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Morphological AA on a 5870...

H

Hexen525

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 20, 2007
Messages
186
I just finally got around to installing the newest Catalyst 11.3 drivers on my desktop. I opened the CCC up to check to make sure my setting were still the way I like them when I noticed a new box in the Anti-Aliasing screen. I now have the option to enable Morphological filtering. Well, I own an XFX Radeon 5870...does that feature even work on this card? I was under the impression it was for the HD6xxx series only. I enabled it, but don't really see any difference (EQ2 which doesn't like driver forced AA at all). I was wondering if it was the card not working or the game still having issues? Or maybe a blend of both.

Ideas?

Thanx all.
 
I was also under the impression that MAA was only available on the 6000 series. MAA is applied as a post process, which means you have to make sure traditional AA is not turned on (either in game or in CCC). There is a guide here: http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/11/02/amd_morphological_aa_performance_iq_review
Personally I find it rather pointless as it softens and blurs the image to much to make it a viable option. Your better off with no AA than MAA.
 
It works on my 5850. You will get a pretty decent fps hit but it works.
 
As far as I know Morphological AA support has been enabled for ATI's entire dx11 lineup. When it first came out the drivers only had support for the 6xxx series.
 
Thanx for the posts all ^_^

I'll have to play with it for a bit then. I have AA forced in the CCC for those games that support it. Games that don't, it doesn't affect my FPS at all.

I thought it was in the 6xxx chips and not in the 5xxx chips. Well, I should say a hardware option not built in to these chips. Guess it's just a driver setting.

I'll hit that guide up

Thanx again all.
 
Its a software post processing effect that is applied to the entire scene and has been available to the 5 series almost since ATI added the option (second driver updated after 6 series was intro'd I believe).

I like the option on some games but if there is heavy text (like an MMO) then its best to leave it off cause it overly smooths text and can make it unreadable almost. If you can't tell if its working or not, then its not working lol, the effect is pretty pronounced...especially to the FPS...its a HUGE hit for my system.
 
A huge hit for your system? Your system dwarfs my system a bit ;-). I saw no difference enabling it. I didn't reboot my desktop yet either. It's also our home server, so I don't just get to reboot at random. And AMD/ATi drivers don't require a reboot like NVIDIA drivers do.

If it's a software thing, why doesn't my laptop running the Mobile 5870 and the 11.3 drivers have it? (Got this lappy before they switched to the GeForce GTX 460M chips)
 
Hexen525 said:
A huge hit for your system? Your system dwarfs my system a bit ;-). I saw no difference enabling it. I didn't reboot my desktop yet either. It's also our home server, so I don't just get to reboot at random. And AMD/ATi drivers don't require a reboot like NVIDIA drivers do.

If it's a software thing, why doesn't my laptop running the Mobile 5870 and the 11.3 drivers have it? (Got this lappy before they switched to the GeForce GTX 460M chips)
Click to expand...

Might be a setting in the driver that disables it for the mobile chip or maybe it does use hardware that was existing in the desktop 5 series. I just assume software as it was intro'ed with the 6k series and then was made available to the 5.

I guess I should also give it a try under single monitor resolution as well, I mostly game at eyefinity resolutions so I have other things occupying my cards power heh. It will usually take my FPS from 30-45 down to around 20-25 by enabling it.
 
I wanted to run an Eyefinity setup with my 5870, but I already own 2 24" LCDs 1920x1200. Not sure I got enough GPU or VRAM to handle 3 at that resolution. Was thinking of getting a 6990. With my Corsair H70 covering the top PCI-e slot, I am limited on space, and I am not removing my 8800GTX for CrossFireX. But I think I am going to need as much horsepower as I can get to power that resolution. But this is a talk for another thread ;-)

I'll have to dig a little deeper I guess. On my lappy atm as I am comfy in my recliner ^_^

Thanx for your input.
 
MLAA + 5870 + Eyefinity = No. I have 3 x 24" monitors and 5870's in CF and it just doesn't have the power to run it. I think it runs out of memory. The 2GB on the 6000 series would come into play there, I believe.
 
Sorry it took so long to get back to you all. I am only allowed to touch my desktop on my weekends for the most part. I have a nice gaming lappy next to my easy chair in the living room for the rest of the week ^_^

Wow, it does work and in odd ways. I see the issue you noted about the text USMC. It's easy as day to tell that it's working. It does a GREAT job in EQ2, but the text is...different. Is there a way to adjust the level of AA it provides? Or is it an "all or nothing" setting?

EDIT: Even now as I run around Norrath I can see that it's still not as good as normal AA (in normal games that support AA), but it looks SO much better than no AA...other than the text. At 1920x1200 on a 24" LCD it's not too bad to read, but not clear either. I have to take my time to "translate" each word. Toss up, prettier graphics with illegible text? Or INSANE jaggies but you can actually understand what your friends and party are doing? Opinions?
 
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I prefer the jaggies to what it does to detailed textures/text. It's ok in Borderlands but it's god awful in anything with detailed textures, text, or complex HUDs.
 
Hexen525 said:
Sorry it took so long to get back to you all. I am only allowed to touch my desktop on my weekends for the most part. I have a nice gaming lappy next to my easy chair in the living room for the rest of the week ^_^

Wow, it does work and in odd ways. I see the issue you noted about the text USMC. It's easy as day to tell that it's working. It does a GREAT job in EQ2, but the text is...different. Is there a way to adjust the level of AA it provides? Or is it an "all or nothing" setting?

EDIT: Even now as I run around Norrath I can see that it's still not as good as normal AA (in normal games that support AA), but it looks SO much better than no AA...other than the text. At 1920x1200 on a 24" LCD it's not too bad to read, but not clear either. I have to take my time to "translate" each word. Toss up, prettier graphics with illegible text? Or INSANE jaggies but you can actually understand what your friends and party are doing? Opinions?
Click to expand...

Unfortunately its an all or nothing effect. Traditional AA modes is only used in specific areas whereas morpho is used across an entire scene...doesnt matter if its the edge of an object or not.
 
Hedonsim Bot said:
I was also under the impression that MAA was only available on the 6000 series. MAA is applied as a post process, which means you have to make sure traditional AA is not turned on (either in game or in CCC). There is a guide here: http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/11/02/amd_morphological_aa_performance_iq_review
Personally I find it rather pointless as it softens and blurs the image to much to make it a viable option. Your better off with no AA than MAA.
Click to expand...

If you go back another 8 months, theres another hardocp article released that went over the details when ATI brought out the feature on the 5870. They have a few comparison screenshots, zoomed up close, etc etc with the 'Ghost busters' game that was out/new back then with the interesting cpu-based Physics Engine. In short works on 5 series,was developed for it and will subsquently probably work on every ati card for the next few generations or till something better comes along.

I totally share your sentiment about no AA is better than MAA. I don't like the blurriness; then again, I'm a gamer who prefers realism and loathes cartoony/cell-shaded graphics.
 
It would be nice if there was a way to highlight sections of the screen in a game profile or something and say "NOT THIS PART" to the driver.
 
Hexen525 said:
A huge hit for your system? Your system dwarfs my system a bit ;-). I saw no difference enabling it. I didn't reboot my desktop yet either. It's also our home server, so I don't just get to reboot at random. And AMD/ATi drivers don't require a reboot like NVIDIA drivers do.

If it's a software thing, why doesn't my laptop running the Mobile 5870 and the 11.3 drivers have it? (Got this lappy before they switched to the GeForce GTX 460M chips)
Click to expand...



because the mobility 5870 isn't a real 5870 it's actually a 5750/70. just like the 460m really isn't a gtx 460. but odd's are they removed the option in the mobile version of the drivers or your manufacture removed it themselves.
 
Hexen525 said:
I just finally got around to installing the newest Catalyst 11.3 drivers on my desktop. I opened the CCC up to check to make sure my setting were still the way I like them when I noticed a new box in the Anti-Aliasing screen. I now have the option to enable Morphological filtering. Well, I own an XFX Radeon 5870...does that feature even work on this card? I was under the impression it was for the HD6xxx series only. I enabled it, but don't really see any difference (EQ2 which doesn't like driver forced AA at all). I was wondering if it was the card not working or the game still having issues? Or maybe a blend of both.

Ideas?

Thanx all.
Click to expand...

Depending on the game and settings, morphological AA (like Tessellation) is supported by the entirety of the HD5xxx (and HD6xxx so far) lineup - even the Mobility-based chipsets (such as HD54xx). Like Tessellation, morphological AA tends to be more useful at higher resolutions (and therefore larger amounts of graphics RAM) - that is why I was surprised to find that the HD54xx supported either feature (let alone both).
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
because the mobility 5870 isn't a real 5870 it's actually a 5750/70. just like the 460m really isn't a gtx 460. but odd's are they removed the option in the mobile version of the drivers or your manufacture removed it themselves.
Click to expand...

AMD doesn't have a Mobility-specific version of Catalyst for Vista or newer (and hasn't since 10.2), and there are other known-Mobility-sourced GPUs (such as HD54xx/55xx) that also support morphological AA (and even Tessellation), so it would have to be either removed via hardware or it is possible that, (as some games don't like outside-forced AA) some games specifically don't support non-traditional AA. (Guild Wars: Prophecies, for example, does not support any form of AA greater than MSAA in-game, and disallows outside-forced AA.)
 
I know my mobile 5870 is closer to a 5770 than an actual 5870 (think it's the same core as the 5770 which is different than the 5870 core but with slightly lower clock speeds). I was more wondering why if the whole AMD/ATi DX11 landscape had it, why my mobile didn't? It is still a DX11 chip, and it is still partly a desktop chip. I use drivers right from AMD.com, so the manufacturer of my lappy has no say in what the drivers do...or do they?

I will admit that it's a mixed bag at best. Pretty useless in my EQ2. Haven't tried it in other games as most of the rest that I am currently playing support traditional AA. I think I'll chalk it up as a step in the right direction and wait to see what AMD does next.
 
The thing about MLAA is that if any game developer would add the feature ingame it would be so much better >.<

Being a pixel shader effect it should work with any DX11 hardware, and depending on the step of the pipeline where you apply it then you could potentially not affect HUDs and the like.

But alas, when was the last time a game developer really tried to do something right instead of something easy? (and heck, it wouldn't actually be that hard but whatever >.<)
 
Revdarian said:
The thing about MLAA is that if any game developer would add the feature ingame it would be so much better >.<

Being a pixel shader effect it should work with any DX11 hardware, and depending on the step of the pipeline where you apply it then you could potentially not affect HUDs and the like.

But alas, when was the last time a game developer really tried to do something right instead of something easy? (and heck, it wouldn't actually be that hard but whatever >.<)
Click to expand...

Newer engines like Frostbite 2 are adding their own MLAA type of filter. PS3 games have been using it for a while too. With Nvidia working on an improved version(FXAA) and how well they work with developers, it should become standard on games that don't allow native MSAA support.

Link to a PDF from DICE about Frostbite 2 and there is a section devoted to how they're going to handle AA on the engine.
http://publications.dice.se/attachments/GDC11_DX11inBF3_Public.pdf
 
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