 18,
from file C:\Games\Assault on Dark Athena\System\Win32_x86\ReShade\Common\Util.h, line 3,
from file C:\Games\Assault on Dark Athena\System\Win32_x86\ReShade.fx, line 11.
C:\Games\Assault on Dark Athena\System\Win32_x86\/ReShade/McFX_settings.cfg(48): error: Redefining defined variable "USE_AMBIENTOCCLUSION"
from file C:\Games\Assault on Dark Athena\System\Win32_x86\/ReShade\Common\PerformanceCheck.h, line 24,
from file C:\Games\Assault on Dark Athena\System\Win32_x86\ReShade\Common\Util.h, line 3,
from file C:\Games\Assault on Dark Athena\System\Win32_x86\ReShade.fx, line 11.
...
etc..
22/07/2015 23:38:34:320 [06464] | ERROR | Failed to create depth texture with error code 1280
22/07/2015 23:38:34:836 [06464] | ERROR | Failed to create depth texture with error code 1280
22/07/2015 23:38:35:353 [06464] | ERROR | Failed to create depth texture with error code 1280
...
etc.. [very long log list]

This was recently tested with The Chronicles of Riddick - Assault on Dark Athena, but these errors appear as well
with other games, of course it isnt a big thing, I just wont edit the McFX_settings.cfg anymore and use your Mediator fully, which works.


LuciferHawk wrote:
- I use "cube" to test ogl and there it works. Is there any feedback you get? Please try with "cube" game which is free to download.

I tried a few opengl-based games: Quake IV & The Chronicles of Riddick - Assault on Dark Athena,
the latter gave back this error report while Ambient Light (via your Mediator) was enabled:

Vertex info
0(46) : error C7612: profile doesn't support more than 32 samplers
0(47) : error C7612: profile doesn't support more than 32 samplers
0(48) : error C7612: profile doesn't support more than 32 samplers
...etc..

Fragment info
0(45) : error C7612: profile doesn't support more than 32 samplers
0(46) : error C7612: profile doesn't support more than 32 samplers
0(47) : error C7612: profile doesn't support more than 32 samplers
...etc..

Another problem with The Chronicles of Riddick - Assault on Dark Athena is while I tried both the Framework Pack and
the Reshade+MasterEffect ("standalone" without Framework), the screen becomes totally black, even if I disabled all effects.



LuciferHawk wrote:
- If this is something Marty recently added then it might have not yet been implemented by him in the Framework. He either will answer here himself or I'll let him know.

Thanks that would be great, because without those options, finetuning isnt possible for AO, and especially the absence of AO_FADE_END is causing a major FPS drop (Quake IV, in large areas)


LuciferHawk wrote:
- We are currently discussing improvements to performance of the smart shader including the two you mentioned. Stay tuned

Yes I have noticed with some Uplay games especially like with Assassins Creed Chronicles China, although I found Alt Tabbing out & back into the game fixes this 60 --> 30 FPS problem, but Black Flag is resistant for this fix while Ambient Light & Motion Blur shaders are enabled.


LuciferHawk wrote:
- Yes, in the Ambient light shader you need to have adaptation activated and then you can control exactly that with the related adaptation multiplier in ambient light settings. The higher the related value, the more the adaptation algorithm will influence the e.g. bloom result depending on scene brightness.

Yes I have noticed this, it works wonders, although games which dont allow this Ambient light shader being enabled, are than without that adaptation multiplier for bloom, is it possible to integrate an extra adaption in the bloom (beneath #define USE_BLOOM 0 in GemFX_settings.cfg)?

I have noticed too that this AL adaptation multiplier is darkening the darker / shadow -areas, which can cause detail-loss in those areas, it isnt darkening the bloom areas (enough), perhaps I totally overlooked a setting in GemFX_settings.cfg...

I really like your Ambient light shader its one of the most unique shaders I found in the Framework Pack, these shaders applied on old games will bring them graphically to "modern" standards. I remember quite some time ago you talked about Natural Light shader, it was while you worked on your standalone GEMFX-Version-1-0-8, are you planning to bring it into the Framework Pack? Personally I think it would be a great extra option, quite some people trying to mimic "real"-life graphics, especially when I look to the presets on the SweetFX Settings DataBase

The shadowing is a feature of AL + adaptation. You are looking for the alAdaptBaseBlackLvL value.

I will further detache the adaptation from AL since there are still a few shader left that would not work without AL but the multiplier values contextually still belong to the "global" adaptation shader cause they would not work without it.

I have a natural light prototype for ReShade but have to modify quiet a few things and probably make it an option in AL.

Thank you for your reply, what about the error messages I received after I try to enable Ambient Light in the opengl-based games...?

That might be a limitation to specific oGL versions that limits samplers for a shader but I would need to test it myself. Is there any freeware that I can test it on and for which you know this error comes up?

These error messages are popping up with the game Quake IV; no freeware or open-source considering this game, but there is a free standalone id Tech 4 engine-powered game, called The Dark Mod, although I havent installed that one; I do know that Doom 3 & Quake 4 have that Ambient Light sampler problem. { www.moddb.com/mods/the-dark-mod/download...alone-full-installer }

Is it a possibility to limit the output of the shader-samplers via Framework itself?

Yes, disable the ALadaptation flag in the Ambient Light settings

Disabling the ALadaptation in the GemFX_settings.cfg didn't help, I still receive the same error message, would be great to have some working Ambient Light in Quake 4 or Doom 3

Unfortunately, I do not have any of those games you use to test and for the openGL apps that I use it works just fine. If its something related to certain openGL versions then Crosire might help. I guess you use the latest ReShade binaries? Cause sampler limitations have been a problem of the past.

Yes I do use the latest versions of ReShade & Framework; The Chronicles of Riddick - Assault on Dark Athena [OGL] gives a black screen with ReShade+Framework [even when all effects are disabled] whereas ReShade+SweetFX 2.0 doesn't, all effects from SweetFX 2.0 are functioning well.

- Mediator needs fixing because the bottom part flashes, which is highly annoying and makes the app look rather cheap and buggy and unstable.

- Why not keep all of the effects under a single category? Why do the CustomFX and GEMFX and SweetFX? Is it to give credit to developers? If that is the case then it is fine I guess, but otherwise it would be best to just organize it all into a single library.

- TuningPalette default 3DLUT file was not in " " in Mediator, which caused not figuring out what the problem was when I entered name of the new LUT without " ".

Hi. I decided check out this framework. And mediator give me error - System.NotSupportedException: The given path's format is not supported.
I trying Fallout New Vegas.
It because in EXE file, name of application is Fallout: New Vegas and contain ":"? And mediator somehow using this Application Name (not only file name) in IO operations that create or read some files? And it cause error, because ":" inappropriate simbol for paths?

Should i wait next build, or i should try some third party programs and make attempt to change this title that contain ":"?

Thx.

It is already fixed in the upcoming release version.

It is already fixed in the upcoming release version.

Well, good news then.
I trying on LoL, and it works, but z-depth buffer glitching, DoF there not needed, but AO would be nice, but they are both is blinking, something like if i force AO via nvidiainspector, or something like that.
(when i enable it in nvidiainspector, he work fine while my charecter on screen, when camera leave him behind, ao is dissapear.
well, not need too much
i used just old regular gemfx, for overall contrast adjustment.
but i need check something, i'm not shure, but maybe he is cause of little (0.5-1sec) periodically (every few min) freezes on that stupid windows 10, or maybe it something else)

I have suggestion.
I think it will be nice feature (maybe...) if mediator be able to get for preview z-depth from alpha chanel or just file.
It make possible to check out DoF and AO on preview.

We thought about something like this but currently the mediator is packed with new features and its time to release it before everything (especially my head) explodes I kind of want to get this out before adding anything bigger.

I have question.

In some gemfx shaders (godrays as example) there is parameter that says "DEPTH_CHECK"
i wonder if it mean z-depth, or it just mean that shader will ignore static pixels (or something else?)?

Yes, its checking the z-depth value to decide when to apply the effect. E.g. a strong god ray effect is better just applied to the skybox

Hey Lucifer, any ETA on when we will see the AO improvements from the newest MasterEffect added to the framework? Marty's last update looks pretty neat.