Anti-aliasing in 2012

[Deleted member 96510]

I remember reading article a long time discussing AA. At the time (Quake 1 days), the article determinged that higher resolutions required less AA. A comparison of Quake showed similar image quality at 1024x768 4X AA, 1280x1024 2X AA and 1600x1200 No AA.

Does the same apply today?

 

[sirmonkey1985]

yep.. look at 1080p 4xAA and look at 2560x1600 no AA.. higher the pixel density the less aliasing you'll be able to see.

 

[JosiahBradley]

What's new in 2012 is more efficient AA techniques. You still pay a massive performance hit using true supersampling, which effectively renders the scene at resolution times AA level, then samples back down to the resolution.

Also with regards to resolution, new AA modes like MLAA and FXAA from ATI and nVidia, actually do worse in regards to higher resolutions because they 'blur' the image, meaning the sharpness gained by the resolution increase is lost. Some however enjoy it because it gives them a midway between supersampling and multisampling.

 

[JosiahBradley]

Yes, that's the important thing.

"Higher resolutions require less AA" False (was probably in regard to setting different resolutions on the same CRT monitor)

"higher pixel densities require less AA" True

Actually if the FOV remains constant with an increase in spatial resolution then more pixels are drawn per edge and texture reducing the appearance of aliasing. The actual aliasing still looks as bad with a lower resolution display that has the same pixel density, however the additional pixels still lead to a noticeable less aliased edge.

The best example is with far off lines, such as power lines. At the same pixel density you will see one pixel represent the entire line thickness, however with a higher resolution more pixels will be given a chance to be drawn effectively making the line look more line-like.

 

[MaZa]

What's new in 2012 is more efficient AA techniques. You still pay a massive performance hit using true supersampling, which effectively renders the scene at resolution times AA level, then samples back down to the resolution.

Also with regards to resolution, new AA modes like MLAA and FXAA from ATI and nVidia, actually do worse in regards to higher resolutions because they 'blur' the image, meaning the sharpness gained by the resolution increase is lost. Some however enjoy it because it gives them a midway between supersampling and multisampling.

MLAA and FXAA are bit yesterday though. I think the future is in SMAA post processing AA, and there is a working injector too. Good AA quality at Ultra setting and no blurring that is a problem for FXAA.
http://mrhaandi.blogspot.com/p/injectsmaa.html

Looks nothing short of awesome. Normal MSAA is a dying breed if postprocessing AA keeps evolving at this rate.

 

[Brackle]

I'm sorry but SSAA at 2560x1600 is still VERY noticable.

I think SSAA is the future. It looks great on any game. Yea its a huge performance hit, but there is no better AA out there IMO

 

[JosiahBradley]

The FOV shouldn't be constant though.

If the aspect ratio stays the same then the FOV normally remains the same, not sure of any games that change your FOV from the built in default unless you manually tell it to.

 

[JosiahBradley]

I'm sorry but SSAA at 2560x1600 is still VERY noticable.

I think SSAA is the future. It looks great on any game. Yea its a huge performance hit, but there is no better AA out there IMO

Totally agree with you on this, just wish I could afford a GPU that would let me do even 2xSSAA. Read sig...

 

[Brackle]

Totally agree with you on this, just wish I could afford a GPU that would let me do even 2xSSAA. Read sig...

Totally agree with ya.

I am hoping maybe a VERY good overclock 7970 from sapphire in crossfire will help with the huge performance hit.

 

[jober1]

I tried that SMAA injector, it doesn't work with everything, but when it works I've been pretty happy with it. There is less aliasing vs. MLAA, and the blurring looks about the same, generally performs better too.

The other thing about these post processing filters is they can be forced in any game (at least MLAA can). I think AA is going to keep going towards these techniques, as they are just too efficient, and do full screen AA as well as transparent textures.

 

[Auzner]

AA will always be used. Dense displays still use subpixel smoothing on fonts. Graphics shouldn't be an exception. It will just look even better

 

[MaZa]

I tried that SMAA injector, it doesn't work with everything, but when it works I've been pretty happy with it. There is less aliasing vs. MLAA, and the blurring looks about the same, generally performs better too.

The other thing about these post processing filters is they can be forced in any game (at least MLAA can). I think AA is going to keep going towards these techniques, as they are just too efficient, and do full screen AA as well as transparent textures.

True. For example Serious Sam HD crashes immidietly even though it is DX9 game. Or atleast I think it is... DX11 is a no go aswell from what I have tested. DX10 I havent tried yet.

Trust me though, there is no blurring on textures like MLAA and FXAA have. Great thing with Injector is that you can switch it on and off on fly with Pause/Break button. Try it and compare it yourself in different scenarios during game.

 

[boxleitnerb]

I'm sorry but SSAA at 2560x1600 is still VERY noticable.

I think SSAA is the future. It looks great on any game. Yea its a huge performance hit, but there is no better AA out there IMO

Word!
But I have to say, Battlefield 3 looks nice with just MSAA and FXAA. The image is very smooth, I see almost no shader aliasing.

SSAA is dead btw. AMD doesn't support it in DX10+. With Nvidia you can use it in DX10/11, but only if the game comes with MSAA and even then only in those locations where the dev implemented AA to work. No forcing (SS)AA on every single pixel anymore. Sigh...in the past, everything was better

 

[next-Jin]

I've never liked AA, it makes games look blurry for me even Supersampling with edge detect. FXAA and MLAA both look like a few monkies took a shit on my monitor and smeared it all over.

The only game that I have ever played where its not a big deal was WoW, Diablo 3, and torchlight. All 3 of which have a cartoon look so it was irrelevant.

 

[gmkmay]

My biggest issue with MLAA and FXAA isn't the texture blurring, it's the text corruption you get in games that weren't specifically designed for them.

 

[JosiahBradley]

Word!
But I have to say, Battlefield 3 looks nice with just MSAA and FXAA. The image is very smooth, I see almost no shader aliasing.

SSAA is dead btw. AMD doesn't support it in DX10+. With Nvidia you can use it in DX10/11, but only if the game comes with MSAA and even then only in those locations where the dev implemented AA to work. No forcing (SS)AA on every single pixel anymore. Sigh...in the past, everything was better

Um SSAA is not dead, well maybe for Windows I don't know but my V4800 on Linux, which is a DX11/ Open GL4.1 class card lets me choose the following AA options: MSAA, Adaptive MSAA, and SSAA, then the sub-option "box" displays 8xSSAA.

 

[Brackle]

Word!
But I have to say, Battlefield 3 looks nice with just MSAA and FXAA. The image is very smooth, I see almost no shader aliasing.

SSAA is dead btw. AMD doesn't support it in DX10+. With Nvidia you can use it in DX10/11, but only if the game comes with MSAA and even then only in those locations where the dev implemented AA to work. No forcing (SS)AA on every single pixel anymore. Sigh...in the past, everything was better

Thats not true, I have used SSAA in bc2 (dx10), and it does work with bf3 (need more POWA to use it).

I also used SSAA on Conan (which is dx10).

It's still supported by AMD, you just gotta turn it on in the options

 

[Brent_Justice]

Post Process AA is the future. It has finally gotten to a level that it is acceptable to use, and will only get better. I hear complaints about reduction in texture quality, but I haven't seen it, what a lot of people experience as blurry textures is actually the reduction or smoothing of specular aliasing, making the texture look less "sharp", but it isn't blurring textures. As methods like MSAA and FXAA improve, it will only get better. FXAA is currently on the level of completely replacing traditional MSAA and SSAA. Hardly any performance hit, and 4X MSAA like quality, on polygon and alpha textures and specular aliasing. FXAA is currently up to version 4.0, but I don't know any games that use the latest version - http://timothylottes.blogspot.com/ That's really the issue I see right now, FXAA is moving fast, always improving, but game development takes so long that it uses older versions of FXAA and not the latest version, which looks better. Basically all the games that are out there right now that use FXAA are only using version 1.

 

[evilsofa]

I think the future is in SMAA post processing AA, and there is a working injector too. Good AA quality at Ultra setting and no blurring that is a problem for FXAA.
http://mrhaandi.blogspot.com/p/injectsmaa.html

I run the Steam version of Mass Effect 2 at 1680x1050 on an Nvidia GTX 275, and as much as I like the game, I have never been able to find a way to get rid of the really bad aliasing on just about every straight line in the game.

This injector does have a visible effect when I turn it on and off (using the Pause button on the keyboard), so I know it's working, but the effect is very subtle and not on the parts that are aliasing really bad. I guess this is removing the specular aliasing but none of the other very distracting aliasing. It's difficult to tell which way is on or off because the rest of the aliasing is getting in the way of looking good.

Renaming MassEffect2.exe to UT3.exe is not an option for me, because Steam does not like that. I've even tried using the 0x08009CC5 setting in Nvidia Inspector to no effect. (That setting is supposedly superior to the standard Inspector setting, look here.)

 

[boxleitnerb]

Thats not true, I have used SSAA in bc2 (dx10), and it does work with bf3 (need more POWA to use it).

I also used SSAA on Conan (which is dx10).

It's still supported by AMD, you just gotta turn it on in the options

Screenshots and benchmarks please (with lots of alphatextures/specular aliasing). Anandtech asked AMD explicitly in their 7970 review and AMD's answer was, they do not support SSAA in DX10/11.

Um SSAA is not dead, well maybe for Windows I don't know but my V4800 on Linux, which is a DX11/ Open GL4.1 class card lets me choose the following AA options: MSAA, Adaptive MSAA, and SSAA, then the sub-option "box" displays 8xSSAA.

I was talking about games. It is ever more difficult to get SSAA to work there because more and more games ditch MSAA in favor of FXAA. FXAA will never reach the level of quality of SSAA. You just have to play Skyrim with FXAA and turn on forced SSAA with compatibility bits and then compare. The former is still quite shimmery, the latter is almost perfectly smooth, even on the most detailed surfaces.

 

[Brackle]

Screenshots and benchmarks please (with lots of alphatextures/specular aliasing). Anandtech asked AMD explicitly in their 7970 review and AMD's answer was, they do not support SSAA in DX10/11.



I was talking about games. It is ever more difficult to get SSAA to work there because more and more games ditch MSAA in favor of FXAA. FXAA will never reach the level of quality of SSAA. You just have to play Skyrim with FXAA and turn on forced SSAA with compatibility bits and then compare. The former is still quite shimmery, the latter is almost perfectly smooth, even on the most detailed surfaces.

Well thats pretty messed up if the 7k series does not support it.

and I know the hardocp review of BC2 even shows then enabling SSAA in the game which is dx10.

 

[boxleitnerb]

Well thats pretty messed up if the 7k series does not support it.

and I know the hardocp review of BC2 even shows then enabling SSAA in the game which is dx10.

That was probably only TransparencySSAA on the Geforce. You can always enable that, but it's not fullscene SGSSAA.

 

[Brackle]

That was probably only TransparencySSAA on the Geforce. You can always enable that, but it's not fullscene SGSSAA.

Nope I remember is was SSAA with AMD....I think it was one of the main reasons I bought a 6970.

 

[boxleitnerb]

Do you have a link please?

 

[Brackle]

Do you have a link please?

I cant link it, that review on the hardocp website shows up an error 404.

So I think they are deleting older reviews etc.

 

[boxleitnerb]

No offense, but without a link I cannot believe it. AMD never could force anything in DX10+, not even Adaptive AA.

Btw a very good albeit resource intensive solution is downsampling aka OGSSAA. Generally it works in every game, every API and combined with FXAA gives decent results. There is a SSAA-tool floating around the web, (working only in DX10/11) that allows you to set the resolution scaling factor yourself. Unfortunately, it is no longer supported by the author, doesn't always work and mouse coordinates can get messed up. Better than nothing though. Additionally you can downsample to a certain extent with Nvidia drivers (here it works in absolutely every API, not just DX10/11). I hope it will get better in the future, there were enough petitions for official support.

 

[Brackle]

No offense, but without a link I cannot believe it. AMD never could force anything in DX10+, not even Adaptive AA.

Btw a very good albeit resource intensive solution is downsampling aka OGSSAA. Generally it works in every game, every API and combined with FXAA gives decent results. There is a SSAA-tool floating around the web, (working only in DX10/11) that allows you to set the resolution scaling factor yourself. Unfortunately, it is no longer supported by the author, doesn't always work and mouse coordinates can get messed up. Better than nothing though. Additionally you can downsample to a certain extent with Nvidia drivers (here it works in absolutely every API, not just DX10/11). I hope it will get better in the future, there were enough petitions for official support.

All you have to do is load up BC2, and select Super Sampling in the CCC options to see it works.

Load up Conan and see too, very noticable

 

[boxleitnerb]

I have neither of these games, nor a Radeon. Surely you could post some comparison screenshots with and without SSAA with the fps and the GPU load displayed as well?

 

[Brackle]

I have neither of these games, nor a Radeon. Surely you could post some comparison screenshots with and without SSAA with the fps and the GPU load displayed as well?

Maybe when I get home. I dont even have those 2 games installed anymore.

Been playing BF3 and Star wars

But I mean if you know it doesnt work, and dont own a Radeon.....why are you even argueing the point?

 

[boxleitnerb]

Because I'm interested in these kind of things and I want to know it it's true. I'm a bit of an AA junkie
Also a bit allergic against claims without proof. Nothing personal, it's just that I rather believe my own eyes.

 

[Brackle]

Because I'm interested in these kind of things and I want to know it it's true. I'm a bit of an AA junkie
Also a bit allergic against claims without proof. Nothing personal, it's just that I rather believe my own eyes.

Totally understandable.

The only thing I can say is, maybe when I enabled SSAA with BC2 it reverted it back to DX9?

Not sure about Conan, but it was the Dx10 path I was using to enable SSAA.

I will see what I can do when I get home, Right now im using my 4870 and I dont think it supports SSAA. until i see a massivly overclocked 7970 then ill show ya some SS.

 

[socK]

Post Process AA is the future. It has finally gotten to a level that it is acceptable to use, and will only get better. I hear complaints about reduction in texture quality, but I haven't seen it, what a lot of people experience as blurry textures is actually the reduction or smoothing of specular aliasing, making the texture look less "sharp", but it isn't blurring textures. As methods like MSAA and FXAA improve, it will only get better. FXAA is currently on the level of completely replacing traditional MSAA and SSAA. Hardly any performance hit, and 4X MSAA like quality, on polygon and alpha textures and specular aliasing. FXAA is currently up to version 4.0, but I don't know any games that use the latest version - http://timothylottes.blogspot.com/ That's really the issue I see right now, FXAA is moving fast, always improving, but game development takes so long that it uses older versions of FXAA and not the latest version, which looks better. Basically all the games that are out there right now that use FXAA are only using version 1.

Agree with this, results will only get better and more flexible as techniques continue to evolve. Early attempts like naive edge blurring looked shitty but quality on stuff like newer versions of FXAA and SMAA is pretty fucking good, probably past 4x MSAA at this point and has lots of benefits. They might get even faster as more specialized versions get made, like DX10+ hardware features, compute shader, etc... and then maybe it could go to use elsewhere like filtering shadow maps. Shader AA definitely has a good future ahead.

I tried the SMAA injector in Saints Row 3 with good success, it handles text much, much nicer than earlier attempts and does a pretty good job obliterating most jaggies for more or less free, performance wise on my system... and the injector, as far as I can tell, only has the lowest quality version which in itself is easily competitive.

 

[wonderfield]

I've never liked AA, it makes games look blurry for me even Supersampling with edge detect. FXAA and MLAA both look like a few monkies took a shit on my monitor and smeared it all over.

MSAA only 'touches' polygonal edges. If you don't want the slightest hint of scene-blurring, just use MSAA.