HDR vs Bloom+AA

dragon wench · Post by **dragon wench** » Sun Jan 04, 2009 1:32 pm

Many people seem to think that HDR is the better setting for visuals, and that is what I first ran Oblivion at. Then, just recently, I decided that I didn't care for the excessive brightness of everything and the flat, slightly cartoonish look. It resembled an over-exposed photograph --flat and washed out-- and no matter how much I reduced the brightness, it didn't really help. Since graphics are such a huge part of the game in terms of enhancing the immersion factor I began to experiment. In addition to adding some graphic enhancers I changed over to Bloom and Anti-Aliasing times 8. Wow! What a huge difference, light is not excessive and with the AA at 8, details are far richer. I also notice that performance seems slightly better.

Anyway, I am just curious as to what other people have experienced, since clearly, this is a matter of personal preference.

Master David · Post by **Master David** » Sun Jan 04, 2009 10:48 pm

I too use Bloom with 8AA,
HDR makes all (or most) white things shine, and I live in a white colored building (LiLoft, the icy room), so if I use that, I'll live in a burst of light.
And yes, when I checked with tdt, HDR's framerates is lower than Bloom's

Fljotsdale · Post by **Fljotsdale** » Mon Jan 05, 2009 5:22 pm

Interesting. Settings screen says no AA is best, iirc, so that's how I have it. Maybe I should play with settings after all...

Fljotsdale · Post by **Fljotsdale** » Tue Jan 06, 2009 2:03 pm

Well, I tried bloom and AA but could only get x4 - I guess my video card isn't up to higher. Anyway, it just made things look slightly unfocused - misty, almost - and it took a lot OFF the detail, rather than enhancing it, so I'm going back to good old HDR!

dragon wench · Post by **dragon wench** » Tue Jan 06, 2009 3:17 pm

I suspect that a lot of it is related to your computer and the settings at which you can generally run Oblivion. On my set-up I'm able to run almost everything at maximum (except grass, which I actually turn off), and the AA times 8 looks much nicer than HDR. Initially I had it at AA times 4, and that looked good too, so I'm pretty sure it's all very much based on your machine generally. I confess, I'm not complaining, until I got this rig about a year and a half ago I had been running an ancient P3 for years.

This is a nice change

DesR85 · Post by **DesR85** » Thu Jan 08, 2009 8:31 am

I use Bloom with 2x AA. HDR with AA not possible, since mine's an Nvidia card and this game favours ATi in that department. I did do some tinkering around, though, and noticed that HDR gave the game a more brighter look. A little bit too bright for my taste. Switched to bloom and found it suitable.

As for the 2x AA setting, it's because even if I have a Geforce 9600GT card, I'm still a bit paranoid about pushing the AA limit (8x). Probably an old habit when I was gaming on an older rig where using AA slows everything down.

dragon wench · Post by **dragon wench** » Thu Jan 08, 2009 12:10 pm

DesR85 wrote:I use Bloom with 2x AA. HDR with AA not possible, since mine's an Nvidia card and this game favours ATi in that department. I did do some tinkering around, though, and noticed that HDR gave the game a more brighter look. A little bit too bright for my taste. Switched to bloom and found it suitable.

As for the 2x AA setting, it's because even if I have a Geforce 9600GT card, I'm still a bit paranoid about pushing the AA limit (8x). Probably an old habit when I was gaming on an older rig where using AA slows everything down.

lol! I know the feeling. I was nervous about switching from AA 4x to AA 8x, even though I have an Nvidia 8800 GTS card. Not the very best card out there, but still, pretty nice. But, then I gave it a try and found that it had no real noticeable impact on my FPS. I still vividly recall playing Morrowind on my ancient computer, any mod I added, or any setting I tinkered with, hinged on how badly my framerate was hit

I suspect part of my switching to Bloom+AA over HDR is related to having just finished The Witcher. I really liked the highly detailed graphics with the subdued lighting and colours. Not for everyone, I realise, but I tend to dislike excessive brightness in a game.

Fljotsdale · Post by **Fljotsdale** » Thu Jan 08, 2009 2:30 pm

dragon wench wrote:I suspect that a lot of it is related to your computer and the settings at which you can generally run Oblivion. On my set-up I'm able to run almost everything at maximum (except grass, which I actually turn off), and the AA times 8 looks much nicer than HDR. Initially I had it at AA times 4, and that looked good too, so I'm pretty sure it's all very much based on your machine generally. I confess, I'm not complaining, until I got this rig about a year and a half ago I had been running an ancient P3 for years.
This is a nice change

Yeah this comp is about 3-4 years old, and not as good as it was cracked up to be even when I first got it.

The firm I bought it from went out of business less than a year later and I only found out when the monitor went bust and I tried to get it replaced. I'd LOVE a new system! At the very least a new video card, but am a pensioner and skint. Sigh....

Sir Twist · Post by **Sir Twist** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 9:26 am

I need to upgrade my system, someday, as well. I do, however, have a newish video card, and it seems to be a good one. It's an nvidia based one, which I bought at Circuity City for like $40, at the time. I don't usually shop there, but it was practically a steal for that price. If anyone is looking for a monitor, I recommend buying new, or as new as you can, over buying used. And watch prices on them, as well. If you all are on a budgeted amount, check like circuit city, best buy, wal-mart's websites, and see what's on there before you go to buy anything. Also, ads on Sunday are another key thing I use. I think we did get off track a tad here.

I'm using an AA rating of 4x, I think, and the Bloom. I don't remember if I am getting errors when I exit the game still, or not. Let me play, and get back to y'all on this.

DesR85 · Post by **DesR85** » Sat Jan 10, 2009 1:05 am

dragon wench wrote:lol! I know the feeling. I was nervous about switching from AA 4x to AA 8x, even though I have an Nvidia 8800 GTS card. Not the very best card out there, but still, pretty nice. But, then I gave it a try and found that it had no real noticeable impact on my FPS. I still vividly recall playing Morrowind on my ancient computer, any mod I added, or any setting I tinkered with, hinged on how badly my framerate was hit

Aside from my paranoia, I also forgot to mention that if I'm satisfied with the particular settings, I usually just leave it at that and don't bother to tinker around with it. 2x AA to me gives a pretty sharp image, so I don't see any need to ramp it up.

Anyway, I'm still not a fan of their visuals, though. I find the other games released at the same year as Oblivion look better and don't demand much from the system.

fable · Post by **fable** » Thu Jan 22, 2009 11:33 pm

I much prefer the look of Bloom and 8xAA to HDR--but outside, at night, all I had was a black sky with an odd border, using Bloom. When HDR was in use, I had a brilliant sky with plenty of stars and a fat old moon.

dragon wench · Post by **dragon wench** » Thu Jan 22, 2009 11:40 pm

fable wrote:but outside, at night, all I had was a black sky with an odd border, using Bloom. When HDR was in use, I had a brilliant sky with plenty of stars and a fat old moon.

That is.. odd..

I have a nice night sky with stars and a moon using Bloom+AAx8...

Gah... these games are so damned variable depending on the user...

fable · Post by **fable** » Fri Jan 23, 2009 12:11 am

Yeah, they are. I've got a black sky with a fairly light blue mountain range starkly outlined in the distance.

Inside, though, Bloom easily surpasses the glare of HDR.

dragon wench · Post by **dragon wench** » Fri Jan 23, 2009 12:29 am

I seem to recall you are using Natural Environments/Natural Habitats... is it possible that is designed to run with HDR instead?
The reason I ask is because I have a magic lantern mod (Gamluvr's) that looks horribly bright and psychedelic with HDR, and it is clearly designed for Bloom. So, I'm assuming that equally, maybe some mods are made for HDR...

fable · Post by **fable** » Fri Jan 23, 2009 5:10 am

dragon wench wrote:I seem to recall you are using Natural Environments/Natural Habitats... is it possible that is designed to run with HDR instead?
The reason I ask is because I have a magic lantern mod (Gamluvr's) that looks horribly bright and psychedelic with HDR, and it is clearly designed for Bloom. So, I'm assuming that equally, maybe some mods are made for HDR...

I'm only using the Natural Habitat and Vegetation parts of the mod, not the Weather.

EDIT: Found that on some days in Oblivion, I got the black skies and blue mountain horizon, too. So for the moment, I'm going with the more garishly colored HDR. Until I can tweak the INI settings for Bloom to my liking.

At least I can run HDR with AA, just by tweaking my card settings.

SON OF EDIT: I managed to get some good results with this:

[BlurShaderHDRInterior]
;fTargetLUM=1.0000
fTargetLUM=1.2000
fUpperLUMClamp=1.0000
;fEmissiveHDRMult=1.0000
fEmissiveHDRMult=0.8000
;fEyeAdaptSpeed=0.5000
fEyeAdaptSpeed=0.7000
;fBrightScale=2.2500
fBrightScale=1.7000
fBrightClamp=0.2500
;fBlurRadius=7.0000
fBlurRadius=6.0000
iNumBlurpasses=2

This leaves me with interiors that resemble Morrowind's native color saturation. Moving slightly further in the direction of the replacement values produces something closer to the cool Bloom interiors of Oblivion. I'm holding off from switching quite that far, yet, and will see how my changes work in bright interiors. For the moment, I've only tested in ones that use few light sources.

Grandson of Edit, Daughter of Eeyargh: My exteriors experiment was a failure. I can lower the HDR affecting values in the INI file all I want, but it won't remove the harsh reflective light, and only dim light sources slightly. Similarly, the interior figures I listed above only worked for fairly dull locations, like the Cheydihnal Mages' Guild. Other, brighter locations require a lower setting, and of course, you can't have both. Bloom manages it nicely, but if I use Bloom, I end up weird skies.

fable · Post by **fable** » Fri Jan 23, 2009 8:10 pm

I'm back in Bloom County.

Found that the problem was the INI tweak I've seen recommended in several locations, setting bAllow30Shaders to 1, with a proper check to rendering and change of name to several files. That did work, in HDR, but I don't like HDR, and it killed Bloom. Now, it's back.

dragon wench · Post by **dragon wench** » Fri Jan 23, 2009 8:16 pm

fable wrote:I'm back in Bloom County. Found that the problem was the INI tweak I've seen recommended in several locations, setting bAllow30Shaders to 1, with a proper check to rendering and change of name to several files. That did work, in HDR, but I don't like HDR, and it killed Bloom. Now, it's back.

Good to hear!

In that case.. I highly recommend [url="http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16544"]Enhanced Weather[/url], unless you are already running something similar. I just installed it earlier today, and I'm blown away..

fable · Post by **fable** » Fri Jan 23, 2009 9:07 pm

dragon wench wrote:Good to hear!

In that case.. I highly recommend [url="http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16544"]Enhanced Weather[/url], unless you are already running something similar. I just installed it earlier today, and I'm blown away..

I'm running two modules from it: Habitat, and Vegetation. I'd love to run the others, but several of the quest mods I've got loaded specifically mention EW and other weather-related mods as not compatible.

dragon wench · Post by **dragon wench** » Sat Jan 24, 2009 11:46 am

fable wrote:I'm running two modules from it: Habitat, and Vegetation. I'd love to run the others, but several of the quest mods I've got loaded specifically mention EW and other weather-related mods as not compatible.

Fair enough, I hate having to make choices like that

I am using Habitat, Vegetation and Water from "Natural Environments," and then for the weather I'm using "Enhanced Weather." I had been trying the weather component of "Natural Weather," and it seemed quite good, but it made the sky blue in Oblivion gates and the lava was all funky somehow.
Enhanced Weather is also much better IMO, the fog looks just amazing.
So, if at some point you do have room for it on your compatibility list, highly recommended

fable · Post by **fable** » Sat Jan 24, 2009 7:55 pm

I'm seriously considering a mod that adds various night skies, at least. The basic one is great, but some variation would be nice.