2GB VRAM is not simply enough. (sorry 670/680 owners)

tricky0502 said:
when are we getting the [H] review?
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Soon


And just to clarify in regards to VRAM in this game, yeah, it uses a lot with MSAA.

That is why FXAA is there, no memory bottleneck hoorray.

I would suggest, on 2GB or lower cards, use Very High FXAA.

On 3GB cards and higher, if you want to use MSAA fine. But why really? Very High FXAA works just as fine with no perf hit!

I'll have more objective comparisons in our full article, but really, with high VRAM usage games, FXAA is the way to go, and so far, in this game, the Very High FXAA looks as good as 8X MSAA to me.
 
Brent_Justice said:
Soon


And just to clarify in regards to VRAM in this game, yeah, it uses a lot with MSAA.

That is why FXAA is there, no memory bottleneck hoorray.

I would suggest, on 2GB or lower cards, use Very High FXAA.

On 3GB cards and higher, if you want to use MSAA fine. But why really? Very High FXAA works just as fine with no perf hit!

I'll have more objective comparisons in our full article, but really, with high VRAM usage games, FXAA is the way to go, and so far, in this game, the Very High FXAA looks as good as 8X MSAA to me.
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BUT ITS NOT MSAA!!! :rolleyes:

People for some reason don't care if there is a more efficient method that looks just as good as another....
 
xIronCrossx said:
BUT ITS NOT MSAA!!! :rolleyes:

People for some reason don't care if there is a more efficient method that looks just as good as another....
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While I agree that there are those like you describe, in a lot of implementations FXAA really isn't "just as good" as FSAA. Depends.
 
xIronCrossx said:
BUT ITS NOT MSAA!!! :rolleyes:

People for some reason don't care if there is a more efficient method that looks just as good as another....
Click to expand...

I'll state this again in the article, but FXAA has so many advantages over MSAA it makes MSAA look silly.

I don't understand why people are stuck on old technologies that don't even antialiase everything. FXAA works on polygon edges, alpha textures, reduces specular aliasing, it covers the lot, the whole shabang, while MSAA only works on polygon edges. Plus, FXAA has no performance impact, and looks as good as 4X MSAA, and so far in my gaming of MP3 even looks as good as 8X MSAA on polygon edges.

I've been looking closely at it, Very High FXAA looks as good as 8X MSAA in this game, with no perf hit, and no VRAM limits.

Grab hold of the future, shader AA is where it's at.
 
Brent_Justice said:
Grab hold of the future, shader AA is where it's at.
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Yeah, I think eventually MSAA won't even be a standard option anymore.

One thing I will note is that in some titles with FXAA, you do not get adequate AA on small, distant objects (like telephone lines or something). With MSAA you do.
 
Blkout said:
Sorry but there's just no way Rockstar would have released a game that would cut out 90% of their consumers from being able to play the game properly
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AHHHHHHH HA HA HA HA HA HA Ha Ha Ha ha ha ha...

...wheeze...

(snicker)
 
MavericK96 said:
Yeah, I think eventually MSAA won't even be a standard option anymore.

One thing I will note is that in some titles with FXAA, you do not get adequate AA on small, distant objects (like telephone lines or something). With MSAA you do.
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There are lots of versions of FXAA floating around out there. Unfortuntely not every game uses the latest version of FXAA. I'll find out what version MP3 uses.

Right now, the latest official version from Timothy is FXAA 3.11 - http://timothylottes.blogspot.com/2011/07/fxaa-311-released.html

However, even more recent than that Timothy was working on FXAA 4.0 - http://timothylottes.blogspot.com/2011_12_01_archive.html But I haven't heard anything more on FXAA 4.0 front since then.

I also know he's working on TXAA stuff also.

Suffice it to say, FXAA is a constant work in progress, and game devs might not implement the latest possible version.
 
Brent_Justice said:
I'll state this again in the article, but FXAA has so many advantages over MSAA it makes MSAA look silly.

I don't understand why people are stuck on old technologies that don't even antialiase everything.
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I think part of it is because people have seen it done poorly. Also because people use it with injectors (or the driver) and see the downside. One thing about shader based AA is it really is meant to be implemented in the engine so the engine can specify what should and show not be AA'd. You kick FXAA on in the nVidia driver or use an injector and ya, the interface in the game gets a little blurry. However when done in the game engine they can set it up so that they FXAA the 3D scene, and then draw the UI on top after it is done.

I'm all kinds of happy about the movement to shader based AA. When games offer a good implementation, I use it. BF3 looks great with FXAA.
 
Brent_Justice said:
There are lots of versions of FXAA floating around out there. Unfortuntely not every game uses the latest version of FXAA. I'll find out what version MP3 uses.

Right now, the latest official version from Timothy is FXAA 3.11 - http://timothylottes.blogspot.com/2011/07/fxaa-311-released.html

However, even more recent than that Timothy was working on FXAA 4.0 - http://timothylottes.blogspot.com/2011_12_01_archive.html But I haven't heard anything more on FXAA 4.0 front since then.

I also know he's working on TXAA stuff also.

Suffice it to say, FXAA is a constant work in progress, and game devs might not implement the latest possible version.
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what kind of FXAA does Nvidia use from their own control panel? also do you know why their version does not have any low med or high options like we usually see in games?
 
Brent_Justice said:
I'll state this again in the article, but FXAA has so many advantages over MSAA it makes MSAA look silly.

I don't understand why people are stuck on old technologies that don't even antialiase everything. FXAA works on polygon edges, alpha textures, reduces specular aliasing, it covers the lot, the whole shabang, while MSAA only works on polygon edges. Plus, FXAA has no performance impact, and looks as good as 4X MSAA, and so far in my gaming of MP3 even looks as good as 8X MSAA on polygon edges.

I've been looking closely at it, Very High FXAA looks as good as 8X MSAA in this game, with no perf hit, and no VRAM limits.

Grab hold of the future, shader AA is where it's at.
Click to expand...
I use FXAA in games where it looks as good as MSAA. Unfortunately I think it has gotten a bad rap because in some games, notably Battlefield 3, it results in a lot of blurring which many people find just as distracting or worse than aliasing. That's why I use MSAA in BF3.

In other titles where it looks just as good - great, I'll use it.

So my questions for you are,

1) Do you personally find FXAA blurry in BF3?

2) How does MP3's FXAA compare to BF3's FXAA?
 
Rizen said:
I use FXAA in games where it looks as good as MSAA. Unfortunately I think it has gotten a bad rap because in some games, notably Battlefield 3, it results in a lot of blurring which many people find just as distracting or worse than aliasing. That's why I use MSAA in BF3.

In other titles where it looks just as good - great, I'll use it.

So my questions for you are,

1) Do you personally find FXAA blurry in BF3?

2) How does MP3's FXAA compare to BF3's FXAA?
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go to geforce .com and they have a comparison of the different AA versions in Max Payne.
 
Sycraft said:
I'm all kinds of happy about the movement to shader based AA. When games offer a good implementation, I use it. BF3 looks great with FXAA.
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BF3 and Diablo III are prime examples of FXAA done poorly.

Rizen said:
I use FXAA in games where it looks as good as MSAA. Unfortunately I think it has gotten a bad rap because in some games, notably Battlefield 3, it results in a lot of blurring which many people find just as distracting or worse than aliasing. That's why I use MSAA in BF3.
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Agreed.
 
Another+ for the HD79XX cards that come standard with 3GB of Vram.
 
Rizen said:
I use FXAA in games where it looks as good as MSAA. Unfortunately I think it has gotten a bad rap because in some games, notably Battlefield 3, it results in a lot of blurring which many people find just as distracting or worse than aliasing. That's why I use MSAA in BF3.

In other titles where it looks just as good - great, I'll use it.

So my questions for you are,

1) Do you personally find FXAA blurry in BF3?

2) How does MP3's FXAA compare to BF3's FXAA?
Click to expand...

BF3 FXAA is so blurry and makes the textures so ambiguous that I have gone 2 - 40 before with it on and cut it off for the next round and gone 35 - 10 with MSAA on instead. After that I just cut FXAA off in all games as I really don't have time to figure out which version is the best.

It's really bad in BF3 when you look down the scope and I get what looks like 2 images being focused in on at the same time. Even better description is I get a focused enemy and just before I pull the trigger I get blur on their image like someone threw a pail of milk on them. If they are terrible and haven't killed me by then it focuses in again and I can figure out where their head is. It looks like an overlay; an afterthought instead of a part of the image.

With MSAA I get one focus effect and then it's shoot them in the head time.
 
Hi everyone. I am not of a been with msaa and fxaa and noticed in skyrim that even when you select ultra in skyrim fxaa is not selected in the advanced options.

Is fxaa with msaa both enable in skyrim good or disable fxaa?
 
5sgev1.png


67vcib.png


http://gamegpu.ru/action-/-fps-/-tps/max-payne-3-test-gpu.html
 
The dude who said 2GB was not enough used a 7970 while the other guy used a 680. It's been shown repeatedly in other games that AMD cards use more memory for the same game at the same settings than nVidia. So 2GB could very well be not enough for AMD cards while being enough for nVidia cards...

evilsofa said:
Blkout said:
Sorry but there's just no way Rockstar would have released a game that would cut out 90% of their consumers from being able to play the game properly
Click to expand...
AHHHHHHH HA HA HA HA HA HA Ha Ha Ha ha ha ha...

...wheeze...

(snicker)
Click to expand...

Tee Hee....
 
Rizen said:
I use FXAA in games where it looks as good as MSAA. Unfortunately I think it has gotten a bad rap because in some games, notably Battlefield 3, it results in a lot of blurring which many people find just as distracting or worse than aliasing. That's why I use MSAA in BF3.

In other titles where it looks just as good - great, I'll use it.

So my questions for you are,

1) Do you personally find FXAA blurry in BF3?

2) How does MP3's FXAA compare to BF3's FXAA?
Click to expand...

1.) In Multiplayer the only logical option for the best performance and IQ is FXAA. MSAA causes a big impact on perf, which in multiplayer is bad. FXAA improves more than MSAA does anyway by reducing aliasing on vegetation and whatnot. So for my multiplayer BF3 gaming, yes most certainly I use FXAA, it allows me to play with all "Ultra" in-game settings and reduces aliasing on everything.

2.) I think MP3's FXAA is much better than BF3's. As someone below said, BF3 is a bad representation of FXAA, the game is using a very early version of FXAA also.
 
BottomsUp said:
Hi everyone. I am not of a been with msaa and fxaa and noticed in skyrim that even when you select ultra in skyrim fxaa is not selected in the advanced options.

Is fxaa with msaa both enable in skyrim good or disable fxaa?
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Yes its good, you will get superior AA with both MSAA And FXAA in Skyrim enabled at the same time. Remember, MSAA doesn't AA vegetation like the trees and foliage in the game, but FXAA does.
 
Thanks to the OP, I threw my GTX 670 in the garbage this morning as it is not suitable for playing computer games anymore. I will stop playing games until I can acquire a 4GB card.

Seriously though, good discussion and evidence in this thread of why 2GB is enough for most users with a single display.
 
Don't have any stuttering on my SLI GTX480's with 1.5 gig ram in Battlefield at 1080P at ultra resolution. Never even goes under 60fps except in a few instances where it may drop in the fourties and fifties.
 
grambo said:
Thanks to the OP, I threw my GTX 670 in the garbage this morning as it is not suitable for playing computer games anymore. I will stop playing games until I can acquire a 4GB card.

Seriously though, good discussion and evidence in this thread of why 2GB is enough for most users with a single display.
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HA!!! I was about to go search your garbage. ;)
 
when did 2GB VRAM even become the norm for single monitor gaming?...I thought 1.5GB was fine for the vast majority of games
 
Here is a screenshot of the graphics settings area:

http://i45.tinypic.com/2hx6edj.png

As you can see maxed out at 1080p with 4xAA it uses 1421 of ram. If I set AA to 8X, then it goes up to 2030. So while that is close to maxing out, it doesn't and you can still play the game fine.

So the original poster is right that the game requires more than 2GB, but there is still enough to play on a single monitor at 1080p.
 
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BatJoe said:
Here is a screenshot of the graphics settings area:

http://i45.tinypic.com/2hx6edj.png

As you can see maxed out at 1080p with 4xAA it uses 1421 of ram. If I set AA to 8X, then it goes up to 2030. So while that is close to maxing out, it doesn't and you can still play the game fine.

So the original poster is right that the game requires more than 2GB, but there is still enough to play on a single monitor at 1080p.
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well if you were that close to using all your vram then you could experience lost performance. I was only using about 1100-1150 in GTA 4 with my gtx570 but turning off aero made the game much faster since it freed up another 150mb of vram. of course with MP 3, it just makes sense to just use 4X MSAA or lower.
 
Ah I was relieved seeing other people describe fxaa looking blurry on bf3. I liked how it didn't cause a performance hit but couldn't get over the blurriness it caused. I just stick with 2x msaa for BF3 and it looks tons better for me.
 
cannondale06 said:
well if you were that close to using all your vram then you could experience lost performance. I was only using about 1100-1150 in GTA 4 with my gtx570 but turning off aero made the game much faster since it freed up another 150mb of vram. of course with MP 3, it just makes sense to just use 4X MSAA or lower.
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You get a performance hit every time you increase AA no matter what.

The game looks great with 4XAA anyway.
 
ShePearl said:
I think you're misunderstanding this 2GB+ requirements.
We're talking about max settings here. Of course, they game would run even on a 1GB card *if* you adjust settings.

Performance-wise, the game seems to be really well optimized. However, those of who are using the latest graphics cards such as 670/680 and or 7970 expects to run the games at max settings with all eye-candy enabled especially gaming rigs standard resolution today which is pretty much 1080p. And we're talking about a single monitor set up here. And Max Payne 3 seems to require more than 2GB of VRAM.

Hence, 670/680 users over there seem to opt for FXAA with rather MSAA disabled to save VRAM. We have to remember that FXAA is for performance level card. It was never designed with visual quality in mind. FXAA is definitely not for the latest top performing cards such as 670 and 680.
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Its an odd decision, but MSAA doesn't look great in this game anyway, most games even at 4xMSAA are pretty clean, this one isn't. FXAA is the way to go here which runs FINE on 2GB cards.
 
FXAA blur depends on the game really. In a stylized game like Max Payne it won't be as noticeable, in a game with really clean textures and edges it would be more noticeable.
 
Here's what it looks like on my setup.
Definitely uses up VRAM; with 8x, the usage goes to ~5.7GB.

Pic
 
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