NVidia Graphics Enhancement Guide

This guide is exclusively for those with an nVidia GPU. For those looking to enhance the game's visuals with an AMD GPU, a separate guide is in the works and will be linked when available.
Keep in mind this will not work if you are using a graphics API wrapper to run the game like dgvoodoo. You will need to be able to natively run the game without said application.

Using nvidiaprofileinspector you can use downsampling to increase the rendering resolution without shrinking the UI, force anti-aliasing to smooth out edges of characters and objects, enable Ambient Occlusion, and apply Anisotropic Filtering on textures (fixes the low resolution and black lines on textures and texture seams, most noticeable in places like Ohtoku City), among other settings.

Preset Configuration

Here is a preset configuration profile for PSU for use with nvidiaprofileinspector for those who just want a quick solution to enhancing graphics without messing about too much with the program as it can be a bit overbearing.

To activate the preset profile:

Step 1. Run nvidiaprofileinspector
Step 2. Click the "import user defined profiles" button (the green down arrow icon, you can hover the mouse over the icon until it shows text detail on what the icon does to make sure) in the nvidiaprofileinspector menu bar and select the Phantasy Star Universe Ambition of the Illuminus.nip file downloaded from above to automatically set the proper Anti-Aliasing settings for PSU.
Step 3. Click Apply Changes to save the configuration.

This configuration is also set-up for other graphical enhancements such as Ambient Occlusion and Anisotropic Filtering. If you experience any slowdown or poor performance when using this configuration, you can freely edit the intensity of the Anti-Aliasing settings until the game runs optimally. You may need to redo these steps when your GPU driver updates.

Before and After Comparison

Click each image for a full size comparison.
Before:

After:

Manual Configuration and Description

For those more familiar with making manual adjustments, you will need to make sure the Antialiasing compatibility bit is set to 0x40000243 or you will encounter graphical glitches around the borders of 2D objects.

If you also wish to use Ambient Occlusion (more detailed shadows based on lighting and object distance), you will need to set Ambient Occlusion compatibility bit to 0x00040000 (Lost Planet: Extreme Condition).

From there you can scroll down to Antialiasing and configure the settings as desired.

Antialiasing - Behavior Flags: Determines any special conditions to apply anti-aliasing effects based on mode settings. Set this to None.

Antialiasing - Gamma Correction: Color corrects anti-aliased pixels to blend more naturally. Set this to On.

Antialiasing - Line Gamma: Color corrects anti-aliased edges of lines, seams, and objects to blend more naturally. Set this to Enabled.

Antialiasing - Mode: Determines how the Anti-aliasing effect is applied. You will want to force override any application setting.

Antialiasing - Setting: Determines the intensity of the anti aliasing. 8xSQ is recommended for most PCs, however lowering or changing the antialiasing setting may be recommended if your GPU is not very strong. Any setting that ends in xS, SS, or "Supersampling" will force the game to downscale from an increased internal resolution, which will require a very powerful nvidia GPU. This will provide the best anti-aliasing results however, and this will enable you to run the game at lower native resolutions while still getting smoothed out graphical results without sacrificing UI size.

Antialiasing - Transparency: Smooths out any graphics that use transparency effects, 8x Supersampling is recommended as while 8x Sparse Grid Supersampling provides the best results it requires a very powerful GPU.

Next you can scroll down to Texture Filtering.

Anisotropic Filtering mode: Determines how the texture filtering is applied. You will want this set to User defined / Off.

Anisotropic Filtering Setting: Determines the intensity of the texture filtering. You will want this set to 16x.

Texture Filtering LOD Bias (DX): This affects the Mipmap Bias, setting this to a negative value will reduce shimmering on 2d texture effects like metallic chains and prevent the jarring low resolution distance texture blending. Set this to -1.0000

Texture Filtering - Negative LOD bias: Determines if you can force a negative LOD (level of detail) bias on mipmapped textures. This works in conjunction with the above setting to fix the low resolution distance textures and the broken dark seams between texture tiles. Set to Allow for PSU.

Texture Filtering - Quality: This setting will make PSU prioritize higher resolution textures when available. You will want this set to High Quality.

Next, if you wish to enable Ambient Occlusion, scroll down to the "Common" section.

Ambient Occlusion Setting: - Determines the intensity of shadows produced by Ambient Occlusion. With the Compatibility bit used earlier in the guide, you will want this set to High Quality. Using any other compatibility bits may cause overly intense shadows over everything or not function at all.

Ambient Occlusion usage: - Exactly what it says on the tin. Turns AO on or off. Set this to Enabled.