Transparency AA

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Frosteh

2[H]4U
Joined
Nov 30, 2004
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I was recently tweaking my hardware clock speeds and my game settings for Battlefield 2, during testing I turned off TR SSAA (Transparency Super Sampled Anti Aliasing) and reverted back to normal AA which actually didn't give me a great deal more frame rate.

But it looked absolutly terrible, I totaly forgot how good TRSSAA looked in Battlefield 2, especially in the map Wake 2007, where theres lots of grass, plants, foliage and trees which use textures containing transparency.

Anyhow after quickly turning it back on I started to wonder about future purchases and how this feature would most likely be a large factor in what I buy. So I was wondering what ATI offer in the way of an AA method that can handle transparent textures and how well it runs, and preferably some image quality comparisons.

Any decent links much apreciated, cheers guys.
 
ATI have adaptive antialiasing which gives the same effect, and also roughly the same performance hit.

I've noticed in a lot of OpenGL games that transparent textures have some kind of smoothing already on them, but they look kind of dithered. It's quite noticeable. Anyone else know what I'm talking about?
 
I find a huge perf hit turning on Adaptive AA in WoW on an X1900 XTX versus turning on TR SSAA on a 7800 GTX 512.

I'm able to play at 1920x1200 with 4X TR SSAA in WoW with a 7800 GTX 512, whereas with the X1900 XTX I cannot play at 1920x1200 at 4X AD AA, I have to disable AD AA.

I've also come across some instances in HL2 where AD AA seems to 'lessen' its effect of AA'ing on objects in the distance, where NV's TR SSAA does not, it's full on AA'ing at all distances.
 
Cool, it looks like ATI do a good job with their Adaptive AA, from the screenshots I can't really tell any IQ difference between ATI and Nvidia, but I hear from other people as well from here that ATI gives a big performance hit. I didn't see that much of a performance hit using 4xTR SSAA over 4xAA in BF2.

Thanks for the info chaps.
 
I cant get TRAA to work in BF2 on my GTX's any more for some reason. I used the BF2 profile, and even created my own, but it doesnt seem to want to work. And it looks like crap without it. :/ Anyone have any thoughts? 81.98 drivers.
 
I just created its own profile called it "BF2" pointed it to the BF2.exe file and for "view" I selected "advanced" to get the extra controls and scrolled down, ticked "Transparency Anti Aliasing" and set it to Super Sampled (Multi Sampled TR AA doesn't any better IMO)

Then make sure to set all the options as you want them and save and launch BF2, if that doesn't work you might have a bad driver install and will need to uninstall and use some driver cleaners and reinstall.

I would also suggest removing everything from the profiles which Nvidia add, I do this first thing after all driver reinstalls so I can setup profles for all my games myself (goto system32 dir and edit "nvapps.xml" with notepad and remove all the profiles leaving the profile set intact, I also tend to leave just one profile behind because sometimes it can cause problems if you remove them all, of course make a backup first)

usualy if it doesn't work for me, its because I've forgotten to actually tick the box for the feature I want to use, if you don't tick a feature in a profile you've setup
 
Frosteh said:
I just created its own profile called it "BF2" pointed it to the BF2.exe file and for "view" I selected "advanced" to get the extra controls and scrolled down, ticked "Transparency Anti Aliasing" and set it to Super Sampled (Multi Sampled TR AA doesn't any better IMO)
Click to expand...

Ive done the same thing. I tried to use theirs, but it didnt work. So I created my own, still didnt work. Ive used it in the past, and not sure why its not working now. Are you using SLI or single card?

Frosteh said:
Then make sure to set all the options as you want them and save and launch BF2, if that doesn't work you might have a bad driver install and will need to uninstall and use some driver cleaners and reinstall.
Click to expand...

Thats the first thing I actually tried. I was using the latest official, but then tried the latest beta, same thing. Ive even formatted (got a new mobo) and its still not working.

Frosteh said:
I would also suggest removing everything from the profiles which Nvidia add, I do this first thing after all driver reinstalls so I can setup profles for all my games myself (goto system32 dir and edit "nvapps.xml" with notepad and remove all the profiles leaving the profile set intact, I also tend to leave just one profile behind because sometimes it can cause problems if you remove them all, of course make a backup first)

usualy if it doesn't work for me, its because I've forgotten to actually tick the box for the feature I want to use, if you don't tick a feature in a profile you've setup
Click to expand...

That is something I have not tried, deleting their profiles. Ill give that a whirl. I hope you dont mind me sorta taking over this topic, Ive been meaning to make a post asking for help on this for sometime, just never got around to it. If you do, Ill stop and make another topic. I just jumped into my own server, and took a few pics.

BF2TRAA1.jpg

BF2TRAA2.jpg


You can clearly see that AA is working. If you look at the power line tower, its smooth all the way up, as are the power lines themselves. Everything in the pic is smooth, except for the dang fence. It looks like crap. Missing part of the fence all together on the right hand side. And the rest of it just looks like crap. I have AA in the drivers set to App Preference, and set to 4x in-game. All game options are turned on the highest, and TRAA is set in the drivers. Ive tried with and without Gamma corrected AA, same thing. I am on SLI, not sure if its an SLI problem? There used to be a problem with TRAA and SLI, but a driver several months ago fixed it, as best as I can remember. Anyhow, I just want better looking fences. :(

edit, disabled SLI, and its still like that. :/
 
I think TR SSAA doesn't get much attention, I speak to a lot of people with 7xxx range cards and they have no idea what it does or have never heard of it, but I get lots of praise after telling them to turn it on (they're just n00bs hehe)

I'll get some screenshots of what my BF2 looks like

PS im running a single 7800 GTX 256 with beta drivers 83.90 but it worked fine for me with the latest official.
 
Ok this is a URL for a pic I took split between 4xTRSSAA and just normal 4xAA

It's imported into PS 7.0 and exported as a jpg at 80% quality which is why its nearly 800k :)

http://img70.imageshack.us/img70/7510/7800gtx4xtrssaavs4xaa6nx.jpg

In game settings are 1600 1200 85Hz, Max everything, 4xTR SSAA (or just normal 4xAA) 4xAF and High Quality set in the driver pannel.

Funny enough I think 4xAF in high quality looks better than 8xAF in quality, they get about the same frame rate.
 
Wow, that transparancy AA looks NICE!

I simply cannot wait to use that feature, the un-AAed trees and bushes and other things in BF2 annoy me! :)
 
Yeah it looks nice on the fence which I used because at fallguy used the same example and its a bit easier to compare.

Funny enough I started playing in 1280 960 with 4xAA (and then started using 4xTR SSAA) and it makes a bigger difference in the grass, bushes, foliage and tree's than it does the fences.

The small thin gaps between the leaves look really bad at long range, in fact its usualy down to 1 or 2 pixels showing the bright sky behind at long range and looks bad because almost all the plants have a gental sway, so these pixels kinda jump and it just looks soooo bad.

At 1600 1200 which i've been running lately it's actually far less noticeable on the plantlife, and more noticeable on the fences. They should rename it to CLAA (ChainLink fence Anti Aliasing) definatly one object above all that benefits from this type of AA.

I'll take some more screens in 1280 960 showing the difference in trees and plants, much more noticeable then.
 
Frosteh said:
Ok this is a URL for a pic I took split between 4xTRSSAA and just normal 4xAA

It's imported into PS 7.0 and exported as a jpg at 80% quality which is why its nearly 800k :)

http://img70.imageshack.us/img70/7510/7800gtx4xtrssaavs4xaa6nx.jpg

In game settings are 1600 1200 85Hz, Max everything, 4xTR SSAA (or just normal 4xAA) 4xAF and High Quality set in the driver pannel.

Funny enough I think 4xAF in high quality looks better than 8xAF in quality, they get about the same frame rate.
Click to expand...

Your fence is missing just like mine is. I can see the difference in the fence that is there in your pic though. I thought that missing fence was fixed.. maybe mine is *working*, but it still looks like crap to me. :/
 
I hate how crappy Nvidia's AA is. You have to have it on 4x to look like ATI's 2x. Grrr.
 
Brent, do you have that problem in BF2 as well? Parts of the fence missing?
 
fallguy said:
Brent, do you have that problem in BF2 as well? Parts of the fence missing?
Click to expand...

Yes, it's just the nature of the fence and the level of AA samples taken on it and the angle you are viewing it at. Higher AA samples would make it look better, like 8X or higher.
 
I assume when you say missing you mean the vertial strips, thats because they become so thin that they can't be represented with the current size of the pixels. I thought higher AF would help that not AA?
 
Brent_Justice said:
Yes, it's just the nature of the fence and the level of AA samples taken on it and the angle you are viewing it at. Higher AA samples would make it look better, like 8X or higher.
Click to expand...

Is it like that on X18/1900's?
 
Fallguy-

Yes there happens to be the same effect on my X1900XTX too. Even with the game set to 6x AA it still shows the fence that way. Must be the game itself not the hardware we use.
 
Brent_Justice said:
I find a huge perf hit turning on Adaptive AA in WoW on an X1900 XTX versus turning on TR SSAA on a 7800 GTX 512.

I'm able to play at 1920x1200 with 4X TR SSAA in WoW with a 7800 GTX 512, whereas with the X1900 XTX I cannot play at 1920x1200 at 4X AD AA, I have to disable AD AA.
Click to expand...

Tried ADAA performance mode? (which is half the supersamples)
I'm asking this because in your Ati reviews i don't see you mentioning anything about the 2 different ADAA modes which are available, it seems you're only using 1 mode.
Performance difference between ADAA perf. and ADAA Q. can be big, in some circumstances up to 50%.

In earlier drivers ADAA Q. mode was the default, they've changed that in Cat 6.2. ADAA perf. is now default.
 
Obi_Kwiet said:
I hate how crappy Nvidia's AA is. You have to have it on 4x to look like ATI's 2x. Grrr.
Click to expand...

You know nothing, i have compared both, equal, if not an advantage i would give to NVIDIA
 
dagon11985 said:
How do I enable this 4xTRSSAA stuff ?
Click to expand...
nvidia control panel click performance and quality settings, then enable advanced options then turn transparency antialiasing to supersampling
 
fallguy said:
I cant get TRAA to work in BF2 on my GTX's any more for some reason. I used the BF2 profile, and even created my own, but it doesnt seem to want to work. And it looks like crap without it. :/ Anyone have any thoughts? 81.98 drivers.
Click to expand...

Profiles don't always work. Just switch TRAA to SS in the global settings and use the global setting not the BF2 profile.
 
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