Far-away blocks of all kinds (grass, dirt, stone, leaves, ice) appear to shimmer and have bands/interference patterns scrolling across them whenever I move or turn. It's most noticable when I start or stop moving. Leaves are also suddenly darker while in motion, just due to more black pixels showing up. I've tried various combinations of in-game Video settings and GPU settings, but I can't figure out a real fix.
EDIT: I found a solution that looks good, see 3rd post.
Screenshots: (Google Sites, they lose quality on Imgur)
2016-03-22_21.55.24.png - Patterns show up on the stone when moving
2016-03-22_21.54.11.png - Ice looks bad. The white patches keep appearing and disappearing.
2016-03-22_21.58.05.png - The patterns show up on the leaves on the left. The left edges of the leaves of the tall tree over the middle flickers between 1 and 2 pixels wide.
2016-03-22_21.58.51.png - Patterns show up on the stone and dirt.
I was using max AA for the second two pictures, but that doesn't appear to make it into screenshots.
I'm using a 'GeForce GTX 850m'. So far, I've set it so that Java uses the GPU, and I'm using the GPU's Vsync instead of Minecraft's. If I have Performance "Balanced" or "Max FPS", I get a stable 60FPS, but chunks load a little slowly and there are holes that never load until I walk into them or force-reload them. If I set Performance to "Power Saver", I get 30FPS, but chunks load quickly.
If I maximize all the anti-aliasing, FXAA, anisotropy, etc, the edges of blocks are smoother but far-away blocks still look bad and distracting.
Toggling other settings like (MC) Advanced OpenGL or (GPU) 'LOD Bias' (which is supposed to reduce "shimmering", maybe for some other problem) doesn't affect anything visible.
In Vanilla Minecraft 1.9, turning on "Mip-Map Level 4" reduces the effect greatly, but the patterns and colours are still visible. I don't know how to use this for BTW - 1.5.2 doesn't have a mip-map setting, and the GPU doesn't have a "Force Mip-Map" option.
I'm using BTW through MultiMC, I'm not opposed to trying MCPatcher or the Vanilla launcher. I've also tried forcibly upgrading LWJGL (2.9.2-nightly) which didn't help.
Has anyone with a similar graphics card got a good setup? I don't need it to look perfectly smooth/anti-aliased, just not flickery and distracting.
NVidia settings for 1.5.2?
NVidia settings for 1.5.2?
Last edited by SpaceGuyR on Mon Mar 28, 2016 8:07 am, edited 1 time in total.
Re: NVidia settings for 1.5.2?
I'm not super knowledgeable in this stuff, so take what I say as potentially inaccurate at best, super false lied straight to your face at worse...
Minecraft uses your CPU more than the graphics card, so your chunck loading issues at 60fps might be tied to your CPU bottlenecking?
The patterns that appear in stone, grass, dirt, etc. are just a graphical thing(fansy technical term) that happens with repeating patterns as pixels shift colors. I don't think you can stop that.
Minecraft uses your CPU more than the graphics card, so your chunck loading issues at 60fps might be tied to your CPU bottlenecking?
The patterns that appear in stone, grass, dirt, etc. are just a graphical thing(fansy technical term) that happens with repeating patterns as pixels shift colors. I don't think you can stop that.
Re: NVidia settings for 1.5.2?
Okay, I found a combination that helps a lot - textures aren't distractingly bad, leaves look normal instead of banded.
Anisotropic Filtering on (I chose 16x)
Antialiasing FXAA off (Having it on still made trees/dirt flickery - description says "turn it off if you notice artifacts")
Antialiasing mode Override Application
Antialiasing setting On (I chose 8x)
Antialiasing transparency On (I chose 8x Supersampling)
Writing it out in full for anyone else/Google:
(Obvious but makes the biggest difference) Use the GPU instead of Integrated Graphics
Negative LOD Bias - I chose Clamp, made little difference
GPU's vsync On, Minecraft's vsync Off
These are a little performance-intensive, though - FXAA is 'cheaper anti-aliasing' but wasn't working for me.
For a minimal set, any level of AA on but FXAA off is probably good.
NVidia settings affect a path to a java.exe. This affects other Java programs, other Minecraft installations in particular e.g. later versions with Mipmap Levels or Optifine's Anti-Aliasing/Anisotropic. "Enhance Application Settings" instead of "Override Application" may help a little, or use separate Java installs and customize each. (I think the Mojang launcher installs one. MultiMC lets you pick a Java path per instance.)
Anisotropic Filtering on (I chose 16x)
Antialiasing FXAA off (Having it on still made trees/dirt flickery - description says "turn it off if you notice artifacts")
Antialiasing mode Override Application
Antialiasing setting On (I chose 8x)
Antialiasing transparency On (I chose 8x Supersampling)
Writing it out in full for anyone else/Google:
(Obvious but makes the biggest difference) Use the GPU instead of Integrated Graphics
Negative LOD Bias - I chose Clamp, made little difference
GPU's vsync On, Minecraft's vsync Off
These are a little performance-intensive, though - FXAA is 'cheaper anti-aliasing' but wasn't working for me.
For a minimal set, any level of AA on but FXAA off is probably good.
NVidia settings affect a path to a java.exe. This affects other Java programs, other Minecraft installations in particular e.g. later versions with Mipmap Levels or Optifine's Anti-Aliasing/Anisotropic. "Enhance Application Settings" instead of "Override Application" may help a little, or use separate Java installs and customize each. (I think the Mojang launcher installs one. MultiMC lets you pick a Java path per instance.)
Re: NVidia settings for 1.5.2?
It sounds like you're talking about the Moiré effect, it's caused by complex textures fighting for pixel space (imagine the 16 pixels of each texture on each block, now imagine that block far away in the game world at only a few pixels wide, all of the pixels fight to be visible, which gives you the Moiré effect) It's actually more complicated than this but if you want to know exactly what's happening you can google the term :) Mipmapping battles this by dynamically reducing the detail of the texture as they get further away.
Just install MCPatcher. That's what I do, it has functionality for Anisotropic Filtering and more importantly Mipmapping (Which eliminates the noise effect you mentioned on far away blocks, most noticable when viewing Jungle from a distance). It also has advanced features for Texture Packs.
Go to the Options tab and turn on Enable Mipmaps. I use these settings:
Here is a video of my gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWCGXCeK1Sw
Skip to 46:15 for a view of the Jungle. Granted, Youtube butchers the quality but you might be able to get an idea how it looks from that.
Just install MCPatcher. That's what I do, it has functionality for Anisotropic Filtering and more importantly Mipmapping (Which eliminates the noise effect you mentioned on far away blocks, most noticable when viewing Jungle from a distance). It also has advanced features for Texture Packs.
Go to the Options tab and turn on Enable Mipmaps. I use these settings:
Spoiler
Show
Skip to 46:15 for a view of the Jungle. Granted, Youtube butchers the quality but you might be able to get an idea how it looks from that.
Re: NVidia settings for 1.5.2?
With mipmaps on, with or without GPU or MCPatcher AA, leaves and vines lose transparency and become blurry when I'm not directly facing them or outside a radius. It does fix the Moire effect, though.
The mipmaps are happening 'too close'? They should only happen at distances where I can't tell the difference between the texture and the halved one.
MCPatcher's Anisotropic helps as it's supposed to, but I can still see where it blurs.
Reducing the number of mipmap levels doesn't help, as the first level is still too close.
With 1.7.10 + Optifine, 'mipmap filtering' makes the 'line' where the blur happens less visible, but it's still blurry outside that radius.
If I use MCPatcher's AA instead of GPU AA, the shimmering is up close and worse, same as 'FXAA on' GPU AA.
Currently using MCPatcher's Anisotropic setting, no mipmaps and GPU AA.
The mipmaps are happening 'too close'? They should only happen at distances where I can't tell the difference between the texture and the halved one.
MCPatcher's Anisotropic helps as it's supposed to, but I can still see where it blurs.
Reducing the number of mipmap levels doesn't help, as the first level is still too close.
With 1.7.10 + Optifine, 'mipmap filtering' makes the 'line' where the blur happens less visible, but it's still blurry outside that radius.
If I use MCPatcher's AA instead of GPU AA, the shimmering is up close and worse, same as 'FXAA on' GPU AA.
Currently using MCPatcher's Anisotropic setting, no mipmaps and GPU AA.
Re: NVidia settings for 1.5.2?
I know the line you mean but in all honesty when I'm playing I don't notice it. Of course you will notice it if you're looking for it. As for the transparency, yeah that happens but at a certain distance away from the camera, keeping that transparency would induce the flickering/noise effect. Remember you aren't talking about your usual game, Minecraft has some very specific "features". 16 (or 32 etc depending on your TP) pixels across each block, in a blocky world. You will notice the effects of the various techniques employed and it gets to the point where you have to accept certain side effects.
Edit: I should mention that I use a 32x texture pack and with that, the line is much less obvious than it is with the 16x Vanilla TP. I think the Mipmaps from MCPatcher are designed for 32x TPs and higher. (Considering there is no point installing MCPatcher if you aren't using a custom texture pack, with the exception of the mipmaps and AA ofc)
Edit: I should mention that I use a 32x texture pack and with that, the line is much less obvious than it is with the 16x Vanilla TP. I think the Mipmaps from MCPatcher are designed for 32x TPs and higher. (Considering there is no point installing MCPatcher if you aren't using a custom texture pack, with the exception of the mipmaps and AA ofc)