Why use multisampling ? Super Sampling is where its at.

T

turdhat

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 29, 2004
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The combined modes exposed by Nhancer have the best "jaggie removal" out of any AA or edge removal method I have seen. I play at 720p on a 50" dlp so you can imagine my need for high levels of AA. Even at 16Q I still see jaggies (just a tad) on the screen however with nhancer running 8xS or in some cases 16XS it is like a moving postcard... There is a 32xS setting but it just kills the framerate on everything. With the reported raw power of the g280 I really hope that super sampling becomes more of the norm. It is really the way to have a edge free sparkle free display..

If I am not mistaken super sampling is the only way to reduce horrible aliasing caused by certain lighting and shader effects/. MSAA doesnt help that stuff at all..

Thoughts ?
 
It also costs a lot in performance

Also, some games don't allow/support it, such as Crysis and Assassins Creed, this may be a continuing trend unfortunately from what I'm told, unless games inheritenly support an in-game option
 
I love the look of supersampling as well, although its becoming increasingly incompatible with modern games. But it definitely looks great in older DX9 and DX8 games like PlanetSide and Live For Speed.

On the other hand, have you looked into the transparency antialiasing options? There are MSAA and SSAA transparency modes. They deal with aliasing on transparent textures such as fences, grates and foliage. Not all game engines benefit from it though. Source engine games definitely do, as do many others. My favorite combination for performance and looks is 4XMSAA with transparency MSAA.

I run on a 37" 1080p monitor sitting about 3.5'-4' away.
 
I have played both games and using Nhancer the combined modes worked with no issue. I know this because I alt-tabbed out of AC, turned on 32xS and tabbed back to a awesome, beautiful, breathtaking....... Slideshow of 9fps at 720p hehehe...

The combined modes really are better and no not cost much. For those that dont know about nhnacer here is an explanation of the modes with comparison shots.

http://www.nhancer.com/?dat=d_AA
 
to use even the lowest level of SSAA at 2560x1600 that would mean rendering the scene at 5120x3200 which is quite frankly mental.

The cost of SSAA is just way too high, MSAA was a good improvement on performance and even so there is still room for improvement due to Nvidias CSAA which runs even faster with only minimal loss.

You have a very small resolution so thats a bit niche and SSAA suits it well, but respectable resolutions such as 1680x1050 or 1920x1200 SSAA makes your frame rate bleed little 1's and 0's
 
Thankful that Nvidia offers SSAA---

Wonderful for older games like UT, Quake3, etc.. since 8xS (old) which is actually 2x2 SS combined with 2x MS AA makes it look better than any other modes.

2x2 SS also doubles the anisostropic filtering (if you use 16X AF already, it would be double to 32X AF effective), since everything is anti-aliased at twice the resolution.

Plus some texture shimmering is eliminated. It also smoothes out the overall picture especially if using a lower resolution or if the Level of Detail is rather high with very detailed graphics.

12xS mode is probably the best combination, since it uses 2x2 SS plus 4x OGMS. 16xS uses 4x RGMS instead.

The best of all is straight 4x4 SS, but can only be used at up to 1024x768 resolution.

I really do hope that ATI starts offering those SSAA options, since there are an increasing library of older games that can run at like 300fps or more at 1920x1200 with "normal" 4x MSAA plus 16xAF, even if Quality Adaptive AA or Transparency AA is used. ATI will just have to test the compatibility with many games--most SSAA modes only work with DX games under Nvidia's drivers. I find old 8xS mode and also 16xS mode to also work with OpenGL games, thanks to Nvidia's "official, supported" use of 8xS with GeForce FX 5800/5900 cards that were carried over. Strangely, plain 2x2 does not work for most OpenGL games despite the fact that 8xS is actually both 2x2 SS plus 2x MSAA.

When playing Quake3 or Painkiller or Half Life 2, I really appreciate those SS modes. Also, if my resolution were limited to say, 720p or something, I'd use SS with most of the newer games! That is where ATI is really lacking at (luckily for ATI, not too many people know about those SSAA modes).

But you guys should keep in mind that it is ALWAYS better to play at a higher resolution plus MSAA rather than to play at a lower resolution plus SSAA. Why? Resolution is the king of image quality.

When I play HL2 at 2048x1280 with 4x MSAA plus TR SSAA, it looks better than 1280x800 with 16xS SSAA, even if it is internally rendered at 2560x1600 and then downscaled to 1280x800 (beautifully, though).

Funny thing is, when playing Quake 3 at insane resolutions plus insane AA, it actually makes Quake3's graphical design look even more archaic and outdated. Quake3 is only meant for up to 1024x768, LOL! Oh well......
 
Well for me since I HAD to have a 50"dlp that is 720p Super sampling is a godsend. I know 720p is considered a low res these days but I have to say that after seeing games at 1920x1200 etc on smaller screens I prefer the larger low res screen with high aa. More immersive to me plus I get to sit on my couch and play games with the keyboard in lap and mouse on the couch cushion. I could get a 1080p set some time however I am a 60fps whore. I want every game as close to 60 as possible and 720p helps achieve that.
 
SSAA is immensely shader-heavy. That's why it has been superseded by less impressive forms of AA. Try enabling transparent AA (TRAA), you should see a huge improvement in quality without performance penalty of SSAA.

There is also MSAA Q, so you can enable 8xQ or 16xQ MSAA, see if that's any better for you.
 
Super Sampling is a bit too demanding for my 8800GT. In many games I can enable MSAA + Super-sampling transparency AA which performs much faster than pure SSAA but looks nearly as good.
 
As everyone else said, it's simply too intensive/slow to be used for anything other than older games. New games are always going to need more and more raw horsepower, so I can't imagine super-sampling being fast enough any time soon. If we reach a point where we have near photo-realistic graphics, the only thing left to do will be maximizing image quality to the finest detail with things like super-sampling, but ray tracing might be the way to go if/when we get to that point.

Up until about 7-8 years ago, video cards only used super-sampling, but no one ever used it because it was just too slow. The Voodoo 5 cards (from the now defunct 3dfx) introduced multi-sampling, and even though they didn't really have enough raw power/bandwidth to run it in most games, it was clear that it was a vastly better way of doing AA (in terms of performance). I'd say it wasn't until the R300/9700PRO (and to some extent the Geforce4) that it really became usable in most games.
 
i play on 24 monitor with resolution 1920x1200 and with supersampling mode 4xS 16xAF all HIGH option and as OP write its a moving postcard for sure, other AA modes dont even come close, the improvment in game quality is huge, and especialy in the distance and on transparency efects like smoke fire and dust amazing no jaggines at all
 
I guess this is a niche issues. MOst people run higher res these days. To be honest I can run combined supersampling at 8xs in every game except Crysis (big shock). The aliasing created by shaders isnt touched my msaa even with transparency enabled. The combined modes are the way to go for those of us with lower res displays. 720p is fine by me because my 8800gtx can handle max details and 8xs in most games. In Team Fortress I can use 16xs and there is zero shimmering anywhere...

Age of conan max in game settings + 8xs average fps low 40s.
Grid max in game + 8xs average in the mid 50's and pegged at 60 if you are in the top 5 places.

Mass effect max in game + 8xs not sure about average but its smooth as silk unless you are in the big part of the citidel...

I really hope that the g280 still has these modes. IMHO at 720 8xs blows away 16xQ MSAA with TRSS enabled and it runs better...
 
Even SSAA can't kill off shader aliases unfortunately. It makes it less, but it's still obvious (UT3).

The only way out of that is custom resolve, or hack-ish way of custom filters.

Using wide tent on my games here, and Crysis is more amazing than anything ever. Screw what Kyle said about being blurry, it's cinematic. Absolutely no jaggies, and little framerate hits too. GRID is even better, the reflection jaggies on the car are not obvious anymore. Audiosurf's the same, 4x + WT makes all the gridlines smooth. MSAA does not do anything otherwise.
 
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