Dead Space 2 Anti Aliasing – Updated

Out of the box, Dead Space 2 has poor support for anti aliasing. For the moment, AMD card owners below the 6000 series are more or less out of luck.

However, having an Nvidia card affords you 2 options, thanks to an inventive gaming community. In this updated article, I will show you both methods to force AA on Dead Space 2 PC version 1.0 and the compromises required of both.

Solid Statement: The community has identified 2 ways to force Dead Space 2 anti aliasing using Nvidia Inspector, but neither method is perfect.

Before You Begin!

• This is for version 1.0 of Dead Space 2 PC
• You need the latest Nvidia drivers (266.58 tested)
• Does not work with NV Control Panel or nHancer
• Download Nvidia Inspector 1.94 from Major Geeks

Damned if you do, Damned if you don’t

As I said, both methods have their pros and cons. I made a simple table to quickly compare them below. The “Flags” are values that you set in the Nvidia Inspector to force AA.

The AA screenshots here are set at 8x Multisampling. I tried 4x, 16, and 32x, but they all looked identical.

No Anti Aliasing, Very High Shadow Quality. Note the very jagged edges.

Flag 0x00411245, Very High Shadow Quality. Note the somewhat jagged edges with white dots.

Flag 0x004030C0, Very High Shadow Quality. Note the missing shadows!

Flag 0x004030C0, Normal Shadow Quality. Note that shadows came back, but low quality.

So here are your options:

• Leave it alone, have jagged edges on everything, have very nice shadows
• Use Flag 0x00411245, get some minor AA, have very nice shadows, have strange white pixels/edges on objects and suit
• Use Flag 0x004030C0, get really good AA, have normal level shadows, shadows occasionally break, cant Alt+Tab out of game

Implementing Anti Aliasing (Both Methods)

• Open Nvidia Inspector
• Click the wrench icon to open game profiles
• Select Dead Space 2 from the drop down menu
• Enter your flag under Antialiasing compatibility
  • Method 1 enter either 0x00411245 or 0x00401045
  • Method 2 enter 0x004030C0
• Set Antialiasing - Mode to override
• Select your Antialiasing - Setting (2x – 32x your choice)
• Hit Apply changes in the upper right

You will now have anti-aliasing enabled. You can fiddle with transparency options, anisotropic filtering, etc. if you want to. You can also reset the values later to defaults if you don’t like the look of things.

Other Issues to Look Out For

Since neither method is perfect, we can only hope that EA will release a patch to properly handle this (don’t hold your breath).

For method 1: Using flags 0x00411245 or 0x00401045 will slightly improve the jagged edges, but you will start to notice the white pixels on many of those edges and especially Isaac’s suit when standing in the light. Some people might say you’re just trading one issue for another with this method. It looks worse when its moving.

For method 2: Using flags 0x004030C0 isn’t a much better option. However, it provides great AA with smooth edges. Isn’t that why you are reading this to begin with? However, this method has 3 major drawbacks.

If you use this AA option, then you can no longer (safely) Alt+Tab out of the game. When you switch back to it, the lighting will be out and you have to end the game and restart to get it back.

The second issue is worse. As soon as you enter a new areas or trigger cut-scenes, the shadows have a tendency to vanish completely. You can get them back by pausing, changing shadow quality to high, accepting twice, and then switching back to normal, but that might only last a few minutes. I always notice them gone after a cut-scene event.

The last issue is that you must turn down the Shadow Quality setting to normal. If you try to use high or very high, no objects will cast shadows ever.

Either way, there’s your fix. I’ll let you decide which fix, if any, to use. Good luck!