After a day or two of testing, here's what I found out.
1. XML configuration for GraphicsConfiguration.xml and GraphicsConfigurationOverride.xml
After some testing I found out I only had to scale down the Planets to 4096 textures instead of 8192, as I don't have a GPU as powerful as Morbad's and yours. However, I did not find the need to tone down the shadows from 4096 to 2048 or add a
<TexturePoolBudget>50</TexturePoolBudget> parameter, which actually seemed to make things worse. I won't like the XMLs here as Morbad has already done it and he can keep us posted on further developments in case he modifies his again.
2. NVIDIA DSR settings + in-game Super Sampling combinations
| Original Resolution | NVIDIA DSR Setting | Resulting Resolution | In-Game Super-Sampling | Final Resulting Resolution |
| 2560 x 1440 (2k native) | x1.00 | 2560 x 1440 (2k native) | x1.00 | 2560 x 1440 (2k native) A |
| 2560 x 1440 (2k native) | x4.00 | 5120 x 2880 (5k native) | x0.65 | 3328 x 1872 B |
| 2560 x 1440 (2k native) | x4.00 | 5120 x 2880 (5k native) | x0.50 | 2560 x 1440 (2k native) C |
| 2560 x 1440 (2k native) | x4.00 | 5120 x 2880 (5k native) | x0.75 | 3840 x 2160 (4k native) D |
and obviously let's just state that [A] is just the default of my native display resolution and it's what I was used to. No major problem here but there is room for improvement, especially since the so-called "jagged lines" are still visible and not effectively hidden by any of the in-game anti-aliasing.
As suggested by Morbad, I did try - which is a resolution he used and found to be working nice and crisp. Indeed, this would be for me the de-facto standard "step up" from anyone having a native 2k. It comes at a higher stress for your GPU and my 1060 3Gb cannot really take all that hit during station/planetary landings. It's not THAT bad, but I wanted to try something less demanding.
So I moved to [C], which uses the same DSR factor but then scales the in-game super-sampling to x0.50 instead of x0.65 - this (if my calculations are correct) brings the game back to 2k native. However, the difference is huge. It might be a tad blurrier, but the "video-game sharp polygon edges and jaggies" are gone and it looks much more appealing and immersive, to me. On my system this is still playable and smooth even during station landing etc.
[D] would be even better as it takes the final resolution to 4k native. Try it out, it's definitely more demanding though. I did revert back to [C].
3. Further desktop tweaks
When you use DSR, the Alt-Tab can get a bit sluggish in full screen mode. Well, sometimes even without using DSR, you might have noticed that Alt-Tab is sluggish. ED is a game where a lot of 3rd party resources can be used, and in my case, the alt-tabbing is kinda frequent between jumps or during automated cruise/landing (I happen to do so from time to time
). I don't like Borderless very much although I can't say it does hold worse FPS than full screen. Actually they seem pretty much the same. The sluggish Alt-Tab - however - bothered me.
I found out ways you can use to lessen the problem, especially if you use two displays (on two different cards or on the same). These tweaks might be good anyway for general improving of your performances, so try them out.
a) Focus Assist can be a problem. I would recommend disabling it
Go to: Settings > System > Focus Assist and change When I’m playing games to OFF. I actually did turn it to OFF for all the parameters.
b) Change the way the scaling is done
Go to: Nvidia Control Panel > Adjust Desktop Size and Position > Scaling Tab > select Full-Screen for Scaling Mode and in the Perform scaling on: dropdown, select GPU.
c) with DSR set at x4.00 you can even turn your desktop to 5120x2880. You should experiment with the above (if things are too small go to scaling: 200% and they will be looking the same as you had in x1.00 with scaling 100%) - because it could speed up your alt-tabbing. I did it and found no visible difference, but before doing the A and B tweaks I did notice that alt-tabbing was faster already, probably because your NVIDIA card does not have to switch between different internal resolution? I am not sure, however it's worth investigating and it's kinda cool that with DSR on you can use your resolution also for the desktop. As usual, YMMV. I do use an old ATI card for my secondary display so I have 2 cards on 2 displays and in fullscreen mode, with DSR going on and all that jazz I noticed my 2nd display just had a desktop without windows on it. Now I can keep g19s, the Fuel Rats IRC and Discord, all there. Kinda cool and alt-tab is snapping fast.
Credits for this go to /u/FuneralChris, /u/Joskhi77 and u/Dare
